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.

  • Dynamics 365 CRM

    Guidance to help teams build Dynamics 365 CRM solutions using consistent best‑practice approaches that align with DfE’s CRM strategy and long‑term direction.

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

Dynamics 365 CRM

  • A consistent way of building Dynamics 365 solutions
  • Clear guidance on choosing the right level of customisation
  • Reusable patterns, components and solution structures that help create maintainable and scalable solutions
  • A common approach to security, environments and deployments, ensuring compliant and well‑governed practices

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