2024 Release Wave 1 for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform – 10 things you need to know5 min read
On January 25th, Microsoft announced the new features set to arrive to Dynamics365 and the Power Platform between April and September 2024. As you can imagine, there was an extensive focus on Copilot, expanding its capability across the business applications range.
At Cloud9 Insight, we’ve put together our top features you need to know about. It’s also crucial for you to know that there are already new features available to try in Early Access for non-production environments. This gives you the opportunity to test new features before they become widely available. We’ve highlighted all the features available to test from February.
As with all of Microsoft’s release waves, features will gradually become available. We’ve added the General Availability dates for all the updates mentioned here. We've also included Microsoft's full release videos to offer a more visual insight.
Dynamics 365 for Sales
1. The home experience, now featuring Copilot
This is maybe the most visually striking change coming in Release Wave 1. Copilot now has its own dedicated full-screen workspace in Dynamics 365 Sales. This dashboard will help sellers keep on top of your pipeline by showing the next follow-up actions that need to be taken, helping to prepare you for upcoming meetings, highlighting leads you might have missed, and helping you access customer details in record time.
Public Preview – February 2024
General Availability – April 2024
2. How Copilot will answer your questions
Copilot’s greatest strength as a Large Language Model (LLM) is its ability to analyse a vast amount of data in seconds and present it as easily digestible information. Dynamics 365 Sales takes full advantage of this in Release Wave 1. Sellers can now simply ask Copilot any question about customers, their recent interactions, or documentation from SharePoint. Instant access to these quick answers stands to save sales teams hundreds of hours.
Public Preview – February 2024
3. Consolidate customer data with Copilot
Timesaving is a theme of Release Wave 1, with AI-generated account summaries also on the way to Dynamics 365 Sales. These summaries appear on the right-hand side of your Sales window and allow sellers to quickly identify buying behaviours, relevant opportunities, or marketing campaigns associated with any Account, Lead or Contact.
General Availability – April 2024
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights (formerly Dynamics 365 Marketing)
4. How Copilot gives your next campaign a head start
Gathering all the required data to begin an effective marketing campaign can potentially take weeks of work. The new campaign briefing document feature allows you assemble all necessary data in a fraction of the time. Using Copilot, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights will create a project board that assembles audiences, channels, journeys, and assets that you can adjust to fit your precise needs. All this means that marketers can develop campaigns from start to finish in seconds.
Public Preview – February 2024
5. How to better tailor content within Customer Insights
A number of new features are on the way to allow marketers to create campaigns that are better tailored to each of their customer segments.
Email A/B testing. General Availability – April 2024: A long-requested feature that allows marketers to test different subject lines and body text elements within campaigns.
Manage customer consent. General Availability – June 2024: Consent management allows you to manage opt-ins and opt-outs across every channel, allowing you to see who has requested to be left out of specific campaigns and react accordingly.
Branded links. General Availability – April 2024: Another popular request, with customers becoming savvier with the links they click on, you can now create branded ‘vanity’ links that display your business name, rather than just a string of numbers and letters. This adds a new layer of professionalism to your email campaigns.
6. How to better track campaign interactions
Great campaigns aren’t just about producing content, but assessing and refining it as the campaign progresses. The new Journey flow analysis feature in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights provides visually appealing insights to show where people offer the most promising interactions, and which touchpoints cause them to drop off the journey.
General Availability – April 2024
7. Email scheduling
Any marketer knows that people engage with content differently at different times. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights will soon allow you to maximise impact with email send scheduling. This allows you to only send automated emails within a certain timeframe, or on different days of the week, ensuring their relevance to your audience, and boosting engagement rates.
Public Preview – April 2024
General Availability – July 2024
Dynamics 365 Field Service
8. How to boost first-time fix rate with Copilot
When in the field, agents regularly need to refer back to a variety of data. The new update to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service is set to support them with Copilot integration. Instead of trawling through work orders or instructions, agents can simply ask Copilot and the relevant information will be displayed through a chat window.
General Availability – April 2024
9. Create a better user experience within Field Service
The mobile user experience within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service application is about to get a big upgrade. The mobile app allows field agents to access customer details, upcoming bookings, and more quickly. The app has been specifically designed with ease-of-use in mind to help users on the go.
Public Preview – Live Now
General Availability – April 2024
Dynamics 365 Customer Service
10. How Copilot supports service agents
Copilot is the major thread tying all these new features together, and the same is true in Dynamics 365 Customer Service. One of the best new features here is the ability for agents to get automatic prompts during calls. Copilot will suggest relevant questions or guide on the next steps during calls, helping to boost the all-important first-time fix rate.
Copilot will even cite its own suggestions, allowing agents to validate their next response.
Public Preview – April 2024
We hope this highlight reel has provided some insight into the next updates arriving for Dynamics 365 in the coming months. This is just a snapshot of what is coming up though, and you can find more information, including new updates coming to Power Platform, over at Microsoft’s own Release Planner.
https://releaseplans.microsoft.com/en-US/?app=Marketing&status=planned
If you have any questions about the features listed above, please feel free to get in touch with the Cloud9 Insight team at sales@cloud9insight.com or call us at 01273 921510.
Share On Social Media
Join Our Mailing List
Get the latest Dynamics 365 news, blog updates, webinars events and invitations.