Key Announcements and Summary of the Microsoft 2023 Release Wave 2 Plans

July has been full of exciting Microsoft announcements, as the annual Inspire conference took place and the Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform 2023 Release Wave 2 Plans were also published. As anticipated, Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Copilot have featured heavily alongside some important product name changes.

With hundreds of features in the release plans and lots of news from Inspire, we have summarised our top highlights in the following article. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out.

Key Announcements

Dynamics 365 Marketing is changing its name

Microsoft is bringing together Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Dynamics 365 Marketing as one product named Dynamics 365 Customer Insights from 1^st September 2023.

• What we currently know as Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, will become ‘Customer Insights – Data’
• What we currently know as Dynamics 365 Marketing, will become ‘Customer Insights – Journeys’. This will focus exclusively on real-time marketing
• All existing Dynamics 365 customers will be invited to fully transition from outbound to real-time marketing. From August, new customers will only be able to access real-time marketing
• There will be no new enhancements to outbound marketing
• Starting from 1^st September 2023, Dynamics 365 Marketing customers can renew on the existing licensing model for another contractual cycle or move to the new Customer Insights licensing model

For more information, please refer to the Microsoft documentation:

• Dynamics 365 Customer Insights FAQs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/marketing/ci-faq
• Blog post: https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/it/2023/07/18/transition-to-real-time-marketing-and-transform-your-customer-experience/

No more Viva Sales and the introduction of Sales Copilot

Microsoft announced at Inspire that they will be introducing Microsoft Sales Copilot, designed for salespeople to help personalise interactions and increase productivity.

This can be accessed in tools like Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365 Sales, and also connects to other CRM systems like Salesforce.

Microsoft also announced that Viva Sales is rebranded as Microsoft Sales Copilot, effective immediately. A lot of the existing functionality in Viva Sales is present in Sales Copilot, as well as plenty of new capabilities.

Sales Copilot is available both as a standalone subscription and as part of customers’ existing Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Premium licenses at no additional cost.

Additional Copilot resources:

• To understand how Sales Copilot fits into an organisation, check out this Inspire session with Charles Lamanna, CVP Business Apps and Platforms – https://youtu.be/uUN0dZzRBvw
• Microsoft blog post about Sales Copilot – https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/it/2023/07/18/improve-sales-productivity-and-close-more-deals-with-microsoft-sales-copilot/

 

Azure AD is becoming Microsoft Entra ID

Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is becoming Microsoft Entra ID, in an effort to simplify experiences across the eco-system.

The name change will roll out across all Microsoft products and experiences throughout the second half of 2023, from August onwards.

No action is required from customers and there are no changes to capabilities, licensing or pricing.

More information from Microsoft here – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/new-name

2023 Release Wave 2 Plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform

As always at this time of year, Microsoft has published the Release Wave 2 Plans. These plans detail new features coming to Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform between October 2023 and March 2024.

Early access for this wave will be available from July 31^st 2023, allowing administrators to test and validate new features before they are automatically enabled later in the year.

From October 1^st 2023, General Availability begins and deployments of the Wave 2 features will continue through to March 2024. A more detailed schedule of the rollout and regional deployment dates will be published nearer the time, which we will continue to monitor and update you on.

As we previously mentioned, there are many new features across Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform so we have split these into sections; D365 Marketing, D365 Sales, D365 Customer Service, Power Apps, Power Pages and Dataverse.

D365 Marketing (becoming ‘Customer Insights – Journeys’ from September)

Copilot is infused into every product across the Microsoft stack and it dominated many of the recent Inspire sessions. For D365 Marketing, the introduction of Copilot enables marketers to quickly generate content ideas, write personalised content, launch customer journeys and much more.

Use Copilot to easily design your emails, forms and event registration pages

Public Preview August 2023 / General Availability October 2023

This feature will allow users to easily style design elements across emails, forms and event registration pages with minimal effort, such as fonts, buttons, colour palettes, etc. By adding your website URL, AI can interpret systems from your website and apply them to save you time.

 

Rewrite and change the tone of content quickly using Copilot

Public Preview September 2023 / General Availability October 2023

Updating content across marketing collateral can be time consuming and often requires a lot of editing. So, how good would it be to be able to easily refresh or enhance existing content, at the click of a button? Copilot in Marketing allows users to do just that; use AI to edit and rewrite text, change the tone of voice, shorten and extend content, and more.

