Featured News

Dynamics 365 Spring ’19 Release

Dynamics 365 (online) delivers new capabilities and functionalities through two major updates a year in April and October. Release notes will be published months prior to each major release update to help customers and partners plan for the new capabilities.

The next major update will take place in April 2019. Below are the details from the upcoming Dynamics 365 Release Calendar for Spring ‘19:

Starting February 1, 2019, customers can preview the new features by opting-in to enable them in the Power platform Admin Center of their production, trial and sandbox Dynamics 365 instances. For detailed instructions on opting-in, verifying your release version and how to prepare for the Spring ’19 Release, review Previewing April 2019 release functionalities and updates for Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement.

Stay informed on the major updates for Dynamics 365 by reviewing the Business Applications Release Notes, the Release Schedules and the Dynamics 365 Product Road Maps.

PowerApps Solution Checker

The challenge of increasing the performance of PowerApps customizations and the pressure of ensuring a quality release when faced with new project timelines can be daunting when you’re not sure where to start. To help with this, the PowerApps team has rolled out a new Solution Checker, available now in public preview.

With Solution checker, customers can inspect their code directly in PowerApps against a set of best practice development rules specific to customizing and extending the Common Data Service (CDS) for Apps platform. The outputs are rich detailed reports listing issues, severity, location, with some links to detailed prescriptive guidance on how to fix the problem.

For more details on the Solution Checker and how to enable it, review Make higher quality Apps with Solution checker on the PowerApps Blog.

Dynamics 365 Channel Integration Framework – Bring your own channel provider

Microsoft is excited to announce the general availability of the Dynamics 365 Channel Integration Framework. Channel Integration Framework is a set of APIs (methods, events, and protocols) that enable developers and partners to build immersive communication experiences such that third party communication widgets running on the channel provider cloud can interact with Dynamics 365.

Before the Channel Integration Framework (CIF), developers were required to create unsupported customizations and manipulations to embed their channel widgets in Dynamics 365. With CIF, customer enjoy some of the following benefits:

• CIF is channel, web browser and operating system agnostic. Customers can build any channel with JavaScript based widgets and integrate any cloud-based channel of their choice.
• Seamlessly integrate several providers by using the Channel Integration Framework administration configuration app.
• The framework is extensible for the configuration of two-communication between the channel and Dynamics 365 Unified Interface Apps.

For more information on the Channel Integration Framework, review this post on the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Updates & Releases

Dynamics 365 for Blackberry is deprecated

As of December 3, 2018, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Blackberry App is deprecated and will be removed from the iOS App Store on October 31, 2019. Microsoft will continue to provide security and other critical updates to the Dynamics 365 for Blackberry App until October 31, 2019, but will not release any additional features or functionalities within the app. After October 31, 2019, the Dynamics 365 for Blackberry App will be removed from the App Store, and support will end.

For more information, review Important changes (deprecations) coming in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement.

Knowledgebase search powered by Dynamics 365 Relevance Search

The Knowledge base (KB) search control in Dynamics 365 is now powered by Relevance search. This change allows administrators to fine-tune the KB search to meet their business requirements and empowers agents to find the most relevant KB articles quickly.

Additional features include:

• Highlighted search term matches
• Search tuning on any knowledge article field
• Search in notes and attachments of Knowledge Articles

For more details review Improve Knowledge Article search results with Dynamics 365 Relevance Search.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Release

The Service Updates for Dynamics 365 online version 9.1.0 are now available.

Service Update 14 (9.1.0.1401 or higher) resolved issues include:

• Tab names intermittently displayed incorrectly as "Tab" instead of displaying the appropriate label.
• When synchronizing contacts from Outlook to Dynamics using the Outlook app, the street portion of the contact's address moved to Address 3. After synchronizing again, the street was deleted from the contact's address.
• Custom filters on the Lookup field did not function in Unified Client Interface.
• The Insert Hyperlink button in the email body of a workflow's Send Email function did not work and gave a null value.

Service Update 16 (9.1.0.1604 or higher) resolved issues include:

• Duplicate appointments were created in Dynamics and Exchange when the "Track Appointments From NonOrganizer" setting was used.
• Documents uploaded to SharePoint online from Dynamics online were not visible in the sub-grid.
• An error occurred when attempting to reactivate and qualify a lead.
• Incorrect values appeared when hovering over the fields of a custom entity.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on-premises) Update 2.3

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on-premises) Update 2.3 is now available.

Resolved issues include:

• The Remaining Terms values failed to update when Entitlements were saved.
• Users could not rename the "Case" button label.
• SLAs created on non-working days (such as weekends and holidays) started immediately rather than obeying the non-working time.
• The ribbon menu was displaying even when appointment were set to "Read-only".

Overview and Release Details: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crminthefield/2018/12/12/podcast-and-overview-microsoft-dynamics-365-on-premises-update-2-3/

Knowledge Base Article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4467675

Download link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=57523

Field Service Updates

The latest update to the Field Service solutions for Dynamics 365 is now available. This release is compatible with Dynamics 365 9.x.

Field Service enhancements (v8.3.0.255)

Improvements:

• The Field Service module sitemap now includes Connected Field Service entities.

Resolved issues:

• Fixed: Upgrade Bug – Booking is updated with GroupId before the record is created.

Feature updates include:

• The Connected Field Service solution is now available out of the box with Field Service, eliminating the need to install the additional solution package.
• There is a new Field Service Mobile application
• Push notifications can be sent to the Field Service Mobile application using the Field Service Mobile Entity Push Notification workflow action.

