2020 Dynamics 365 Release Wave 2 Offers Hundreds of New Features

Microsoft’s continues to invest in powering digital transformation to their customers and partners in the 2020 Dynamics 365 Release

Yesterday, Microsoft published the 2020 Dynamics 365 release wave 2 plans for Dynamics 365, a compilation of new capabilities that will be released between October 2020 and March 2021. The release demonstrates Microsoft’s continued investment in powering digital transformation to their customers and partners. Although there are not a lot of brand new functions, but there are many enhancements to current features. The emphasis of this release is on simplifying the user experience and allowing people to focus on what they need to focus on. While there are hundreds of enhancements, this blog will highlight the enhancements to the areas of Sales and Customer Service, and Field Service.

Sales

Dynamics 365 Sales continues to emphasize simplified user experiences and enabling sellers to focus on selling. Some of the enhancements in the area of Sales are:

• A new, intuitive mobile experience for quick access to customer information. Not only is it easier to find customer information through things like improved search, lists, and forms, but it is also easier to complete tasks on the go.
• Gamification is commonly used to boost seller adoption, but it also drives CRM adoption, increases performance, and increases sales revenue. The admin interface is now available in the Unified Interface.
• Usability Enhancements within the app to reduce friction and make it easier to use. Some of the enhancements we’ll see here are:
  • Simplified duplicate detection and merge capabilities.
  • Enhanced email experience.
• Sales Insights – investments in digital selling across multiple areas.
  • Sales acceleration
  • Conversation intelligence
  • Relationship intelligence
  • Advanced forecasting
  • Pipeline intelligence with predictive lead and opportunity scorings to help sales teams uncover top deals.
• Dynamics 365 Product Visualize empowers sellers and accelerates complex sales processes by:
  • Showcasing and customizing products in their real world environment.
  • Sellers can now place a 3D digital twin.

Customer Service

Dynamics 365 Customer Service expands agent productivity capabilities by

• Enabling agents to engage in multiple sessions simultaneously.
• Omnichannel for customer service enhanced with additional extensibility options (to enable integration with mobile applications, Microsoft Bot framework, and outbound messaging.

Dynamics 365 Customer Service Insights: New capabilities in this area will help agents using case suggestions to resolve customer issues more quickly and easily.

• New analytical view for customer service managers helps them to focus on key support areas that need attention.
• These new capabilities will be included directly in the Customer Service hub – so that users can get the insights they need without having to switch applications.
• Remote assist

Field Service

Dynamics 365 Field Service continues to add intelligence capabilities including:

• A new field service dashboard for monitoring key KPIs and work order competition metrics.
• Many user experience enhancements to enable proactive delivery.
• Enhancement to the mobile app – including push notifications and real-time location sharing.
• Scheduling enhancements: including multi-day manual scheduling and enhanced skill based matching.

Learn more

If you would like to learn more about the 2020 Dynamics 365 Release, view the Dynamics 365 Release Wave plan or the downloadable PDF. The Power Platform features coming in the 2020 release wave 2 have been summarized in a separate release plan as well as a downloadable PDF.

Here are the key dates for the 2020 release wave 2.

*Note: Some features are available to you to opt-in as part of early access on August 3, 2020, including all mandatory changes that affect users.

As always, Microsoft is always looking for customer feedback in the Dynamics 365 community forums. They will use this feedback to make improvements

How can we help

enCloud9 has one of the most experienced Microsoft Dynamics CRM teams in the US. From pre-sales to project management, and user support, we will respond quickly with our expertise to answer your questions. Our history dates back to 2009, but our experience dates back even longer. Our consultants have been advising companies for over thirty years to give them the tools to achieve their goals. Our experience leads to your success. We use our unique approach to help small and medium-sized businesses lower their costs and boost productivity through Microsoft’s powerful range of cloud-based software.

enCloud9 has a series of Accelerators, which are prepackaged Dynamics 365 implementations designed to get your business up and running on Dynamics 365 in approximately seven days. Our Service Accelerator is designed to quickly get you up and running in Dynamics 365 for Customer Service. To find out more about how you can accelerate your customer service, contact us today.

In addition, join monthly webinar in October as we preview the best new features of the Dynamics 365 October 2020 Update. Don’t miss this informative webinar. To check out our upcoming and our past webinars, visit our Facebook page or our YouTube page.