In our first entry of this blog series about the latest news of Microsoft Dynamics 365, you learned all the facts about the update and release policy of Microsoft Dynamics 365. So now you know that Microsoft provides new functions twice a year – in spring and in autumn – via larger release waves and in addition, monthly service updates (on request) are automatically imported via the One-Version Environment.

April marks the official start of the first wave of releases 2020

Watch the recording of the “Virtual Launch Event” on April 02, 2020 and get a first insight into some of the new features of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Applications. Learn about the new capabilities of Power Platform, Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, Supply Chain Management, and Commerce and how customers today are already using them to their advantage.

More than 400 new features

Microsoft has announced over 400 new features in the first wave of releases in 2020. Please note that not all new features are available immediately. Since this is a “release wave”, the features will be introduced gradually between April 2020 and September 2020. So do not panic! There is still enough time to take a closer look at the announced functions.

For a detailed list of all new features and when they will be available as a preview or for everyone, you can still get an overview here and get detailed information about the individual functions.

Highlights of the 1st release wave – Take a closer look

The plan for the first wave of releases is long. In the following, we have therefore picked out some highlights of the first release wave. Here you should definitely take a look at the details and preview functions:

Customer Engagement:

Dynamics 365 Marketing:

• Intelligent time management: high probability of reading e-mails by sending them at exactly the right time
• Improved e-mail content designer

Dynamics 365 Sales:

• License enforcement – users with new Team Member licenses
• Dynamics 365 Insights: Improvement of the Dynamics 365 Assistant
• Dynamics 365 Product Visualize: Offline mode

Dynamics 365 Customer Service:

• Omnichannel for Customer Service: communicate directly with your customers via digital message channels
• Dynamics 365 Customer Service Insights: Focused insights highlight relevant information
• Dynamics 365 Field Service: Integration into Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
• Dynamics 365 Remote Assist: Capture the state of assets through geographic markup

Finance and Operations:

• Dynamics 365 Finance: Powerful AI capabilities included in Finance Insights that accurately and intelligently predict your company’s cash flow
• Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management: Integration of assets into the asset management life cycle
• Dynamics 365 Project Operations: New application that connects your sales, procurement, project management and finance teams in a single application
  • Preview function available from June 2020
• Dynamics 365 Guides: Gain access to Dynamics 365 Guides content via Common Data Service entities to connect you to your digital enterprise ecosystems

Human Resources:

• Continuous availability of human resources data in Common Data Service

Commerce:

• Globalization for Germany, France and Norway
• Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection: Integration in Commerce to protect against payment fraud in e-commerce
• Dynamics 365 Connected Store; Installation and Deployment Guide: Understand how your customers move around the store and where and when they deal with specific areas
• Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Improvement in the standardization of data
• Dynamics 365 Product Insights: Analyze your customers’ usage, experiences and contact history across all product channels
• Solution templates for the management of customer feedback
• Power BI: Datasets larger than 10 GB in Power BI Premium
• Power Apps: Canvas- and model-driven apps can be run on a single mobile application
• Power Automate: Unattended automation in UI flows
• Power Virtual Agents: Create Power Virtual Agents directly from Power Apps
• AI Builder: Power Automate – Integration
• Power Platform Governance and Management: Enhanced Unified Power Platform Admin Center
• Common Data Model and Data Integration: New Standard Identity Definitions for Common Data Model