Saturday 31 March 2018

What’s new in Retail in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

The focus of the Spring ‘18 release for Retail includes an investment in service hardening and enabling new capabilities that drive our integrated and omni-channel value proposition even further.

Main features and enhancements in Retail for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

  • CDX and data management - Provides improved offline capabilities to ensure that point of sale terminals continue to function during updates or internet disconnects.
Retail organizations often find it challenging to maintain connectivity everywhere at all times. It can be a disruptive and daunting task to manage and maintain full connectivity without downtime. By allowing for offline functionality that is seamless and simple to administer, retail organizations’ point of sale terminals can continue to function during software updates or internet disconnects. To facilitate easy and informative workflows, the user interface and logic around when to switch between an online connectivity and an offline functionality has been enhanced to make it clear what is occurring and how to best handle any changes to the work being done.
  • Deployment and servicing - Provides resource governance between transactional and back-office workloads to ensure that long-running batch processes don't affect transactional system performance, and that peak store traffic doesn't impede back office operations.
Retail organizations, especially those with globally-distributed operations, often find it challenging to pick a single maintenance window that is simultaneously non-disruptive to their entire global operational footprint. With near-zero downtime updates, most retail store operations can continue to work even through maintenance windows. This allows organizations that prefer low/no-footprint deployment to enjoy the same level of business continuity in their stores, even with a cloud-only topology. Retailers also routinely experience significant fluctuations in customer traffic based on seasonal trends, flash sales, viral popularity, or weather events. Likewise, system load during times of statement calculation and posting, or other batch processes, can be disproportionately high. Resource governance between transactional and back-office workloads ensures that long-running batch processes don't affect transactional system performance, and that peak store traffic doesn't impede back office operations.
  • End-of-day processing - Enhancements include improved statement posting performance, the addition of rollback and recovery to prevent data corruption, and enhanced in-app diagnostics that show status, errors, and logs.
End-of-day processing is a crucial element of retail operational workflow. This involves aggregation of raw transactions into meaningful business data to ensure that business and accounting rules are conformed to, before posting transactions as official business records. Improving the reliability and performance of this batch process and increasing the visibility of the processing for the administrator improves the user experience. Users can easily monitor the progress of the processing and see exactly what caused a validation failure. As a result, they can quickly resolve the issue and reliably retry the process without contacting Microsoft Support.
New capabilities include improved statement posting performance by removing table deadlocks and optimizing batch processing. The introduction of a state model in the posting process aids in rollback and recovery, which eliminates data corruption and the need for manual intervention. Enhanced in-app diagnostics with detailed status, errors, and logs (including details of transactions included in the scope of the statement, transactions resulting in errors, and possible steps to correct issues) allow for easy troubleshooting.
  • Globalization: Retail localization for India - Calculation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and value-added tax (VAT) in POS is implemented.
Retailers in India need to be able to calculate Goods and Services Tax (GST) in their POS solutions, and to post GST in Retail headquarters. Dynamics 365 for Retail was integrated with Global Tax Engine (GTE) to support GST calculation in POS. Both intrastate GST and interstate GST can be calculated, depending on the customer delivery location. GST integration is supported for normal sales and return transactions, and also for customer orders and replenishment operations. Dynamics 365 for Retail POS also supports the calculation of value-added tax (VAT) if it's required. In addition, for named customers, invoice numbers can be populated from POS receipt numbers.
  • Globalization: Certified cash registers for France - New capabilities fulfill the requirements for NF525. The Retail solution is certified by an accredited body.
As of January 1, 2018, all retailers in France must use cash systems certified per the NF525 requirements. The requirements cover inalterability, security, retention, and archiving of information pertaining to cash sales. New capabilities were implemented to fulfill the NF525 requirements. These requirements were confirmed by a certificate issued by an accredited body.
  • Payments - Improved tolerance when connecting to payment providers over unreliable networks. There is also a stateless payment stack to prevent payment failures from crashing the point of sale app, and improved extensibility for payment scenarios at the point of sale.
Beginning with the Spring ‘18 release, we have made investments to improve tolerance when connecting to payment providers over unreliable networks. This also includes a stateless payment stack to prevent payment failures from crashing the POS app, and improved extensibility for payment scenarios at POS. Issues with external components such as Hardware station, Payment connector, and Payment device are better handled by POS, which reduces the likelihood of POS app crashes due to payment failures. This functionality will be released incrementally through application updates starting in Spring 2018.
  • Extensibility (HQ, POS, CRT) - New extension points simplify the customization model, reduce the lines of code that need to be written by customers and partners, and reduce the effort required to upgrade.
Most customers customize our product to support their business process. We made major enhancements in our retail extensibility framework to simplify the customization model, introducing a metadata and configuration-driven development experience and more advanced APIs. This new framework reduces the lines of code that need to be written and the time spent to do customizations. By using the framework, business users or power users can do simple customizations without writing any code.
We also introduced a new independent packaging model so that extensions can be packaged separately. With the new extension framework and independent packaging model, extensions can be created independently from the core app. They can then be packaged and published to AppSource or the marketplace seamlessly, and then loaded at runtime. This seamless extension model helps easily plug and unplug any new extension, app, or extension to an existing business process model. Extensions can also be serviced seamlessly without any change to the core app model. With this new model, ISVs and partners can independently develop extensions and deploy them seamlessly. POS can also load multiple extensions independently.
We are continuously enhancing the Dev Application Lifecycle Management and the extensibility framework to add more new extension features and APIs to simplify the development process and reduce the effort required for servicing the extensions.
  • Monitoring and alerting - Added granularity in monitoring the health of specific user operations.
Building on existing capabilities related to monitoring of tenant and system-wide availability and reliability, this release extends these capabilities to the next level of granularity by monitoring the health of specific user operations. This ensures that, regardless of the relative volume of operations performed in a customer's tenant, business-impacting issues are immediately detected, and the reliability of the service remains high.
In addition to availability and reliability monitoring at the scenario level, performance monitoring to proactively detect performance degradations for high-value business operations has been implemented. To get comprehensive coverage, the reliability alerting capability has been extended to the client components, such as Modern POS. By seamlessly detecting issues logged at the client components, it’s now possible to detect reliability issues that are specific to the client applications and that might not otherwise have been detectable in the cloud service alone.

