Wave News

D365 Sales -2025 Wave release

nataliagarciavillar — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 13:21:09 +0000

D365 Sales -2025 Wave release nataliagarciavillar Mon, 11/03/2025 - 14:21

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In this post, we highlight the latest releases from Microsoft D365 Sales' 2025 Wave updates. For a detailed breakdown, click here.

Key Features & Updates

Boost pipeline by autonomously researching leads with Sales Qualification Agent

Public Preview: May 2025
General Available: October 2025

Highlights ✅

Autonomous research: Agent finds info, recommends engagement steps, and drafts introductory emails.
AI assists with prioritizing leads, outreach suggestions, and internal network connections.
Provides lead Qualification Result Rank (High/Medium/Low).
Suggests personalized emails based on the context.

Lowlights ❌

None identified.

Improve sales efficiency with Sales Qualification Agent's email validation

Public Preview: May 2025
General Available: October 2025

Highlights ✅

Checks for e-mail validation errors.
Indicates if e-mails are personal or professional.

Lowlights ❌

None (feature might not be fully deployed in all environments).

Tailor Sales Qualification Agent to your industry and business needs

Public Preview: May 2025

Highlights ✅

Set up Ideal Customer Profile to pre-qualify leads.
Quick matching of ideal vs. non-ideal customers.

Lowlights ❌

Only one Ideal Customer Profile can be set at a time (limit if many teams or campaigns).

Connect AI agents to sales workflows using Model Context Protocol server

Public Preview: June 2025
Generally available: December 2025

Highlights ✅

Copilot Summary now displays in a prominent banner, beyond the side panel, for leads, opportunities, and accounts.
Handy actions: give feedback, copy/paste text, and use "view more" options.

Lowlights ❌

No major drawbacks identified, but full testing not yet completed for Wave 2 2025.
Language availability still to be announced.

Streamline data entry with smart paste

Public Preview: July 2025
Generally available: October 2025

Highlights ✅

Allows full record or field-by-field data pasting, significantly reducing data entry effort.

Lowlights ❌

Exercise caution with auto-suggestions, especially for mandatory fields.

Accelerate data entry using form fill assist toolbar

Public Preview: July 2025
Generally available: October 2025

Highlights ✅

Uploading files, emails, and images now triggers smart fill suggestions for updated records, supporting faster manual inputs.

Lowlights ❌

Incorrect suggestions (especially in mandatory fields) may occur—proceed carefully.

Deploy autonomous Sales Qualification Agent to qualify leads at scale

Public Preview: July 2025
Generally available: Unknown

Highlights ✅

Complete customization to match business processes and strategies.

Lowlights ❌

Not yet tested with live business data.
Implementation may require significant business engagement to ensure desired outcomes.

Let Sales Qualification Agent reply to emails based on knowledge sources

Public Preview: July 2025
Generally available: Unknown

Highlights ✅

Agent functions like a chatbot, able to reply to emails using a knowledge base.

Lowlights ❌

Not tested with real business data yet.
European and Swiss availability unconfirmed.

Turn marketing engagement into actionable insights for sellers

Public Preview: July 2025
Generally available: Unknown

Highlights ✅

Sales users gain visibility into marketing activities via agent and insights page integration.

Lowlights ❌

None reported.

Discover these new features in Dynamics 365 Sales and make your daily work smoother and smarter. With simpler ways to manage leads, share insights, and enter data, these updates are designed to save you time and help you connect better with customers. Give them a try and see how they can boost your sales results.

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Copilot Chat in Model-Driven Apps

Stephane Pelhatre — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 15:11:43 +0000

Copilot Chat in Model-Driven Apps Stephane Pelhatre Mon, 10/06/2025 - 17:11

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Introduction

Managing data in a model-driven app requires sometimes many clicks, manual navigation through views and dashboards.
With Copilot in Dynamics 365 model-driven apps users can access information instantly through AI-powered chat.

Copilot Chat is an AI assistant that helps the user to obtain information in natural language from the application data and allows an intuitive navigation. It also improves user productivity by easily accessing necessary information or menus within the application through direct access.

At the time of writing this article, this feature is still in preview.
Preview features aren’t meant for production use and might have restricted functionality.

How to enable Copilot in your environment

Go to Power Platform Admin Center
Select your environment
Go to Settings > Product > Features
Enable the feature Allow users to analyze data using an AI-powered chat experience.
3 values are available:

By Default: Copilot is turned on for Dynamics 365 licensed environments but turned off for Power Apps licensed environments
On: Copilot remains enabled, independent of the license type
Off: Copilot remains disabled, independent of the license type

How to disable Copilot Chat for a specific model-driven app

Even though Copilot is a great tool to increase productivity, sometimes you might want to disable it for a specific app.
To turn off Copilot Chat for a particular model-driven app:

Open the model-driven app in App Designer
Choose Settings from the command bar
Navigate to Upcoming
Select Off or Default for the Copilot control.

By choosing Reset to environment value in the same settings tab, you return Copilot control to the environment value.

How to use Copilot Chat

Once enabled, users can access Copilot directly via the Copilot icon in the right navigation pane.

You can start asking questions related to the tables present in the App.
For instance, I have asked a simple question to get the contacts created last week.
You can see the result below:

If you click on Show all on a page results are displayed on a specific page.

Likewise, you can ask different types of questions related to the data present in your App and explore on Copilot.
To navigate to a specific table page you can type "Navigate to..."
In the example below I entered "Navigate to Leads". The default view is displayed on the Leads page.

Recycle Bin Dataverse

joao.neto — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 12:40:48 +0000

Recycle Bin Dataverse joao.neto Thu, 07/04/2024 - 14:40

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Intro

Have you deleted some Dataverse records accidentally and you're struggling how to managed it ?

The new Recycle Bin feature in preview might be what it solves your problem.

It allows Administrator only (in the preview version) to recover user deleted records up to 30 days!

How it Works

First we need to ensure that the feature is activated doing it this way_

Going to the Settings -> Product -> Features in the admin center
Trying to set a recovery interval bigger that 30 days will fail !

