of the
No, Microsoft didn’t invent the time machine (though you can buy one in store). As part of modernizing the way Dynamics 365 gets updated, the team has just released October 2018 release notes.
Why did the notes get released 3 (and for some features 5) months ahead of schedule? So that customers and partners can start planning for the new and exciting capabilities coming to Dynamics 365. This is also a great opportunity to provide early feedback (by emailing releasenotes@microsoft.com) that will be reviewed and incorporated, if applicable and makes sense.
Overall, the document is a mixed bag. It’s understandable because the contributions were coming from the independent teams. Still, it’s hard to place features like “Improved grid with copy and paste” in Business Central on the same level as Channel Integration Framework.
What caught my attention (YMMV, as I have a developer/platform/ISV bias):
- Sales: Integration with Microsoft Teams and AI capabilities
- Service: Service scheduling using URS (Unified Resource Scheduling), Omni-channel Engagement Hub, Channel Integration Framework, and Bring Your Own Bot capabilities
- Portals: SharePoint integration, embedded Power BI charts, and (finally!) configuration migration schema for portals
- URS: General enhancements, in-form scheduling, and self-service scheduling APIs
- PowerApps: embedded canvas apps on entity forms, custom size and responsive layout for canvas apps, ALM and admin enhancements, native support for CDS data types
- Flow: design Flows in Vision o__O, Flow inception (Flow management connector)
- Data Integration: new and improved development and consumption for connectors
Commitment to online couldn’t be made clearer with the word “premises” mentioned only in relation to Russian localization of Finance and Operations, Dynamics 365 for Retail, Business Central, and On-premises Data gateway.
Download 239 pages (including 14 pages of TOC) of goodness, get a drink of your choice, and spend a few minutes (or hours) reading it – it will be most certainly worth your time.
(Facebook and Twitter cover photo by Bud Helisson on Unsplash)
Any news for a new onprem release?
As per the post, the document says nothing about customer engagement on-premises. My guess? There will be something but what exactly – is yet to be seen.
What’s the best way Admins can sort out what in the October release will apply to On-premise CRM/Dynamics Customer Service?
From what I’ve read of the release notes, I can’t find anything.
Allison,
while the notes are really short on details, the best way to sort out what’s in and what’s not is probably take the release for a spin. On-premises v9 has been in preview for some time and the release is imminent.
Cheers
George