What’s new in Finance Insights: Credit and collections in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

Are you providing the right level of credit to the right customers? Is your organization collecting efficiently and effectively? Credit and collections insights provides proactive guidance about questions such as these and more. It provides key credit and collections metrics, such as days sales outstanding, balance overdue, credit exposure, and customers who are over their credit limit. It uses transactional data and provides aggregate views of credit and collections across all designated companies. It also provides a breakdown per company, customer group, and customer.

In addition to historical trends and analysis, you can leverage predictive analysis and built-in visuals to proactively show and identify trends. By experimenting with the visuals, you can see emerging trends and key groups of customers and credit.

The Credit and collections insights capabilities are available as part of a workspace within Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, and also in a stand-alone app, which is available at https://appsource.microsoft.com.

Main features and enhancements in Finance Insights: Credit and collections for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Credit and collections insights provides analytics that help organizations effectively manage their credit and collections processes. It provides:

  • Aggregate views of credit and collections across all designated companies.
  • Data broken down by company, customer group, and customer.
  • Credit overview report.
  • Collections report.
  • Credit and collections details for a variety of dimensions.
  • Predictive analytics to help identify trends.

What’s new in Finance and Operations in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

The Spring ‘18 release of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations delivers enhancements in system performance, servicing, reliability, and extensibility. It also offers new ways of integrating with other Dynamics 365 products and adds to our suite of business productivity tools.

