Choosing Between BPA and Azure Synapse Link in D365 Finance

1. A Brief History of Analytics in D365 Finance
2. Enter Business Performance Analytics (BPA)
3. When Azure Synapse Link Makes Sense
4. When BPA Is a Better Fit
5. The Current Limitations of BPA
6. Looking Ahead
7. Final Thoughts

As the Business Performance Analytics (BPA) app for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (D365F&O) continues to mature, many organisations are asking the same question:

Should we adopt the new BPA app, or continue with Azure Synapse Link?

The answer isn’t always straightforward — and it depends heavily on your existing data landscape and reporting strategy.

A Brief History of Analytics in D365 Finance

Historically, reporting and analytics in D365 Finance has been somewhat fragmented.

Traditional operational reporting relied heavily on SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), while additional technologies such as Entity Store and Export to Data Lake attempted to fill the analytics gap. Unfortunately, these solutions never quite delivered a fully robust or scalable analytics platform.

When Export to Data Lake was deprecated, Microsoft introduced Dynamics 365 Azure Synapse Link, aligning data replication across the entire Dynamics 365 ecosystem.

This transition brought several important advantages:

• Centralised data storage across all Dynamics 365 applications
• No practical restriction on the number of tables
• Replication of raw D365 Finance table data into Azure Data Lake

For the first time, organisations had a consistent and modern mechanism for extracting operational data into enterprise analytics platforms.

Enter Business Performance Analytics (BPA)

Microsoft introduce the Business Performance Analytics (BPA) app.

The goal was clear: provide a quick-to-deploy, managed data warehouse solution specifically designed for D365 Finance.

This approach directly addresses a long-standing customer need — particularly for organisations where D365 Finance is the primary business system and no enterprise data warehouse already exists.

Which leaves us with two distinct analytics options within the same ecosystem.

So… which one should you choose?

When Azure Synapse Link Makes Sense

If your organisation has already invested significantly in a modern, enterprise-grade data warehouse, Azure Synapse Link is typically the better option.

Using Synapse Link allows you to:

• Replace existing data extraction mechanisms
• Standardise ingestion through Azure Data Lake
• Preserve prior investments in data models, BI tools, and integrations

While migrating data sources is not trivial, this approach helps reduce long-term risk and protects the architectural decisions already in place.

When BPA Is a Better Fit

If you do not have an existing data warehouse, and your primary requirement is analytics based mainly on D365 Finance data, BPA can be an attractive option.

It offers:

• A managed Microsoft-supported data warehouse
• Faster deployment
• Lower initial architecture complexity

However — and this is important — there is currently a significant caveat.

The Current Limitations of BPA

At present, the BPA solution is not yet functionally complete.

Some critical fact tables are still missing from the data model, including:

• Project sub-ledger
• Production sub-ledger

Microsoft has indicated that these are expected to become available during 2026, but organisations must carefully assess whether the current model supports their reporting requirements today.

Another key consideration is data freshness:

• BPA: twice-daily refresh
• Azure Synapse Link: near real-time replication (approximately every 15 minutes)

For organisations requiring operational or near-real-time analytics, this difference alone can be decisive.

Looking Ahead

Assuming the BPA data model becomes fully complete in the near future and refresh cycles become configurable, BPA has strong potential as a simple, scalable data warehousing solution for D365 Finance.

It’s also worth noting that these two options are not mutually exclusive — some organisations may choose to deploy both depending on reporting needs.

Final Thoughts

Microsoft is clearly attempting to support two different analytics scenarios:

• Enterprise data platforms → Azure Synapse Link
• Simplified managed analytics → Business Performance Analytics

There is no universally right or wrong choice.

What is critical, however, is making a conscious architectural decision early — ensuring the chosen approach aligns with both your current requirements and your long-term analytics strategy.