Featured News

Dynamics 365 administrators will be notified via the O365 Message Center and will receive an email when the Dynamics 365 version 9.0 Update is available. The target to make update scheduling available is January 2018, and the window for processing the scheduled updates is February 2018 – August 2018.

To see the update availability, navigate to the UPDATES tab in the Dynamics 365 Administration Center. Instances that are eligible for upgrade will have a Status of ‘Update available’.  From there, customers can schedule their update and book preferred and alternate dates.

Customers can upgrade to version 9.0 from version Dynamics 2016 (8.0), Dynamics 2016 UPD1 (8.1) or Dynamics 365 (8.2). For more information on the update process, see Manage Updates.

Note: The update availability to Dynamics 365, version 9.0 for Dynamics 365 Government and Dynamics 365 Germany is not part of this announcement. The availability of version 9.0 for these customers will be announced at a later date.

Reminder: The Microsoft Dynamics Marketing service will be discontinued effective May 15, 2018. Customers will need to take advance action prior to May 15, 2018, to transition to an alternative solution and continue automating their business marketing activities.

Microsoft is pleased to announce that some customers can get early access to the Public Preview for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing in select countries and languages (Microsoft field resources, Dynamics 365 MVPs and Microsoft Dynamics Marketing (MDM) customers). An announcement will be made when the preview is available to all customers and partners.

For additional information on public preview, visit this link.

For more details on the new service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing, review the training section below.

Updates & Releases

Portal capabilities version 8.3.3.153 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is now available. This release includes an updated portal host and updated solution packages (new solution packages will be available after portal host upgrades have been completed globally). The portal host will automatically be updated by Microsoft, but action must be taken by your organization to upgrade the solution packages.

This update resolves the following issues:

· Added a new error message for password confirmation screen when attempting to send email fails due to contact email preference being disabled.

· Case timelines would display encoded html tags for emails that have originated from within Dynamics 365 making them difficult to read.

· Deactivated forum threads appear on the portal.

· External Web Links in navigation may redirect to the home page instead of the intended external URL.

· Fields that are using DateOnly behavior may not display the correct date on entity lists.

· Increased cache performance of knowledge articles in portal.

· Portal may experience an error when uploading a file that is larger than the configured maximum size instead of displaying the configured file size error text.

For more information, review this support article.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.11 is ready for release in December 2017.

New and updated features include:

• Support for Twitter's extended tweet length
• A new table view added to existing charts so uses can view the data as a chart or a table
• A new styling for charts with colored areas now includes patterns in addition to solid colors

Resolved issues include:

• Updated the mapping of the language recognition for private messages
• Updated Social Engagement documentation regarding Facebook Acquisition Tokens, Facebook comment actions, adding Custom Tags, and requirements for YouTube Engagement actions

For more information, review What’s new in Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.

Voice of the Customer for Dynamics 365 (9.0.823.1 - 9.0.959.8) is live on all Geos. This version of Voice of the Customer is compatible with Dynamics 365 version 8.2 and later.

New and updated features include:

• Changed the way survey responses are sent to the Dynamics 365 database to improve reliability
• The previous limitations of maximum 2400 survey responses per day has been removed and the number of email survey invitations has been increased to 50000 to improve scalability
• Made change tracking available on Voice of the Customer entities

Resolved issues include:

• Feedback entity does not work properly on all locales specified in Dynamics 365
• The default count resets to five in a start-rating question even after modification
• Respondent can skip Single Rating question even though it is marked as mandatory

For more information, see What’s new in Voice of the Customer version 9.0.823.1 to 9.0.959.8.

The latest update to the Field Service application and Project Service Automation application for Dynamics 365i snow available. This release is compatible with Dynamics 365 9.0.x. To update to this release, go to the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, solutions page to install the update.

Field Service enhancements (7.2.0.43)

New and updated features include:

• Improved logic when changing a booking status from Cancelled to Active (not cancelled)
• Removed unused views and renamed forms for Field Resource Hub
• Changed command name for completing Service Tasks to "Mark Complete"

Resolved issues include:

· Add New Product line item doesn’t work on the opportunity, quote, order, or invoices form

· After creating a work order type, the error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" appears when the user saves the Quote Booking Setup on a related tab

· When a Dispatcher clicks the Book button on a work order, the window doesn’t load

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements

NOTE: Improvements and bug fixes for Universal Resource Scheduling apply to Field Service and Project Service Automation as well as to other schedulable entities in the Sales or Service applications.

New and updated features include:

• In the Schedule Assistant view, a new sort option lists the resources with the highest or lowest total available hours in ascending or descending order
• If there are no bookings on the schedule board date range being displayed for a resource, the expand arrow no longer shows
• When resource capacity is less than the requested hours and the booking method is front load, the user can’t book a resource from the schedule board

Resolved issues include:

• On the schedule board, only first page results are displayed for the list of resources when switching from horizontal to vertical view
• When popping out the schedule board in Internet Explorer, clicking a resource cell doesn’t select all the grids
• Clicking resources to select cells takes 10 seconds on Internet Explorer and 3 seconds on Google Chrome

For more information, review the Release Notes for Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release 2 post in the Dynamics 365 Team blog.

The latest update to Resource Scheduling Optimization (v2.0.17335.1) is now available. This release is compatible with both Dynamics 365 8.2.x and Dynamics 365 9.0.x. To update to this release, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, Applications page, to apply the update.

New and updated features include:

• Performance improvements for end-to-end optimization

Resolved issues include:

• On Dynamics 365 9.0.x organizations, the Refresh button on the Optimization Request grid on the RSO scope-related schedule board doesn't refresh the grid
• On Dynamics 365 9.0.x organizations, the RSO scope-related schedule board lock icon isn't showing on Edge
• Optimization requested fails with the error message: “System failed to modify some bookings” even though there is no booking being modified during the optimization run
• On Dynamics 365 9.0.x organizations, booking details for optimization don't show unchanged bookings

For more information, review the Release Notes for Resource Scheduling Optimization (v2.0.17335.1) – Dynamics 365 post in the Dynamics 365 Team blog.

Additional News

FastTrack for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a service designed to help customers move to Dynamics 365 smoothly and confidently. Customers will receive guidance on best practices, how to plan for successful rollouts and learn ways to enable new users and expand capabilities.

Services include:

• Data migration & validation
• Assist in go-live activities
• Support user adoption
• Conduct Technical Talks and Workshops

For more information on eligibility and available services, please see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/fasttrack/customer-engagement/microsoft-fasttrack-dynamics-365.

Sort available resources by total available time

In the December 2017 update, out-of-the-box functionality was added that allows users to sort resources by total availability. Previously, the system included two out-of-the-box options for sorting results when searching for available resources, plus any additional custom sort options. Now the system includes this third sort option.

For more information, review this post on the Dynamics 365 Team Blog.

In a previous releases, scheduling extensibility was introduced, opening up countless new scenarios for field service organizations. Now, with the December 2017 update, a custom query can include the date range displayed on the schedule board to return matching bookings within that date range. In the past, customers could modify the custom query and resource card to count of booking for each resource, but not with the knowledge of the date range from the schedule board. Now, customers can query the dates displayed on the board, and return data relevant to the date range.

For examples, review this article in the Dynamics 365 Team blog: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2017/12/15/new-use-schedule-board-date-ranges-in-custom-queries-in-universal-resource-scheduling/

Increased threshold allows for search of more resources

In our December 2017 update, the limit for the number of resources that can be searched at a time has been increased from 100 to 1,000. If a search returns more resources than the limit, the search still successfully completes using the top matches.

For details on how the search function works, review the following blog post: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2017/12/15/increased-threshold-allows-for-search-of-more-resources-at-once-in-universal-resource-scheduling/

To see all the features and enhancements for the Universal Resource Scheduling December Updates, review

What’s new in Universal Resource Scheduling for Dynamics 365 December Update 1

What’s new in Universal Resource Scheduling for Dynamics 365 December Update 2

Training Corner

When users in a tenant create a Dynamics 365 30-day email trial, these trials will show up in the tenant’s Admin Center. This is by design however, administrators have the ability to prevent their users from creating trials against their tenant.

