2021 Release Wave 2 | Part 4: D365 Sales

It’s September and that means that we have the ability to install the early release features of 2021 Release Wave 2 in a sandbox environment for testing! For the folks who are not familiar with Microsoft’s release cadence, Microsoft Power Platform and Customer Engagement apps (Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, etc.) deliver two major releases per year which occur in April and October. These releases offer new capabilities and added functionality. We have the ability to opt in for early access to try out and test some of these features. I will be writing a series of articles on the new features in 2021 Release Wave 2, as I do for each major release. In this article I will discuss some of the most exciting new features and updates that are coming for Dynamics 365 Sales.

Worklist and workspace Improvements

Unfortunately this is the only feature that is part of early access in Dynamics 365 Sales and there are not a lot of details on this. When you look at Microsoft’s doc’s page it talks about enhancements to the work list to make it more usable and improve productivity. We’ll see some filtering and sorting enhancements and the activities in the work list will now depend on who owns the activity vs who owns the record the activity belongs too. I think that is a great improvement because why would you want to see an activity in your worklist that is not assigned to you? If you’re not sure what a work list is, this is part of the sales accelerator which is part of the Sales Insights add-on.

Collaboration with Microsoft Teams

Microsoft is working on making the integration with other applications such as Microsoft Teams a lot tighter. If you look at the features of 2021 Release Wave 1, you notice that there is a list of things that are scheduled for public preview in August or September of 2021. If you take a look at both Teams integration features listed under wave 1 and wave 2 it looks like some of these overlap.
Unfortunately most of these features are not part of the early access release but I did want to share what I found on this. I think one of the best and most impressive features is the ability to engage in a Teams chat while working in Dynamics 365. This feature is listed as an early preview feature but I didn’t find this in my environment so I was unable to test this out. Once this becomes available I will make sure to share what I found in a new article and video. (Update: check out this article where I discuss this feature!)

One of the features I’m excited about it the ability to send automated chat notifications from Dynamics 365 to Microsoft Teams. Users can use the @mentions functionality in the timeline of a dataverse record, which will automatically have the Dynamics 365 chat bot notify the user in the Teams chat.
It also looks like the Dynamics 365 Assistant will be integrated into Teams, as the notifications or insights that are part of the Assistant will be pushed to Teams as well.
Users can get notifications for records that they are following, this is tied to the follow/unfollow feature that currently exists in Dynamics 365. Lastly users will be able to configure for themselves which notifications they want to receive and how often. I would REALLY like to see how all of these features work, but unfortunately these features are scheduled for Public Preview in February of 2022.

Now let’s discuss the features that fall under ‘Drive Seller Productivity with Teams integration‘.
Users will be able create an appointment in Dynamics 365 and add a Teams meeting link to the appointment. This will save the step of having to create the appointment in the Teams or outlook application. User sill also be able to access Dynamics 365 records during a Teams meeting and make changes to the records directly from within Microsoft Teams. Notes can also be created in Microsoft Teams during the meeting which can be synchronized to Dynamics 365. As of now, these features are scheduled for public preview in January of 2022.

Seamless experience with Teams, Outlook, 3P calling

Besides integrations between Teams chats and Dynamics 365, there will also be Teams call integration with Dynamics 365. The Teams call functionality (which is currently in preview) allows users to make calls directly from within Dynamics 365. When you turn this on an embedded dialer will show in the Dynamics 365 app. If you want to learn more about this, take a look at the article I wrote on the Teams call (preview). If your organization wants to use a third party telephone system that seems to be part of this feature as well, but there are no requirements available for this today.
I am not sure what Microsoft means by ‘Incoming Calls in Dynamics 365‘ and ‘Connectivity to D365 entities’ which are part of the feature details which you can find here. Does this mean the incoming call will ring in the embedded teams dialer? If a record for the caller exists in Dynamics 365 will that record open up as well? Lots of questions that most likely won’t get answered until the public preview in February of 2022.

Mobile Enhancements

Unfortunately the mobile enhancements are also not part of the early access of this wave. I noticed that a lot of these features were part of wave 1 originally and seem to have been enhanced in 2021 Release Wave 2. I am excited about the ability to view LinkedIn information for contacts in the mobile app, but I am curious to find out if the organization needs to have a sales navigator license for this or not. At this time that is not clear yet. Another thing that will be available for mobile is relationship insights for contacts. I assume Microsoft is referring to relationship analytics which is part of the Sales Insights add-on license.
In this release users will be able to add contacts to Dynamics 365 from outlook and their phone book, which I assume means that if you have a contact on your phone that you want to add to Dynamics 365 you will have the ability to do so. A smart list is also mentioned but unfortunately there is no explanation on what a smart list is. Did any of you miss the ability to scan a business card into Dynamics 365 or the ability to scan handwritten notes? I did! Well you don’t have to anymore, as these features will be added to the application as part of this release. We will have to wait a bit as these features are planned for public preview in December 2021.

Pipeline Management

The deal manager workspace will be generally available in January of 2022 (it’s currently in public preview. In the meantime Microsoft is still adding new functionality to the workspace. In November of 2021 hierarchy and date based filters will be added to the workspace. If you want to learn about the deal manager workspace, take a look at this article that I wrote in August of 2021.
In November 2021 administrators will be able to configure a workspace experience for leads, accounts and contacts. Users will be able to manage their leads, accounts and contacts in this workspace which is similar to the deal manager workspace.

Who Knows Whom improvements

The Who knows Whom feature is part of the Sales Insights add-on to Dynamics 365 Sales. If you’re not familiar with the Who knows Whom feature, take a look at this article. The updates for this are set for public preview in January 2022. While working in Dynamics 365 Sales, users will be able to use exchange data to find contacts that have not been captured in Dynamics 365 as of yet. Users will also be able to ask for an introductions to contacts and be notified of the initial contact.

Relationship Analytics

Another feature that will receive enhancements (also part of Sales Insights) are relationship analytics. This allows us to configure which activities should be part of the relationship analytics charts, and in case you’re wondering.. yes we can also add custom activities to this. Lastly admins will be able to set the default time taken for activities for accurate calculations of engagement KPI’s. This feature is set to be generally available in December 2021.

And there you have it! I hope you found this article helpful! Unfortunately I don’t have a video related to this article at this time because the majority of these features are not available for early access at this time. As these features roll out I will make sure to write in-depth articles and create accompanying videos! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!