Discover your career path: Get started with fundamentals

Are you looking for the right Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365 certifications to help advance your career and to earn the recognition you deserve? We’re here to help you discover the career path that’s right for you—whether you’re just starting out, looking to advance, or wanting to change to something new. When you pass a Microsoft Certification exam, you let the world know that you have these in-demand skills. In addition to providing evidence of your mastery of technical skills, certifications can boost your confidence and highlight your drive to keep pace with technical change.

The combination of your growth mindset and a globally recognized, industry-endorsed Microsoft Certification sends a career-building message to employers. 

In this post, we offer a quick overview of our fundamentals certifications. These certifications let the world know that you’ve mastered the basics of Microsoft Power Platform or Dynamics 365—whether you’re new to the field or brushing up on your skills as a seasoned professional—and that you’re ready to advance.  

The fundamentals certifications

A fundamentals certification can be the first milepost on your journey as you prepare for role-based or specialty certifications, but it isn’t a prerequisite for any of them.

The Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Fundamentals certification proves that you can use your Microsoft Power Platform skills to improve your team’s productivity. No experience is necessary to train for it—just basic familiarity with computer technology, data analytics, cloud computing, and the internet. You earn it by passing Exam PL-900: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals.

There are two fundamentals certifications for Dynamics 365. The first is for those who are familiar with customer relationship management (CRM) and are IT savvy—either generally or through work experience. The Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM) certification can highlight those skills and enhance your career journey. You earn it by passing Exam MB-910: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM) (beta).

The other fundamentals certification is for those who have a broad exposure to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities of Dynamics 365 and who understand the basics of how finance and operations apps fit in within the overall Microsoft ecosystem. Earn Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (ERP) by passing Exam MB-920: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (ERP).

These two certifications that focus on CRM and ERP skills are replacing the older Dynamics 365 Fundamentals certification, which retires on June 30, 2021.

Benefits of fundamentals certifications

Microsoft created fundamentals certifications to build and validate understanding of technologies that businesses use. These very popular technical certifications are held by professionals all over the globe. They build the foundational skills and provide a pathway for earning certifications based on deeper technical skills required to perform industry roles. 

In the annual Nigel Frank survey on Dynamics 365 salary and marketing trends, 61 percent of respondents say that a certification gives you an edge in the job market. And 28 percent of professionals with a certification report that they experienced a pay increase after successfully completing their training.

People in different roles and career stages can benefit from fundamentals certifications. These include:

• IT professionals who want to show a general understanding of the applications they work with.
• Business stakeholders and others who know Microsoft Power Platform or Dynamics 365 and want to validate their skills and experience.
• Developers who want to highlight their understanding of business operations, ERP, or CRM.
• Students, recent graduates, and people changing careers who want to leverage Microsoft Power Platform or Dynamics 365 capabilities to move to the next level.

How do I get started?

If you need more experience before you take the exam, we recommend that you work closely with a Microsoft Power Platform or Dynamics 365 expert on your team and take on a project to deepen your skills. Then explore our training opportunities. No matter where you are on your journey, we have training to fit your needs. To get started, check out our three fundamentals certification journey maps. You can also find the journey maps in the resources sections on the associated certification and exam pages. 

To map out your path, choose the journey map for your fundamentals certification. Then follow the sequence in the map. As shown at the beginning of the map, start by deciding whether this certification is a good fit for you.

Source: techcommunity.microsoft.com