2022 Release Wave 1 | Part 2: D365 Sales

It’s that time of the year again where we all get to feel like kids at Christmas as Microsoft has just published the release notes for 2022 Wave 1. In this article I am going to discuss some of the most important features that are mentioned in the release notes for Dynamics 365 Sales and what they mean for end-users and administrators of the Dynamics 365 Sales application. I installed the early access features on 1/31 in my sandbox so I could test some of these new features that are mentioned in the release notes. If you want to take a look at the full list of features, you can access them here. Keep in mind this is a living document and it keeps changing so I would definitely bookmark it!

Sales Hub will be preinstalled on all environments

Not a lot to explain here as the title says it all. If your organization doesn’t have the Sales Hub model-driven app installed, the Sales Hub app will be preinstalled in the environment. It will only be visible to users with the security roles shown below, but this can be changed if needed.

• System administrator
• System customizer
• Sales, Enterprise app access
• Salesperson
• Sales Manager
• Vice president of sales

Engage efficiently with your customers

This ‘feature’ is part of early access, but I feel like this is less functionality and more settings that are going to be enabled by default. The first setting is the Sales Accelerator that will be enabled for all users by default. Previously we had to pick the security roles or set it to be accessible for all security roles when running the setup for Sales Accelerator, but it looks like this will now be the default setting. This means that all Dynamics 365 users will see the Sales Accelerator on the sitemap and they can start using it. Keep in mind that this is just a default setting, admins can still be disable the Sales Accelerator for all users or some users. I think it’s safe to assume this will still work based on security roles.

Filter the underlying opportunities of a forecast

This feature is going to allow users to use column-level filters to filter out opportunities in the underlying data of the forecast they are looking at. When a user opens a forecast and clicks on any of the forecast rows to view the underlying records, they’ll notice a new filter icon is now available. When they click on the filter icon, the filter pane will open on the right side of the window, allowing them to add rows, groups and related entities to filter on.

Make quick decisions with enhancement to worklist cards

This feature is adding more contextual information about the related record of a work item. This is related to the items in the work list of the Sales Accelerator. This means that if you’re looking at a work item in the list related to an opportunity you’ll see more information regarding the opportunity (I.E Opportunity name) on the work list card, but if you’re reviewing a work list item related to a contact record, you’ll be able to see more information about that contact, for example the job title of the contact.

Customizable worklist cards for right contextual information to the seller

Before this release we didn’t have the ability to configure the worklist cards in the Sales Accelerator, which I felt was something that we should have. Looks like Microsoft felt the same way and added this to the application. According to the release notes businesses can now configure the cards to meet their needs. Exciting!

Update activities from sequence step and correlate it with timeline activities

These are some additional features related to the Sales Accelerator. This will give users more options when it comes to activities and notes. Users can automatically update activity descriptions from the sequence step description if needed, and as you can see in the screenshot below, they can also add notes while marking an activity as completed from the timeline control. They can also add a note directly from the Up next widget, or snooze an upcoming activity and set a new date and time for when the activity is due!

Experience sales accelerator, conversation intelligence, and predictive scoring with Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise license

I feel this is a huge change, because this ‘feature’ means that customers who has a Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise license will now get access to some of the Sales Insights feature that previously needed a Dynamics 365 Sales Premium license. There are some but’s and um’s you need to consider. I actually wrote a separate article on this a few weeks ago, which you can review here.

Forecasting and Pipeline Intelligence

This is a list of features related to forecasting and (lead and opportunity) scoring in Dynamics 365 which gives sales users better insights into their pipeline. Unfortunately since most of the features in this list were not part of the early access features I wasn’t able to try these out to see how they work. I will list some of the most important features below, a full list can be viewed here.

Assign attributes per sales stage to improve predictive score accuracy

According to the documentation this feature allows us to assign sales stages to attributes in the scoring models for opportunity or lead scoring. Microsoft will also allow users to view how these attributes impact the scoring model at each sales stage.

Compare annual projections with actual progress over multiple periods

It seems like this functionality will allow us to track projections on an organization basis and individual user basis. This was also not something that was part of the early access features, which means I wasn’t able to review this in my environment either.

Streamline your forecasting workflow with default experiences

I like this feature because it allows system administrators/makers to set some of the default behavior for forecasting. This is great, because not every organization is the same, and therefor should be able to set their own default forecast behavior. Below is a list of the items that you’ll be able configure as default:

• Grouping/group by
• Drill-down
• Selecting the Kanban view as the default view instead of the list view when accessing the underlying records
• Setting the last viewed forecast or last selected forecast as default
• Setting the default forecast configuration for users

Support for yearly forecast periods

I think this is a great one too. Before this release wave we weren’t able to do this, we could only configure forecasts or a monthly or quarterly basis. With this update we will be able to configure forecasts for a whole year (and hopefully multiple years?) as a yearly forecast period will be added to the application.

Update quotas quickly with inline editing and quota rollups

Another one I am exited about! Previously if needed to update and upload the excel template if we wanted to update quota’s in forecasts. With this update we will be able to update quota’s directly inside the forecast configuration by editing them inline. It also looks like we will be able to configure if quotas should rollup from a hierarchy. Let’s say you have 3 direct reports with a quota of $100,000. If you would configure rollup for this, your quota as their manager would be $300,000. Previously we would enter this in the excel sheet and upload this to the forecast, but it seems with this new feature we will be able to configure these rollups. Sales Managers and people with the right security will be able to edit quotas directly inline in the forecast.

Sales Mobile

There are some nice updates that are coming to Sales Mobile this year. The mobile features will go into public preview in August 2022. The first one is the ability to capture contacts from your phone and being able to add them to Dynamics 365 Sales with one click. I am sure you can see the benefit here. Another feature is the ability to log calls from a cell phone’s recent calls list. I assume this will allow users to go to that list and create a Dynamics 365 phone call record, but we’ll just have to wait until this goes into preview! Today users are able to create a contact from a business card by taking a picture of the business card on their mobile device. With this release they will also be able to take a picture of any handwritten notes and convert them into a note in Dynamics 365 Sales. We have seen this type of behavior a while back when the D365 Assistant for Teams was in preview. (take a look at this video where I show you in the D365 Assistant for Teams how to bring handwritten notes into D365 to get an idea on how this might work)

Relationship Intelligence

This one is a big one and will be in public preview in April of 2022. This feature seems to expand the ‘Who knows whom’ functionality tremendously. As you can see in the screenshot below, the WNW section is now moved to a separate tab, where users can see a lot of information regarding the relationship.

This is not just Dynamics 365 data, but also leverages data from exchange. Users will be able to see interaction scores that shows how their organization is connected to another organization or contact and how strong those relationships are. We’ll also be able to see recent interactions and connected coworkers on this page.

I hope you found this article informative! Don’t forget to check out my articles on 2022 Release Wave 1 – Generic Updates and Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Field Service. Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!