Today is a very exciting day, because Microsoft just published the release notes for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform! I had a chance to look them over and I am working on another series on the new features and updates that are part of this release. I will start the first part of this series with Dynamics 365 Sales. Keep in mind that at the time this article was written, I didn’t have early access to these features yet, which means that I was unable to test most of these features or play around with them. It’s very likely that I will write more detailed articles in the future on the features in this release.

Associate activities with multiple related records

I think this is a HUGE feature that a lot of folks have been asking about over the years! How many times did you want to associate emails, appointments, tasks, and/or calls to multiple rows in Dynamics 365? I know I have had multiple situations where I wish that this would’ve been possible! Well, on this release this is going to be possible! I am not sure at this time if this includes custom activities as well, and if we can associate them with rows in custom tables, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

Sales Accelerator is now called Sales Engagement

One of the things that stands out when reading the 2023 release notes for Dynamics 365 Sales is that the sales accelerator will be renamed to Sales Engagement. There are actually a lot of new capabilities and improvements planned for this release wave, like a bot used for initial customer outreach, improvements through enhanced work list items, personalization, and so much more!

Navigate to new records faster with sales accelerator form load updates

On of these improvements is the form loading time in Sales Engagement. (formerly known as the sales accelerator) According to the release notes the loading time of forms will be reduced by 40% with this update and Microsoft will enhance the overall navigation experience as well. My guess is that they are talking about the forms that load when a seller clicks on an item in the worklist of Sales Engagement. Not sure what the navigation enhancements entail, so we’ll just have to wait and see!

Streamline repeated follow ups with prospect and customers

This feature is related to sequences in Sales Engagement. According to the documentation we will be able to create repeated steps in a sequence and configure criteria for when a record should exit the sequence. On top of that, we will also be able to create child branches depending on what the exit criteria was. Microsoft gives the following example in their documentation: For example, follow up with a prospect on a proposal every three days until the closure. You can create a child branch, perform additional tasks in the child branch, and merge it back into the main branch.

Guide sellers to work simultaneously using multiple sequences

This one allows us to assign multiple sequences to one record (row) in Dynamics 365 (I.E account, contact, lead, opportunity, etc.) If needed we will also be able to assign the related sequence to a different seller, so sellers can work on the record (row) together. I think this will be a powerful feature, since a lot of organizations have multiple people working on a deal or an account. Sellers will be able to see which team members are working on a sequence on the same record (row), and view the details of that sequence.

Copilot for Dynamics 365 Sales

Accelerate sales with AI-generated proposals

Looks like there are going to be a lot new features in Copilot for Dynamics 365 Sales! The first thing on the list is the ability to get an AI generated proposal! I am not sure what this means exactly, but according to the release notes this proposal can be exported to a PPT format and shared with others.

Know your account better with AI-generated account summary

Now this is a great new feature in Copilot! If you’ve seen my previous article on Copilot for Dynamics 365 Sales, you saw that we can ask Copilot for opportunity summaries. This features stacks on top of that, as it will allow sellers to get an summary or overview of the account, showing summaries of related opportunities and cases, and get the latest news on an account.

Elevate your customer engagements with AI-recommended content

This feature will give sellers recommendations during customer collaborations, not sure it that means these recommendations will show up during a meeting or a call, or maybe even both! According to the documentation AI will surface the right content based on context, summarizing and customizing it for easy consumption. I have a hard time wrapping my head around what exactly this means, but I guess we’ll have to wait until this goes into preview, which is currently slated for January 2024.

Stay on top of your deals with AI-generated opportunity (and lead) summaries

This is are also a feature that is in preview today as part of Copilot for Dynamics 365 Sales. This feature allows sellers to get an AI generated summary of an opportunity based on several data sources. If you haven’t read my previous article and/or video on this, please take a few minutes to do so now to understand how it works. The lead summaries are not part of the preview today, but might come later.