Once blocked, users will receive a message to contact their organization’s admin. The process of blocking requires using Windows Powershell and Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell. Administrators can also block signups for free Power BI. For more information and instructions, review the following articles:

Ability to disable Sign Ups for the Free Power BI

Connect to Office 365 PowerShell

Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Dynamics 365 for Marketing is a marketing-automation application that helps turn prospects into business relationships. The app is easy to use, works seamlessly with Dynamics 365 for Sales, and has built-in business intelligence. Some of the reasons to use Dynamics 365 for Marketing are:

• Create graphical email messages and online content to support marketing initiatives
• Use the drag-and-drop journey designer to create an automated, multichannel campaign that sends personalized email messages, generates follow-up activities, launches workflows, and more
• Connect to LinkedIn and import Leads into Dynamics 365
• Use dashboards and reports to track the performance of your marketing initiatives, and to identify your best lead sources and marketing activities

For more information about Dynamics 365 for Marketing, review this article on the Dynamics 365 Documentation site https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/marketing/overview

Summit EMEA is the User Group (UG) conference that brings Microsoft Dynamics 365, AX and CRM users, industry experts and software development vendors together to discuss important issues, to learn about product updates, and to find genuine solutions that suit your business needs.

Attendees will have direct access to:

• Exceptional, quality content: Technical and functional training for all product versions in a focused environment that you can utilize 365 days a year
• Engaging, organized networking opportunities: Opportunities to connect and network with user group peers, partners and Microsoft team members
• Access to experts: Learn from Dynamics experts on a personal basis including: MVPs, experienced fellow users, Microsoft Engineers and Microsoft Support Technicians

Register now and save with early bird pricing until 31 January.

The July 2017 Update for Dynamics 365 introduced a new feature that supports Business Process Flows as an entity. Customers can now work with each Business Process Flow as its own entity through dashboards, grids, and charts. This also means that you have the ability to interact with them through Dynamics 365 workflows.

For an example on how to accomplish this, review the following blog post: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crminthefield/2017/12/18/automate-business-process-flow-stages-using-workflows/

Ideas for Microsoft Dynamics 365

Help us improve Microsoft Dynamics 365 and its family of products and solutions by discussing ideas, providing suggestions, and giving feedback. Use the forums listed on the Ideas page to share your thoughts. Search through the existing ideas, before suggesting a new one, and you can vote on them to help increase visibility.

Featured News

Scheduling the Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0 Update

Here is some information to help customers prepare for updating their existing Dynamics 365 (online) organizations to Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0:

What you need to know about the customer-driven update process:

Flexible choices: You can schedule your updates to Dynamics 365 (online), version 9.0 on any day, including weekends. Please remember that opportunities to schedule an update is limited to available openings. Update slots will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Scheduling an update: Scheduling an update is available now and the updates will occur from February 20th through August 20th. This will give you up to six months to complete the update to the newest release of Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Flexible testing: Administrators will be able to schedule updates to sandbox instances prior to production instances. You can easily see the Sandbox and Production update schedules in a single view within the Dynamics 365 Administration Center.

Keep your organization informed: Administrators can select recipients to receive notifications about updates in the Dynamics 365 Administration Center. See Send email notifications to multiple recipients for more information. The recipient does not have to be an administrator to receive notifications and no additional licenses are required.

Get yourself ready for the update:

1. Get familiar. Stay up to date with What’s new for the complete list of capabilities and services. Please refer to Read Me for more information about update requirements, known issues and possible workarounds.

2. Get prepared. Read about Managing updates.

3. Get engaged. Your partner and Microsoft are here to help you be successful. See What’s new for developers.

Note: Dynamics 365 Government and Dynamics 365 Germany are not included as part of this announcement. The availability of version 9.0 for these customers will be announced later.

Continued support for Outlook add-in (Dynamics 365 for Outlook)

In June 2017, Microsoft announced the deprecation of Dynamics 365 for Outlook (also known as the “Outlook add-in”) and the plan to replace it with Dynamics 365 App for Outlook. The deprecation announcement meant that Dynamics 365 for Outlook would continue to be supported until it was removed in Dynamics 365 version 10.0.

Since this announcement, Microsoft has received overwhelming feedback from customers, partners, and the Dynamics community around the need for the Outlook add-in. Additionally there are some feature gaps in Dynamics 365 App for Outlook which prevent it from being a viable replacement for the Outlook add-in. As a result, Microsoft is reversing the deprecation of Dynamics 365 for Outlook.

This announcement means that Microsoft will continue to release Dynamics 365 for Outlook with new versions of Dynamics 365. As a result, customers upgrading to a new version of Dynamics 365 will have the same Outlook integration experience as in previous versions.

For more information, view the announcement on the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Preparing for a new era in privacy regulation

On May 25, 2018, a European privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is due to take effect. The GDPR imposes new rules on companies, government agencies, non-profits, and other organizations that offer goods and services to people in the European Union (EU), or that collect and analyze data tied to EU residents. The GDPR applies no matter where you are located. New GDPR white papers are now available that provide details on how Microsoft Dynamics applications can be an important part of the journey toward GDRP compliance. The currently available white papers are for the Customer engagement applications (Dynamics 365 for Sales, Dynamics 365 for Customer Service, Dynamics 365 for Field Service, and Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation). Go to http://aka.ms/gdprdynamics365 to find the links to the available Dynamics 365 GDPR white papers and check back often to find new GDPR info and updates to existing white papers.

Visit the Microsoft Trust Center to learn more about how Microsoft’s products can help customers comply with the GDPR and to find resources like webinars, videos, white papers, FAQs about the regulation.

Updates & Releases

Updated SDK Tools required for Dynamics 365, version 9.0

As mentioned in a recent Blog and KB article, Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0 no longer supports TLS 1.0 or 1.1. Customers with older versions of the Dynamics 365 SDK, will need to download the latest versions from NuGet:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/developer/download-tools-nuget

Older versions of SDK tools such as the Plugin Registration Tool, will not connect successfully to Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0 organizations. Additional information can be found here on the Microsoft Support site.

Connect Dynamics 365 CRM for Outlook Client 8.x to Dynamics 365 9.x instances

With the release of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement version 9.0, older versions of TLS (1.0 and 1.1) connections will be blocked and only connections using TLS 1.2 will be supported. For customers connecting a Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Outlook client on version 8.x to a Dynamics 365 9.x instance, an update will be required for the clients.

Please refer to the following articles for details:

Updates coming to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement connection security

“There is a problem communicating with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 server" error occurs when configuring Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Outlook

Missing App URL Suffix after importing app via a solution

Below is a documented issue a customer experienced shared to the Dynamics CRM in the Field:

Scenario: A customer created an application in Dynamics 365 8.2 and added an App URL Suffix to access the app directly at "https://<crm instance name>.crm.dynamics.com/Apps/<AppName>". Next, the customer wanted to move the app via a solution file to a higher instance (ie: Dev to Test). They created a solution file and added the App and sitemap to the solution. Then they exported the solution and imported into the higher instance.

Result: The application imported successfully. However, the App URL Suffix was blank and greyed out so the customer couldn’t add it back in the App Designer | Properties area.

This is “by-design” as there isn’t currently a way to detect if an App URL Suffix is already in use in the destination instance. When this is cleared, customers can still access their application by going to the My Apps area, but they can’t access it directly via the URL in the source instance.

A suggested resolution for this issue has been submitted to the Dynamics 365 Ideas site: https://ideas.dynamics.com/ideas/dynamics-crm/ID0003757 Customers can vote on this resolution for higher visibility to the product team.

Workaround: The good news is that there is a workaround that exists in both Dynamics 365 8.2 and v9.0 today. Customers can go to the My Apps area (https://<crm instance name>.crm.dynamics.com/Apps) | Locate your App | Select “Manage Roles” | Expand “App URL Suffix”. From there you can enter the desired URL in the destination instance, save and publish. This will allow access directly to the app from the URL again.