For more information, review Release Notes for Field Service Version 8, Update Release 3.

Project Service Automation Updates

The latest updates to the Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 are now available. These releases are compatible with Dynamics 365 9.x.

Project Service Automation (v2.4.8.47) Enhancements

Improvements include:

• Users can delete products lines from a Project Invoice when the invoice is in draft state.

Resolved issues include:

• Project Approval had overlapping command sequences for "Approve" and "Reject" impacting the Ribbon Work Bench.
• WBS failed to open for empty projects when the project start date and end date was the same.
• Javascript error impacting contract line and quote line filtering when Maplytics was installed.

Project Service Automation (v2.4.8.52) Enhancements

Resolved issues include:

• Requirement Name in the schedule assistant demand panel showed the incorrect name when the name contained apostrophes
• Issue when users tried to create a booking alert when they were assigned to a child business unit
• Issue when launching the schedule assistant with certain time zone combinations, related to daylight savings time.

To update to these releases, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 solutions page to install. For details, refer How to Install, Update a Preferred Solution.

Voice of the Customer Updates

The latest updates to the Voice of the Customer solutions for Dynamics 365 are now available:

Voice of the Customer version 9.0.1371.8 is compatible with Dynamics 365 version 9.0 and above.

Voice of the Customer version 9.0.1371.7 is compatible with Dynamics 365 version 8.2.

New and updated features:

• Customers can now delete a file that is uploaded in response to the question type File upload by clicking the Delete File button in the command bar.

Resolved issues:

• When a respondent selected a smiley face in a rating question, all the preceding smileys were selected.
• The survey scoring values reverted to their default values when saving the question.
• When a respondent clicked on the text of a radio button, the radio button was not selected.
• Survey did not open in the language specified in the survey email.
• Respondent and case information was not associated with the responses if the corresponding invite was in the closed state.

To update to these releases, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 solutions page to install. For details, refer How to Install, Update a Preferred Solution.

Dynamics 365 for Marketing Update

The latest update for Dynamics 365 for Marketing is now available. This update includes several new features, performance and stability improvements.

New and updated features:

• Event Website: The fully functioning sample event website included with Dynamics 365 for Marketing can now be downloaded as an angular JavaScript project that can be customized and published anywhere.
• CAPTCHA: The CAPTCHA can now be removed from the event registration form with a simple configuration setting update.
• Member Count: An accurate member count for live segments is now available to replace the estimated member count.

For more details on all the changes for Dynamics 365 for Marketing and how to get the update, review this announcement on the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Additional News

Dynamics 365 for Marketing Sender Reputation

One of the fastest ways to lose sender reputation deliverability rates with email marketing is to generate a high number of hard bounces and spam complaints from your email blasts. Internet watchdog organizations keep an eye out for red flags in email content and sending behavior. They assign a sender reputation to each IP address that sends email. The lower the reputation the more difficult it is to land in an Inbox. Some of the key ways to maintain a good sender reputation is to:

• Include an unsubscribe link
• Include your organization's physical address
• Include text-only content that matches HTML content
• Don't send image-only messages

Dynamics 365 for Marketing includes features that help customers meet these requirements. It can also check each message before it is published to make sure it conforms with the requirements. If any hard bounces are detected, Dynamics 365 for Marketing will stop sending to those addresses in the future.

For more information on how Dynamics 365 for Marketing can help implement good data quality for your marketing campaigns, review this post in the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Blog Series

With the release of the new version of Dynamics 365 App for Outlook along with v9.0 and the new unified interface, organizations are transitioning from the legacy Dynamics 365 for Outlook client. There have been many questions about the new features, so to help our customers we’ve created a Dynamics 365 App for Outlook multi-part blog series.

The content will be based on a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (online) to Exchange Online environment, but much of the information will also be valid for hybrid and on-premise environments.

Part 6 – Working with Contacts:

• Where do I find Contacts in the App for Outlook?
• Modify the Contacts View
• Create, Track and Link Contacts
• Search Contacts

Part 7 – Helpful Tips:

• Set Regarding and Track records
• Access Views
• Modify the App for Outlook Sitemap

Part 8 – Email Governance:

• Options to restrict or filter email information

The series is posted to the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the Field blog.

Dynamics 365 Reports: SRS Data Connector Error

Have you ever received this error after attempting to run a report in Dynamics 365?

Maybe you’ve tried removing and reinstalling the Connector, but the error remains. Before submitting a support case, check out this article from one of our Dynamics 365 Premier Field Engineers with guidance on how to troubleshoot and resolve the issue: Dynamics CRM Reports complaining Reporting extension(SRS Data Connector) is not installed.

Training Corner

Better Together: Office 365 + Dynamics 365 + LinkedIn

As part of an ongoing effort to accelerate sales with OneMicrosoft, a video demonstration of Microsoft’s relationship analytics is now available. The Better Together video showcases how Office 365, Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn Sales Navigator are better together and empower customers.

The video showcases how Microsoft business applications give sales teams an advantage to close sales using:

• Office 365
• Dynamics 365 App for Outlook
• Dynamics 365
• Power BI
• Relationship Analytics
• Relationship Health
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Dynamics 365 AI for Sales Demo

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 AI for Sales service includes a user on-boarding video that highlights how Microsoft is democratizing data science and infusing machine learning to improve sales outcomes. Learn more about the features of the Dynamics 365 AI for Sales service and check out the on-boarding video here in the Dynamics 365 Community site.