New Dynamics 365 Sales mobile experience (Preview)

I am very exited to be able to write another article on a very promising new preview feature! Microsoft is working on a new Mobile app for Dynamics 365 Sales which is now in preview. This app will not only show Dynamics 365 data but will allow users to view data that resides in other applications like exchange/outlook as well! Think about scheduled meetings that are stored in exchange/outlook but are not tracked in Dynamics 365. Meeting responses, showing if invitees accepted or declined the meeting request. But that is not all! You probably remember the assistant cards that the system generates? Well those will also be available though the new mobile app! Interested? Keep reading!

Turn on preview and download app

The first thing that you need to do (if you are interested in previewing this app on your own) is enable this preview in Dynamics 365. This is done in the ‘old’ settings area in Dynamics 365. From within a model driven app (Sales Hub) click on the gear icon (top right) and select ‘Advanced Settings’. From here navigate to ‘Administration’ and click on ‘System settings’. CLick on the ‘Mobile Client’ tab and set the radio button under ‘Dynamics 365 Sales mobile app preview’ to ‘yes’.

Once this is one, you’ll need to get the app on your mobile device. The app is available for iOs and Android. Keep in mind you can’t just download the app from the store, as this is a preview feature. (For example in order to access the app for folks who have an apple device they’ll need to use the TestFlight app.)
If you have an Android device, see the instructions to get access to the new Sales App here.
If you have an iOS device, see the instructions to get access to the new Sales App here.

Signing in

When you launch the new Sales App and sign into the app, you’ll notice that you’ll see a list of available Dynamics 365 model driven apps. You can select any of the apps here but I am going to select the Sales Hub. If you picked the wrong app by mistake you can click on your profile picture on the top left to go back to the app chooser screen and select a different one.

Home Screen

On the home screen you’ll notice that there are a lot of records that you can view and access from this screen. What I like about this is that all the important information is listed right on this page, no need to navigate anywhere else. The meetings area on the home page only shows information on the last and next meeting on your outlook/exchange calendar. Any contact records that you have recently opened are below that, and other records that you recently accessed will show below contacts. I like the fact that regardless of how a record was accessed (through the browser or mobile app) the system knows it’s a recently accessed record. The assistant cards are below the recently accessed records. The reminder cards are shown first, followed by insights cards. You’ll also see a command bar or ribbon on the bottom.

Search

The search icon allows users to do exactly that, a search for records. The search function in the app is using the relevance search capabilities of Dynamics 365 which means that in order to use/test this app, you’ll need to have this enabled in your environment. When you type in text to search and hit enter, you’ll notice the results are displayed per entity. You will see the total records that the search returned for each entity and you can open any of the records from here. On the top right you’ll notice a filter icon which when clicked allows you to do some additional filtering. The thing that stands out to me is that when you open a record from the home screen or from search, the app is not showing the data in the main forms. Instead, the quick view is used. I assume once this app is GA, we will be able to configure which quick view forms we want the app to use for each table.

Meetings

As mentioned above, the meetings area on the home page only shows information on the last and next meeting, but when you click on the ‘meetings’ button on the command bar you’ll see a list of all meetings. You would think these are meetings that are tracked and synchronized over to Dynamics 365, but this is not the case! Any meeting that you have on your exchange calendar that was sent to at least one person outside of your own company will show up in the app. (So if you have a reminder on your calendar with no recipients, this will not show up as a meeting in the app)
Being able to see this exchange data inside this app is huge! This way people won’t have to switch back and forth between their outlook calendars and the Sales App. I also like the way the meetings area shows as a calendar. Unfortunately there is only a day view but then again, I guess if we want to see a week view or monthly view this is where we would be able to use outlook for.

Another thing that is worth mentioning is when you click on a meeting to open it, you’ll see all of the meeting details here. (This data is obviously coming from exchange.) Keep in mind the meeting details are view on, you can’t update any of the details in the sales app. Details shown are: The meeting name (subject), the location of the meeting, start and end date/times, and the description (you can click on the description to expand and read all the text in this field. You’ll also see a list of attendees here. These are the folks that have been invited to this meeting. The maximum number of attendees the app will show in the meeting screen is 5. If you want to view all attendees, there will be a link that allows you do so. If any of the meeting attendees are not a contact record in Dynamics 365, you can create a new contact record for them directly from here by clicking on the attendee from within the meeting and clicking on ‘Create Contact. You’ll also be able to see attendee invitation responses here. When you click on an attendee you’ll be able to see additional details if they exist. If a meeting is not tracked in Dynamics 365, you have the option to track it here by clicking on the blue ‘set regarding’ hyperlink. This will bring up a list of recent records but if the record you’re looking for is not in the list you can click the ‘search’ hyperlink from this view. Please note you can’t undo tracking a meeting from here, but you can set the regarding field to a different Dynamics 365 record.
If a meeting is tracked in Dynamics 365, you’ll be able to view and update related Dynamics 365 information in the app or open the Dynamics 365 form for that record. This includes attendees (Dynamics 365 contacts) but also the record the regarding is tracked against. The information that is available will depend on the type of record the meeting is tracked against.
NOTE: When you access Dynamics 365 records through the home screen or a meeting this data will load in the the quick view form of that table. In order to set which quick view form the system should load, you can change the form order of these forms in the customization settings.
If there are any notes related to the record the meeting was tracked against, they will be visible here as well. I noticed that only the most recent note will show in the meeting, but if you click on the arrow next to notes you’ll see a list of all related notes. Assistant cards related to the regarding record will also be visible here.

Create Record (+)

I haven’t mentioned the big + in the middle of the command bar yet! I was secretly hoping this would allows us to create a new appointment, but alas this is not the case (yet?). When users click the button they have the ability to create a new note or a contact record in Dynamics 365. If needed users can attach a picture or a file to a note from the app as well.

⋮ More

When you click on the ‘⋮ More’ button on the command bar you’ll see the sitemap for the Dynamics 365 app you logged into. From here you can access the Dynamics 365 application. This is what is currently available in the existing mobile apps for Dynamics 365 so you’ll notice this new mobile app has a lot of additional functionality added!

What I found..

I noticed is that when an image is added to a note using the web client, doesn’t render in the mobile app it just shows an outline where the image should have been in the note. (I reported this and the team is looking into fixing this.) Vice versa, when an image is added from the mobile app, it will force users to download the image if they want to view it from the web client. This is because the image is added as an attachment and therefor behaves as one in the web client.

I also found that if a meeting has a url in the description field the hyperlink is disabled in the app. This means that if folks have virtual meeting information in the description (I.E Teams, Webex, Zoom etc.) with a link to attend, people won’t be able to join any of these meetings from the app. I also provide this feedback to Microsoft and I was informed that this is also something that is in their backlog of things to add.

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