Microsoft has evolved the way it updates its business applications and Dynamics 365, focusing on two releases every April and October. Microsoft will now share the changes that are included in these before the release comes out.
By sharing this update, Microsoft gives existing users of Dynamics 365 time to plan and deal with any significant changes coming their way. All changes are available from October 2018.
The significant changes in October’s release notes are:
- Enhancements to Dynamics 365 applications – including hundreds of new capabilities across Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Portals, Omni-channel Engagement Hub, Field Service, Project Service, Social Engagement, Finance and Operations, Talent, Retail, and Business Central. Microsoft is introducing a new set of mixed reality experiences using Microsoft Layout and Microsoft Remote Assist.
- New intelligence applications – employ decades of AI work pioneered by Microsoft Research to make Dynamics 365 more intelligent. Enhance sales performance and planning with the new Dynamics 365 AI for Sales application.
- New Power platform capabilities – combine Power BI, PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, the Common Data Service for Apps and Power BI dataflows with an unmatched palette of tools to extend, customise and integrate Dynamics 365 and Office 365 with your environment. These experiences are powered by insights and intelligence from data across hundreds of business systems with built-in connectivity to the platform, tightly integrating with the business applications people use daily.
- Deeper integrations with other Microsoft products – offering seamless experiences with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Stream, Azure, and LinkedIn. Microsoft has enhanced Dynamics 365 with data from Office 365 and Bing.
- Performance, usability and supportability enhancements – improves the applications and underlying platform and provides a better experience for your businesses.
So, nothing too surprising from Microsoft. There are hundreds of small improvements, more AI and continued development/focus on the Power platform – a source of huge potential for Dynamics 365 users. For Dynamics 365 for Sales or Customer Engagement users it will be interesting to see how Dynamics 365 AI for Sales fits inas we get more information on this nearer the time.
For a more detailed breakdown of what changes are planned for your products please download the release notes here.