Dynamics 365: 2022 Release notes for wave 2 are here!

Earlier today Microsoft published the release notes for the 2022 Release wave 2! I always tell people to keep in mind that this is a living document, meaning that these updates are not set in stone. Microsoft is continuously updating the release notes by changing, adding and even removing functionality from the plan. This is also one of the reasons I will not post any preview or GA dates here. My suggestion is to bookmark the release notes page and to go back every now to check for changes. In this article I am going to discuss the features that stood out for me the most, and that I think will have a big impact. Keep in mind that at this time we don’t have access to any of these features yet, this is just a review of the document itself. Once I get early access I will write additional (more detailed) articles on how some of these things work, how to turn them on, what to look out for etc.

Conversation Intelligence

If you are familiar with conversation intelligence in Dynamics 365 then you are aware that this tool helps sellers surface suggestions and actions after a recorded call has ended. Artificial Intelligence scans the recorded call after it’s been uploaded and when you open the phone call record you can see the AI suggestions and actions on the screen. In this release Microsoft seems to take this a step further. According to the release notes conversation intelligence will surface suggestions like talking points on product and service details, competitive battle cards, pricing etc. in REAL TIME. This almost sounds like the sales people will have a coach on the phone with them, whispering information and tips in their ear as they are on the call! I have no idea what this will look like in real life, but I am excited to see this!

Sales accelerator and process automation

It seems that there will be a lot of updates coming to the sales accelerator! This includes a new sequence designer, which according to the release notes ‘brings a consistent automation experience across Dynamics 365 Marketing’s customer journey orchestration and Dynamics 365 Sales’ sequences’. This hints very loudly to a similar interface as Dynamics 365 Marketing’s customer journey designer…
Another feature that I felt was worth mentioning is the ability to loop the steps within a sequence. This sounds like certain steps in a sequence will be repeated if a certain criteria isn’t met. The documentation shows that you can either have the loop continue until the condition is met or allow this to happen for a certain amount of times. I think this will make sense when sales people are trying to contact a prospect and keep getting voicemail or if the prospect doesn’t respond or opens their emails.

Teams and Outlook Collaboration

We all know Microsoft has been investing heavily in the integration with their other products like Microsoft Teams and Outlook and it’s great to see that trend continues! Let’s start with the ability to track a linked Microsoft Teams chat as an activity! I think this is a great idea because the timeline is the place where we can see what is and has been happening with that record. This functionality will give sales reps more details on the most recent conversations with prospects and customers which will benefit the overall sales efforts of the organization. According to the release notes, this feature brings more functionality besides tracking the linked chat as an activity in the timeline, additional features are:

• See important activities in the chat on the associated record’s timeline
• Get notified when a conversation gets updated, a document gets shared, or when a conversation gets linked or unlinked
• Search the timeline for specific chat activity
• Go directly to the conversation of interest from the record’s timeline

This next feature is another one that I am very excited about! This feature will allow users to use @mention data from Dynamics 365 in emails and chats (very similar how you @mention individuals today in Microsoft Teams or other apps). It’s my understanding that when a user @mentions a Dynamics 365 record this way, the record will be inserted in the chat or email as a card. I am assuming this is similar on what we saw in the previous release wave, where we would paste the URL of a Dynamics 365 record in a Teams message, which then showed the Dynamics 365 record as a card inside the chat.
On top of that, Microsoft also introduces the ability for users to insert Dynamics 365 records as ‘loop components‘ (live and portable information cards) with inline actions into emails and Teams chats! This functionality is listed under the ‘Collaborate security on live business data in email, chat‘ in the release notes which you can find here.

This will allow participants to view, update and view changes made to the same LIVE Dynamics 365 data across email and chat. The way I understand this is that if someone sent a Dynamics 365 record in email and/or in chat, all chat participants and email recipients can view (update?) the Dynamics 365 record at any time, but will also be able to see the updates as they are done in real time, all from within the email and/or chat! One of the important things here is that the loop component is allowing users to access and visualize the data from Dynamics 365, which means that if the data changes, it will also change in the loop component shown in the chat or email, even if the change occurred after the email has been sent! Pretty amazing stuff! These new features really take the platform integration to a whole new level!

NOTE: Microsoft introduced Loops a while ago during Ignite 2021, I would recommend watching the overview of this powerful tool here to get a better understanding of the concept.

Dynamics 365 workspaces for Microsoft Teams

With this feature users will be able to create collaborative workspaces for Dynamics 365 records which should make collaboration with team mates a lot easier. According to the documentation this work space will bring together tools, contextual information and all relevant team members. I was not completely clear as what this ‘workspace’ was, but after reading a little further, it seems like the workspace is a Microsoft team with the relevant Dynamics 365 record pinned as a channel tab.
As part of these workspaces Microsoft is also rolling out Dynamics 365 templates for Microsoft Teams, which will be used to create these Dynamics 365 workspaces. The templates will make the setup of workspaces easier, quicker and more consistent. Workspaces (or teams) created using a template will have a standard channel structure and starter folders for document management. The Dynamics 365 app for teams is also installed. One of the things I really like is that the system can automatically create these workspaces (teams) based on a trigger. So for example when a new account is created in Dynamics 365. One more thing I want to add is that these workspaces or teams will have an intelligent account or deal room dashboard, which seems to me like a page on the workspace (team) that shows on a high level what is happening. The release notes also state that this dashboard will show intelligent recommendation on next best actions based on the account/opportunity updates. Not sure what that means, but it does sound amazing!

Quick setup for Dynamics 365 Customer Service

We’re already seen quick setup in different areas in Dynamics 365, like in Dynamics 365 Field Service and the Digital Sales section in Dynamics 365 Sales, but in this release this is also coming to Dynamics 365 Customer Service! According to the release notes there will be several ‘Get Started’ wizards available to get your Dynamics 365 Customer Service instance up and running in no time!

Agent experience enhancements

Besides the quick setup there are also a bunch of enhancements planned for agent experiences, like the enhanced layout for the Customer Service Workspace app as mentioned here. It seems these are mostly usability enhancements like an improved sitemap and better handling of overflowing tabs and sessions in the Customer Service Workspace App. There will also be enhancements to the timeline control, allowing makers to configure multiple timelines on a form! That could be interesting!

Swarming updates in Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Lastly, I wanted to mention some updates that are coming to swarming. As you may or may not know the swarming feature has been in preview for a while now, I wrote an article on the functionality that you can read here in case you haven’t yet. According to the release notes there will be a richer experience for agents who use swarming, and also a more streamlined experience for administrators that will allows for a quicker setup of swarming capabilities. Not sure if this will a bit of an overhaul or not, but the public preview for this is set for later this year!

Dynamics 365 Field Service

I didn’t see a lot of updates for Dynamics 365 Field Service, but there was one feature that I am curious about, which is the ‘Not-to-exceed’ functionality that was mentioned here. Not-to-exceed limits are limits that organizations have agreed upon with their customers and I’ve built a custom solution to capture this data and act on it (start an approval process) so I am curious on what this will look like. It looks like warnings can be configured when the not-to-exceed limit is nearing or has already been hit, prompting the user to take action. I hope there will be some additional functionality here, but we will have to wait until this comes to public preview! I hope you found this article informative! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!