Follow up on emails using recommended actions

This feature will give sellers recommended tasks based on an incoming email message in Dynamics 365 Sales. These recommended tasks will show up in the Up-Next widget on a form. For for example if an email comes into Dynamics 365 where the customer asks for a revision to a quote, Copilot will create a follow up task for the revision. The seller will see the recommended action in the Up-Next widget in Dynamics 365 Sales. I assume this means it will also be accessible in the Sales Accelerator pane.

Gear up for your meetings using AI-generated preparation notes

This feature is in preview today as well. When this feature hits GA there will be some added functionality added. Currently in the Copilot for Dynamics 365 Sales (preview) you can get opportunity summaries. This data is collected from notes and emails related to the opportunity. This functionality will be expanded upon as sellers will be able to get summaries for the last interaction with contacts, including notes, emails and meeting summaries. They will also be able to get a summary of documents!

Stay updated with contextual news within Copilot chat

Microsoft is integrating Bing’s contextual news into Dynamics 365. This will allow users to access real-time news and relevant content related to the account they are working with. I am pretty sure is this feature is part of Copilot for Dynamics 365 Sales. Copilot for Dynamics 365 Sales is currently out in public preview, and this feature is available in Copilot. I wrote an article and recorded a video on Copilot for Dynamics 365 Sales which you can access here if you are interested in learning more.  

Sales execution and sales force automation

Empower sellers to proactively pick next prioritized record based on business rule.

With this feature, sellers can request to have the system assign a number of leads and/or opportunities to them. The system will allocate these top priority leads and opportunities as defined in a business rule. This sounds like we will configure rules that will determine which leads/opportunities are top priority. I have no idea how this would work, and it looks like we’ll have to wait until late 2023 to see this in action.

Improve success rate of assignment rules with harmonized pipeline monitoring

Harmonized pipeline monitoring will help sales managers understand why a lead or opportunity hasn’t been assigned to a seller. This functionality will show the lead/opportunity’s journey through automation and reasons for assignment.  Sales Managers will be able to view rows that were successfully assigned, rows that were unsuccessfully assigned, the reason why the row wasn’t assigned, etc. Sales Managers can use this tool to improve assignment rules and process the unassigned rows manually.

Assignment Rules – Notify sellers and sales managers after rule execution

This feature will allow sellers to see a notification when a lead or opportunity assigned failed or was successful. This sounds to go hand in hand with the automatic lead/opportunity assignment in Dynamics 365 Sales. According to the release notes there will be a global setting to enable these notifications, including a rule that will allow to send email notifications and/or ‘regular’ notifications. I assume ‘regular’ notifications mean in-app notifications, but I’m just guessing here.

VIVA SALES aka Sales Copilot

Support for Lead table

The first thing I want to mention is that Viva Sales has been renamed to Sales Copilot this month. That doesn’t mean that Viva Sales is going away, it just means that this will be a part of the overall Sales Copilot that Microsoft is/will be offering. You can think of Sales Copilot (formally known as Viva Sales) as the Copilot that will be used in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook.
Not a lot of new things in Sales Copilot (formally known as Viva Sales) in this release wave, but this is a pretty exciting new feature, for which we’ve been waiting for a while. Prior to this feature, viva sales only supported the account, contact and opportunity tables. With this update, the leads table will also be supported going forward. This means that sellers will be able to match email messages to leads as well, just like they can with contacts today. On top of that, sellers will be able to schedule meetings with leads, create new leads from emails, etc. Sellers with the right access levels will also be able to configure the leads table when it comes to showing lead information in Sales Copilot (formally known as Viva Sales), and deciding if sellers can view only and/or update lead data from Sales Copilot (formally known as Viva Sales). If an organization doesn’t use leads, they have the ability to disable the lead table in Sales Copilot (formally known as Viva Sales).
I hope you enjoyed reading this article! Be sure to check in again next week to read all about the 2023 Release Wave features for Dynamics 365 Customer Service or subscribe here to never miss another post!