Voice of the Customer Service version 9.0.1027.16

Voice of the Customer for Dynamics 365 version 9.0.1027.16 is live on all Geos. This version of Voice of the Customer is compatible with Dynamics 365 version 8.2 and later.

New and updated features include:

· The reliability and experience of survey delete operation are improved. All the dependent entities of a survey are deleted when the survey is deleted.

· Customers can now repair or restore the Voice of the Customer configuration if it is accidentally deleted or misconfigured.

Resolved issues include:

· The tooltip of a question for a few languages (ex. Chinese, Russian, Farsi, Arabic) was not translated properly.

· The field names in survey response mapping and workflows does not match.

· The survey entity interface is not translated properly in French locale.

For more information, see What’s new in Voice of the Customer version 9.0.1027.16.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.1

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.1 is now available.

New and updated features include:

· Improved accessibility across all interfaces to include keyboard navigation, screen reader support and overall improvements to the user experience.

· Administrators can now remove recipients from alerts that were configured by other users

· Changes for author information from Facebook pages to support updated API

For more information, see What’s new in Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.1.

Field Service and Project Service Automation Update 5

The latest update to the Field Service and Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 version 8.2 is now available. This update includes improvements to quality, performance, and usability, and is based on customer feedback and requests.

Field Service enhancements (7.2.0.43)

Resolved issues include:

· Users with an administrative license type that own records received an error about privileges when upgrading from Dynamics 365 8.1 to 8.2

· Option to disable Address Suggestions doesn’t work

· Unable to create contact, opportunity, lead, account, or case entities in an updated organization

· When editing any field on a product receipt, the user sees the error message: System status can't be changed manually to products received or billed

· Cannot partially receive a purchase order product

Project Service Automation (v1.2.3.16) Enhancements

Resolved issues include:

· Contract line detail updates only display after refreshing the page

· Time entry date is set to the next day after the user saves or refreshes, if the user's timezone zone is far in the future (UTC+13 or UTC+14)

· Expense_Amounts lose decimal precision when the decimal separator is not a period (.)

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements

Note: Improvements and bug fixes for Universal Resource Scheduling apply to Field Service and Project Service Automation as well as to other schedulable entities in the Sales or Service applications.

Resolved issues include:

· Lookup selectors render incorrectly on screens with lower resolutions or when browser zooming is enabled

· Can’t create a booking alert if user is under a child business unit

· Can't book a schedulable entity that has no requirement

For more information, review the Release Notes for Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release 2 post in the Dynamics 365 Team blog.

Dynamics 365 Digital Assistant Experiences

Microsoft is discontinuing the current Cortana integration preview feature that was made available for Dynamics 365. The focus will be on building a new long term intelligent solution experience, which will include Cortana digital assistant integration. The end result will be a robust and scalable digital assistant experience across all the Dynamics 365 offerings, to include natural language integration for customers and partners across multiple channels.

Training Corner

Features list for Dynamics 365 (online)

To review the list of features that are available for Dynamics 365 (online) and to access the complete list of online vs. on-premises features of Dynamics 365, review the following article on the Dynamics 365 Documents site.

Microsoft AppSource for Dynamics 365 (online)

Dynamics 365 online customers have the ability to add tailored solutions to their instances via AppSource. Customers can find top business solutions for their industry created by Microsoft and select partners. Apps include a try before you buy option and trusted Microsoft partners are standing by to assist with implementation.

For information on how it works, take a look at this tour.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Webinar Series

Join the Microsoft Dynamics team to learn how the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement solutions can revolutionize your customers’ digital transformation. In this webinar series, attendees will learn how to position Microsoft’s business solutions and differentiate their organization from the competition.

Upcoming Topics

· Understanding Dynamics 365 Add-Ons (Relationship Sales, PowerApps, CDS, etc…)

· Delivering a sizzling demo

· Dynamics Partners’ Resources/Pricing & Licensing

· Enhancing Microsoft Dynamics 365 with Azure + Intelligence (Bots, AI capabilities, etc.)
Leveraging Azure IaaS with Dynamics 365

Register now: https://aka.ms/microsoft-dynamics-365-webinar-series

Plan to attend Showcasing Dynamics 365 Demos

Note: This event requires a login to CustomerSource/PartnerSource

As a follow up to the November 2017 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Blitz, the Showcasing Dynamics 365 Demos will be provided on February 12th at 8am and 8pm PST. We’re excited to share the demo strategy and resources as well as showcase the great innovations in Dynamics 365. Subject matter experts will be on hand to answer questions and on-demand sessions will be made available following the live-streamed event.

The complete agenda will be available soon along with registration information. Follow up with your Microsoft Account Manager for more details.

Featured News

Beginning March 19, 2018, Microsoft will limit the number of API requests made by each user, within an organization in Dynamics 365 (online). This change will affect all versions of Dynamics 365 (online).

Each user will be allowed up to 60,000 API requests within five minutes. This limit will help ensure that users running applications that make extraordinarily large demands on servers will not affect other users.

Some of the typical scenarios where this would happen are:

• A plug-in that is written to pump data in a loop, without a well-defined max termination limit.
• An inefficient client application that queries for status on thousands of records, without any caching or without any interval between successive requests.

For more information and guidance about this limit, please see API Limits.

New Security enhancements have been added to Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0 to better secure the application. The enhancements are: set session timeout and set inactivity timeout.

User session timeout

By default, Dynamics 365 (online) sets a user session timeout of 24 hours. A user is not required to log in with their credentials for up to 24 hours regardless of whether the user was active or inactive. Administrators can now enforce users to re-authenticate after a pre-determined period by modifying the user session timeout.

Inactivity timeout

By default, Dynamics 365 (online) does not enforce an inactivity session timeout. A user can remain logged in the application until the session timeout expires. System Administrators can modify this behavior.

For more information on how to configure these features in Dynamics 365 (online), view the following article.

NOTE: These security enhancements are also available for:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 (on-premises, version 8.2)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 (on-premises, version 8.1)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 (on-premises)

Details on these versions can be found here.

As announced in September 2017, product support for legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 will end on August 1, 2018. A guide is now available to help customers migrate their portal solutions and configuration data stored in Dynamics 365 organization into the schema and format supported by Portals capabilities for Dynamics 365. The migration guide for customers on Adxstudio version 7.0.0025 and above can be downloaded from here.

Details about Portals capabilities for Dynamics 365 can be found here. For any questions, contact your Microsoft representative, your partner or adxquest@microsoft.com.

Updates & Releases

After upgrading to Dynamics 365 (online), version 9.0, customers will need to upgrade their existing Field Service and Project Service Automation solution to the latest version. To update to the latest solution, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, access the solutions page and install the update. For details, refer How to Install, Update a Preferred Solution. Known issues for the application can be found here.

The latest update to the Field Service and Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 version 8.2 is now available. This update includes improvements to quality, performance, and usability, and is based on customer feedback and requests.

Field Service enhancements (v7.4.0.74)

Resolved issues include:

• Error message received when editing any field on Product Receipt or when changing PO status to Products Received

• End Date on Agreement was incorrectly updated when start date is in DST but end date is not

• “Address Not Found” error when selecting address from suggestion popup

Project Service Automation (v2.4.0.48) Enhancements

Resolved issues include:

• Contract confirmation was not correctly processing unbilled actuals coming from journals

• Estimated cost on project entity page did not include expense estimates

• Resource Requirement created from the Generate Project team with tasks with decimal hours were off-by-one end date

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements

Note: Improvements and bug fixes for Universal Resource Scheduling apply to Field Service and Project Service Automation as well as to other schedulable entities in the Sales or Service applications.

Improvements for Universal Resource Scheduling can be viewed at What’s new in Universal Resource Scheduling for Dynamics 365 February 2018 Update.

Resolved issues include:

• Problem when switching between horizontal and vertical hourly schedule boards when a resource name is populated in the schedule board resource search box

• Issue with loading default saved filters on Schedule Board

• In the booking requirements grid, users can now filter to show requirements that do not have a value in the territory field

For more information review the Release Notes for Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release 4.

