Dynamics 365 CE Release wave 2 2023

Here we go again, it’s time to review the top new features and hidden gems for Power Platform and Dynamics 365.

The following is my top feature list about Dynamics 365 CE. I know it’s a bit of a long list, but I couldn’t left them out in this blogpost.

I’ve used the new experience to dig into the release wave documentation, so go I highly recommend it if you haven’t started using yet.

Before we go any further, it’s worth mentioning that everything in this list is subject to change and the following images are the same ones that Microsoft has released as part of the feature wave, including the quality of them.

It’s worth mentioning that we have a lot of…a lot of Copilot for Dyamics 365 CE in this  release wave, I think this is something that will be common in the next release waves.

Without further introductions, let’s get started.

Sales

Copilot new features

I can’t imagine how many users will be super happy with these new features, I mean I know how hard it is to remember the due date of your tasks and go through all the email conversations to remember important points that have been agreed with clients, or read a bunch of documents before a meeting with your client to prepare better.

It’s crazy to see how AI is taking over these repetitive tasks to help salespeople focus on what’s important, increasing their work efficiency.

Follow up on emails using recommended actions: Copilot monitors email conversations, identifies action items, and pops up the Up-Next widget with the next best actions. It sends reminders to users so they can complete tasks, reducing notetaking and the risk of missing tasks.

Gear up for your meetings using AI-generated preparation notes: Copilot uses AI to provide sellers with key points from various sources and websites, preparing them better for customer meetings with essential information like interactions, news, similar opportunities, and important documents.

Stay on top of your deals with AI-generated opportunity summaries: AI-generated summaries provide a comprehensive overview of key customer data for multiple deals, helping sellers gain valuable insights, communicate opportunities effectively, and prioritize work.

Stay on top of your leads with AI-generated lead summary: AI-powered lead summaries offer quick overviews of leads with enriched data from Dynamics 365 Marketing and Customer Insights. It improves lead qualification, mapping, and captures relevant information for informed decisions.

Stay updated with contextual news within Copilot chat: Bing’s contextual news integration allows users to access real-time news related to the company they are working with, empowering sales teams with informed conversations, tailored pitches, and improved sales strategies.

Timelines:

Early Access: —

Public Preview: Jul 2023

General Availability : Oct 2023

Streamline repeated follow-ups with prospects and customers

Again AI into action and this time working together with Sequences. Sequences help sales managers enforce best practices by introducing a set of consecutive activities. Now we know that digital selling is not a linear process. Many sales cycles require multiple follow-ups with prospects to get a response and to move the conversation forward. With this release, sequences can easily repeat steps and create child branches.

Sellers can take advantage of repeated evaluations of sequence steps until the exit criteria are met. For example, follow up with a prospect on a proposal every three days until the closure. So you can create a child branch, perform additional tasks in the child branch, and merge it back into the main branch.

In general, sellers need to repeat certain steps until the customer takes the desired action. With the sequence creation, sales managers and operations can do the following:

  • Easily create a series of repeated steps and specify criteria for exiting the series.
  • Create a different execution branch after the series depending on what exit criteria was met.
  • This allows for more streamlined and easy-to-manage sequences.
 

Timelines:

Early Access: —

Public Preview: —

General Availability : Jan 2024

Customer Service

Copilot new features

As I said at the beginning of this blogpost, this release wave is all about AI, I think that for this release wave Dynamics 365 CE has more Copilot features than Power Platform and I can see it with so many features making life easier for sellers and customer service agents.

Summarize conversations with Copilot: Copilot uses generative AI to automatically generate summaries of chat and voice conversations, providing concise and accurate information on customer issues, troubleshooting steps, and conversation outcomes, eliminating the need for agents to sift through lengthy transcripts.

Summarize support cases with Copilot: Copilot empowers agents to quickly summarize case details, linked notes, emails, and conversation summaries with generative AI, enabling agents to ramp up on cases faster and accelerate time to resolution for customers.

View analytics for Copilot’s impact on your business: The copilot report in historical analytics helps supervisors and managers understand the impact Copilot has on completing customer conversations, triaging cases, drafting and sending emails, and provides key metrics for user satisfaction and agent performance.

Discover knowledge content with Copilot: Copilot uses AI to diagnose customer problems, access knowledge from internal sources and trusted websites, and provide appropriate solutions to agents, helping them troubleshoot customer issues faster and improve efficiency.

Draft email replies with a click using Copilot: Copilot generates personalized, contextual email replies with just a click, saving time for agents and providing unparalleled email support to customers.

Draft messaging replies with a click using Copilot: Copilot suggests responses from omnichannel interactions, contextualizing information from conversations and organizational data, enhancing agent productivity, and ensuring customers receive tailored, helpful answers across various digital messaging channels.

For the first three features the timeline is:

 

Timelines:

Early Access: —

Public Preview: Jun 2, 2023

General Availability : Oct 2023

 

For the last three features the timeline is:

Timelines:

Early Access: —

Public Preview: May 20, 2023

General Availability : Jan 2024

Marketing

Copilot new features

Marketing module is not the exception for new Copilot features, the following are features that will make life easier to marketeers:

Effortless Domain Authentication: Copilot provides step-by-step guidance to authenticate your domain, maximizing email deliverability, performance, and credibility.

Content Editing: Marketers can leverage AI to easily edit, rewrite, and change the tone of their content, saving time and effort in content creation.