Second to view and restore the deleted records:

Go to your environment Settings -> Data Management -> View Deleted Records
And in this view will be able to view and restore all deleted records

Third, you can also use the Organisation Service in .net or the WebApi to:

Retrieve deleted records (web api example)

$query = @()
   $query += "<fetch top='3' datasource='bin'>"
   $query += "<entity name='account'>"
   $query += "<attribute name='name' />"
   $query += "</entity>"
   $query += "</fetch>"

   $uri = $environmentUrl
   $uri += 'accounts'
   $uri += '?fetchXml=' + [uri]::EscapeUriString($query -join '')

   $RetrieveMultipleRequest = @{
      Uri     = $uri
      Method  = 'Get'
      Headers = $baseHeaders
   }
   Invoke-RestMethod @RetrieveMultipleRequest

Restore deleted records (.net example)

/// <summary>
/// Restores an account record
/// </summary>
/// <param name="service">The authenticated IOrganizationService instance</param>
/// <param name="accountId">The ID of the deleted account record.</param>
/// <param name="originalName">The original name value for the account record.</param>
/// <returns>The ID of the restored account</returns>
static Guid RestoreAccountRecordEarlyBound(
    IOrganizationService service, 
    Guid accountId,
    string originalName)
{
    Account accountToRestore = new()
    {
        Id = accountId,
        // Appending '(Restored)' to the original name
        // to demonstrate overwriting a value.
        Name = originalName + " (Restored)"
    };

    RestoreRequest<Account> request = new()
    {
        Target = accountToRestore
    };

    var response = (RestoreResponse)service.Execute(request);
    return response.id;
}

Points in atenttion

Not all tables are enabled for Recycle bin and Solution components, virtual tables, and elastic tables aren't supported for recycle bin operations
- Here's a list of tables that don't support recycle bin https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/developer/data-platform/restore-deleted-records?tabs=sdk#tables-not-currently-supported-for-recycle-bin
Records deleted through a relationship behavior (Cascade All) aren't recovered when the parent record is restored and this must be managed independently by doing a manual restore of the cascaded records or via a plugin

Final thoughts

The Dataverse Recycle bin it's a must to regarding business data recovery and we can't wait for the final announce of it's general availability.

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Streamlining Development in Dynamics 365 F&O with Unified Developer Environments

Lloyd Sebag — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:26:11 +0000

Streamlining Development in Dynamics 365 F&O with Unified Developer Environments Lloyd Sebag Wed, 09/20/2023 - 16:26

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Streamlining Development in Dynamics 365 F&O with Unified Developer Environments

In the world of finance and operations, the complexity of developer tools and environments can often hinder productivity and collaboration. Recognizing this challenge, Microsoft has introduced a Unified Developer Experience aimed at consolidating and simplifying the developer journey across finance and operations apps and Power Platform. This transformative approach promises to reduce friction and accelerate development processes. In this article, we'll delve into the key aspects of this unified experience and explore its benefits.

Unified Developer Experience Explained

The Unified Developer Experience bridges the gap between finance and operations apps and Power Platform, offering a cohesive environment for developers. This convergence aims to streamline development, making it easier to work across these platforms seamlessly. Let's break down some essential components of this unified approach:

Finance and Operations Apps: These applications provide a robust ecosystem for professional developers. Leveraging a metadata and code-based development environment, they cater to mission-critical scenarios. Developers can create, extend, and customize functionalities to meet specific business needs.
Power Platform: Power Platform offers a low-code development paradigm, allowing rapid solution creation. Microsoft Dataverse serves as the relational data store, ensuring data consistency and availability. Additionally, Power Platform integrates continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for efficient solution deployment.

A Typical Scenario

To illustrate the benefits of this unified experience, consider a common scenario: a developer building a simple app in Microsoft Power Apps for order capture. The data collected in Power Apps is seamlessly synchronized with finance and operations apps. These finance and operations apps handle intricate tasks like inventory availability checks and pricing calculations. The result? Real-time data availability in Power Apps.

Finance and Operations App Development

Developers working with finance and operations apps will find familiarity in the Visual Studio development environment. While some changes have been introduced due to the cloud-based nature of this unified environment, most workflows remain consistent. Resources like the "Write, deploy, and debug X++ code" guide help developers navigate X++ code development, deployment, and debugging in the cloud.

Power Platform Integration

Power Platform's rich development ecosystem complements the unified experience. The Dataverse relational database system plays a pivotal role, facilitating data synchronization between finance and operations app databases and Dataverse entities. Two technologies, dual-write and virtual entities, enable this integration:

Dual Write: Dual Write ensures near real-time, bidirectional data integration between finance and operations apps and Dataverse. Changes made in one system automatically reflect in the other. This synchronization is complemented by an advanced user interface for customization.
Virtual Tables: Virtual tables, or virtual entities, seamlessly integrate external data sources with Dataverse, eliminating the need for data replication or extensive custom coding.

Deployment Options

Historically, finance and operations app customers had two deployment options: self-hosted virtual machines on-premises or customer-provided Azure subscriptions. However, recognizing the need for faster and low-code extensibility, Microsoft has introduced new deployment options:

New Environment Templates: Customers can now access environment templates in the Power Platform admin center for Finance, Supply Chain Management, and Project Operations for ERP. These templates come pre-configured with Dataverse and related apps, simplifying deployment.

Storage-Based Provisioning: The new unified developer environments follow a storage-based provisioning model, which doesn't bill to your Azure subscription. It includes Dataverse and Finance and Operations database capacity management.

Enhanced Capabilities for Administrators and Developers

Administrators can now deploy environments at scale, copy environments directly, add developers with permissions, incorporate microservice add-ins, enable customer-managed keys, and more. Developers benefit from a simplified process for writing and deploying X++ alongside Dataverse solutions.

Getting Started

To explore this Unified Developer Experience, read the "Unified admin experience for finance and operations apps" article for provisioning developer and trial workloads. Microsoft encourages users to provide feedback and engage with the Dynamics 365 Community to shape future developments.

In conclusion, Microsoft's Unified Developer Experience is a game-changer for finance and operations app developers. By harmonizing developer tools and environments, it simplifies workflows, accelerates development, and empowers developers to create powerful solutions seamlessly. With new deployment options and enhanced capabilities, the future looks promising for finance and operations app development.

Sources :

https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/it/2023/09/15/announcing-unified-trial-and-developer-environments-for-dynamics-365-finance-and-operations-apps/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/developer/unified-experience/finance-operations-dev-overview

Streamlining Development in Dynamics 365 F&O with Unified Developer Environments

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Summary of Microsoft's AI announcements - Copilot and GPT

Lloyd Sebag — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 11:40:02 +0000

Summary of Microsoft's AI announcements - Copilot and GPT Lloyd Sebag Tue, 03/21/2023 - 12:40

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Summary of Microsoft's AI announcements - Copilot and GPT

Here is a summary of Microsoft's crazy announcements around Chat GPT and Azure AI implementations in Microsoft tools like M365, D365, Power Platform, and Windows. The future is right around the corner dear friends!