The Interactive Service Hub (ISH) was introduced with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016. ISH offered a web-based client to simplify daily tasks for Customer Service Representatives and Managers. It included interactive dashboards, interactive forms, and reference panel control. Though the ISH intuitive interface combined vital information in one place and allowed Customer Service Representatives to prioritize work and be more productive, there were certain limitations in extending it. The new Customer Service Hub (CSH) available in Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0, offers even greater flexibility and improved controls and extensibility.

New features include:

• An interactive interface that is an App Module featuring a new Custom Control Framework

• Unified Interface that eliminates the prolonged initial metadata download

• Easy to filter forms, dashboards, and other metadata components shown to business users

For more information about the new features and how to upgrade, review this article.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.2 is now available. With this update, a feedback dialog is included for a sample of users when they sign in. Everyone is encouraged to provide feedback to help shape the service.

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed an issue to enable replies containing special characters on LinkedIn from within Social Engagement.

• Improved the search setup for keyword search rules to explain how to enter keywords, inclusions, and exclusions. Additionally, we list the limitations for keywords, inclusions, and exclusions per search rule.

• Improved the Message Center to explain more clearly that post alerts are sent every few hours, and not immediately after a specific post matches the configured alert.

Visit the Help Center for more information.

Portal capabilities version 8.4.0.275 is now available.

New features include:

• Access to detailed error logs for any issues with the portal

• Administrators are notified about the portal authentication key expiration and can renew it via the Portal Admin Center

• Portal Administrations can configure the General Data Protection Regulations to meet their organization’s needs.

All new features and resolved issues can be viewed here. For a full list of all portal update releases please reference this KB article.

The Unified Service Desk (USD) 3.2.0 release is now available. The latest version of USD has major enhancements on performance diagnostics, faster load times for CRM entity pages and graceful handling and recovery of crashed or unresponsive Internet Processes. For more information review this article on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Unified Service Desk blog.

Additional News

The Dynamics 365-Data Export Service is an add-on service available on Microsoft AppSource that can be used to replicate Dynamics 365 (online) data to an Azure SQL Database store in a customer-owned Azure subscription. The Data Export Service intelligently synchronizes the entire Dynamics 365 data initially and synchronizes it on a continuous basis as changes occur in the Dynamics 365 (online) system. The supported target destinations are Azure SQL Database and SQL Server on Azure virtual machines. For more information on the Data Export Service and its requirements, review this article on the Microsoft Docs site.

Machine learning implementation strategy for a customer service center

With the digitization of almost all industries on the way, advanced technologies like machine learning are revolutionizing the way of work for most industries today. Many customer service centers are thinking about adopting machine learning for their day to day operations. These techniques will soon be a part of industry standard best practices.

Customer service leads can leverage various machine learning capabilities to meet their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Examples include task automation, relevant Knowledge Base article suggestions, similar cases suggestion using text analytics and proactive notifications to engage with customers.

This post describes how traditional call centers can create a strategy for adopting machine learning capabilities.

Microsoft is happy to announce the Dynamics 365 for Marketing is available in public preview for organizations seeking a marketing automation solution to generate more demand and drive more sales.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing is designed as the front end of the sales cycle to help companies nurture more sales-ready leads, align sales and marketing and make smarter decisions. Most importantly, Dynamics 365 for Marketing works together with Dynamics 365 for Sales on the same platform which aligns teams with common data, connected processes and Office 365 collaboration tools. For more information and to sign up, view this announcement.

Microsoft is happy to announce the launch of a new Help + support ticketing experience for admins to contact a Microsoft support representative for Dynamics 365 (online). This feature is in preview so customers can get early access and provide feedback.

For more information, review this article on the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Featured News

Microsoft is thrilled to announce the plan to deliver the Microsoft Cloud from our first datacenter locations in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates and expand the cloud options for customers in Germany. The Microsoft Cloud in France is officially open with the general availability of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365. Dynamics 365 will follow in early 2019. Over the last three years, Microsoft has more than doubled the number of Azure regions available. As of today, Azure has more regions than any other cloud provider. We’ve announced a goal to be in 50 regions across the globe, including plans for 12 new regions.

Office 365 and Dynamics 365 also continue to expand the data residency options for customers with 17 geographies announced. The two products are the only productivity and business application platforms that can offer in-geo data residency across such a broad set of locations. Each datacenter geography, or geo, delivers a consistent experience, backed by robust policies, controls and systems to help keep data safe and help comply with local and regional regulations. Learn more in this announcement from Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Azure, Jason Zander.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Government has been granted a FedRAMP High Level Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) by the Joint Authorization Board (JAB) for its Customer Engagement services. This is the highest level of FedRAMP certification available.

FedRAMP provides a standardized methodology for assessing, authorizing, and monitoring cloud services for US Government agencies. Any agency that hosts federal data in the cloud must do so in a FedRAMP authorized cloud service provider (CSP) per the OMB memorandum on Security Authorization of Information Systems in Cloud Computing Environments. There are two ways to authorize a cloud service through FedRAMP: a Joint Authorization Board (JAB) provisional authorization (P-ATO), and through individual Agencies. The JAB consists of the CIOs from the DOD, DHS, and GSA.

The “high” designation allows agencies to use cloud environments for high-impact data. The high security requirements are used to protect some of the government’s most sensitive, unclassified data in cloud computing environments.

For more information, review this blog post.

Microsoft is excited to announce the Spring 2018 release for Dynamics 365 and the Business Application Platform. Customers can expect a wave of innovation across the entire product line with hundreds of new capabilities and features in three core areas: business applications, intelligent capabilities infused throughout, and transformational application platform capabilities. Learn more in this announcement from Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Applications Group, James Phillips.

Watch the Business Applications spring launch event on-demand.

The Spring ‘18 release for Dynamics 365 (Update 9.0.2) is for Dynamics 365 online v9.0 and will be applied starting in April 2018. Key things you need to know can be found here.

A few things to note:

• Any new organization created on or after April 2, 2018 will be provisioned on the updated version. Any updates from version 8.x to version 9.0 that are scheduled on or after April 2 will automatically get this update and no change of schedule is needed. For existing orgs running Dynamics 365 (Online) version 9.0.1 or higher, the update will start deploying on April 7 through the normal deployment process.

• The update is primarily focused on performance and reliability improvements, but it also contains some new features. The new features are opt-in and will not change your default experiences. Download the Release Notes for more information on the new features.

Updates & Releases

The March 2018 Service Updates for Dynamics 365 online versions 9.x and 8.x are now available. Click the hyperlinks below for more details.

Service Update 3 (v 9.0.1.0510) resolved issues include:

• Importing a solution fails due to a BulkOperationLog.createdobjectidname.Length exception
• Navigating through form tabs using Dynamics 365 for Mobile causes a blank page to be displayed in some areas
• Knowledge Articles display HTML tags around content, causing the article to not display properly

Service Update 4 (v 9.0.1.0569) resolved issues include:

• Opportunity Actual Close Date (actualclosedate) is incorrect after closing An Opportunity.
• Unable to revise a Quote if the record is owned by a team
• An Editable Grid appears blank when editing an in-line filtered view
• A Form does not load if the form configured custom control was created in version 8.0, or 8.1, and then updated to version 9.0

Service Update 5 (v 9.0.1.0621) resolved issues include:

• An Unsupported Type Conversion exception occurs when qualifying Lead records
• Delete button doesn't render properly in sub-grids
• Summary tabs on forms do not render expansion and collapsing properly
• Adding a Marketing List to a Campaign Activity that is owned by a Team results in an exception

Service Update 5 (v 8.2.2.1161) resolved issues include:

• An Unexpected Error occurs when using the SharePoint integration on Account entity records with names longer than 200 characters
• An Invalid Parameter exception occurs when linking an Article to a Case record
• Custom icons do not display properly on sub-grids
• A change to a different Business Process Flow stage does not trigger Business Rules in the mobile client