Main features and enhancements in Finance and Operations for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Business productivity

  • Alerts - Client-based alert functionality enables a user to define alert rules based on business events, such as when an invoice is paid or a customer changes an address.
  • Optimization advisor - Uses telemetry to analyze customers’ business processes, finds optimization opportunities, uses application data to quantify the opportunities, and then recommends solutions.
  • Project timesheet mobile - Employees can create and submit project timesheets. The use of saved favorites and the ability to copy from a previous timesheet facilitates rapid, accurate time entry.
  • Edit default project fulfillment hours - Project resource managers can edit the default hours as part of the project booking fulfillment process.
  • Reserve project resources past the task end date - Project resource managers can fulfill resources on tasks past the current planned end date for the task.
  • Person search report - You can find a person and their personal data in Finance and Operations.
  • Data sharing for customer and vendor tables - Data can be shared across customer and vendor tables and many related tables across multiple legal entities.
  • One voucher deprecation – One voucher is turned off by default, through a General ledger parameter.

Extensibility and customization

  • Customizations through extensions only - Migrating customizations from one release to the next has been simplified by moving away from over-layering to the use of extensions.
  • Extensibility requests - Customers can submit a request to Microsoft for extension support to be added to the product for a needed scenario. The Spring '18 release enhances this feature by moving it to Lifecycle Services.
  • Extensible project work breakdown structure - Enables customization of the project work breakdown structure using extensions. This replaces the hierarchical grid control used for the project work breakdown structure with a standard grid that supports hierarchical data.
  • Embedding PowerApps in workspaces and forms - Use PowerApps to embed data from external sources into Finance and Operations data.
  • Custom fields - Organizations can add custom fields to tailor their application to their business requirements, using a no-code extensibility experience.

Integration
  • Integration with Common Data Service (CDS)
  • Integration with Dynamics 365 for Field Service - Provides data integration to support scenarios where Field Service activities are done outside Finance and Operations, leveraging the data integrator.
  • Integration with Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation - Supports scenarios where project and resource management activities are done outside Finance and Operations, and the project accounting activities are done in Finance and Operations, leveraging the data integrator.
Improved support experiences
  • Telemetry-based KB recommendation - Telemetry from a production environment can be used to identify the application hotfixes that apply to a tenant.
  • KB recommendations when entering a support case - LCS provides telemetry-driven KB recommendations.
  • Report production outage - Provides a quick and effective channel to escalate issues to Microsoft Support if the services in a production environment are degraded or become unavailable.
Supply chain management
  • Vendor collaboration – RFQ process - Enhancements make it easy to tell who entered a bid (a vendor or a procurement department).
  • Partial shipment of a load (split load) - Allows single loads or multiple loads to be fully or partially loaded.
  • Immediate replenishment of locations - Used during wave execution if allocation fails for a location directive line that has a replenishment template.
  • Reason codes added to warehouse counting and adjustment - Users can add a reason code when performing counts and when making an adjustment.
  • Batch balancing enabled for advanced warehousing processes.
  • Analytical workspaces with embedded Power BI for Cost management – new Cost administration and Cost analysis workspaces
Globalization
  • India localization – project and upgrade - Users can manage India Goods and Services Tax (GST) for the Project management and accounting module, and AX 2012 customers can upgrade to Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
  • Enhanced configurability - New features include import and testing scenarios, and also broader support for configurability without coding.
Servicing, performance, and deployment
  • Improved delivery of platform and financial reporting updates - Enhancements to how software updates are provided, to improve deployment time and the reliability of servicing.
  • Upgrade automation - Upgrade automation makes major version upgrades a self-service operation for the customer, using LCS for non-production environments.
  • Service hardening - Added service monitoring and alerting for core business processes, and improved form load performance of the most commonly used forms.
  • Lifecycle Services sandbox self-service automation and RDP lockdown.
  • On-premises deployment updates.

What’s new in Project Service Automation in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

The Spring ‘18 release of Project Service includes multidimensional pricing capabilities, GDPR and accessibility enhancements, and a new user experience with the app built on the Unified Interface framework.

Project Service is available for Private Preview to select members of the Dynamics 365 for Project Service Insiders program starting in April 2018.