Power Platform

Microsoft Power Apps Copilot

How next-generation AI in Power Apps is changing the development process of low-code applications? Users can now start building their apps with a simple natural language description and receive assistance from an AI copilot throughout the development process. The copilot will help refine and update the app and provide suggestions to improve it. This makes the app development process faster and more efficient. The future of low-code app development has arrived, and users can now describe their app ideas and have them built by Power Apps

Copilot in Power Virtual Agents

Let's simplify the process of creating bot topics using natural language. Copilot generates an entire topic, including trigger phrases and questions using Prebuilt Entity types and multiple-choice questions based on user specifications. Users can also iterate using natural language and generate JSON for adaptive cards, summarizing customer details. The feature allows for easy editing, testing, and publishing of bots on various channels. Copilot and other GPT features aim to democratize conversational AI and make bot building natural for everyone

Dynamics 365

Copilot in Microsoft Viva Sales

Copilot assists in crafting email responses by generating suggested replies enriched with content from the CRM data, and Viva Sales can store and update the insights back into CRM. Sales Conversation Intelligence takes notes during customer calls and meetings, capturing the key meeting highlights, questions asked, and follow-ups. Using Copilot, GPT generates a customer-ready meeting summary in a single click, which embeds CRM data and previous meeting context for review and validation. Overall, Microsoft Viva Sales aims to help sellers close deals faster by providing useful tools for communication and data management

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing

Copilot assists marketers in creating personalized emails by defining the audience for the email and providing tips and suggestions for email content. The tool allows marketers to tailor the tone of voice for each brand and region's communication style, saving time on copywriting and audience targeting. The generative API for marketing scenarios has been tuned through hundreds of companies and marketing emails in the public domain, resulting in faster delivery of the most relevant and engaging content

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service uses generative AI to help support agents quickly generate optimized responses for customers with a single click. Copilot empowers agents to leverage company knowledge sources and saves them time in searching and typing. It can also summarize and draft responses for live chats. With Copilot, agents can be more productive and provide better customer experiences. The video showcases examples of how Copilot is used by a support agent at Microsoft Azure to resolve complex issues quickly and efficiently. Copilot is said to revolutionize agent productivity and customer experience across all engagement channels, helping organizations earn customers for life

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights allows marketers to gain new customer insights without requiring expertise in analytics. Using natural language, marketers can ask Copilot for insights and receive an immediate answer. The tool suggests additional questions to help marketers uncover previously unconsidered customer data. Copilot aids marketers in gaining a deeper understanding of customer preferences and needs in near real time, enabling them to deliver effective campaigns and unlock more revenue

Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center

It helps users to stay close to their suppliers, respond quickly to critical situations, and maintain healthy inventory levels. Copilot's news module keeps users informed about events that impact critical logistics. The tool also generates AI-powered emails containing all relevant information for contacting suppliers and mitigating disruptions. It allows users to act swiftly, detect problems, and take immediate action without leaving their workflow

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Copilot helps users in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central in creating engaging product descriptions for their online stores. It uses AI-powered experiences to analyze product images and suggest categories to minimize data entry. Copilot uses natural language technology to generate a tailored description enriched with key data from the product record. The tool also allows users to select which product attributes are most relevant and choose a consistent format for generated text. The first-party connector to leading e-commerce platforms enables businesses to accelerate time to market and improve conversion rates with great product descriptions.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft Word copilot

This is how Copilot in Microsoft 365, can assist users in generating proposals quickly and efficiently. Copilot can scan target files, generate a first draft, and suggest ways to enhance the proposal, such as adding an FAQ. Additionally, it can insert product images and format the document in a user's preferred style

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel

Here Copilot uses natural language processing to help users analyze and understand data. Copilot can quickly provide insights, create new sheets for further exploration, and even generate models based on "what-if" scenarios. It can also create visualizations and graphs to help users better understand their data. Overall, Copilot in Excel aims to turn complex data into clear insights and actions.

Microsoft Power Point copilot

Copilot will help users create professional presentations with ease. The feature allows users to translate Word documents into PowerPoint presentations and vice versa, saving time and effort. Users can also add slides to their presentations by providing quick instructions to Copilot. The feature can even make wordy slides more visual and professional-looking by animating them with a single click.

Additionally, Copilot generates speaker notes for all slides, making it easier for presenters to deliver their presentations effectively. With Copilot, users can create customer-ready presentations without having to start from scratch. This feature is ideal for individuals who want to create visually appealing presentations without investing a lot of time and resources. Overall, Microsoft 365 Copilot is a valuable tool for individuals and organizations that want to create compelling presentations with ease.

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Outlook

Let's imagine a Copilot that could helps users manage their emails efficiently? Copilot enables users to prioritize important emails and summarize long email threads. It can also generate a reply using data from an Excel file, which can be edited by the user before sending. Copilot is available in Outlook mobile and is touted as a game-changer in productivity.

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Teams

Allows users to follow a meeting and receive a summary of what they missed after the meeting ends. The summary includes content that was shared, notes, action items, and even allows users to ask Copilot clarifying questions for more context. This feature is designed to save time and increase productivity.

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Teams Meetings

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Teams Meetings is a tool that can summarize discussions and capture the spirit of the conversation in real-time during meetings. With Copilot, users can ask for a summary of what has happened so far, who said what, and what points were made. Additionally, users can check where people stand and ask Copilot what questions are unresolved, making every meeting more productive

Microsoft Business Chat

It helps users prepare for customer meetings by summarizing recent interactions and finding relevant information from various data sources such as emails, chats, documents, and meetings. The tool is called Copilot and it provides a concise summary with citations and can also help users find specific information they need. This tool aims to help users be more prepared for their customer meetings

Summary of Microsoft's AI announcements - Copilot and GPT

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2023 Wave 1 Review - Power Apps

Maxime Bonnot — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 13:14:10 +0000

2023 Wave 1 Review - Power Apps Maxime Bonnot Wed, 02/15/2023 - 14:14

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2023 Wave 1 Review - Power Apps

Microsoft Dynamics is constantly evolving and bringing new features and 2023 is no exception.

Actually 2023 Wave 1 was announce few weeks ago and this is definitely bringing some exciting and promising new features within all modules.

Nevertheless we will go through the most noticeable and valuable for business. Let's go straight to the point and see what a good vintage Microsoft has prepared for us.

In this article, I will introduce features regarding Power Apps sort by release date.

Power Apps

Create virtual tables easily in Maker Portal

Public Preview/General availability : January 2023/April 2023

A virtual table is a type of table that is not stored in a database. This is instead created dynamically based on formula or query results.

With this feature makers will be able to create virtual tables directly from Power Portal. This eliminates the need for manual coding or scripting, and makes it possible to create virtual tables with a few clicks of a button.

One more feature in order to simplify development within Power Apps.

Add table columns to forms and views automatically

Public Preview/General availability : January 2023/April 2023

Now makers will be allowed to automatically add columns from a table to a form/view with a single click. Currently we have to manually add each column to a form/view and this is no secret that those operation are time consuming.