Service Update 6 (v 8.2.2.1259) resolved issues include:

• A Query Build exception occurs when accessing attachments on Appointments
• The incorrect date and timestamp displays on OneNote pages opened via Dynamics
• Date and Time rollup fields cannot be recalculated until the record is refreshed
• Hyperlinks inside iframes are not able to be opened under certain conditions

Service Update 16 (v 8.1.1.1657) resolved issues:

• Settings options are unavailable in the mobile client under certain conditions
• The back button is not visible when searching for records on the Case entity in certain circumstances
• An Unexpected Error occurs when configuring Dynamics for Tablets
• Users are unable to change filter in the Option Set column for Editable Grids

Service Update 17 (v 8.1.1.1707) resolved issues include:

• Workflow messages do not display properly when using the mobile client
• An Unexpected Error occurs when opening or creating Application records in certain circumstances
• Hyperlinks in iFrames are not able to be opened under certain conditions

Service Update 18 (v 8.1.1.1758) resolved issues:

• Changes to increase performance on specific SQL queries
• An Access Denied error occurs when reparenting Account and Contact records under certain conditions

The Dynamics 365 App for Outlook version 9.0 is generally available to all customer organizations on Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0. Some of the new features in the App for Outlook include:

• View tracked email or appointments in the App
• Quick Create function to create new records without leaving Outlook
• Pin and dock the App in Outlook desktop
• Search in Dynamics 365

For more information on best practices for migrating from Dynamics 365 for Outlook (Outlook Client) to Dynamics 365 App for Outlook and additional links to comparisons and user guides, review this blog post.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.3 is now available.

New and updated features:

• The author tags filter now lets you exclude specific author tags from your data set.
• Twitter extended its support for longer messages in November. For most languages, the same limits were in place. This update adds support for Korean, Thai, and Simplified Chinese language.
• Social Engagement now supports retroactive deletion of posts that were acquired and deleted on the source afterwards. Posts from Twitter, Tumblr, and WordPress are now removed from Social Engagement when the author removes them from the source.

Visit Social Engagement Help & Training for more information.

Portal capabilities version 8.4.0.277 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is now available. This release includes an updated portal host only. The portal host will be automatically updated by Microsoft.

This update resolves the issue with the login not working for users who were using a local login and had the Authentication/Registration/LocalLoginByEmail site setting set to true.

The following features are being deprecated from portal capabilities for Dynamics 365:

Web Page Tracking

Web Page Tracking logs a record when a user views a web page in a web browser. The date/time and user's IP Address are logged along with the identity of the user viewing the page. If the user is authenticated, the log is associated with the contact record related to the user, otherwise the anonymous identity is recorded. This functionality has a negative performance impact on portals.

Recommendation: Customers should use analytics technology like Azure Application Insights to capture this information.

Web File Tracking

Web File Tracking logs a record when a user downloads a web file in a web browser. The date/time and user's IP Address are logged along with the identity of the user downloading the file. If the user is authenticated, the log is associated with the contact record related to the user, otherwise the anonymous identity is recorded.

Recommendation: Customers should use analytics technology like Azure Application Insights to capture this information.

Authentication/LoginTrackingEnabled site setting

Enables or disables tracking the user's last sign-in. When set to true, the date and time are displayed in the Last Successful Sign-in field on the contact record. By default, this is set to false.

Recommendation: Customers should use analytics technology like Azure Application Insights to capture this information.

Portals solution versus 8.1.x.x

Solution version deprecation means that Microsoft will not be testing backward compatibility of these solutions with the latest version of portals code in future.

Recommendation: It is recommended to upgrade your 8.1.x.x solution to the latest version.

For more information on the deprecated features of Dynamics 365 portals, see this blog post.

Additional News

The following settings can help improve Microsoft Dynamics 365 application performance and should be configured on the SQL Server 2016 instance where the Microsoft Dynamics 365 organization databases are serviced:

• Install the SQL Server 2016 Cumulative Update 2 (CU2)
  Server & Tools Blog: Cumulative Update #2 for SQL Server 2016 RTM
• Configure the SQL Server instance where the Microsoft Dynamics 365 organization database is maintained with Trace Flag 1224. This setting disables lock escalation based on the number of locks and helps reduce CPU usage on SQL Server 2016. To determine the existing trace flag 1224 setting run the following T-SQL statement. A return value of 0 for status in the output indicates trace flag 1224 is not enabled:

DBCC TRACESTATUS (1224)

To set trace flag 1224 as a startup option, add the SQL Server database engine startup option -T1224. For more information: Database Engine Service Startup Options.

• Configure Microsoft Dynamics 365 organization databases to use compatibility level 110, which is the compatibility level for SQL Server 2012. For more information: View or Change the Compatibility Level of a Database.
• Configure the Microsoft Dynamics 365 organization database to use indirect checkpoints and a target recovery time of 60 seconds. By default, new databases created with SQL Server 2016 use indirect checkpoints and have a default target recover time of 60 seconds. For more information: Change the Target Recovery Time of a Database (SQL Server)

To determine the existing target recovery time, run the following T-SQL statement, where <dbname> is the name of the organization database. A return value of 0 indicates a target recover time has not been set:

SELECT target_recovery_time_in_seconds FROM sys.databases WHERE name = ‘<dbname>’

To set the target recover time of a database to 60 seconds, run the following T-SQL statement:

ALTER DATABASE <dbname> SET TARGET_RECOVERY_TIME = 60 seconds

With the introduction of Common Data Services for Apps, which leverages the same platform as Dynamics 365 for Customer engagement, PowerApp users are able to create Common Data Service instances that can be controlled and managed by the Tenant or Dynamics 365 Administrator. Customers with multiple environments and instances now have the ability to filter the instance list to Production, Sandbox, Trial or other instance types. For more information, review this blog post.

When managing a self-service knowledge base in Dynamics 365, understanding how customers and employees are searching for and consuming self-service knowledge is an important part of ensuring your content remains relevant and useful for end users.

Dynamics 365 includes a number of in-built capabilities to help analyze the usage of the knowledge base, including:

• Tracking of article views by source
• Tracking of article ratings and feedback
• Tracking of case deflections from knowledge
• Tracking of articles associated with, or used in resolving cases

In some instances, you may wish to extend beyond the built in capabilities, to understand usage patterns to a greater depth: what your users are searching for, which searches are not returning any results, and how users are navigating through your Dynamics portal, for example. These metrics can be captured using Azure Application Insights and Power BI.

Take a look at this blog post for more details.

The Product Group released a migration guide to move from Adxstudio v7 Portals to Portal Capabilities for Dynamics 365. Customers also have the option to do an in-place upgrade from ADX 7.x to Dynamics Portals 8.x. The guide goes into great detail on several migration options including reimplementation both self-hosted or Microsoft hosted as well as an in-place upgrade both self-hosted or Microsoft hosted. There are a few things to consider as part of the in-place upgrade such as clean up prior to the upgrade, determining installation order, finding dependencies and CSS class differences.

Review this blog post for more information on these considerations.

The new business model: Relationship Selling

Relationship sales isn’t just for selling—How marketing can make an impact

Announcing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: greater impact with an end-to-end view

Training Corner

The Microsoft Docs site is the home for technical documentation, code examples, quick start guides and tutorials for developers and IT professionals. To learn more about the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement features, applications, solutions and related services, visit the doc’s site here.

Dynamics 365 Portals 101 – Features, Use Cases and Best Practice

If you’re interested in using Dynamics 365 Portals, but don’t know where to start, take a look at this video that reviews the out-of-the-box features and use case scenarios for various portal templates. See capabilities of styling, configuring and customizing Portals via a demo and pick up a few tips, tricks, and best practices along the way to make your Portal projects a success.

Help us improve Microsoft Dynamics 365 and its family of products and solutions by discussing ideas, providing suggestions, and giving feedback. Use the forums listed on the Ideas page to share your thoughts. Search through the existing ideas, before suggesting a new one, and you can vote on them to help increase visibility.

