In the earlier version of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, there are multiple options such as DIXF, Excel Add-ins, and AIF for data management. Data entities are introduced as a part of data management to be used as a layer of abstraction to easily understand by using business concepts.
The concept of data entities combines those different concepts into one. You can reuse Data entities for an Excel Add-ins, Integration, or import/export. The following table shows core scenarios of Data management:
Data Migration | Migrate reference, master, and document data from legacy or external systems. |
Setup and copy configuration | Copy configuration between company/environments. Configure processes or modules using the Lifecycle Services (LCS) environment. |
Integration | Real-time service based integration. Asynchronous integration. |
Note
More information about this can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/unified-operations/dev-itpro/data-entities/data-entities-data-packages...