Let’s tie the whole course together with one realistic scenario: a simple internal Project Tracking solution — the kind of small, self-contained build that’s a very common first real task for a new D365 CE developer.

The data model

Two custom tables: Project (user/team owned — someone manages it) and Project Task (also user/team owned). A 1:N relationship connects them (one Project has many Project Tasks), set to Parental behavior — deleting a Project should delete its Tasks, since a task can’t meaningfully exist without its project.

Columns

Project gets a Name (primary column), a Status choice column (Not Started / In Progress / Complete), a Start Date and Due Date, and an Owner lookup to the User table. Project Task gets a Name, a Status choice, a Due Date, and the automatic Project lookup created by the relationship.

Forms and views

The Project main form shows its own fields plus a subgrid of related Project Tasks. A Quick Create form for Project Task is enabled so a task can be added without leaving the Project record. The default Active Projects view is trimmed to just Name, Status, Owner, and Due Date — enough to scan quickly.

Business rule

A simple Entity-scoped business rule: if Status is set to “Complete,” automatically set Due Date as read-only (locked) — a record marked complete shouldn’t have its due date edited afterward.

Business Process Flow

A BPF on Project with three stages — Planning, Execution, Review — each with a couple of required steps, giving project owners a visual sense of where each project stands.

Workflow

A background workflow on Project Task: when a task’s Status changes to Complete, check if all sibling tasks under the same Project are also Complete, and if so, update the parent Project’s Status to Complete automatically.

Notice what’s not here. No plugin, no JavaScript, no Power Automate flow — this entire solution is built with the tools from this course alone. That’s a deliberate point: a large share of real D365 CE customization work never needs code at all. Code becomes necessary only when logic exceeds what business rules and workflows can express, which is exactly where the rest of this learning path picks up.

Next: Security & Access — controlling exactly who can see and do what with the data model you just built.