Dynamics 365 – 2020 Release Wave 2 | Part 2

In July 2020 the release notes for wave 2 came out for Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform and on August 3rd we were able to enable these features for early access. If you want to see the list of early access features you can access them here.
In the next few weeks I am going to write a few articles where I’ll do an overview of the updates and new features included in early access. In last week’s article I discussed generic enhancements and the updates and new features for Dynamics 365 Sales which you can read here.
In this article I’ll discuss the Dynamics 365 Customer Service new features and updates. There are so many things to discuss in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, so I”ll break this article up in 2 parts.

The topics I’ll discuss in this part are:

• Email Enhancements
• Email Templates
• Email Signatures
• Insert KB article into Email (Preview)
• ARC & SLA Migration Tool
• Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules
• KB Management

Email Enhancements

There are a few very subtle enhancements to the email activity in Dynamics 365. When trying to add an attachment to an email there is one less click. Previously when the ‘Attach File’ button is clicked, the ‘Manage Attachment’ window would pop up and users would need to click the ‘Choose File’ button to get to the file explorer, upload the file and then click the close button on the ‘Manage Attachment’ window. Clicking ‘Attach File’ in this release will bypass the ‘Manage Attachment’ window all together. Users also have the ability to attach multiple files at once. When an from the email attachment is clicked it will open in a preview window which is also a very nice enhancement.

Email Templates & Email Signatures

Users can now create email templates and email signatures from within the Customer Service Hub. When logged into the Customer Service Hub, users will find the ‘Templates’ area on the bottom of the sitemap. Both email templates and email signatures are available here. Both items used to only be accessible in the legacy app by navigating to Settings > Email Templates but now we can also access these entities through the unified interface. I did notice that ‘Entitlement Templates’, which used to be accessible under this section have been removed.

Email Templates

When a new email template is created from within the customer service hub you’ll notice that there were some updates made. The template type field has been renamed to category and the global template type has been renamed to ‘User’. The functionality stays the same. NOTE: If you view your templates in the legacy experience it will show as Global and in the modern UCI experience it will show as User.) All of the other previous options are still there (Account, Case, Contact, Contract*, Invoice, Lead, Opportunity, Order, Quote, Service Activity, System Job) and an additional entity has been added: Campaign Activity. The experience when editing or creating a new email template has been enriched too. When you open the email form you’ll notice that you’ll have access to the same rich formatting toolbar that is available in the enhanced email window. Inserting dynamic text from the related record is also very easy from this screen. You’ll need to place your cursor in the body of the Template editor section and then click the ‘Insert Dynamic Text’ button which is located on the command bar. This brings up a window from where you can pick the entity/record type the email template was configured for, or an entity related to that main entity. Once the record type is selected the user can then select the field they want to use from that record. The field names which are being displayed are the field labels, not the field system names. Users with the right security roles have the ability to update the existing email templates and they can create new ones. A new email template can also be created from the email compose window by clicking the down arrow next to the ‘insert template’ button.

*I assume contracts will disappear from this list at some point since they have been deprecated a while ago.

Email Signatures

The email signatures experience is also a lot more pleasant now that these have also moved to the unified interface. Users who have the correct security privileges will be able to update existing signatures and create new ones. One of the big differences here is again the rich formatting options (same experience as email templates) but also the ability to add images, which was not possible prior to this release. I actally didn’t even have to upload the images one by one, I was able to copy my signature from an email and paste it into the email signature in Dynamics 365. Supereasy!

Insert Knowledge Base Article into an email

Another great new feature (under preview) is the ability to insert a knowledge base article into an email without the need to copy and paste it. We were able to do this prior from the case record but now there is a new button on the email command bar that allows us to insert it outside of the context of a case. When you click on the ‘Insert Knowledge Article’ button on the email command bar, a screen pops open where you can search for relevant KB articles. Once the proper KB article is found, users can pop it into the email by clicking the ‘Insert Article Content’ button.

ARC & SLA Migration Tool

You might remember that in 2020 Release Wave 1 SLA’s and ARC (automatic record creation) records were moved to the unified interface. I actually wrote an in-depth article about SLA’s and how different they are configured in the Unified Interface, which can be accessed here. SLA’s are not the only records for which configuration has changed in the unified interface, this also happened for ARC records. I had previously setup automatic case creation by using a mailbox and ARC in the legacy interface, but when I tried to set this up in the Unified Interface but I was unsuccessful as I was running into some issues with Power Automate. In this release Microsoft added a tool to automatically migrate your ARC and SLA’s over from the legacy interface to the unified interface. You can access the tool by navigating to the ‘Service Management’ area in the Customer Service Hub and selecting ARC & SLA Migration under the ‘Data Management’ section. You don’t have to migrate all your rules and SLA’s over, you can actually pick and choose the ones you want to migrate over to the new experience. Make sure you read the documentation first before running the process.

Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules

There are not a lot of changes here, but when you navigate to Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules under the Case Settings section you’ll notice there is a new button on the command bar called ‘View Activity Monitor’. When clicking this button the user will be taken to a view which shows the health of the ARC rules and allows us to monitor them. When a rule runs successfully or fails it will show here.

Knowledge Base Management

When you navigate to the Service Management area you’ll notice ‘Embedded Knowledge Search’ has been renamed to ‘Settings’. This will still take you to the same place.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Be sure to check in again next week for part 2 of 2020 release wave 2 updates for Dynamics 365 Customer Service or subscribe here to never miss another post!