Choosing the right way to connect to Dataverse is essential for building effective business applications and AI agents. While most organizations currently rely on traditional connectors, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is emerging as the future of intelligent data interaction.
Connectors: The Reliable Standard
Connectors are built on established best practices and provide enterprise-grade reliability. They are the best choice when you need deterministic behaviors—predictable outcomes where the app performs predefined actions.
Strengths
- Established best practices and enterprise-grade reliability
- Leverages existing Power Platform connector infrastructure
- Support multiple authentication modes
Weaknesses:
- Executes predefined actions rather than allowing AI reasoning
- Not suitable for If queries could contain large datasets (1000+ records)
- MCP: The Intelligent Future
MCP is designed for when you need your agents to actually “think” about your data rather than just querying it. It allows agents to discover tables and schemas using natural language to provide more contextual responses.
Strengths:
- Enables AI to reason over data for higher accuracy and provides long-term flexibility.
- Can reason over data to generate more accurate and contextual responses
- Makers can simple add Dataverse MCP from the Tools tab
Weaknesses:
- It is not yet Generally Available (GA) and is not ready for production workloads until 2026.
- Outcomes are also less deterministic compared to connectors.
Which Should You Choose?
If your goal is reliability and predictable outcomes today, connectors remain the best option. However, if you want to build agents that perform complex reasoning—such as the Dynamics 365 Services research tools or Customer Service case enrichment—MCP is the path forward. Makers can easily add the Dataverse MCP server directly from the Tools tab to begin experimenting.
Real-World Samples
In practice, using MCP allows for prompts like:
• “Reason over my open cases to find the highest priority issue.”
• “Summarize interaction history to draft a personalized sales outreach.”
• “Discover relevant tables to generate a report on lead qualification.”
Ready to transition from basic queries to intelligent AI reasoning? The shift from connectors to MCP requires a strategic approach to data architecture. Whether you are looking to implement the latest D365 preview features or want to optimize your current Power Platform setup, I can help.
📅 Schedule a consultation with me today to discuss how to prepare your organization for the future of MCP!