Main features and enhancements in Project Service Automation for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Project Service app enhancements

The Project Service app helps sales and delivery teams engage customers and deliver billable projects on time and within budget. Project Service helps organizations:

  • Estimate, quote, and contract work.
  • Plan and schedule tasks.
  • Assign resources and balance utilization.
  • Improve team coordination and collaboration.
  • Capture and approve time, expenses, and progress.
  • Invoice in line with contractual expectations.
  • Track financials and monitor overall performance.

Built on the Unified Interface framework

With the Spring ’18 release, the Project Service app is built on the Unified Interface framework for improved user experience. The redesigned app delivers a consistent, uniform user interface, and follows responsive design principles for optimal viewing on any screen size or device.

Common Control Framework (CCF)

User interface controls use a Common Controls Framework (CCF) for consistency with other Dynamics 365 business applications. Controls follow consistent, familiar patterns on every surface in the application, making it easier for Project Service users to onboard and be productive.

Work breakdown structure (WBS) editable grid with Gantt visualization

The Spring '18 release introduces an editable grid with a Gantt visualization experience for the work breakdown structure (WBS), and removes the restriction that requires upfront booking of named resources to the project team before assigning them to tasks.

Project managers can assign named or generic resources to project tasks without a prior booking. Additionally, named resources can be created and assigned for any user of installed sales, service, field service, or project service apps. Formal booking or booking requests can then be executed after the project plan has been detailed.

This simplifies the project manager experience, and improves the range of scenarios where Project Service can be used to schedule work.

Schedule board list view

With the Spring ’18 release, the schedule board list view helps users interact with the schedule board using a list view to see data in a more meaningful way. For example, use the list view to work with bookable resources on the schedule board, or when searching for resource availability in hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly schedule board views.

What’s new in Field Service in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

The Spring ‘18 release of the Field Service application includes resource scheduling and optimization improvements, GDPR and accessibility enhancements, and a new user experience with the application built on the Unified Interface framework.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service is available for Private Preview to select members of the Dynamics 365 for Field Service Insiders program starting in April 2018.

Main features and enhancements in Field Service for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Field Service app
  • Built on the Unified Interface framework - With the Spring ’18 release, the field service app is built on the Unified Interface framework for improved user experience. The app delivers a consistent, uniform user interface, and follows responsive design principles for optimal viewing on any screen size or device.
  • Common Controls Framework (CCF) - User interface controls use a Common Controls Framework (CCF) for consistency with other Dynamics 365 business applications. Controls follow consistent, familiar patterns on every surface in the application, making it easier for field service users to onboard and be productive.
  • Associate 3D content with customer asset records - Arm your technicians with 3D content to help them complete repairs. 3D models or sequences can be uploaded (directly to Dynamics 365 or hosted externally), and then associated with customer asset records for use by technicians within the mobile app. Supported 3D file formats are glTF, FBX, GLB, and OBJ.

Universal Resource Scheduling (URS) solution
  • Schedule board list view - Interact with the schedule board using a list view to see data in a more meaningful way. For example, use the list view to work with bookable resources on the schedule board, or search for resource availability in hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly schedule board views.

Resource Scheduling Optimization (RSO) solution
  • Extensible scope - The Resource Scheduling Optimization solution uses scope to define the input for resources, resource requirements, and resource bookings, as well as the timeframes used for optimization. With extensible scope, the solution leverages entity views in Dynamics 365 to provide an easy and flexible way to define what gets optimized.
  • Run as a simulation - The admin can run a schedule on demand as a simulation, which results in resource bookings that are simulations without affecting actual bookings. This capability helps an administrator better understand the effects of adjusting optimization scope, constraints, objectives, and other parameters, to determine what optimization configuration best matches business goals and objectives.
  • Enforce skill level - Resource requirements can include not only a skill, but also the level (or rating) of the skill required to do the work. By considering the skill (or resource characteristic) rating level required, the solution is able to find resources that better match required skills and proficiency.

