Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release planner(preview)

Normally my articles are about features in Dynamics 365 or the power platform, but this time I made an exception because I wanted to tell you about the Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release planner that is currently in preview, or BETA as it shows on the website. I read about the release planner last week and honestly I haven’t seen a lot of articles, tweets or videos about this, which is why I felt this is something that I want to bring attention to. First of all, what is it? Well, most likely you are all very familiar with the release notes that come out twice a year. These features described in the release notes are not static, they keep changing as time passes and as Microsoft makes changes. Sometimes it’s hard to find what has changed since the last time you looked at the release notes, and what the actual change was. Often times features are removed from the release plan, either to never resurface again or to be pushed to a later release wave/date. The new Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release planner allows admins and makers to review the new features of a release wave in a new portal experience.

You can access the release planner by visiting https://experience.dynamics.com/releaseplans/. You’ll notice on the side a menu bar which shows two areas which can be collapsed and expanded; Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Below each area you’ll see all of the different apps/sections belonging to the area you selected. When you click on an item on the left side of the screen (this seems to work as a sitemap) the information on the right side of the screen changes, showing all of the different categories for the app/section you selected form the left side of the screen. These categories can also be collapsed or expanded. When a category is expanded you’ll see a short description of the features, including the date of the feature, with the availability of the feature below it. The date represents when the feature will become available and the availability of the feature shows if the feature is part of a public preview, an early access feature or generally available (GA). You’ll also notice that there is a down arrow icon on the far right side of each feature. You probably guessed it already, this button allows us to expand the details of the feature, showing some more feature details, while the right side of the details pane shows information on the timelines, who this feature will be available to, when the information was last updated and which App and release the feature is a part of. You’ll also notice a ‘Learn More’ button, which will show a pop-up window with more details when clicked.

The nice thing is that when an item is updated you’ll see the yellow ‘updated’ icon next to the feature. I think this is great, because when you view the release notes, there is no way of knowing which of the features has been updated. The yellow icon really stands out and allows us to quickly identify the updated items!

You probably also noticed the three categories on the top of the release planner (below the blue title banner) The three buckets show ‘Planned’, ‘Coming soon’ and ‘Try Now’, which allows us to quickly find features that will be available next month (Coming soon), and new features that have recently been released (Try now). I noticed that when clicking on ‘Try now’ not all of the features are released yet, but it will show features that were released in previous months and features that are and/or will be released in the current month.

The ‘Planned’ category shows all upcoming features included in the release plan. Clicking on these options allows you to filter out features very easily. On the right side of those categories you’ll notice a filter icon and another icon. Needless to say we can use the filter icon to filter features based on their status; new in the last 7 or 30 days, or changed in the last 7 or 30 days. On top of that we can also filter on who the features are for: admins, makers or users and lastly we can filter on availability; early access, public preview or GA. Sorting capabilities available are by availability dates (early access, public preview or GA) and either from new to old or vice versa.
When you click the icon on the right side of the filter the page will automatically group and sort the features by release date. To undo this, you can click the button again.

Another thing I noticed while viewing the details of features, is the ‘+ To my plan’ button in the feature details. This allows us to ‘bookmark’ certain features for our own organizational release plan. In order to start adding features to your plan you’ll need to log in to the Release Planner by clicking on ‘Log In’ on the top of the page, and logging in using the user credentials of your environment. You can access the ‘saved’ features by clicking on the ‘My release plan’ button on the left side of the screen above the Dynamics 365 area. This is also from where you can remove the feature from your release plan if needed.
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!