microsoft dynamics 365 from a crm perspective -...

Agenda

1) Welcome and Introductions

2) New Features of the July 2017 Release

3) Summary and Next Actions

Microsoft Dynamics 365Customer Engagement Roadmap

The Dynamics 365 Roadmap for Customer Engagement (previously known as “CRM”) provides a snapshot of what Microsoft have been working on.

Use this Roadmap to find out what is being made generally available and what is in development.

All dates and features that are in development are preliminary, are based on current expectations, and are subject to change without notice.

Note that Eclipse has sourced this information from Microsoft’s own web sites and publicly available information.

24/08/2017 Confidential DXC Eclipse 4

Platform Separation

• When Dynamics 365 launched, Microsoft signalled a move towards an app-centric platform to escape a bloated, monolithic model.

• This will be increasingly evident with the July (v9) release which sees Dynamics 365 break into modular apps that shift away from one platform with multiple modules hardwired in such as sales, marketing and service.

• By redefining the platform layer and breaking modules into role-based solutions for sales, finance & operations, customer service, talent, field service, to name just a few, it will remove the need to test all at once and upgrade everything in one big bang project.

• This will quicken release cycles and enable more rapid changes by allowing these to work independently of each other, but crucially these are connected with a common data service.


MS Dynamics 365 CE Roadmap


Next one-year investments in the D365 Roadmap

Transformational Intelligence



Platform Separation

What's coming for Customer EngagementEnterprise edition, in the July 2017Update for Dynamics 365 (online)

Microsoft have announced the new features coming for Customer Engagement in the next update for Dynamics

365 (online) in the July 2017 release.

The main areas of investment in this release are:

• User Interface (or UX) enhancements to improve readability and usability of the web apps, and to make data

entry faster and easier.

• Extensibility and app platform enhancements, including improvements to security and data management.

• Enhancements to the In-app Designer Tools that allow admins and customizers to tailor apps through a

graphical user interface instead of writing code (App Designer, SiteMap Designer, and Business Process Flow

Designer).

• A new Unified Interface framework used for the Customer Service Hub, Dynamics 365 for phones and

Dynamics 365 for tablets, and Dynamics 365 App for Outlook. Unified Interface is also available in the App

Designer so that customizers can build app modules using this new look and feel.


New Features in the Dynamics 365 July 2017 Update

Unified Client Interface

Lean navigation, crisp layout of fields, grids, and former white-space. We’ll also see a responsive UI for other platforms and devices — including Mobile and Tablets, Customer Service Hub, and for the Business Edition apps (i.e. not the Enterprise edition apps initially).

The UCI will first be rolled out to the Dynamics 365 Business Edition and selective new apps that Microsoft is developing.

Enterprise Edition web users won't see the UCI yet but in the interim, the July 2017 / Dynamics 365 v9 release brings a refreshed web client interface.

Adapts to the device or screen in use to provide a consistent experience across web, Outlook, mobile and tablet.



Unified Client Interface

Further enhancements as part of the UCI include:

• Skype for Business presence indicator across all supported web browsers

• OneNote create functionality will be available in mobile

• Improved dashboard chart filtering and drill-down –similar to controls previously only seen in the Interactive Service Hub

The design principles of the UCI (text wrapping, uniformity, styling, white space reduction and theming) sees content presented in a way that will flow into different states as the available space changes.



Web Client Update

Enterprise Edition web users won't see the UCI yet but in the interim, the July 2017 / Dynamics 365 v9 release brings a refreshed web client interface:

This revamped interface is designed to address a series of customer feedback requests to:

• Remove excess white space

• Word wrap fields

• Improve form tab formatting

• Standardise fonts

• Extend theme capabilities



Activity Timeline

This feature will combine Posts, Activities, and notes into a single feed. Customers will also be able to filter specific activity types and quickly see unread items. Initially, this will only be on the Unified Client, but will soon be rolled-out as part of the Web Client refresh.

Runtime functions within this control include:

• Visual and text filters to drill down lengthy timelines and quickly find information – and hopefully avoid the need to revert to the activities screen

• Inline actions for activity records in the timeline - aside from ‘Mark Complete’ this will be expanded to include other controls e.g. ‘Add to Queue’, ‘Assign Activity’ without needing to open these records

• View attachments and download these inline without opening the email record

• Attach camera images, audio and videos, using the mobile app - this activity timeline will include also activity feeds which now work in mobile (previously only available in the web client).



Activity Timeline

• ‘What You Missed’ display to see what events have happened on the record since the user last looked at the record



Activity Timeline

Does every action need to appear in the timeline? Maybe not!

Administrators will be able to configure what activity types will be presented in the timeline. For example:

• Configuring which fields display for each activity type using a new Card Form entity

• What fields will determine sorting - this should prove handy if you want to set sorting by last updated, last modified etc.

• A version of the timeline control can also be applied to a Dynamics 365 dashboard that will replace the legacy activity wall component that won’t be available in the UCI. When placed in a dashboard the timeline control won’t include notes.


LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Following Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn, more integration capabilities are being released.

With the LinkedIn navigator solutions for Sales and Campaign, Dynamics 365 CRM customers can leverage existing LinkedIn functionality by viewing and synchronizing data for their Leads, Accounts, and Contacts.

In addition to quick access to Company and Contact profile data, inMail and messages can be tracked in Dynamics 365 along with tasks, appointments, and other activities.




A new connector for LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms automatically syncs campaigns and leads with Dynamics 365, with configurable matching rules

To aid social selling, new LinkedIn Sales Navigator embedded widgets for Dynamics 365 include account connections promoting the best contacts to connect with, recommended potential leads, account news, mutual connections to facilitate new introductions and summary detail from LinkedIn.




Selectively sync inMail and regular messages to Dynamics as specialised LinkedIn activities.




Automatically sync Dynamics 365 account and contacts, as well as Dynamics leads that are synchronised as suggested leads


Customer Service Hub

The Interactive Service Hub is evolving with many improvements: a refreshed look and feel, available as an App, as well as many new features.

Interactive Service Hub will be replaced by Customer Service Hub (CSH) to provide an optimised user experience for service teams to manage cases and knowledge posts.

CSH is built on the new Unified Client Interface and as a result it will be accessible by mobile devices. Its performance promises to be significantly improved compared to the ISH which previously required a metadata download.

The new solution will enable new interactive dashboards to be created that were a feature of the legacy product while classic style dashboards can also be created.



Business Process Flow Enhancements

There are a couple of significant, new capabilities in Business Process Flows. Earlier in 2017, along with the new designer and BPF entities, we could now call Workflows and Business Rules.

The July 2017 update provides the capability for Custom Actions with user input and initiation of Microsoft Flows. The Flow functionality significantly extends integrations with other services and databases.

With the Unified Client Interface, the stages in a business process flow can now be displayed in floating, or docked mode.

Stages can now be aligned in a vertical layout, instead of horizontal, which makes it easier to see which steps are required to be completed before moving forward.



Multi-Select Option Sets

Dynamics 365 customers can now create an option set as multi-select – or change an existing set – and it will render on forms as an intuitive multi-select control. Advanced find has new operators specifically designed for these, plus filtering in views. For long lists of options, on the form the multi-select list is also searchable.


New Features in the Dynamics 365 July 2017 UpdateActivity Logging

Leveraging the Office 365 Security and Compliance Centre, Activity Logging captures actions and interactions with your data, administrative operations, logins from any device, workflows and plugins, and more. The near real-time big data is searchable and will integrate with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) vendors such as Microsoft OMS and Splunk.


Security Enhancements

Dynamics 365 system settings will now include a configurable maximum session length and an option to enable session timeout due to a predefined period of inactivity.

In both instances, a warning prompt can be configured that will alert users enabling them to re-authenticate and make sure their work is saved. When a session expires the screen contents are blanked out.

Virtual Entities

Virtual Entities are similar to Dynamics 365 “traditional” entities. However, external data is read at run-time and not stored in the Dynamics 365 database. This is a great new feature for heavy, custom integrations.

So, if I can surface external data directly in Dynamics, we don't really need to implement all sorts of integration packages anymore.

For example, maybe you had to work on a project where Dynamics had to be integrated with the financial software. We had to synchronize client profile (and some other) information stored in Dynamics with the client profile information stored in the other database.

If we were able to simply display that information directly in Dynamics without having to come up with all those proxies/plugins/SSIS packages, it would make it much easier.

As you create an organization-owned entity, check a metadata box to indicate that it is virtual.





Organisation Insights

Organisation Insights is now available as a free app on the Appstore to help administrators and management teams monitor the usage and performance of their Dynamics 365 cloud deployment and to drive user adoption.

• Who are the most active users, what business units do they belong to, and what devices / clients are being used.

• Which entities are most used, and by which users

• Storage optimisation to visualise how this is being consumed

• System performance e.g. what plug-ins are failing and what is the average operation time

• This includes a new preview feature for proactive notifications around operational issues to troubleshoot problems that include for failing plugins and workflows.


New Features in the Dynamics 365 July 2017 UpdateMobile Experiences

With the arrival of the UCI, Microsoft will introduce a set of new functions and improvements for the mobile apps:

• Consistent form capabilities on mobile as other experiences, e.g. form switching

• Navigate between tabbed elements and sections, or get a birds eye view of a form layout to quickly jump a tab / section

• Interactive dashboards and filters (another piece of IP taken from the Interactive Service Hub)

• Enhanced custom controls for all form factors• Relevance search and advanced filtering on mobile

• Activity timeline and new docked / floating process flows featured previously

• Right to left language support on mobile across all clients

• Pinch and zoom charts in mobile dashboards• Enable chart and list views in one screen• A raft new chart types to visualise data in a mobile app

Mobile OfflineAdministrators will be able to select which Dynamics 365 apps are available for which users in offline and online operations. Offline enabled and online only apps can co-exist and an individual app can be enabled for some users to work offline while other user will only have online permissions. The data available in offline mode can be controlled on per user and per app basis.