Connected Field Service (IoT) solution
  • Built on the Unified Interface framework - With the Spring ’18 release, the Connected Field Service solution is built on the Unified Interface framework for improved user experience. The app delivers a consistent, uniform user interface, and follows responsive design principles for optimal viewing on any screen size or device.
  • Synchronization of device conditions and properties with device twins - Connected Field Service includes a representation of customer assets and devices that can be registered within Azure IoT Hub to enable messages to flow through Azure IoT Hub to create alerts. 
In the Spring ‘18 release, in addition to receiving messages that require action, Connected Field Service uses the Azure IoT device twin capability. The device twin, which is kept in sync with physical devices, is a JSON document that holds metadata and configuration data, as well as a virtual cloud representation of physical devices.
Connected Field Service communicates with device twins to allow devices to report operating conditions such as device state, heartbeat for connectivity speed, and machine vibration. Field service operations managers gain visibility into device conditions and properties on a graphical dashboard. For example, the capacity of a tank can be monitored through IoT Hub and represented on the dashboard. When capacity reaches a threshold, an alert is sent to designated users for follow-up action. 
  • Synchronization of device tags with device twins - Device twin tags allow grouping of devices to make them easier to search and find. Tags for device twins are created in Connected Field Service, and then converted into JSON that is understood by a device. 
Tags make it easy to group by device usage, identification, or other properties. For example, customer assets needing a similar repair can be grouped using a tag.
  • Configuration of device properties and commands through device categories - When IoT devices are registered, connected, and configured in Azure IoT hub, Connected Field Service is able to retrieve properties and configurations from device twins.
With the Spring ‘18 release, field service managers and technicians can define device properties individually or in bulk. For example, field service managers can add measurements, such as temperature or vibration, which are common to devices in a category, and then update properties, configure thresholds, or send commands.
Field service managers or technicians can also use pre-defined commands to control a piece of equipment, such as when to restart or shut down.

What’s new in Voice of the Customer (VoC) in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

The Spring ‘18 release of the Voice of the Customer (VoC) solution includes cascade deletion of surveys, survey translation enhancements, the ability to dynamically insert question responses into subsequent questions, and improved analytics capabilities with the Voice of the Customer Analytics content pack for Power BI.

Main features and enhancements in Voice of the Customer (VoC) for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Cascade deletion of surveys

When a user deletes a survey, the dependent entities of the survey are also deleted. Any required actions needed for deleting a survey are displayed on the screen for easy resolution.

Restore configuration of Voice of the Customer

Admins can repair or restore the configuration if it is accidentally deleted or misconfigured.

Survey translation enhancements

Survey translation files are validated for any missing translated strings or incorrect HTML formatting when a survey is previewed or published. Error logs identify which strings in the translation file have issues. Users are able to translate the survey link text in the invitation email to personalize it for the respondent’s locale by providing the language as input in the survey snippet.

Personalize surveys by dynamically adding customer responses into questions

Personalize a survey by inserting the response to a question into subsequent questions and response option texts, using the Answer Tag field. When building the survey, provide a value for the Answer Tag for the first question, and then use the same value in the subsequent questions.

Enable self-troubleshooting

Self-troubleshooting makes it easier for administrators and survey designers to identify issues with the configuration of surveys. Validation tests verify the survey configuration or the survey itself, depending on the context. Results are displayed on-screen with the option to download a log file.

Voice of the Customer analytics using Power BI

The Voice of the Customer Analytics content pack for Power BI enables organizations to glean insights about surveys and responses. Administrators or survey designers can track metrics, such as average Net Promoter Score (NPS), average customer satisfaction (CSAT) score, and response ratio. The dashboard and reports provide charts and analytics for survey questions, and allow users to explore and analyze survey data.

Survey page accessibility

The portal used by survey respondents to submit their responses is accessible for users who require assistive technologies to interact with the survey page.

What’s new in Portal in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

With the Spring ’18 release, the search experience includes the ability to search within attachments. In addition, improved debugging makes troubleshooting easier for developers.

Main features and enhancements in Portal for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Renewal of authentication key

Dynamics 365 Portal connects to an organization using an authentication key linked to Azure Active Directory. The authentication key expires every two years. The administrator receives notification on the key expiration date, and can renew the authentication key. For more information, go to Renew portal authentication key.