With this new feature, makers can quickly add all columns from a table to a form.

This will certainly save time.

Enjoy the new look and feel for model-driven Power Apps

Public Preview/General availability : January 2023/April 2023

This feature is merely an update of the user interface for Model Driven Apps and Power Apps. It includes updates to visual design such as change of colors, font styles and overall layout.

The aim is to provide a more modern design to end users.

Look up records easily with modern advanced find

Early access/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

This feature is related to Modern Advanced Find. The advanced find will be improved in order to be more intuitive and there allowing users to easily retrieve records without having to proceed through a complicated menu.

Power BI quick reports in Power Apps enabled by default

Early access/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

Power BI is pretty well known and with this feature, the integration of Power Apps and Power BI has been improved with the ability to quickly create reports in Power Apps. Makers will therefore be able to create reports within Power Apps without having to switch to Power BI interface.

Power BI will be enabled by default in Power Apps.

View offline sync icon in the navigation bar

Early access/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

This refers to an offline sync icon added to navigation bar of an application. It would give a visual indicator of data sync in the application whenever offline is used for a Power Apps.

When Icon indicates an inactive state, it means that data are currently not synced with Dynamics 365 server. Therefore changes made to data in Power Apps while being offline are not reflected in Dataverse yet.

This would give a good vision to end users using offline mode.

Build canvas apps by using new and refreshed controls

Public Preview/General availability : February 2023/June 2023

This refers to new and updated controls within Modern App Maker interface. It will provide a wider range of options for designing and customizing the Power Apps.

There will be for example new buttons, sliders or drop down menu. There will be improvement of existing elements to make it more modern or even new control such as charts or graph.

Enhance delegation for UpdateIf and RemoveIf

Public Preview/General availability : April 2023

The delegation in the title refers to a process of running a query in a data source rather than in Power Apps. When a query reach the limits of delegation, it has to run within the app which of course results in decreased of performance and scalability.

In 2023 this delegation capability will be improved for UpdateIf and RemoveIf Power Fx functions. Those functions allow app maker to update or remove records in a data source based on certain conditions. With the enhancement, more complex queries would possibly be processed and it will be possible to work with a lager data sets.

This will definitely improve performance and scalability within Power Apps.

Be more productive with modern app designer improvements

General availability : April 2023

The modern app designer got several improvements that make easier its use. Those improvements includes a change of user interface, new features and performance testing. It would also integrate an improvement of data visualization tool and analytic capability.

Basically, it makes the overall experience improved and therefore it should supposedly improve the maker productivity.

Run automated tests for custom pages and model-driven apps

Public Preview : May 2023

This feature will allow developers to write automated test for Custom Page and Model-driven apps in Dynamics 365. The aim is as you can imagine to ensure that everything works properly despite the latest customization made. It ensures functionality and stability.

The test will merely be a simulation of user interactions with Custom Page or Model-driven apps. For instance, navigation to a page, filling out a form and submitting it. Those test can then be run automatically during development or manually after any development in order to ensure that no regression are there.

By making those test automatic, it's obvious that developers will reduce their time for testing and also ensure that less remarks are made after development.

Test Power Apps in CICD pipelines

Public Preview : May 2023

CICD for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment which would allow developers to automate testing of Power Apps whenever this very Power Apps is deployed from an environment to the other.

Same principle than the previous feature ; the ability to write test and make it run automatically or manually after any deployment.

By making those test automatic, it's also obvious that developers will reduce their time for testing and also ensure that less remarks are made after development.

Turn existing artifacts into working apps with Express design in Figma

Public Preview/General availability : May 2022/April 2023

Figma is a popular interface design tool used in order to create design artifact. Power Apps will now integrate Figma which means that makers will be able to create design of their app through Figma.

This will help to work more efficiently and also to create high quality app meeting business need.

Reuse Power Fx formulas with user defined functions

Public Preview : June 2023

This will allow developers to reuse Power Fx formulas by creating defined functions ; custom function that can be created by developer and used in multiple places within the Power Apps.

This was app makers can simplify their code and make it easier to maintain. Makers can encapsulate complex logic and use that logic in multiple location through the app.

Drag and drop to build responsive pages more easily

Public Preview/General availability : July 2023/September 2023

Development of Power Apps is made easier by expanding drag and drop to components, image or buttons directly on the page making it easier and faster to build responsive pages. It eliminates the need for custom code or scripting to be implemented for this.

Therefore, makers will more efficiently develop app that fits any kind of device ; computer, tablet or smart phone.

Coauthor with other makers in the modern app designer

Public Preview/General availability : September 2022/April 2023

This feature will allow app makers to build and customize Power Apps on the same time within the same app.

Therefore, one developer will be able to work on layout and design while another work on Power Fx functions in order to make it functional. The feature also includes real time notifications in order that makers see when others are making changes within the app to avoid conflict.

You can easily understand the value of such feature : more collaboration, less time to develop.

Conclusion

The Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2023 release brings exciting new features to PowerApps, Sales, and Marketing modules. PowerApps integration enables custom business app creation for improved productivity. Overall, this release is set to revolutionize sales and marketing management and give businesses a competitive edge.

2023 Wave 1 Review - Power Apps

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2023 Wave 1 Review - Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Maxime Bonnot — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 10:30:00 +0000

2023 Wave 1 Review - Dynamics 365 for Marketing Maxime Bonnot Wed, 02/15/2023 - 11:30

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2023 Wave 1 Review - Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Microsoft Dynamics is constantly evolving and bringing new features and 2023 is no exception.

Actually 2023 Wave 1 was announce few weeks ago and this is definitely bringing some exciting and promising new features within all modules.

Nevertheless we will go through the most noticeable and valuable for business. Let's go straight to the point and see what a good vintage Microsoft has prepared for us.

In this article, I will introduce features regarding Dynamics 365 Marketing module sort by release date.

Dynamics 365 Marketing

Send segment-based emails quickly without building a journey

Public preview/General availability : January 2023/April 2023

In traditional email marketing, creating targeted email campaigns often requires building a complex marketing automation journey. With this new feature users can send segment-based emails quickly and easily without the need to build a journey.

This feature allows users to select a specific segment of their customer base based on specific criteria, such as demographic information, purchase history, or other attributes. The user can then create and send a targeted email campaign to this segment, without the need to create a complex automation journey.

Enrich marketing content by embedding additional file types

Public preview/General availability : January 2023/April 2023

With this feature, users will be able to embed a wider variety of file types within marketing content, such as emails, landing pages, and other digital assets.

This feature allows also users to add additional information and resources to their marketing content, such as images, videos, and presentations, to make it more engaging and informative for their audience.