Featured News

At Microsoft, we are helping our customers think about their business processes in new ways, so they can effectively engage with their customers, empower employees to be more productive, optimize their operations and digitally transform. Finished business applications are the fastest path to business transformation, but every business has its unique processes that requires them to customize or adapt their business applications. In cases where there isn’t an app for a specific process, through the power of the Business Applications Platform, with PowerApps and Power BI, customers can create custom apps.

To learn more about the Business Applications Platform, join us at Microsoft Build in Seattle, Washington, May 7th – 9th or join virtually at Microsoft Build Live.

Microsoft is excited to announce that registration for the Microsoft Business Applications Summit is now open. The Microsoft Business Applications Summit takes place in Seattle, Washington, July 22nd – 24th and is the merging of the Data Insights Summit, Convergence, and Dynamics 365 Technical Conference. This summit is designed for a broad audience including power users, solution architects, analysts, and experts to explore how Microsoft’s Business Applications can help organizations connect people, products and ideas to deliver exceptional customer experiences, optimize operations and empower employees.

With the release of Dynamics 365 (online), version 9.0, we've introduced a new user experience - Unified Interface, the new metadata driven client interface that is designed to provide a consistent experience across devices and forms. It provides users a consistent, accessible, uniform user interface, and follows responsive design principles for optimal viewing on any screen size or device.

The new Unified Interface brings all the rich experiences to any client you are using, whether in a browser, tablet or phone. Examples include:

• Interactive dashboards are available across all devices
• Reference Panel is now available to be used with all entities supported in Unified Interface
• All experiences on Unified Interface have accessibility improvements

For more information on the enhanced user experience, review this blog post and About Unified Interface.

Updates & Releases

April 2018 Service Updates for Dynamics 365 online versions 9.x and 8.x are now available. Click the hyperlinks below for more details.

Service Update 6 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 9.0.1

Resolved issues include:

• An error message occurs when converting an Email to an Opportunity when using the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook
• Users are unable to track two appointments which are scheduled for the same time
• Users are unable to select an option after clicking the ellipsis (…) in the ribbon under certain conditions
• A calculated field on a Business Process Flow becomes editable after saving when it is expected to remain read-only

Service Update 7 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 8.2.2

Resolved issues include:

• "An error occurred when CRM tried to generate the Excel file. If this problem persists, contact your system administrator." when exporting to Excel from an associated view
• When using Legacy Form Rendering, you are redirected to a new appointment form when clicking “Save and close”
• Email signature is not automatically added when you reply all to an email message

• Text pasted into an email message is pasted at the end of the email body instead of the location of the cursor

New portal capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 version 8.4.1 are now available.

New and updated features include:

• Attachment content of knowledge articles and web files are now searchable
• The out-of-the-box portals (Community portal, Partner portal, Customer portal, Employee self-service portal) are now accessible

The following issues were resolved:

• Portal users were not able to upload attachments larger than 110 KB on forums.
• When customers sign up for a Dynamics 365 Marketing trial and run through the Marketing First Run Experience, the Portal is shown as "Configured" but is not accessible
• Some charts don't show the same ordering which has been setup in the chart configuration.

For more information, review What’s new in portal capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 version 8.4.1 and Portal Capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Version 8.4.1.82 Release.

The latest update to the Field Service and Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 version 9.0 is now available. This update includes improvements to quality, performance, and usability, and is based on customer feedback and requests.

Field Service enhancements (v7.4.1.31)

Improvements include:

• General Data Protection Regulation compliance
• Added new validation string for validateSystemStatus in PurchaseOrder.Library.js
• Performance improvement on create, update of account record

The following issues were resolved:

• [Field Service solution] Woodford Solution and Woodford Project template links are not opening in the right location
• Form id added in SalesDocumentCustomFormIds.js should NOT be case-sensitive
• SalesDocumentFormLoader.Library.js Error on new custom Sales forms.

Project Service Automation (v2.4.1.46) Enhancements

Improvements include:

• General Data Protection Regulation compliance

Resolved issues include:

• Drag and drop requirement onto schedule board and create bookings not update assignment
• Proposal Schedule Board shows nothing when switching to hourly view
• Assigning work on non-working day in MS Project due to calendar differences throws argument not valid exception

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements

Note: Improvements and bug fixes for Universal Resource Scheduling apply to Field Service and Project Service Automation as well as to other schedulable entities in the Sales or Service applications.

Improvements include:

• Book based on estimated time of arrival
• Change booking statuses from multiday schedule boards
• Display day of the week on hourly vertical schedule board

Resolved issues include:

• Plugin that updates the fulfilled, proposed, and remaining duration fields on Resource Requirements are only executed when relevant fields change.
• Proposed Bookings appear on multiday schedule boards even if the only bookings a resource has are "proposed".
• Error and warning messages now clear when switching between different Schedule Board views.

For more information review Release Notes for Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release 5 and What’s new in Universal Resource Scheduling for Dynamics 365 April 2018 Update.

The latest update to the Field Service and Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 version 8.2.x is now available. This update includes improvements to quality, performance, and usability, and is based on customer feedback and requests.

Field Service enhancements (v6.2.4.6)

Improvements include:

• General Data Protection Regulation compliance

Project Service Automation (v1.2.4.6) Enhancements

Improvements include:

• General Data Protection Regulation compliance

The following issues were resolved:

• Unable to assign the Account record from account information form of Account entity
• Project Estimates do not display information of categories for line tasks
• Booking plugin cause performance downgrade when create project team member in PSA

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements

Note: Improvements and bug fixes for Universal Resource Scheduling apply to Field Service and Project Service Automation as well as to other schedulable entities in the Sales or Service applications.

Improvements include:

• Insert day of week next to date on hourly board

The following issues were resolved:

• Corrupted Calendar Rules from Setting Calendar
• Using schedule assistant/find availability to create booking not populate lat/long info from resource requirement

For more information review Release Notes for Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release 6 on Dynamics 365 version 8.2.

The Dynamics 365 Resource Scheduling Optimization v2.5 release is now available.

New and updated features include:

• Extensible optimization scope to leverage Dynamics 365 entity views and provide an easy and flexible way to define what to be optimized (resource requirements, resources and existing resource bookings).
• New and modern UI with an intuitive user experience
• Simplified deployment process

For more information review What’s New for Dynamics 365 Resource Scheduling Optimization v2.5 Release.

Unified Service Desk 3.3.0

The Unified Service Desk 3.3.0 release is now available.

New and updated features include:

• General Data Protection Regulation compliant
• A new user experience for Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0 with responsive web design principles to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience for any screen size, device, or orientation
• The best practice analyzer (BPA) developer tool has been added to help identify deployment and configuration issues
• The Unified Service Desk Improvement Program is enabled by default for the online deployments

For more information, review this post on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Unified Service Desk blog.

The Voice of the Customer version 9.0.1113.10 release is now available. This version is compatible with Dynamics 365 version 8.2 and later.

New and updated features include:

• Design interactive surveys by personalizing a question based on the answer of a previous question using an answer tag.
• Validate the status of your Voice of the Customer solution and surveys to ensure they are working properly.
• Send multiple surveys using a single email.
• Implement General Data Protection Regulation in Voice of the Customer

Resolved issues include:

• Footer URLs are opened in the same tab as survey.
• Unable to enter negative value as the answer to the numerical response question.
• All answer options of a mandatory question are highlighted if an option is not selected by the respondent.

For more information review What’s new in Voice of the Customer version 9.0.1113.10 o the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.4 is now available.

New and updated features include:

• Refreshed visuals for Social Insights in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement
• The post list in Social Engagement now shows on which Facebook page each post and comment was posted.
• Due to changes on the Instagram API, there is a downgrade on data acquisition for Instagram with existing search rules no longer returning results. The keyword search rules continue to work as expected.

For more information, review this post on the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team blog.