Customer Engagement Portals

Microsoft has recently shared its roadmap for the development of its integrated web portals.

A selection of improvements have been announced by Microsoft – and these will include:

• Tracking extended to include forum, knowledge base and search click actions

• Knowledge posts will include notes and attachments – and searching will include Attachment titles

• New portal admin wizard to make it easier to add Dynamics 365 content to portals

• Single sign-on as portal log-in moves to Azure Active Directory

• Tracking all portal interactions in Dynamics Customer Insights for authenticated users.

Portal source code will be released to enable on-premise portal deployment for increased customisation than offered by the SaaS model. Code changes will be self-supported. Longer term, Microsoft will have a new extensibility model that won’t require the same code access.


Customer Insights

Dynamics 365 previously included an enhancement called Relationship Insights.

Dynamics Customer Insights (DCI) builds on this capability and mines and ingests big data, analyses, predicts, and provides a broader view of our customers and potential customers.


The Roadmap for Customer Insights


Customer Insights includes visualisations to illustrate a customer’s engagement and journey in a single dashboard.This avoids the need to sort through multiple data sources. For example, it will enable users to assess the health of a customer relationship and check their retention scores.

In addition to Dynamics 365, Customer Insights uses data inflows from Azure Storage, Exchange Online and Microsoft Social Engagement to create a unified view of each customer.

The Roadmap for Customer Insights


• Predictive Match using contextual information to associate activities or records across channels with known customers

• Predictive Scoring enables users to predict business outcomes, by automatically generating Machine Learning models

• Segmentation to identify the right audience based on historical customer data and related entities

In its July 2017 preview, these capabilities will include:


More New Features in the Dynamics 365 July 2017 Update

Social Engagement Enhancements

• Social Selling Assistant – a digest of promoted posts that sales individuals can use to increase awareness and enlarge their network by sharing posts. Users can provide feedback if posts are not of interest that enable machine learning to increase the relevancy of these personalised recommendations.

• New Power BI Integration for detailed reporting insights across social activity.

• An upcoming Social Engagement Update will include capability to listen and engage on LinkedIn pages.

Activities enhancements include a new Email activity with rich editing capabilities.

Business Process entities will now be available on site maps, charts, dashboards and views.

Auditing enhancements.

A new App Module and Sitemap Designer.

CafeX Communications has launched Live Assist for Microsoft Dynamics 365, a personalised customer assistance solution for sales and service teams.

Deprecations

Microsoft has announced that several entities and functions will be deprecated in v9 (that is to say they will still

be available for the moment, but these will be removed in a future major release).

The announcements and deprecations apply to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement as of the July 2017 update.

Administrators and IT professionals should use this information to prepare for future releases of Dynamics 365. As

before, Customer Engagement refers to the applications that make up the CRM portion of Dynamics 365, which

includes the Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and Project Service Automation applications.

“Deprecated” means Microsoft intends to remove the feature or capability from a future major release of

Dynamics 365. The feature or capability will continue to work and is fully supported until it is officially removed.

This deprecation notification can span a few years. After removal, the feature or capability will no longer work.

Microsoft are notifying Customers now so they have sufficient time to plan and update their code (if required)

before the feature or capability is removed.

For information on past deprecations, see:

• TechNet: Important changes coming in future releases of Dynamics 365

• MSDN: Important changes coming in future releases of Dynamics 365


https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn265924.aspx

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn281891.aspx

Microsoft’s Roadmap Summary

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 cloud applications follow different release schedules.

In general, we recommend that you use the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Roadmap to find information about new and upcoming features. The roadmap is organized around the Business and Enterprise edition applications.

Microsoft do not publish a list of confirmed enhancements beyond the next release (i.e. Version 9, or the July 2017 release at this time). This document is based on confirmed enhancements for this release.

Customer Engagement

The apps that make up the customer relationship management (CRM) portion of Dynamics 365 are referred to as “Customer Engagement” and include Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service Automation, and their related services.

The following topics provide shared What's New content for these applications, as well as feature-specific information on the roadmap.

• Important changes coming

• New in the next update for Business edition

• New in the next update for Enterprise edition

• New in the next update for developers24/08/2017 Confidential DXC Eclipse 39

https://roadmap.dynamics.com/

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/whats-new/customer-engagement/important-changes-coming

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/whats-new/customer-engagement/new-in-business-edition

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/whats-new/customer-engagement/new-in-july-2017-update

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/whats-new/customer-engagement/new-in-july-2017-update-for-developers

Webinar Objectives and Next Actions

• Learn about the new functionality introduced in the July 2017 release across the CRM applications.

• Consider how I should start planning for the upgrade to the July 2017 release and take advantage of the new capabilities.

• Understand what effect will the deprecation of functionality have on my organization.

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