An Overview of Dynamics 365 Wave 2 Release Plan
An Overview of Dynamics 365 Wave 2 Release Plan
July 10th, 2019
7 min read
Last month, Microsoft published the release plans for the next major update to Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform; Wave 2 Release, which will roll out from October 2019 through to March 2020.
Within this article, we will provide an overview that highlights the key features and changes coming up, but if you’d like to learn more you can access the full 370-page release note document here.
Wave 2 Release Dates
On August 2nd 2019, administrators will be able to gain early access and try the new features that will be a part of the October update, before they get enabled automatically. General availability deployment for the 2019 Release wave 2 then begins on October 1st 2019, with new features being released through to March 2020. Within the release plan document, you will find a table that shows the enablement status for each feature.
- August 2nd, 2019: Early access available – Try the new features and capabilities before they get enabled automatically.
- October 1st, 2019: General availability – Production deployment for the 2019 release wave 2 begins.
2019 Release Wave 2 Overview
The enhancements to Dynamics 365 applications include hundreds of new capabilities across the business process applications:
- Sales
- Marketing
- Customer Service
- Field Service
- Project Service Automation
- Finance and Operations
- Talent
- Retail
- Business Central
A focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities features heavily in the 2019 release wave 2 plans, to help organsiations accelerate their customer service, sales and marketing functions:
- Sales Insights: Empower teams with more foresight to enhance productivity and better predict outcomes throughout the sales process
- Customer Service Insights: Gain an actionable view into critical performance metrics, operational data, and emerging trends
- Virtual Agent for Customer Service: Enables organisations to create AI-powered chatbots that talk with customers, providing new opportunities to improve customer service
- Customer Insights: Better understand your customer data and leverage it for intelligent insights and actions
- Market Insights: Businesses can gather actionable insights based on what consumers say and how they feel about their brand and products
Alongside AI, the 2019 release wave 2 also adds a whole new set of experiences to enhance employee productivity using mixed reality:
- Remote Assist: Empowers technicians to solve problems faster the first time
- Layout: Provides a new way for space planners to bring designs to life with confidence and speed
- Product Visualise: Enables salespeople to demonstrate the true potential of their products to their customers by harnessing the power of augmented reality on their mobile devices
The wave 2 release notes include a variety of new features across each application of Dynamics 365. Below is just an overview of the key features across Sales, Marketing and Customer Service. For more detail, view the full document here.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales
Business card scan
No more misplacing business cards. With this new feature, users will be able to scan business cards, then the scanner will analyse the card for relevant information and automatically populate the fields in a record.
*Note: This feature is available in the Unified Interface only
Improved lead qualification experience
Optionally create an Account, Contact, and/or Opportunity upon the qualification of a Lead record.
*Note: This feature is available in both the legacy web client and the Unified Interface
Contextual email editor
Composing email has never been better in Dynamics 365 for Sales. Salespeople will be able to write email with the context of the record they are working on, navigate between records, have multiple active draft emails open simultaneously, preview the content before sending and add attachments, all opening within a non-blocking window.
*Note: This feature is available in the Unified Interface only
Simplified common sales workflows
Simplified workflows will introduce ease of access to commonly used components.
*Note: This feature is available in the Unified Interface only
‘Create & Add’ capability for multiple product lines
Creation of multiple product line items, which can be a repetitive task, is now streamlined with the new “Create & Add” capability.
*Note: This feature is available in the Unified Interface only
Read the full list of Dynamics 365 for Sales updates here
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing
Email A/B testing
A/B Testing capability has now been built into Dynamics 365 for Marketing, allowing marketers to create alternative versions of a message and test each design on a subset of your audience.
Layout editor
Visual email designer now provides a layout editor for designing multi-column layouts. This provides a quick and easy way to alter the appearance of email messages, which is a feature that marketers often look for.
*Note: This feature is available in both the legacy web client and the Unified Interface
Quick Send
Sometimes marketers need to send out a quick email blast, which doesn’t require any behavioral triggers or follow-up automation. This new feature allows users to craft and send emails to a large audience in just a few clicks.
Easy setup for subscription lists
Marketers can now work end-to-end with subscription lists throughout the marketing lifecycle, and will be available natively from the main navigator in the Dynamics 365 for Marketing app.
Read the full list of Dynamics 365 for Marketing updates here
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service
Improved timeline experience
Users will be able to see larger amounts of information associated with an entity (case, contact account, etc), without the need to scroll.
Improved knowledge management experience – inline-image enhancement
Knowledge authors will have an improved inline image experience in which they can directly copy, paste, and drag and drop images or select them from File Explorer and add them to knowledge articles.
Enhanced search & rendering for knowledge management
Currently, knowledge base search control supports filtering only on status and language of articles. To provide a better knowledge search experience for users, this feature extends the filtering capability to other attributes.
Read the full list of Dynamics 365 for Customer Service updates here
The Full 2019 Release Wave 2 Notes
Within this article we have given you an overview of some of the new features being rolled out across Microsoft Dynamics 365, however, there are plenty more. You can access the full document here.
Get in touch
If you have any questions about the release, or you are on an older version of Dynamics 365 and would like to upgrade to get access to all of the new 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.
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