Troubleshooting improvements

Dynamics 365 Portal provides detailed, contextual error information and diagnostic logging, and enables developers to define custom error messages for consistent and reliable troubleshooting. For more information about debugging and troubleshooting, go to Viewing portal error logs.

Searchable attachments for knowledge articles

Knowledge article attachments are searchable to increase the likelihood of relevant search results.

GDPR and accessibility

The customer data sent to and processed by Dynamics 365 Portal can be configured to address requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted by the European Union. The solution allows configuration of custom terms and conditions, age gating, and parental consent requirements.

What’s new in Customer Service in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

The Spring ’18 release delivers investments in user experience, performance, developer productivity, and compliance across the Customer Service Hub, Dynamics 365 Portal, Voice of the Customer (VoC), and Unified Service Desk.

Main features and enhancements in Customer Service for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Customer Service Hub
  • Interactive dashboards - Customer Service Hub dashboards are a one-stop workplace where agents and supervisors review their workload and take actions to resolve issues. Dashboards make it easier to review and act on information coming from various entity views and queues, and make it easier to apply additional filtering with visual, global, and timeframe filters to quickly narrow down what is most actionable and urgent.

  • Tier 1 dashboard for agents
  • Tier 2 dashboard for service managers or Tier 2 agents
  • Business process flows for standardized case handling - Business process flows ensure that agents enter case data consistently and follow the same steps every time they interact with a customer. Business process flows support floating and docked mode for process stages, which lets agents view case information and update the process stages simultaneously.
  • Timeline view of customer interactions and activities - Capture customer interactions and communications by adding them as activities in the timeline section of the dashboard. The timeline section presents a unified view of everything that has happened with a case, such as email received, follow-up tasks, and automatically generated system posts, plus any notes taken during customer interactions. 
  • Search for knowledge articles on the reference panel - Reference panel tabs allow agents to quickly find related records, or search knowledge articles for accounts, contacts, cases, and other knowledge articles. 
  • Support for authoring, searching, publishing, and translating knowledge articles - Author and edit well-formatted content for knowledge articles using a rich text editor. The editor brings common word processor features like advanced styling, linking, find and replace, and insert images and tables. Search, publish, and translate knowledge articles. Preview how the knowledge articles render on different devices before publishing.
Best practice analyzer for Unified Service Desk
  • Best practice analyzer for Unified Service Desk - Best practice analyzer is a developer tool that identifies defects in customizations and extensions, to help developers build and deploy efficient customizations and extensions.
  • Unified Interface apps integrate with Unified Service Desk (Public Preview) - Unified Interface apps integrate with Unified Service Desk to provide consistent user experiences for session management, customizable layouts, agent guidance, line-of-business applications, and channel integration.














What’s new in Sales in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

The capabilities in the Spring ’18 release empower your sales team with more intelligence and analytics, deeper integrations with LinkedIn and Office 365, and consistent user experience for web, mobile, and clients using the Unified Interface framework.

Main features and enhancements in Sales for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Sales intelligence (Embedded intelligence)
  • Relationship assistant
  • Auto data capture
  • Email engagement

Embedded intelligence lets sellers focus on selling

Embedded intelligence (previously known as Relationship Insights) collects, manages, and analyzes the diverse data and communications throughout the sales process, and then automatically suggests relevant actions and captures relevant activities to let salespeople spend more time selling.

Dynamics 365 for Sales Insights add-on (Relationship analytics)
  • Relationship health - Relationship analytics helps salespeople manage the opportunities pipeline by analyzing relationships and presenting data and insights about the health of customer relationships. Relationship Analytics includes sentiment analysis to enhance relationship health calculations.
  • Sentiment health - Sentiment health analyzes customer interactions and signals to inform salespeople how satisfied their customers are with their relationship.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator (SNAP) controls on forms
  • LinkedIn profile pictures for contact records synchronized with Sales Navigator

What’s new in Marketing in Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2

Dynamics 365 for Marketing delivers comprehensive capabilities for creating and running multi-channel campaigns to generate leads for your sales team using simple drag-and-drop design tools. The application includes event management, lead management, embedded intelligence for segment targeting, lead scoring, and interactions insights.

