Microsoft has recently announced its plans for its upcoming Wave 1 2020 release for April which provides greater details in terms of the new and improved features coming to Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. This latest update will cover the period between April 2020 and September 2020.
In our latest blog article, we will take you through what we believe are the best, new and improved features/changes for Dynamics 365 for Sales, Dynamics 365 for Marketing & Dynamics 365 for Customer Service. If you want to review the full Microsoft document with all of these updates included & more you can so here.
New & Improved Features for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales
As Microsoft alluded to in its Wave 2 update last October, it is looking to completely revolutionise the user experience, develop better workflows & improve the overall mobile experience. You will find that in Dynamics 365 for Sales that the updates will be geared towards developing extraordinary experiences, improving day to day productivity, boosting sales as well as developing a better mobile user experience.
The capability to tweak forecasts
Microsoft has developed an understanding that not all forecasting is the same for each business when there are different variables involved such as the types of industry, the types of product & location. This is why Microsoft has developed the following new features which have taken into account these variables & will make it easier to adapt your forecasting by allowing you to:
- Build custom forecast calculations adapted to the needs of your organisation.
- Build forecasts which take into account your product, your location & your reporting hierarchy.
- Allow quotas to be visible in the forecast grid.
- The capability through an Excel template to upload quotas for full forecast time periods.
- The capability to filter out criteria built opportunities through the brand new query builder.
- Improve your security by setting permissions to determine who can access forecast models & fields.
Understand forecasts with accurate pipeline management
In the vast majority of businesses you will find that more often than not there will be variances between what an organisation forecasts and its actual opportunities. This is where Dynamics 365 can help as it understands that it is of the utmost importance that sales users understand where forecast values are generated from in order to improve the accuracy of the figures. As part of the latest updates, there are new forecasting capabilities whereby sellers can easily edit deal information in the workflow in real time. Some of these new features also include the following:
- Allowing a visual representation of the whole forecast hierarchy and quota attainment in each cell, directly from the grid.
- Viewing and editing underlying opportunities for any calculated metric to instantly modify the forecast.
- Easily managing and updating the full forecast with the drag-and-drop feature to move. opportunities across different stages, to instantly update forecast data.
- Enjoying automatic recalculation of forecast values to ensure data is always as fresh as possible.
Improved experience for adding new products
Dynamics 365 for Sales stores plenty of customer information that is streamlined into pipeline management & overall sales tracking. To make sure that these are accurately managed, opportunities must look to be tailored for each customer. Therefore, Microsoft has released the following new feature to allow users to:
- Easily search for products directly
- Add more than one product at a time
- Review product details & compare products to make a more informed decision
Streamline activity management
With a number of team members working on both leads & opportunities together it is important that adding new tasks, allocating them and finishing them is a straightforward process. In the latest update, Microsoft has added some new capabilities for Dynamics 365 for Sales that can help streamline activity management which will allow users to:
- Find activities quickly: View activities listed in a newly improved grid. Benefit from a newer interface for managing and filtering activities to help quickly find the right activity to work on.
- Benefit from Calendar view: See all activities in a visualized calendar view to easily get a clear understanding of daily to-dos.
- Easily update activities intuitively: Use the drag-and-drop pipeline management with a Kanban board to drag & drop activities and instantly update the status.
- Make navigating activities straight forward: Simplified process to create new activity, edit existing activity, complete or delete an activity without having to navigate away from the main page.
New & Improved Features for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing
For Microsoft’s latest update for Dynamics 365 for Marketing, it will be focusing on personalisation, integration, adaptability & scalability.
Enhanced Segmentation Design and Management
The game changing segment designer for Dynamics 365 for Marketing will allow users to identify dynamic segments much quicker than before and with just a tiny bit of intuition. These new features will be released across the board for both dynamic and static segments.
Adding the test-send email messages functionality
Dynamics 365 for Marketing simplifies the process for marketers to easily draft great looking emails that include personalised content. This is great, however it can be problematic if it is not tested thoroughly as the message may appear different for different clients depending on the email software that they use, so being able to preview and test messages before sending is crucial. In the latest release, Microsoft have allowed users to easily test messages that include dynamic content on a sample contact record in addition to being able to check errors.
New Event Management Functionality
The current event management capabilities within Dynamics 365 for Marketing are going to be further improved as a result of this latest update. You will find that the speed and concurrency of the events registration process will benefit the greatest. Before to allow you to edit the event portal needed you to have a basic understanding of back-end coding, however this is gone now as event managers can make use of marketing forms with the use of a drag and drop interface to have a greater control of the event registration process and the forms included as part of the event.
New & Improved Features for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service
The focus of Microsoft’s update for Dynamics 365 for Customer Service consists of improving the agent productivity, omnichannel & connected customer service.
Making processes more proactive
Microsoft is continuing to make improvements to the automated processes across all of its products through the building of proactive workflows that will improve the overall customer experience. Following the latest release in April you will find that the Connect Customer Service will be leveraged which will allow organisations to search for issues through Internet of Things and easily identify and resolve those issues which will help to improve customer loyalty as well as bring down the costs associated with providing support.
Improvements for agent productivity & knowledge capabilities
Being able to find & share knowledge articles is crucial in being able to resolve customer issues in a quicker time. When this update has been released, you will see that the improvements will be coming in how agents both access and make use of knowledge articles which will allow them to:
- Easily look at knowledge articles in a different screen.
- Make use of an improved layout of knowledge search results to make it easier to scan, read & action.
Use rich text notes as well as keyword search in the timeline
The use of the timeline control capability helps to improve the customer experience as you can easily view the history associated with individual customers across cases, accounts as well as contacts. This provides more of a background on customers and allows you to tailor your approach to deal with their specific issue based on their history. Further improvements that Microsoft have made in this update include:
- Allowing you to filter a keyword search to easily identify matching records.
- Gain a birdseye view of both closed/completed activities.
- Allowing you to write rich text notes that give more details on a case.
Next Steps?
If you are looking to transform the way that you work by implementing a tailored Dynamics 365 solution, looking to upgrade your existing Dynamics 365 solution to the latest version or wanting to move your Dynamics 365 support to Advantage or want to receive additional tailored Dynamics 365 training then contact the experts here at Advantage to discuss your specific requirements.
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