Match your business needs with more granular and customizable consent and preference centers

Public preview/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

With this feature users will have the ability to create more detailed and specific consent and preference centers within the platform. A consent and preference center is a place where customers and prospects can manage their preferences and opt-in or opt-out of receiving different types of communication from a business.

With this feature, businesses can create more granular and customized consent and preference centers to better match their specific needs and comply with data privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Optimize your lead management process by engaging your sellers right away

Public preview/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

This feature allows organization to automatically notify users whenever there is a lead generation. It can be configured to assign lead to appropriate seller whenever there is a follow up email, schedule call or any other action to be performed related to a lead.

The aim is to optimize the sales process and reduce the time of lead management.

Keep stakeholders in the loop by seamlessly copying them on email campaigns

Public preview/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

This feature will make easier to keep stakeholders informed about email campaign progress. The aim to copy stakeholders on email campaign ensuring that they are always in the loop. They will therefore receive a copy of every email sent within a campaign and be able to track results.

Measure marketing activity, web traffic, and conversion goals using automatic UTM tagging

Public preview/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

This feature will allow makers to streamline the process of moving custom business logic, such as triggers, between different environments. With this feature users can automatically add UTM tags to URLs used in marketing campaigns, making it easier for organizations to track the success of their marketing efforts.

Therefore organizations can track web traffic and conversion goals, and measure the impact of their marketing activities on these metrics.

By having a better understanding of the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns, organizations can make more informed decisions about their marketing strategies and optimize their campaigns for maximum impact.

Prevent message fatigue by limiting the messages sent to a customer in a specific period

Public preview/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

Marketing fatigue can occur when customers receive too many messages from a single organization in a short period of time. This can lead to lower engagement and decreased effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

This new feature will helps organizations to prevent message fatigue by allowing them to set limits on the number of messages sent to a customer in a specific period. For example, an organization may choose to limit the number of messages sent to a customer to once per week, or to a maximum of three messages per month.

Boost your productivity with enhanced journey reminders

Public preview/General availability : March 2023/April 2023

Journey reminders are automated messages sent to customers at specific intervals during a marketing campaign.

With the enhancements in the 2023 release, users can expect improved functionality, such as increased flexibility in creating and scheduling reminders, better tracking and reporting capabilities, and improved user experience.

Save time by easily moving triggers between environments

General availability : April 2023

Triggers are custom business logic that are executed when specific events occur, such as when a record is created or updated. With this feature, organizations can easily move triggers between different environments, without the need for manual export and import processes.

This feature will definitely save time and reduce the risk of errors when moving custom business logic between different environments.

Scale your business effortlessly and define access to marketing assets

General availability : April 2023

UTM (Urchin Traffic Monitor) tags are snippets of code that are added to URLs to track and measure the success of various marketing campaigns.

This feature is made in order to help organizations to manage the growth of their business operations and improve efficiency and security of their marketing processes. It provides a centralized and secure platform for managing access to marketing assets.

Therefore, they will be able to streamline their marketing processes and reduce the risk of errors or unauthorized access.

Prioritize the best leads and empower sellers with the new lead scoring builder

Public Preview : April 2023

This feature is made out of an AI powered tool that is suppose to helps sales to identify the best leads to focus on and therefore prioritize their sales effort.

Therefore, organization will be able to assign scores to leads based on a variety of factors such a demographic, behavior, engagement and many others. It can be configure and customized to meet every organization needs.

This lead scoring will allow sales people to focus on most important leads.

Scale your business with confidence with 300M maximum monthly interactions

Public preview/General availability : April 2023/July 2023

300 millions represents the maximum number of interactions that the system can handle without encountering performance issues or downtime.

With this feature customer engagement platform can handle large volumes of interactions. With a maximum monthly interaction limit of 300 million, organizations can handle large spikes in customer activity, such as during peak holiday periods or promotional events, without having to worry about system performance or downtime.

Moreover, this feature provides a range of scalability and performance features, such as load balancing and auto-scaling, to ensure that the platform can handle large volumes of customer interactions without encountering performance issues.

Easily create modern forms using the new intuitive form experience

General availability : April 2023

This refers to a new user interface designed to be more modern and intuitive.

With the new form experience, users can easily add and remove fields, arrange fields on the form, and customize the look and feel of the form using drag-and-drop functionality. The new form experience also provides an improved user interface for working with form elements, such as sections, tabs, and columns, making it easier for users to create well-organized and visually appealing forms.

Use interaction data to improve targeting in redesigned segmentation builder

Public preview/General availability : March 2023/May 2023

The redesigned segmentation builder allows marketers to easily create and manage segments of customers based on data such as email opens, clicks, website visits, and form submissions.

This feature enables marketers to better understand customer behavior and use that information to personalize their marketing messages and therefore improve the chances of success for their campaigns.

Understand how marketing activities contribute to defined milestones

Public Preview : May 2023

This feature allows users to track and measure the effectiveness of their marketing campaign. We will be able to define key milestones such as number of leads generated, deals won or revenue generated. We will then be able to track and measure impact of a marketing activity using detailed analytics and reporting tools.

The idea here is help organization to optimize their marketing investment and make data driven decision.

Optimize B2B marketing and accelerate your pipeline with out-of-the-box analytics dashboards

Public Preview : July 2023

It provides pre built analytics dashboards designed for B2B marketing. It allows organization to gain real time insights regarding their marketing campaign performance.

We will be able to access pre configured dashboards that provide insights and key metrics such as lead generation, campaign performance and deal conversion rates.

It will definitely help to accelerate process and optimize marketing efforts.

Easily reference a copy of previously sent emails in the interaction timeline

Public Preview : September 2023

This feature refers to the ability to view a copy of previously sent emails within the interaction timeline of a customer or lead record.

Users can easily reference a copy of previously sent emails within the interaction timeline, allowing them to see the full history of their communication with a customer or lead.

Conclusion

The Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2023 release brings exciting new features to PowerApps, Sales, and Marketing modules. The optimized Marketing module offers even more robust marketing capabilities. Overall, this release is set to revolutionize marketing management and give businesses a competitive edge.

2023 Wave 1 Review - Dynamics 365 for Marketing

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2023 Wave 1 Review - Dynamics 365 for Sales

Maxime Bonnot — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 10:22:22 +0000

2023 Wave 1 Review - Dynamics 365 for Sales Maxime Bonnot Wed, 02/15/2023 - 11:22

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2023 Wave 1 Review - Dynamics 365 for Sales

Microsoft Dynamics is constantly evolving and bringing new features and 2023 is no exception.

Actually 2023 Wave 1 was announce few weeks ago and this is definitely bringing some exciting and promising new features within all modules.

