2020 release plan wave 2 for Dynamics 365

Microsoft recently announced the 2020 release plan wave 2 for Dynamics 365. It provides hundred of new features across the range of Dynamics 365 applications. These will be deployed between October 2020 and March 2021.

This article will introduce some of these new features!

Dynamics 365 Marketing:

Use natural language to create targeted segments 

• Use natural language sentences to build or view segments in Dynamics 365 Marketing. Use simple words to specify the attributes and logic for the segment you want to target so you can reach the exact audience you are looking for.

Create and manage content-rich social media posts and easily monitor performance 

• Redesigned post creation experience, making it more engaging for marketers to build and post rich content. 
• Conveniently view all related social interactions and performance. 
• Redesigned scheduling experience, helping you create consistent streams of content across multiple social channels. 

Dynamics 365 Sales:

Simplified duplicate detection and merge capabilities:

• Help determine why a record is being flagged as a duplicate
• Merge records without navigating away with a fully Unified Interface experience
• Easily view and identify matched account and contact records when qualifying a lead, with an improved cross-entity duplicate detection dialog box.

Enhanced email experience:

• View, update and reply to emails from the timeline section
• Inline file attachment experience with the ability to manage multiple files, quick preview for files, ability to select and manage multiple attached files. 

Enhanced PDF capabilities:

• Save and share standardised PDF files for custom entities based on standardised Word templates
• PDF generation with simplified navigation, easy document template selection, PDF preview, and an intuitive PDF export and email options with minimal clicks. 

Dynamics 365 Customer Service/Customer Service Insights:

Customer Service workspace – new multisession app:

Handle customer cases efficiently with the help of the following features: 

• Management of multiple cases simultaneously. 
• Management of email and other case-related activities without losing context of the parent case. 
• Productivity pane for AI-based suggestions for knowledge articles, similar cases, and other productivity tools. 

Embedded analytics for customer service managers:

• Expansion of the number of analytics reports that are available out of the box, providing insight into key business metrics for the customer support organisation. 
• Customer Service analytics and insights will be embedded within Dynamics 365 Customer Service applications to provide rich insights to users in a familiar context. 

Knowledge search historical analytics:

• Knowledge search historical analytics highlights what agents are searching the knowledge base for most, to inform organisations of what articles might be needed to help customers. It features: Search Term Volume, Search Term Average Click Position, Search Term Engagement Rate, Top Search Terms by Volume and other KPIs, Searches that return no results, Searches with low engagement rate 

Real-time language translation of messages:

• Customers expect to receive support in their native language. Therefore, businesses need to deliver worldwide support in multiple languages. This feature allows for real-time translation of messages between the customer and support agent and messages among the support agents. It is enabled as a plug-in that exposes APIs to bring in third-party translation services and also provides a native implementation through Azure Cognitive Services. 

Dynamics 365 Field Service:

Predictive work duration:

• Predict the duration for a given booking or requirement, based on various factors like resource performance, incident type, customer location, territorial differences, and seasonal changes. Powered by AI models, this feature learns from the historical booking completion times to compute a realistic duration. 

Predictive technician travel time:

• The resource scheduling system takes in the historical travel data (using Bing Maps as the provider) and predicts travel time between bookings. The predicted travel times can then be used by dispatchers to more accurately schedule technicians and have overall more accurate scheduling and service delivery. 

Power Apps:

Enable Power BI report or dashboard to be a model-driven app system dashboard:

• Define a system dashboard referencing a Power BI report or dashboard. There is now a new type of dashboard that prompts for the workspace and either a report or dashboard. The workspace and report/dashboard can either be stored statically, which works for a single environment or using an environment variable, which allows configuration per environment. 

Offline capabilities for model-driven apps:

• The Power Apps mobile app provides an offline mode that lets you to work with your data even when you don't have internet access. Once you're back online, changes you've made are synchronized with your apps in Common Data Service. 

UX improvements to sub grids and form tabs in Power Apps mobile app:

• Global search experience in model-driven apps is easy, intuitive, and modern. Prominent search bar, zero query experience with suggestions on recent searches and records, automatic record suggestions based on the typed query, improvements to the search results page, and high-quality results allow users to search for their information easily and quickly. 

Makers can add a custom page in the model-driven app designer:

• Using a modern app and sitemap designer, makers can add custom pages into their model-driven app. The custom page enables more flexibility in the components, behavior, and visuals. Custom pages are authored using the canvas designer, which support no/low code configuration of controls and components. 

For full information, visit the official Microsoft documentation on the 2020 release wave 2 plan for Dynamics 365.