Blog Posts of Interest

Microsoft Business Applications at Build
Building a servitization mindset to transform your field service organization
A day in the life: The AI enabled field service organization
Moving businesses forward with Microsoft Business Applications in Australia

Training Corner

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Webinars

How intelligence from Dynamics 365 can improve your decision making process
Register here to learn how to seamlessly integrate sales, distribution, and service with Dynamics 365 to streamline business processes, improve customer interactions, and enable growth. This webinar covers how to:

• Create offers and manage sales planning anywhere you are, on any device.
• Manage your fulfillment and customer service processes through Dynamics 365 integration with Excel, Outlook, LinkedIn and many other apps.

Differentiate your brand through better customer service
Register here to learn how customer centricity, empowered employees, artificial Intelligence (AI), and data-driven decisions can transform static interactions into end-to-end engagements that foster long term customer relationships and enhance the customer service experience. This webinar covers:

• How to create high-value interactions by putting the customer in the driver's seat
• The power of data to create better experiences
• Engagement as an outcome

Supporting GDPR Data Subject Rights Requests with Dynamics 365
Register here to learn how Dynamics 365 can help your organization provide Data Subject Rights (DSR) requests to comply with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, regardless of whether your organization is running in the Microsoft Cloud or your own data center.

Experience Microsoft Dynamics 365

Check out the new Dynamics 365 Experience site for the resources you need to connect to the Microsoft Team, the Dynamics 365 Community, review the latest product offerings and suggest ways to improve the application.

Featured News

Microsoft Dynamics 365 and GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, is fundamentally about protecting and enabling the privacy rights of individuals Learn more about GDPR and Microsoft's commitment to security at the Microsoft Trust Center.

The Dynamics 365 team is committed to helping our customers meet their GDPR requirements. In the Microsoft Documents site, you will find information and a number of resources to help you understand how Dynamics supports GDPR and tools for our customers to define and support their GDPR obligations.

Visit the site to access the following types of information:

• White papers
• Data Subject Requests
• Compliance Manager
• Webcasts
• Blogs
• eBooks

Read more about Microsoft’s commitment to GDPR, privacy and putting customers in control of their own data in this post.

Updating Dynamics 365 v8.1 organizations to the latest version

Microsoft delivers new features and improvements to Dynamics 365 (online) through service updates that are periodically delivered to customers. To ensure our customers always get the best possible value, we recommend you update to the latest major version when it becomes available.

Our update policy defines how customers move from one version to the next. We realize that in certain circumstances, some customers are unable to update their solutions with the frequency of Microsoft’s updates, so customers have the ability to provide consent prior to updating their organization. Customers have the choice to take the two updates as they become available or take only one update per year. If a customer chooses to take only one update per year, this update becomes mandatory and the customer will be required to take the update during the available dates for that release.

In keeping with this policy, all organizations running version 8.1 (two versions behind the current version) will be upgraded to Dynamics 365 (online), version 9.0.2. The automatic update will take place during your normal maintenance window.

For more details about the upgrade and to view the frequently asked questions, review this post on the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Introducing Outlook category-based tracking in server-side synchronization

At the beginning of the year, Microsoft set out to bridge the gap between Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, the future of Dynamics 365 and Outlook integration, and the legacy Outlook add-in, Dynamics 365 for Outlook. We are excited to announce the latest improvements to server-side synchronization and Dynamics 365 App for Outlook as a step in that direction.

With the latest release of Dynamics 365 (online) version 8.2, customers now have the capability to track emails, appointments, and tasks in Outlook with a special “Tracked to Dynamics 365” Outlook category enabled through server-side synchronization. Assigning this category to an email, appointment, or task in Outlook will track the item to Dynamics 365. Similarly, removing the category from a tracked email, appointment, or task will untrack it in Dynamics 365.

Category-based tracking via server-side synchronization is an opt-in experience. This is currently available on Dynamics 365 (online) version 8.2, with support for version 9.0 soon to follow. For more information on how it works, see this post.

Updates & Releases

Spring 2018 update for EasyRepro

Several key enhancements and updates to EasyRepro for Dynamics 365 and Model-Driven standalone apps from PowerApps.com are now available. This release includes capabilities to get developers up and running quickly with more pre-defined tests, support for the Unified Interface and updates to support the Chrome Browser.

Support for Unified Interface

The additional libraries will help developers author and run tests using EasyRepro supporting Dynamics 365 versions 9.0.2 and above.

Sample Tests

Over 100 standard tests for the Web Client and over 50 tests for the Unified Interface (UCI) have been added to the download. The sample test bank covers create, retrieve, update, and delete scenarios for multiple entities including contacts, opportunities, accounts, leads, and cases.

Additional Client Telemetry

Additional client telemetry is included via the Window.Performance browser interface. The Window.Performance interface provides access to navigation and resource timing performance and related information for the current test you are running.

Browser Support

The API libraries have been updated to support the latest Chrome Browser (up to 67)

For more information, see the Spring 2018 update for EasyRepro blog post.

Service Update 8 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 8.2.2 (online)

Service Update 8 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 8.2.2 (online) is now available.

Resolved issues include:

• Recurring Appointment occurrence is not updated correctly when synchronizing with Dynamics 365 for Outlook
• A user should able to Untrack an auto tracked email before email tagger processes the item
• Duplicate Detection triggers when SuppressDuplicateDetection parameter is set to true
• Views saved with Custom Filters do not respond to changes in filter criteria
• Generic SQL Error occurs while trying to perform an Offline Sync with the Dynamics 365 for Outlook
• Unable to filter Orders by Currency
• Associated View icon for Leads does not appear on an Account

For more information, review this post on the Microsoft Support site.

Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release 7

The latest update to the Field Service and Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 version 9.0.x is now available. To update to this release, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, solutions page to install the update. For details, refer How to Install, Update a Preferred Solution. This update includes improvements to quality, performance, and usability based on customer feedback and requests.

Field Service enhancements (v7.5.0.60)

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed: Opportunity and Quote are being set even before loading of EntityDictionary
• Fixed: Read Privilege on msdyn_schedulingparameter must be checked before reading it in clientside code on account and contact forms
• Fixed: Field Service / Business Process error when cancelling RMA

Project Service Automation (v2.4.3.11) Enhancements

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed: Project closure fails because it assumes all booking details have header
• Fixed: Negative expense actuals are not being considered in the project tracking fields
• Fixed: Booking generic resource from the Schedule Board Hourly view deletes the assignments on the WBS

For more information review this blog post.

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements

Note: Improvements and bug fixes for Universal Resource Scheduling apply to Field Service and Project Service Automation as well as to other schedulable entities in the Sales or Service applications.

New features include:

• Option to select a specific status, including “proposed” statuses, when booking from the hourly board
• A clock is displayed when hovering over a recommended slot to help with precision scheduling

Improvements include:

• Multiday Schedule Assistant Enhancements for Proposed Bookings

• General User Experience Enhancements for Schedule Board
• Performance Improvement: Improvements to performance when generating requirement detail records in bulk

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed: Issues with leveraging Multi Select Option Set fields with Extensibility.
• Fixed: Issues selecting resource name on the resource card to open resource record.
• Fixed: Schedule Board properly prevents users from booking generic resources.

For more information and to see before and after screen shots of the changes, review What’s new in Universal Resource Scheduling for Dynamics 365 May 2018 Update in the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Dynamics 365 Resource Scheduling Optimization v2.6

The Resource Scheduling Optimization Update 2.6 is now available.

New and updated features include:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - Investments address the European privacy law’s requirements. For more information on GDPR, visit the Microsoft Trust Center
• Accessibility enhancements - Visit the Trust Center to learn more about Microsoft’s industry-leading accessibility standards.
• Enforce skill level - Resource requirements can include not only a skill, but also the level (or rating) of the skill required to do the work. By considering the skill (or resource characteristic) rating level required, the solution is able to find resources that better match required skills and proficiency.

For more information on additional new features and capabilities introduced in this release, review What’s New for Dynamics 365 Resource Scheduling Optimization v2.6 Release.

Voice of the Customer version 9.0.1162

The Voice of the Customer app provides a new experience in survey and theme designing. The new survey designer provides a simple and intuitive experience to add, remove, and modify survey pages, sections, questions, and answers.

