2024 Wave 1 Release Notes: Dynamics 365 Sales

Microsoft has done it again! They’ve unleashed a fresh wave of awesomeness with the 2024 wave 1 release notes that were published an hour and a half ago! I will be writing another series of articles about the 2024 wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service and more! You probably noticed that I am usually publishing on Tuesdays, but I couldn’t wait to give you the inside scoop today! In this first article I will discuss everything on the horizon for Dynamics 365 Sales, and some of the new Sales Copilot features! There are lots of updates on Sales Copilot which will make your sales teams even more productive! If you’ve seen the release notes, you’ll notice Microsoft has a section just for Microsoft Copilot for Sales which is a new product that will be available starting February 1st, 2024, so I am also dedicating an entire article on this, which I will publish as my next article! You’ll also notice that some features mentioned in the release notes were in (public) preview for the last few months. These features will be generally available as part of 2024 release wave 1. I’ll talk you through all of it, so grab your popcorn, sit back and keep on reading!

Sales Engagement

There are several features that are listed under this heading, and most of them have to do with the sales accelerator and its related components. There are a few features that are related to sequences in the sales accelerator: The ‘Plan and execute assigned tasks seamlessly with preview of Sequence steps’. feature will be part of early access in February. This feature allows sellers to view all the steps in one or multiple sequences that are related to a record (row). There is another feature which is called ‘Improve customer engagement with sequence preview’, which has been in preview since June of last year. This feature seems to have some overlap with the first feature I mentioned. According to the release notes sellers will be able to see all the details of the sequence that is related to the record (row), in a side pane (sequence panel) that opens on the right side of the sales record. They will be able to see things like the total number of steps in the sequence, the number of days spent, the activities in the steps, etc.

The ‘Guide sellers to work simultaneously using multiple sequences’ feature also shows as early access in February and this will allow sales managers to connect multiple sequences to a sales row in Dynamics 365 Sales. This is important, because there are lots of scenarios where different sellers are working on the same customer, at the same time. For example, one seller could be working to invite the prospect to an event and another seller is working on closing a deal. This functionality will allow sellers to connect the lead to two sequences, one for the event invitation and one for lead nurturing! On top of that, sellers will be able to see all the connected sequences, other sellers who are working on the lead and the interactions they have had with the prospect!

Sales Execution and Sales Force Automation

There are two features that are listed under this category, and both of them are also related to the Sales Accelerator in Dynamics 365 Sales. The first feature in this category is called ‘Notify sellers and sales managers after assignment rule execution’ and this has everything to do with the work assignment feature in the sales accelerator. If you’re not familiar with this existing feature, this functionality allows you to configure assignment rules for sales records in Dynamics 365 Sales. The added functionality here is that you will be able to configure notifications for each assignment rule that you have created. These notifications can be triggered when a record has successfully been assigned or when the assignment failed.
The ‘Assign leads/ opportunities to sellers based on their individual capacity’ is another feature that builds on top of the existing work assignment feature in the sales accelerator. This feature allows sales managers to set limits on how many sales records sellers are working on/are assigned to them. When reading the release notes, it says that different capacity profiles can be created, based on lead attributes which makes me believe this functionality might only be related to leads. However, the (very blurry) screenshot Microsoft provided shows the ability to set capacity for leads and opportunities, so we’ll have to wait to find out if this is just for leads, or opportunities as well.

Seller Experiences

Users will be able to ‘Experience the new look with refreshed styling’ as the new look will automatically be enabled in this release. The ‘new look’ has been in preview for a while now, and users are able to enable this preview by switching the ‘Try the new look’ toggle on the top bar to ‘on’. If you’re not a fan of the new look, don’t panic, as you will be able to disable the new look and go back to the classic look. The seller experiences category has a few updates on the focused view feature that was introduced not too long ago.
The ‘Analyze opportunities better by grouping them and aggregating their values’ feature mentions updates to the Opportunity Pipeline view in Dynamics 365 Sales. It talks about being able to group opportunities based on relevant fields like account name, opportunity owner and close date/month (or others) and the ability to aggregate numerical columns like the estimated value and/or actual revenue columns. This is also a feature that is currently flagged as an early access feature, so we’ll have to wait until February to see what this looks like.
The ‘Customize lead qualification process for a seamless experience‘ feature will give makers more options to configure the lead qualification process. They will be able to determine which fields will be pre-populated from the lead to the opportunity record, and configure if account, contact and/or opportunity records will be automatically created or created by the qualifying seller. Admins can also configure if one or more opportunities can be created from a qualified lead, and if copilot should create a lead summary of key lead information. This one is also part of the early release, so more details on this at a later date!

The ‘Work efficiently on Lead entity with the enhanced Focused mode as default view’ feature enhances the focused view in Dynamics 365 Sales with several updates. According to the documentation, focused view will be the default view for the lead table, and it will have its own command bar. Not sure what that will look like, but we will be able to try this out as part of early access in February. The release notes also mention the ability for sellers to select multiple records while in focused view, and the ability to use the command bar to update to multiple records. Makers will be able to select the tables for which focused view is available, and they will be able to set focused view as a default page for a table, even custom tables!

Copilot and AI Innovation

As I mentioned above, I noticed that some of the features that were in public preview last year will be generally available under 2024 release wave 1. The features that I am referring to are:

• ‘Elevate your sales pitch using Copilot email assistance’: This feature allows sellers to use Sales Copilot from the Sales Hub to compose draft emails in Dynamics 365 Sales. Sellers can also change the tone in the email and/or give Copilot suggestions to change the content of the email message.
• ‘Summarize lengthy emails using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales‘: This feature allows sellers to use Sales Copilot from the Sales Hub to summarize long email threads in Dynamics 365 Sales. The summary can then be copied and pasted somewhere else.

There are also a few exiting new features lined up for us. The first one I want to discuss is the ‘Get real-time insights with Copilot on the home page‘ feature! This feature was announced during Ignite last year and I was lucky enough to see Eric Boocock from Microsoft demonstrate it! This feature puts Copilot on on it’s own (full size) page in Dynamics 365. Sellers will be able to ask Copilot questions, get access to account summary’s, view pipeline visibility, access newly assigned records, view updates to sales records, prepare for sales appointments and review emails that need follow up, directly from this new full screen Copilot page in Dynamics 365.

The ‘Get a 360-degree view of your account with AI-generated account summary‘ feature allows makers to configure the tables and columns that are used for the summary generation. Besides an account summary, sellers will also be able to see related account data like opportunity, lead and/or case information.
Another feature that I am very excited about is ability for sellers to ‘Boost your sales with product content recommendations’. This will allow sellers to get documentation related to opportunity products from Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales. This will be another productivity booster, as sellers will spend less time trying to find the right sales documents. Makers will be able to configure data sources, for example SharePoint libraries!

This feature goes hand in hand with the ‘Use Copilot to get answers from your sales documents’ feature, which sounds like sellers will not only be able to get document suggestions, but they can also ask questions about the sales documents and/or get summarizations!
The ‘Maximize sales success with AI-suggested past successful deals’ is a feature that allows sellers to view opportunity suggestions from Copilot. These suggestions look at historical opportunity data and are based on several data points, like industry, product, account and geography. According to the release notes this feature will be in public preview starting March of 2024. I am not sure what to expect here, so we’ll have to wait to see. I hope you enjoyed this article! Be sure to check in again next week or subscribe here to never miss another post!