Copilot text editing will have the following capabilities:

• Rewrite text by choosing from several variants
• Various options when changing the tone of content: engaging, formal, casual, luxury, or adventurous.
• Specify a number of characters to shorten a message to
• Extend content to a specific number of sentences

There are also several types of content that copilot text editing can be used for:

• Email, email templates, content blocks
• Push notifications
• Text messages (SMS)
• Forms
• Event registration pages

 

Use natural language to create a customer journey

Public Preview August 2023 / General Availability November 2023

Simply describe in everyday words the customer journey you’d like to create, and generative AI will build the journey for you. This will allow users with less experience to create a customer journey and save time across the team. Copilot will also provide a list of suggested journeys, so you can get up and running in no time.

 

Customer journey templates

Public Preview November 2023 / General Availability February 2024

New templates are available to create customer journeys in D365 Marketing, including a variety of common customer scenarios, such as; e-commerce, events, proactive customer service, sales qualification, and more. These templates allow you to get started quickly, but then tweak them to suit your specific need. Additionally, you can create, share and reuse journey templates with your team.

 

Use integrated analytics across sales and marketing

Public Preview October 2023 / General Availability December 2023

Businesses can use out-of-the-box dashboards to track pipeline development and understand the impact of marketing journeys and content at different stages. This will quickly show users key metrics such as how much revenue you’re getting per lead, how are your leads being generated, how many leads convert to won opportunities, etc.

 

View all D365 Marketing Features in the Microsoft Release Planner

D365 Sales

As we mentioned at the start of the article, Microsoft recently announced the launch Sales Copilot. This can be accessed from Microsoft Outlook, Teams and Dynamics 365 Sales, as well as other CRM systems such as Salesforce. A lot of the new capabilities coming to Sales as part of this realise focus on Copilot, which we have summarised below:

AI-generated Account Summary

Public Preview December 2023 / General Availability TBC

With salespeople often working across multiple accounts, it can  be difficult to stay on top of everything. With the AI-generated account summary feature, salespeople can access a summary of key customer data including buying behaviour, relevant opportunities, cases, and more.

AI-generated meeting preparation notes

Public Preview July 2023 / General Availability October 2023

Ensure your salespeople have the key information they need for a meeting with Sales Copilot. This feature allows users to:

• Get a summary of the latest customer interactions including notes, emails, and previous meeting summaries
• Search for the latest and relevant news regarding a particular account
• Search the system for relevant information such as similar opportunities
• Get a summary of your important documents

Charles Lamanna, CVP Business Apps and Platforms, demonstrated this feature at the recent Inspire conference:

 

Real-time tips in Teams meetings

In Teams, salespeople can get real-time coaching tips (currently in private preview) during meetings in the Sales Copilot Teams panel. This will help them respond to customer inquiries and get pointers on competitor or brand mentions.

 

Lead & Opportunity summaries

Public Preview July 2023 / General Availability October 2023

AI-generated leads and opportunity summaries give your salespeople a comprehensive summary of key customer data, including buying behaviour, preferences, and past purchases. This summary includes an overview of the status and progress of a potential sale or deal, where the opportunity stands in the sales process, how likely it is to close, and potential revenue, etc.

Users can also see highlighted changes, which indicate any new changes since the last sign-in and the degree of importance, so you can quickly prioritise the most important areas.

An opportunity summary is also available in Outlook, where salespeople can view a brief background of the opportunity and the latest activities.

A lead summary combines data from multiple sources, such as CRM information, contact profiles from LinkedIn, and the latest news from Bing.

 

Craft better sales emails (this feature was part of the Wave 1 release but falls into Sales Copilot)

Public Preview June 2023 / General Availability August 2023

Reduce the time your salespeople spend writing emails by leveraging Copilot. You can choose from a pre-defined category list or enter your own text and Copilot will suggest content using Outlook and CRM data. You also have the ability to customise the message before you send it.

 

View all D365 Sales Features in the Microsoft Release Planner

D365 Customer Service

Summarise support cases and conversations with Copilot

Public Preview May 2023 (Support Cases) & June 2023 (Conversations) / General Availability October 2023

Copilot in Customer Service saves agents reading lengthy case details, notes and email threads by summarising the key points and conversation in natural language. This will allow agents to respond to cases better and speed up time to resolution.

Similarly, Copilot can generate summaries of chat and transcribed voice conversations, providing a concise overview of customer issues, troubleshooting steps, resolution attempts and conversation outcomes. Summaries can be requested on demand or automatically upon joining or ending a conversation.

