About this design system

This design system provides standards, patterns, and guidance for teams building services on Microsoft Dynamics 365 within the Department for Education.

It supports the DfE Customer Relationship Management standard (DDTS-760), which establishes Dynamics 365 as the approved CRM platform for contact centre operations, grant management, data collection, and programme management across the department.

The guidance here ensures that Dynamics 365 implementations are consistent, accessible, and aligned with Government Digital Service (GDS) standards — whether you're building a citizen-facing Power Pages portal or configuring the back-end CRM.

What's included

  • Power Pages

    Build accessible, GOV.UK-compliant portal experiences using custom web templates, the GOV.UK Design System, and our JavaScript validation framework.

  • CRM

    Standards for configuring, customising, and deploying Dynamics 365 — covering solution architecture, environment strategies, entity design, and release practices.

Why this exists

Microsoft's out-of-the-box components don't meet government accessibility standards, and there was no consistent approach to building or configuring Dynamics 365 services across DfE.

This design system was created to solve that problem. It provides:

Power Pages

  • Custom web templates that use GOV.UK Frontend instead of Microsoft's default styling
  • A JavaScript framework for form validation and submission via the Power Pages Web API
  • Reusable components for common patterns not covered by the GOV.UK Design System

CRM back-end

  • Naming conventions for entities, fields, and solutions
  • Deployment methods and environment strategies
  • Solution architecture patterns and best practices
  • Standards for configuration that ensure consistency across services

The aim is to help teams deliver user-centred, accessible services on Dynamics 365 without having to solve the same problems repeatedly.

Get involved

If you have questions, suggestions, or want to contribute, get in touch using the contact details in the sidebar.

Other resources