Microsoft’s 2023 Release Wave 1 for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform promises updates and capabilities designed to transform how their customers do business. With hundreds of new features announced across Dynamics 365 applications, capturing all the changes in one blog post would be impossible. However, we did want to shed light on the most prominent updates within Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
Dynamics 365
Many new features became available for testing in company environments starting February 6, 2023. Click here to opt into upcoming 2023 release wave 1 updates and learn how to enable new capabilities as they become available.
Marketing
Microsoft enhanced the ability for organizations to connect their sales and marketing capabilities. That allows them to function in unison, speeding up sales pipelines. For example, a new B2B analytics dashboard simplifies the tracking of essential metrics for sales and marketing teams. In addition, users can use artificial intelligence (AI) powered features to set up new segments, generate ideas for email creation, or perform analysis to locate and improve high-performing activities.
The new Dynamics 365 functionality helps marketers collaborate with other departments and deliver personalized experiences more efficiently. They can engage with customers during important moments at different touchpoints to create an overall holistic experience. The additional AI and data provided helps with decision-making and help marketing departments achieve a higher marketing maturity level.
Sales
As the role of seller evolves, Microsoft updated its Sales module in ways that empower organizations to understand the needs of their consumer base. For example, sales teams have access to tools like revenue intelligence, which makes setting pricing and discounts for products more accessible. In addition, they can use the capabilities to help define targets, set up sales forecasts, visualize deals, and manage the top line.
Other new functions made available with the Microsoft Dynamics 355 release wave 1 include the following:
- Prevention of duplicate leads out of the system when users perform a manual or bulk import
- Ability for users to receive follow-up tasks automatically from different Office applications
- New input forms that help declutter information thanks to a cleaner visual layout
- AI solutions that provide account-based suggestions for targeted selling
- Ability to set up customer org chart to help sellers understand the roles of contacts at an organization and visualize an overall relationship map
Service
Microsoft put a lot of focus on the following areas of Dynamics 365 Customer Service
- Improved case creation
- More robust real-time analytics
- Ability to customize data models for reports
- Expansion of voice channel to more regions
Administrators can now easily manage the module through a new consolidated admin center app. Users now have access to guided wizards to help set up new functions within customer service. Microsoft also improved the agent experience by:
- Enhancing email templates
- Improving the Customer Service workspace layout
- Enhancing the conversation auto-summarization experience
- Adding forecasts for case volumes and agent demand per day and at 15-minute intervals
Supervisors now have operational metrics to help them perform continuous monitoring. That way, they can step in immediately if they notice issues like declining customer sentiment. Supervisors can course-correct by changing staffing levels to improve productivity and keep service levels high.
The enhanced omnichannel experience lets agents provide secure and robust service experiences. Businesses can integrate the Nuance interactive voice response (IVR) system to provide customers with continuous self-service. In addition, callers can request a call-back from an agent to help them avoid long queues.
Power Platform
The changes to the Power Platform in the 2023 release wave 1 continue Microsoft’s dedication to helping business users analyze, understand, and make data-based business decisions. Below is an overview of some new features introduced to the Microsoft Power universe.
Power Apps
There’s now more advanced governance of low code available. That way, organizations can reduce risk and have more control over Powers Apps as they support low code adoption. In addition, businesses have more ability to integrate Power Apps into existing legacy systems and data repositories. Users now have a modernized experience thanks to more intuitive controls.
Power Apps users can create applications that tap into information from multiple sources, like the Microsoft Dataverse. Microsoft will continue simplifying the app-building experience. Developers should also have an easier time integrating logic and data into their creations more efficiently while scaling them to adapt to more advanced business scenarios.
Power Pages
Low-code and professional developers have long relied on Microsoft Power Pages to create, host, and administer modern external business websites. The enhancements provided to Power Pages in the 2023 release wave 1 included enhanced templates and improvements to the professional development experience.
- Template hub — The template hub lets users build sites by starting from pre-built, industry-specific templates. Developers and business users can modify the templates to add proprietary company branding and to adjust for business requirements.
- Administration and governance — Administrators can now view website details, and review capacity reports and site information from the Power Platform admin center. Self-service diagnostic tools are also available to help locate and repair website issues.
- Professional developer experiences — Developers can build advanced customizations for websites thanks to new support for tools like Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, and GitHub actions. It’s also easier to manage end-to-end application lifecycle (ALM) capabilities. Extensibility patterns are also available to help coders adapt websites to more complex business requirements.
Power Automate
The new updates to Cloud flows now make it easier for users to build and share automations. In addition, organizations can enhance oversight and increase cloud flow adoption through governance and privacy controls.
Desktop flows, the Power Platform’s Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution, automates Windows desktop services, applications, and experiences for deployment within the Power Platform. The 2023 release wave 1 will bring ISV integrations that help partners build RPA solutions separately from cloud flows.
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