Business Process Catalog in DevOps + Copilot

You've probably heard or read or seen a lot about the Business Process Catalog. But what even is the Business Process Catalog? At its core, it’s Microsoft’s big map of how business processes run inside Dynamics 365. Not a product, not an app — literally an a bunch of IDs, and definitions. Think of it as a master reference that lays out end-to-end journeys like Hire to Retire - which OFC will be our star today - breaks them into smaller areas and steps (L1 to L4) and then shows the patterns that repeat across industries.

Sounds like a lots of words, right? And honestly, when you first open it, it can be overwhelming — a giant workbook that looks more like homework than help. But once you realize it’s not just documentation, but a framework you can plug into your actual delivery work, it starts to click. This is the turning point.

Core concepts but make it fun:

End-to-End Scenarios → This is the full journey, like flying from New York to Tokyo. It’s the big picture: the start, the destination, and everything in between. Hire to Retire is one of those full trips — from planning and recruiting to onboarding, managing, growing, and finally offboarding.

Business Process Areas → These are the layovers. The major stops along the way that break the trip into manageable parts. Each one usually lines up with a department or function — think of them as the airports you pass through.

Business Processes → These are the actual flights between cities. Each one is a

concrete step you take to move forward, with specific details like what data and entities you need.

Patterns → These are the flight routes airlines reuse all the time. They’re tried-and-true paths that get you from point A to point B efficiently. Instead of plotting a brand-new route every time, you follow a standard one that already works.

So after all this fluff I will show you how to take a process and make it functional for you :)

Step 1. Pick a Process in the Catalog

Start with something that makes sense to you. I of course have chosen hire to retire, but you can chose your own adventure here, and there is many to check:

Business Process	What is it about
Order to cash	Covers the full cycle from receiving a customer order through invoicing and payment.
Case to resolution	Managing the lifecycle of customer cases, from logging an issue to resolving it.
Record to report	Financial processes from recording transactions to producing reports.
Source to pay	Procurement activities from sourcing suppliers to processing payments.
Plan to produce	Steps of planning, scheduling, and executing production.
Prospect to quote	The sales process from initial lead to issuing a formal quote.
Service to deliver	Delivering services, including scheduling and fulfillment.

Step 2. Bring catalog into DevOps

Here’s where the catalog stops being theory and starts making sense from a hands-on perspective. You won't have to create everything from scratch, is all there with IDs, Work item types and many others.

To download the catalog go here: Download Dynamics 365 Business Process Catalog from Official Microsoft Download Center

Once you selected the process to download you will get an Excel file looking a little bit like this:

I had to tweak the file a little bit to fit my simplified version of DevOps, but it's still the essentials on the BPC.

I then mass uploaded the file into DevOps, you can do it very easily going to your DevOps organization > Project > Queries > Import work items. Importing is not a bed of roses, so in case you need it, here is a cheat sheet: Import, update, and export bulk work items with CSV files - Azure Boards | Microsoft Learn.

The good thing is that if you get errors, there are listed and you can work right away into them, instead of having to decode an encrypted code message like other apps do.

But once you defied the odds, the result should look a little bit like the image below.

Step 3. DevOps + Copilot Studio

Let's face it, DevOps is not for everyone. So I thought ok, there must be a way to make it more intuitive to navigate. That is where Copilot Studio was my first - and to be honest only - option.

I created an agent that has multiple learning resources and a connector to my Azure DevOps via REST API. I installed it on Teams, but it can also be deployed in Microsoft 365 Copilot (I don't use it as much as I use Teams, hence the decision).

As I added some prompts it looks like this.

I first asked about the work tied to Hire to Retire

And secondly about the status of a work item.

I have to continue working in the connector and make sure I can edit items through Teams so users that don't like DevOps feel comfortable using at least a work around, but having ultimately a DevOps license assigned (we are not trying to trick the system, we are trying to make the user adoption easier).

So yeah, I'm very happy with the article, very happy with the result and let's hope more people fall in love with DevOps, either through Copilot Studio or DevOps directly.