What is Dynamics 365 Human Resources?
Microsoft's HR core app — employee records, organisational structure, benefits, leave, and compensation, integrated with payroll partners.
Dynamics 365 Human Resources is Microsoft's HR application. It is most accurately described as HR core — the system of record for employees, organisations, positions, benefits, leave, and compensation — designed to integrate with specialist payroll, talent acquisition, and learning systems rather than replace them.
Workers, jobs, and positions. The core data model distinguishes jobs (a generic role definition: Accountant, Welder, Software Engineer), positions (a specific instance of a job in the org chart, with reporting line, FTE, location, budget), and workers (people, whether currently employed, on leave, or terminated). One worker can hold multiple positions; positions can be vacant, filled, or planned.
Personnel administration. Employee records, contracts, identification numbers, dependents, addresses, work eligibility documents, and a full audit history of changes are first-class. Self-service via the Employee Self-Service workspace lets staff update personal data, view payslips (where integrated), request leave, and enrol in benefits.
Leave and absence. Leave plans are highly configurable — accrual rules, carry-over, blackout periods, multi-level approval, calendar-aware deductions, country-specific holiday calendars. Manager self-service includes team calendars and approval queues.
Benefits. Benefit plans with eligibility rules, life event handling, vendor integration via standard files, and worker enrolment flows. Open enrolment events are supported with date-bounded windows.
Compensation. Fixed and variable compensation plans, grades and levels, merit/performance-based increases, eligibility rules, and compensation review processes routed through workflow.
Performance and skills. Performance reviews, goals, competency models, and skills tracking are included at a baseline level; deeper learning experience platforms typically integrate from third parties.
Payroll. Microsoft does not ship full payroll for most countries. Instead, HR exposes APIs and pre-built integrations to Dayforce, ADP, UKG, SD Worx, and others. Customers select a payroll partner per country.
Architecture. HR was originally a separate app and has been merged back into the Finance and Operations stack, so it shares the F&O data model and runs in the same environments as Finance and SCM. Dataverse-side integration is via Dual-write.
Licensing. Per worker per month, plus self-service users.
Related guides
- Benefits management in Dynamics 365 Human ResourcesHow D365 HR handles benefits — plans, enrolment, eligibility rules, dependents, providers integration, and the operational discipline of annual open enrolment.
- Leave and absence in Dynamics 365 Human ResourcesHow Dynamics 365 HR handles leave plans, accruals, requests, approvals, and the policy variations that make leave management country-specific.
- Performance management in Dynamics 365 Human ResourcesHow D365 HR supports performance reviews — goals, journals, reviews, calibration, and the integration with development planning.
- Account hierarchies in Dynamics 365How Dynamics 365 models corporate parent-subsidiary relationships — account hierarchy field, hierarchy charts, security, and reporting roll-up.
- App designer for model-driven appsHow to build a model-driven Power App — site map, tables, forms, views, business process flows, dashboards, and the app-experience layer.