 

Discover knowledge content

Public Preview May 2023 / General Availability January 2024

When trying to resolve a customer issue, agents don’t want to be wasting time searching through knowledge sources and consulting with various people. Copilot can quickly analyse customer data, internal knowledge and information from other websites, to provide the agent with the best solution. The suggested response can then be reviewed by the agent to ensure that the resources are correct and personalise the message before sending. Overall, this will help to improve efficiency and optimise the overall customer experience.

 

Draft customer emails with Copilot

Public Preview May 2023 / General Availability January 2024

This new feature will transform how your agents respond to clients and the time it takes. Your team can draft personalised email responses in just a few clicks, choosing from predefined prompts or providing customer prompts for more complex scenarios. Copilot will also use the context of the email conversation, case notes and knowledge articles to generate a response.

 

View all D365 Customer Service Features in the Microsoft Release Planner

Power Apps

Response layout templates

Public Preview March 2023 / General Availability TBC

In Power Apps, screen layout templates will now have pre-configured sizes so that users can quickly create apps for any device. Whilst in the creation phase, users can preview how the app will automatically adjust to various screens.

 

Refreshed look and feel for model-driven Power Apps

Public Preview August 2023 / General Availability October 2023

Model-driven Power Apps now have an updated user interface to align them with the latest Microsoft Fluent Design System. This comes with the new layouts, themes and colours. In the top right hand corner, users will have the option to opt-in via the toggle on the ‘New look’ button. Once enabled, users can use the new elements as they are released.

 

View all Power Apps Features in the Microsoft Release Planner

Power Pages

Improve collaboration with commenting capabilities

Public Preview November 2023 / General Availability TBC

Previously, Power Pages makers have relied on external tools for providing feedback, such as emails or Teams conversations. This new feature brings the introduction of commenting to Power Pages, so that team members can easily share feedback with others.

Use Copilot to build a website

Public Preview October 2023 / General Availability TBC

Makers can use Copilot in Power Pages to describe the website you want to build from the homepage, and AI will determine the sitemap, homepage layout variations and the site theme. Once these are assembled, users can then work with Copilot in the design studio to make further tweaks.

 

View all Power Pages Features in the Microsoft Release Planner

Dataverse

Microsoft deprecating legacy Dataverse connectors

Public Preview August 2023 / General Availability October 2023

From August 2023, Microsoft will be deprecating legacy Dataverse connectors and replacing with one connector to provide a unified experience in Power Apps and Power Automate.

This single connector will replace the following:

• Dynamics 365
• Dataverse Legacy
• Finance and operations apps

All features using the legacy connections will migrate to the new connector.

Associate activities with multiple related records

Public Preview August 2023 / General Availability October 2023

Activity records such as emails, appointments, tasks, and calls can be associated to business records, such as accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities.

Microsoft 365 Business Chat operates with information backed by Dataverse

Public Preview August 2023 / General Availability March 2023

Following the Microsoft 365 Copilot announcement earlier this year, Microsoft 365 Business chat will now been linked with Dataverse allowing users to find, search and summarise data across various apps, from within Teams. This really steps us the productivity game for businesses and will save employees a significant amount of time.

Inside Teams, users can initiate a conversation with Copilot. For example if someone was to ask “What are the recent opportunities for X client?”, Copilot would generate a response pulling through CRM data and reference in the footnotes where the data is from.

You can also say “Draft an email for the sales team about opportunities for X client with correspondence and emails from X name” and receive a draft email based on your data.

Microsoft MVP Lisa Crosbie has filmed a great video covering her top picks from the Wave 2 plans. Between 0:26 – 2:18 mins, Lisa talks through this new Microsoft 365 Business Chat feature and gives us a glimpse of this in action.

 

View all Dataverse Features in the Microsoft Release Planner

Access the Full 2023 Release Wave 1 Notes

At Pragmatiq, we are excited about the new possibilities these features will unlock for businesses. Hopefully, this article has provided you with a good overview into some of the new features coming to the Microsoft eco-system in the coming months, and some new possibilities for your company.

If you wish to access the full release plans, you can do so here:

• Dynamics 365
• Power Platform

Contact Us

If you have any questions about the release and how your business can leverage some of the features, please contact us. Fill out the contact form and a member of our team will be in touch shortly, or if you’d prefer, email us at info@pragmatiq.co.uk or call us on 01908 038110.