As someone who lives and breathes in the Dynamics CRM space, I am pretty jazzed about the much-anticipated new features in Microsoft Dynamics 365 October Release. Microsoft has added hundreds of new capabilities throughout its entire suite of CRM applications, with a strong focus on increased artificial intelligence capabilities throughout its business processes platforms.
From Sales and Marketing to Field Service and Supply Chain Management, the October Release delivers improvements and innovation in which simplicity and ease-of-use take center stage. Users and enterprises will also welcome enhanced performance and scalability capabilities.
While almost every app within Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement received an upgrade with the October Release, users will be pleasantly surprised by the advancements in some notable key areas.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Microsoft has been working diligently to increase and enhance AI capabilities within Dynamics CRM – and all that hard work is paying off. Improvements in AI elevate Customer Engagement processes and user experience in multiple ways and, in all likeliness, these advancements are most certainly the tip of the iceberg.
The new release features enhancements to the current AI apps including:
- Sales Insights
- Customer Service Insights
- Virtual Agent for Customer Service
- Customer Insights
- Market Insights
- Fraud Protection
And the October Release also includes two new AI applications:
- Product Insights that Microsoft says, “enables organizations to transform their product development, marketing, sales, and support by acting on real-time insight into their customers’ usage and experience.”
- Connected Store that Microsoft says, “enables merchants of brick-and-mortar stores with actionable insights by using data from cloud-connected sensors.”
DYNAMICS 365 FOR MARKETING OCTOBER RELEASE
The Dynamics CRM October Release offers up some substantial improvements in Dynamics 365 for Marketing – and more roll outs are scheduled for December release:
- Marketing Support for Business Units
- Customer Insight Integration
- Easy Set Up for Subscription Lists
- Email A/B Testing
- Improved Segmentation Experience
- Layout Editor
- Support Approvals Using Microsoft Flow
- Quick Send (December)
- Support for Surveys Using Microsoft Forms Pro (December)
DYNAMICS 365 FOR SALES OCTOBER RELEASE
In relations to Dynamics 365 for Sales, Microsoft says they have invested “heavily in the stability and satisfaction of the platform, delivering more value” to their customer – and it shows in their upgrades and enhancements rolled out in the October Release, including:
- Softcode Dialer
- Business Card Scan
- Customization of Opportunity Close Dialog Box
- Enhance the Adding or Editing Opportunity/Quote/Order/Invoice Products Experience
- Improve or Simplify Most Common Sales Workflows
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator Integration Enhancements
- Microsoft Teams Integration Enhancements
- Out-of-the-Box Hierarchical Relationship on the Territory Entity
- Simplified Lead Management Experience
MICROSOFT DYNAMICS FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE OCTOBER RELEASE
Dynamics 365 Customer Service supports multiple channels of customer engagement. The October Release delivers Customer Service improvements that include advance productivity capabilities and timeline enhancements:
- Knowledge management inline image enhancement
- Service scheduling migration tool
- Knowledge article templates
- Knowledge management search and rendering enhancement
- Timeline usability enhancements
- Unified routing for entity records
MORE IMPROVEMENTS TO COME
Technology advancements never stop – and Microsoft’s Wave 2 rollouts will continue to launch through March of 2020. There are so many cool tools and awesome innovations that are poised to comprehensively advance the way your business operates and grows, even if your enterprise is currently just a moderate user of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. I’ve just scratched the surface here; feel free to contact me should you have any questions at all about how the Dynamics 365 features of October Release can substantially improve your business processes.