The marketing application is built on the same platform as Dynamics 365 for Sales, so your marketing and sales teams share common information and business processes to help them collaborate closely throughout the sales cycle.

Main features and enhancements in Marketing for Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release:

Multi-channel campaigns with personalized customer journeys
  • Customer journey designer - Use a drag-and-drop designer to set up a customer journey that guides your buyer based on how they engage during campaigns.
  • High-volume email - Send email with dynamic content, and respond to interactions such as opens, forwards, clicks, and bounces.
  • Bring in and nurture leads using a connector to LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.

Content creation
  • Template-driven design process - Includes professionally designed templates for emails and marketing pages, with customizable color palettes and support for custom templates.
  • Email designer - Use a graphical tool for creating personalized emails with dynamic content.
  • Marketing page designer - Use a graphical tool to create web pages with forms for collecting information from new and existing contacts.
  • Email previews - Quick in-browser preview of responsive designs, plus third-party Litmus integration for pixel-perfect email inbox previews.

Event management
  • Manage and track event registration and attendance.
  • Comprehensive event logistics - Manage speakers, venues, sponsors, session schedules, event passes, and more.
  • Webinars - Integration with the ON24 webinar service enables global participation in both web-only and hybrid live/web sessions.
  • Comprehensive event portal – Makes it easy for attendees to view speaker bios, review the session schedule, register for events and sessions, and manage their event calendar.

Lead management
  • Lead generation - Generate and manage leads throughout the customer journey.
  • Multiple lead scoring - Set up automated scoring rules to help identify your hottest leads, with multiple models running concurrently, and automatic forwarding to sales when ready.
  • Score leads based on behavior, demographics, and firmographics.

Embedded marketing insights
  • Analyze all interactions recorded for each lead and customers.
  • In-place insights - View relevant interaction records for each customer journey, email message, and landing page for easy drill-down.

Compliance

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 9.0.2 - Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release

Exciting times!

Microsoft is coming out with Update 9.0.2 for Dynamics 365 V9.0.

Microsoft has named it as Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release.

Any new organization created on or after April 2, 2018 will be provisioned on the updated version. Any updates from version 8.x to version 9.0 that are scheduled on or after April 2 will automatically get this update, and no change of schedule is needed. For existing ORGs running Dynamics 365 (Online) version 9.0.1 or higher, Microsoft will start deploying this update starting April 7 through their normal deployment process.

This update is primarily focused on performance and reliability improvements, but it also contains some new features and capabilities. The new features are opt-in and will not change your default experiences. 

Thursday 29 March 2018

Dynamics 365 Multi Select Option Set is a Virtual Field

One of the new data type introduced in Dynamics 365 V9.0 is MultiSelect Option Sets.

Behind the scenes they are not of the same type as an Option Set (Picklist). They are of type Virtual.

Thursday 1 March 2018

How to check for Opportunity Business Process Stage Changes in a Dynamics 365 Version 9 Workflow

In the new Dynamics 365 there are many Business Process changes.

There are times when you need to check for a Business Process Stage change in Opportunity out-of-the box entity. On the change of a Business Process Stage, you might need to run create/update a record.

The best way to achieve this is through a Synchronous workflow, on Opportunity, which checks

  • Either the "Stage Category" field value for the corresponding "Stage Id (Process Stage)" entity 
  • Or "Pipeline Phase" field value within Opportunity
Create a new Business Process on Opportunity. This Business Process will have 4 stages "Apply", "Estimation", "Documentation", "Approval".

Opportunity Business Process

Opportunity Stages

Let's say you need to execute certain steps for every business process stage. To perform this either create one Synchronous workflow with four check conditions or have four Synchronous workflows with one check condition each. Synchronous workflow below, on Opportunity, checks for stage "Approval".

Synchronous workflow with Approval Stage Check

Also, in the Synchronous workflow select the field "Pipeline Phase on change of which the workflow will be executed.

Select "Pipeline Phase" field from "Records Fields Change"