Nevertheless we will go through the most noticeable and valuable for business. Let's go straight to the point and see what a good vintage Microsoft has prepared for us.

In this article, I will introduce features regarding Dynamics 365 Sales module sort by release date.

Dynamics 365 Sales

Manage opportunities more effectively using the new pipeline view

Early Access/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

This new feature refers to a new pipeline view for managing opportunities within Dynamics 365 for sales. This is a graphical representation of stages regarding an opportunity to see progress from initial stage to closing.

The new pipeline is changed in order to be more modern and intuitive. It is suppose to help to identify what are the weakness or the strengths observed while going through an opportunity.

Configure forecasts for multiple business units

General availability : April 2023

This feature allows users to create and manage forecasts for multiple business units within a single instance of Dynamics 365.

It provides a flexible and customizable solution for forecasting, allowing users to define the forecasting periods, configure the forecasting models, and set up the forecast hierarchy according to the needs of each business unit. It will have also an intuitive user interface for creating and managing forecasts, making it easy for users to create and update their forecasts as needed.

Guide sellers to favorable sales outcomes with next best step

Early Access/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

This feature is made in order to help sales people to achieve favorable sales outcomes by providing a guidance on next best step to take during the sales process.

There will be recommendation that is based on sales data, customer behavior and other relevant information.

This is a feature using machine learning algorithms supposed to improve sales within organizations.

Work efficiently with enhanced Sales accelerator worklist items

Early Access/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

The Sales accelerator is a feature in Dynamics 365 that helps sales teams prioritize and manage their sales activities, by providing them with a consolidated view of their worklist items.

With this feature enhancement information will now be more detailed and relevant. Additional details such as customer history, recent interaction will be added into it.

The navigation experience will also be improved.

Get improved user experience with new and enhanced opportunity form

Public preview/General availability : February 2023/April 2023

This feature is a new capability that provides sales representatives a more intuitive and user friendly experience on Dynamics 365.

That's basically an improvement of existing Opportunity and Lead forms. It includes new and improved layout options, better support for custom fields, business logics and new ways to visualize and manage opportunities.

Redact sensitive personal data from customer calls

Public preview/General availability : February 2023/September 2023

This feature is made in order to allow customers to protect sensitive data. They would be able to redact or mask certain personal information from a customer call.

This is an important tool that could help companies to be compliant with privacy legislation.

Prevent duplicate record creation to improve data integrity

Public preview : April 2023

We are all fully aware that duplicates records can occur when multiple users create similar records or when records are imported from different systems.

This feature will be able to detect when a duplicate is created and immediately notice the user in order to check whether or not that's a duplicate. Then they can choose to update the existing record rather than creating a duplicate.

The value of such feature is of course to have a better data integrity within Dynamics 365 CRM.

Engage with your Customers using SMS conversation

Public preview/General availability : April 2023/May 2023

This feature will allow users to use SMS in Dynamics 365 for sales.

allows organizations to send SMS messages to customers, and receive and respond to incoming SMS messages, all within Dynamics 365. The SMS conversations are stored within Dynamics 365, alongside other customer interactions, making it easy to view and manage the full history of customer interactions.

Leverage manager dashboards to coach sellers

Public preview/General availability : April 2023/September 2023

Manager dashboards can provide valuable insights into the performance of sales reps, including metrics such as deal pipeline, win rate, and average deal size. This information can help sales managers to identify areas where their reps may need additional support, such as training on specific sales skills, or to track the success of coaching efforts.

With this feature sales managers can access a range of metrics, graphs, and charts that help them to better understand the performance of their team and to make more informed decisions about how to support their reps.

It will also include advanced features such as the ability to filter data by specific parameters, such as business unit, team, or individual rep. This allows sales managers to quickly find the information they need to effectively coach their sales representatives and to track their progress over time.

Get tips and suggestions while on a call with customer

Public preview/General availability : April 2023/September 2023

This feature provide in new guidance and support to agent during customer interactions. It is using artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze interactions with customer and provide suggestions or responses based on past successful interactions and best practice.

Provide intelligent suggestions to improve seller effectiveness

Public preview : May 2023

Use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide sales representative real time suggestion. It leverages data such as customer interactions, sales performance and best practice in order to make recommendations to sales representatives regarding their next move.

Visualize key stakeholders and take action with the smart organization chart

Public preview : June 2023

This feature will provide a visual representation of an organization structure, relationships and key stakeholders. Users will be able to easily identify key decision makers.

This is made with artificial intelligence and machine learning which provide real time insights and recommendations based on relationships and connections within an organization.

Get insights for calls made through third-party softphones from Dynamics 365

Public Preview : July 2023

Softphones refers to software application used in order to make and receive phone call using a computer or mobile device.

With this feature, users will now be able to receive insights and data on calls made through those softphones software. User will have direct access to call duration, call type and outcome of the call directly inside Dynamics 365 for sales.

Automate the creation of follow-up tasks

Public preview : July 2023

This feature use artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate creation of follow up tasks and therefore giving more time to sales representative to focus on sales.

Sales representatives will be able to define criteria that would automatically create a customer meeting after a certain period of time on the phone for example.

Capture crucial details of a sales call

Public preview/General availability : August 2023/September 2023

This feature allows sales representatives to capture important information while they are in a call with customer.

It could be about customer's needs, preferences or objections that are logged immediately in Dynamics 365 ensuring that information is accurately captured and in a timely manner.

Identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities with timely product recommendations

Public preview : August 2023

This feature is using artificial intelligence and machine learning make real time product recommendation based on customer data, purchase history or other relevant factors.

The goal is to help sales representatives to identify customer interest easily.

Improve forecast accuracy with yearly and weekly forecasts

General availability : September 2023

This will allow users to create and see forecasts at yearly and weekly level. This in order to make more comprehensive and accurate expected performance.

Improve lead qualification with intent detection

Public Preview : September 2023

This is a feature using intent detection. Intent detection is a technology that uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to analyze customer interactions and understand the underlying intentions behind those interactions.

Now, Dynamics 365 will be able to use intent detection to analyze customer interactions and identify leads that will most likely get converted as paying customers.

This is definitely a really valuable feature that will help organizations to effectively engage their time in resource on leads. This feature will also help users to understand the needs and preferences of their leads and therefore suggest the way to communicate with potential customers in a tailor way.

Manage duplicates when importing leads in bulk

General availability : September 2023

New feature to prevent duplicate records to be created in order to maintain data integrity within Dataverse.

This feature will help to identify duplicates whenever Leads are imported from a file containing duplicates and prevent them from being created.

Conclusion

The Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2023 release brings exciting new features to PowerApps, Sales, and Marketing modules. The updated Sales module streamlines sales processes for better deal closing. Overall, this release is set to revolutionize sales and give businesses a competitive edge.

2023 Wave 1 Review - Dynamics 365 for Sales

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Dataverse : Excel data import with AI-assisted mapping

Stephane Pelhatre — Mon, 23 May 2022 12:39:34 +0000

Dataverse : Excel data import with AI-assisted mapping Stephane Pelhatre Mon, 05/23/2022 - 14:39

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Introduction

Microsoft has introduced an enhanced Import from Excel experience for Dataverse, making it easier to bring structured data into existing tables.
The new feature implements AI-assisted mapping. The process is more streamlined, intelligent, and reliable, making it easier to ingest large volumes of data while ensuring better accuracy and contextual mappings.

At the time of writing this article, this feature is still in preview:
Preview features aren’t meant for production use and might have restricted functionality.

Improvements in the new Experience

Improvements:

Sheet selection
Multi-sheet Excel files are now supported
When uploading a multi-sheet Excel file you have to select the worksheet to import
In the legacy interface you get the following error message
Record update support
Existing records can be updated in a table if a primary key is mapped during the import. Otherwise, records will be added as new
Assisted mapping
Vector-based search to provide more contextually relevant column mapping suggestions
Mapped : columns mapped automatically
Possible match : a possible match has been identified for these columns based on the source column’s name or data pattern. You can accept the match or reject it. All possible matches must be resolved to continue the import process.
Unmapped : no possible match has been identified for these columns. You can skip the mapping or map the column to the field of your choice
Notifications: Real-time feedback on import status, including success, in-progress, and error states
Performance improvements: Asynchronous ingestion offers better reliability and speed for large files

How to Enable the New Import from Excel

Connect to Power Platform Admin Center
Select your environment
Go to Settings > Product > Features
Enable the feature Import Excel to existing table with assisted mapping

Import data

In the example below I use a file 'contacts to import.xlsx' to import contacts.
Procedure to import data:

Open Power Apps Portal and select your environment
Select the table into which you want to import data
After selecting the import option, you can see the option Import data from Excel (Preview) in the button Import in the command bar
Click on Select from device to browse and upload your Excel file or drag&drop it.
If several worksheets are present in the file then select the worksheet you want to import.
Then the AI assistant will analyse the file and generate 3 tabs Mapped, Possible Match and Unmapped.
In tab Mapped you can view columns automatically mapped by the system.
You can manually select a different source column from the dropdown Source column.

In tab Possible Match you have access to columns with a possible match detected.
For each of them you have 3 possibilities:
- Accept Match : confirm the suggested mapping. If you click on this button the mapping moves into Mapped tab.
- Reject Match : discard the suggested mapping. If you click on this button the mapping moves into Unmapped tab.
- Alternatively, you can manually select a different source column from the dropdown Source column without rejecting the match.

In tab Unmapped you have access to unmapped columns.
For each of them you can select a column from the dropdown Source column. The mapping will move into Mapped tab.

Finalize the mappings and click on Import to start the process.

IMPORTANT: The Import button will remain disabled until all possible matches are reviewed or resolved.
Then you can monitor the import status from notifications:
- In progress: Ongoing import activity with the message Your data is importing displayed
- Success: Data imported successfully with the message Upload completed displayed
- Error: Upload completed with some errors displayed that includes a link to download logs for troubleshooting
Below the 2 notifications generated:

How to update data

In the procedure above we have imported data as new records.
If you want to update records in Dataverse you have to define a primary key during the import.
In my example I import contacts, so the primary key is contactid.

When a primary key is selected the corresponding column (contactid) is added to the tab Mapped and is mandatory.
So your Excel file must contain a column with the unique identifiers (Guids) of the records to update.

Exclusive News : Dynamics 365 Sales Duplicate Lead Detection with !! MERGE !!

Maxime Bonnot — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 12:55:18 +0000

Exclusive News : Dynamics 365 Sales Duplicate Lead Detection with !! MERGE !! Maxime Bonnot Fri, 04/08/2022 - 14:55

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Dynamics 365 Sales Duplicate Lead Detection with !! MERGE !!:

EXCLUSIVE NEWS : This article is talking about the new feature of Dynamics 365 Sales Module : Manage duplicate leads that is on preview at the time of writing this.
BUT, Thanks to a close relationship that the Dynamics Chronicles community has with the Microsoft product teams, we were able to obtain even more exclusive information which is not yet published on any preview. You will discover the MERGE functionality of this new Duplicate Leads feature.
We warmly thank Microsoft for this privilege !!

Have you ever faced difficulties to maintain data clean within Dataverse !?

I am pretty sure you did ! Though, if you didn't, let's imagine.

We are working for a famous watch manufacturer and they are using Dynamics 365 to centralize data and manage their customers/potential customers. A Lead can be created through different source : for instance, within a Boutique by a salesperson or directly by the customer itself on the website by showing his interest on a specific product.

Within this very website, a customer might log-in and creates a request by clicking on 'I want more information about this watch'. As he is logged-in it will only result to the creation of a Lead in the Dataverse with an existing Contact that populate Contact lookup. What if this customer click again on this 'I want more information about this watch' without logging in the website !? It would result in the creation of a new Contact and a new Lead that actually already existed in the system.

This duplicate Lead might have a slightly different name because of misspelling and a bunch of fields value different from the original one. Which means that we are not sure to identify this duplicate as this very Lead may have a bunch of different information from the original.

My example sounds extreme to you !?

Well, that's pretty much what happened to me in a project and you can multiply this by thousands of Lead. As you can imagine those thousands duplicates are not easy to handle and raise plenty of complex question.

Indeed, in that situation, we had to develop a logic in order to solve this issue. We started wondering : Which one to keep and according to which criteria ? Within this record that we keep, which value to keep and according to which criteria for each field ? After implementing the logic, how to make it retroactive ? How to test it properly in order to don't take any risk of loosing data that might certainly be strategic for the client ? Finally, what to do with those Duplicate, delete them or deactivate them ?

As you see, it is extremely time consuming and pretty complex to prevent those duplicates to appear in Dataverse. Although data hygiene is super strategic from business perspective so let's focus on how to prevent tones of duplicate distort reports and to pollute the Dataverse !

Microsoft is about to release a new feature called 'Manage duplicate lead' that I am curious to explore through this article. This is available on Preview and Microsoft does the honor to us to give an access to the newly developed Merge feature within 'Manage duplicate lead' that is not in preview yet.

We will first see what is this new feature and how it could help us to maintain data clean. Then we will see how it looks in practice with a specific part dedicated to Merge feature. Finally we will conclude and see whether or not this new feature is a good answer to data hygiene challenges.

Don't forget to click on the static image if you want to see an animated GIF that will demonstrate the features.

I - Manage duplicate leads

This new feature was released in order to help Dynamics 365 users to maintain data clean. It allows us to identify easily duplicate leads in order to remove them.

The rules applied in order to identify the duplicate leads are settled and can not be changed. Here are the rules :

Same email address
- if there is a same email address in two different Lead, then those leads are identified as duplicates
Same phone number
- if there is a same phone number in two different Lead, then those leads are identified as duplicates
Same name AND company name
- if there is a same Full Name AND a same Company Name, then those leads are identified as duplicates
- interesting enough, it takes in consideration the misspelling cases. Maxime Bonnot from Elca Informatique and Maxime Bonnote from Elca Informatique must be identified as duplicates.
Same name AND same email domain
- if there is a same Full Name AND a same email domain within the email address, then those leads are identified as duplicates
- for instance, Maxime BonnOT with maxime.bonnot@elca.ch as email address and Maxime BonnET with manager@elca.ch will be identified as duplicates

Out of those rules, we can surely be optimistic regarding the enhancement of duplicate detection for Leads. Let's test it and see if this is as promising in reality as in the Microsoft documentation.

II - In Practice

First we will see how to enable this feature only available in preview. Then we will experience it.

1 - Enable the feature

First, enable the feature in Preview.

Go in Sales Hub within your tenant > switch Area from Sales to App Settings > Select Duplicate Lead Detection on the left menu > enable the Feature in Preview (As Below) :

Now let's try.

2 - Duplicate Lead

I am doing this demo with Sample Data provided within a demo environment. I will create a duplicate Lead in Sales Hub and make different test in order to see how good a duplicate can be found.

Let's test every rule listed in part I of this article.

a - Same email address

I created a new Lead with my name and picked an Email Address in one of the Lead already existing in Sample Data. Then I selected my new Lead in the view and clicked on 'View Duplicate' in the top menu bar :

As you can see, it shows you the record newly created and its duplicates according to the Email Address in that particular case.

We can manually compare the fields and decide to delete one or the other. Though there is no merge feature allowing us to choose what field to keep in what Lead. We only have the possibility to Delete the duplicate.

b - Same Phone Number

I created a new Lead with my name and picked a Phone Number in one of the Lead already existing in Sample Data. Then I selected my new Lead in the view and clicked on 'View Duplicate' in the top menu bar :

As you can see, as the Phone Number was the same, a duplicate was found.

c - Same Name and Company Name (including misspelling)

I created a new Lead with the same Name than another existing Lead but with a misspelling in the Last Name. I also picked a Company Name in an existing Lead. Then I selected my new Lead in the view and clicked on 'View Duplicate' in the top menu bar :

As you can see, there is a real improvement on detection of similar records with misspelling.

For the duplicate detection rule, Maria Campbell and Maria Cambell (without P) are similar. And so it is for the company name Fabrikam. Inc. (Sample) and Fabrikam Inc.

Definitely an interesting enhancement that will give us more confidence towards Dynamics 365 to detect duplicate considering misspelling.

d - Same Name and Email Domain

I created a new Lead with the same name than another existing Lead but with a misspelling in the Last Name. I also picked an Email Address domain in the existing Lead. Then I selected my new Lead in the view and clicked on 'View Duplicate' in the top menu bar :

Here too, for the duplicate detection rule, Nancy Anderson (sample) and Nancy Enderson with the same domain @example.com are considered as similar.

As you see, we have the ability to find easily duplicates considering misspelling on names. We can therefore decide which one is the original and delete duplicate. Although there is no way we can Merge those records and decide what values to keep within those duplicates.

Fortunately, this is something that Microsoft has consider and we have the honor to have some views on how it will look like with Merge in Duplicate Lead window.

Let's see how it looks !

III - EXCLUSIVITY : Merge feature in Duplicate Lead window

As mentioned previously, Microsoft is currently developing the merge feature and they nicely provided some screenshot giving us an overview on how this very feature will look like.

It would be just as in part II but including this time additionally to the Delete button, a Not Duplicate button and a Merge button.

After selecting one Lead, the button 'View Duplicate' appears in command bar if duplicates exist. After clicking on it, the Duplicate Lead Detection window appear as below :

As you can see in the screen shot, after selecting two records in the Duplicate Lead Detection window, two additional button appear :

Not Duplicate : which would allow us to signal to the system that those are actually not duplicates
Merge : which would allow us to merge those records by selecting what values to keep from the duplicate to the main record.

Let's now see how it looks if we click on Merge after selecting those two records :

In addition of Delete button that we saw in part II, we have two checkbox appearing :

Merge records by choosing fields with data : with this option, there is no need to select what field value to keep manually, if the field value is populated on all records, then it will keep the value of the Primary record. If it is only populated in one record, it will keep this value only.
View fields with conflicting data : it hides all fields with the exact same data on records and ease the selection by considering only fields with different data on duplicates

We can also ignore this two checkbox and simply select which of the duplicates is the Primary record. Then we can select one by one field which value to keep from which record in order to keep all selected values in one unique record and delete useless duplicates.

Let's see how it looks :

After selecting the Primary record, this very record appears on the left. Then we have the chance to select for each field, what value to keep from which record.

This Merge feature within Duplicate Lead Detection window is without doubt an huge improvement that might ease the user experience and the data hygiene by giving the capability to each user to detect easily and clean data with Merge feature.

Conclusion

As we all know, maintain a good data hygiene in a system is not an easy task. It gets even worse if you multiply integration with websites or other systems like ERP.

Really quickly you end up having a huge amount of duplicates and there come the question : how do we manage this ?

Maintaining data clean became increasingly strategic for organizations. It involves data reports in order to make quick and efficient decision out of what we analyze through data but also better performance with employees able to centralize accurately information about a specific customer in one unique record.

With Duplicate Lead Detection, Microsoft propose a new feature helping end users to identify duplicates. As it also takes misspelling in consideration, that's a considerable improvement in order to make sure that the Lead I am dealing with is unique. We can ensure that all the information are centralized and if it is not the case, pick up manually necessary information before deleting the duplicate record.

Moreover, after identifying duplicates, end users will be able to merge those duplicates and select for each field what value to keep. This is a fantastic improvement that I am looking forward to use. Indeed detect a duplicate is one part of the job. The other part is to decide what value to keep in the primary record before deleting the duplicate. There is often important information which can be strategic to keep. Therefore, I am looking forward to see this feature operational in order to make our job easier.

Duplicate Lead Detection is definitely a big step towards good data hygiene. It is for now limited for Lead but I am confident that after some time, it will be extended to all entities.

Thank you to Microsoft Team who gave me the possibility to see how the final feature will look like with Merge included.

Dynamics 365 Sales Duplicate Lead Detection with !! MERGE !!

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