Click here to access the Voice of the Customer official documentation.

Resolved issues include:

• The survey minimum and maximum values revert to their default values on saving the question.
• Invitation Link Text field gives HTML Validation Error when you provide input like <<<Hello>>>.
• Multiple survey responses are created when you open a survey link in different tabs or browsers and submit.

For more information review What’s new in Voice of the Customer version 9.0.1162 in the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.5

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.5 is now available.

New and updated features include:

Social Engagement now shows attached images and videos in private messages on Facebook and direct messages on Twitter directly in the post list.

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed an issue to ensure that private messages in any language are acquired by Social Engagement.
• Fixed an issue where private messages in Indonesian language were discarded due to wrong language mapping.
• Fixed an issue where the ‘Link to Dynamics 365’ filter didn’t have a tooltip, making it impossible in some languages to understand if a post from Social Engagement is or isn’t linked to Dynamics 365.
• Fixed an issue that prevented adding multiple Facebook pages as social profiles.

For more information, visit Social Engagement Help & Training.

Additional News

Dev Chat for Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365

Customers can get the technical tips they need for Office 365, Azure and Dynamics 365 (Sales and Customer Service) via Dev Chat. From architecture and design to deployment, implementation and migration, customers can chat with a Microsoft support engineer for development tips to quickly resolve programming questions regarding the capability and services of Office 365, Azure and Dynamics 365 (available in English and Mandarin only).

Whether you are new to application development, new to the cloud or looking to amplify your app development journey, the Dev Chat experience will help you integrate Microsoft services into your unique solutions.

And now, Dev Chat has been expanded to include Dynamics 365 scenarios:

• Sales and Customer Service in Dynamics 365
• Customization
• Development assistance, for example, develop with SDK or API, manage customer data, extend existing features, authentication

General topics include:

• Getting started questions
• Setup for development (service configuration and deployment)
• Get up and running with your solution
• Architecture and design consult on solutions
• Migration from on-premises service

For more information, review this post on the Microsoft Partner Network Journey Blog.

NOTE: This service is available to Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365 application developers within the Microsoft Partner Network (Network, Action Pack, Silver and Gold) at no cost. Not part of the Microsoft Partner Network? Join today.

Training Corner

Microsoft Business Applications Summit

Join us for the first-ever Microsoft Business Applications Summit, coming to Seattle, July 22–24. This all-new conference merges the best of the Microsoft Data Insights Summit, Convergence, and the Dynamics 365 Technical Conference – including deep-dives into connecting data, analytics, and guidance to achieve greater outcomes.

What’s in it for you?
This is an opportunity to access all things Dynamics 365, Power BI, Excel, PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow under one roof. Meet the engineers behind your favorite tools, hang out with like-minded explorers, and get hands-on with immersive breakout sessions and workshops.

For more information and to register, please visit the event website.

Microsoft Ignite

Join us in Orlando, September 24-28 for Microsoft Ignite. This conference offers attendees a chance to learn the latest insights and gain new skills from technology leaders and practitioners shaping the future of cloud, data, business intelligence, teamwork and productivity. From demos to keynotes, learn about new tech in a way that speaks to you. Plus, get exclusive access to the latest updates and developments across Microsoft’s products and solutions. This year’s keynote speaker is Microsoft’s very own Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella.

Registration is now open. You can view on demand videos and slide decks for Dynamics 365 from past Ignite conferences here.

Microsoft Events

Stay in the know on the latest Dynamics 365 events and training offerings, by viewing the Microsoft Events page. Using the filtering criteria on the left, search for In Person, Online and On Demand content for Dynamics 365.

Some upcoming events for June and July include:

• What's New & Highlights from Business Applications: a webcast series that covers information about new releases for Dynamics 365, Microsoft Flow, PowerApps and the Microsoft Common Data Service
• Microsoft Dynamics GDP: an online session where Technical Consultants demo the security of data processing in Dynamics 365 as stipulated by GDPR
• Technical Deep Dive on Dynamics 365 Field Service

NOTE: Some of the online training is tailored for Microsoft Partners however, non-members can join via a guest registration.

Customer Evidence

Interested in learning how other customers are implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365? Check out some of their stories in the Customer Evidence page and learn how Dynamics 365 customers are taking the lead in digital transformation.

Experience Microsoft Dynamics 365

Check out the new Dynamics 365 Experience site for the resources you need to connect to the Microsoft Team, the Dynamics 365 Community, review the latest product offerings and suggest ways to improve the application.

Featured News

Dynamics 365 Versions

As updates are deployed to the Dynamics 365 service, there are two separate versions that are tracked:

App Version: Application version represents the binary version that is deployed to the Dynamics 365 servers. These updates contain product improvements and bug fixes that are delivered through application code changes.

DB Version: Database version represents the version of the organization’s database. These updates contain customization changes to support new features, product enhancements, and bug fixes.

There are two primary scenarios where the App Version and DB Version will not match.

App-only Update: As Microsoft continues to increase the frequency of updates to Dynamics 365, it is common for a release to only include application updates with no database updates required. In such a scenario, the App Version will be incremented, but the DB Version will remain the same. On a subsequent release that involves both application and database changes, the versions will once again align.

Update Sequence: During the update sequence, application servers are updated first, followed by the update of the organizations themselves. Multiple organizations are batched together and updated concurrently to speed up the overall release. Depending on when an organization is picked up for processing, the versions may not match during this window of time.

What should customers do when the versions do not match?

As described in the scenarios above, it's entirely normal for the App Version and DB Version to occasionally differ. The application is built specifically to support compatibility with previous database releases, so mismatched versions are generally not a cause for concern.

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Readme/Known Issues

Review the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Readme/Known Issues for important information on services and applications availability, security requirements, known issues and possible workarounds.

Updates & Releases

New Application Feature: Activity Logging

Protecting data, preserving privacy, and complying with regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation are some of the highest priorities for a business. It is critical that organizations audit the entirety of data processing actions taking place to be able to analyze for possible security breaches. The Activity Logging feature in Dynamics 365 provides this capability for the use of Office and Dynamics 365.

How does this differ from past audit logging?

Audit logging covers enabling and viewing logging for specific entities and attributes. What is logged is largely based on the context of the activity. Open a record and activities such as who created the record, what values were entered and changed, who updated it, etc.…are logged for that particular record.

Activity Logging has two significant differences with prior Microsoft Dynamics 365 auditing:

• Administrators can log user and admin activities across Office and Dynamics 365 apps.
• Auditing occurs at the SDK layer of Dynamics 365 which means much more data is logged than just activities.

For more information on this feature and how to set it up, review Enable and use Activity Logging.

Portals Capabilities Release 9.0.6.7

Portal capabilities version 9.0.6.7 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is now globally available for all customers.

This release includes Portal host version 9.0.6.7 and Solution Version 9.0.6.1 (for Dynamics 365 org version 9.x) and 8.4.6.2 (for Dynamics org versions greater than or equal to 8.1).

New solution packages will be available after portal host upgrades have been completed globally. The portal host will automatically be updated by Microsoft, but action must be taken by your organization to upgrade the solution packages. Until the solution packages are updated, some enhancements will not be available to portal administrators and/or users. For instructions on how to upgrade the portal solution packages, please refer to this Knowledge Base (KB) article.

New Features:

Dynamics 365 Portals app: The Dynamics 365 Portals app provides a new experience to configure and manage the online platform to communicate and collaborate with customers.

Reset a portal: Customers can now reset a portal if they plan to move to another geolocation or to another tenant, and don't want to use the portal anymore. For more information see Reset a portal

Change the base URL of a portal: Customers can now change the base URL of a portal after it is provisioned. For more information see Change the base URL of a portal.

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed: Global Search was ignoring special characters like double quotes(") or ampersand(&) when Facets were enabled in the Portal.
• Fixed: Entity list action buttons were getting rendered in the opposite direction.
• Fixed: Create related record action didn't work when invoked through Entity list and only worked within entity forms.
• Fixed: Not all records were shown in Dynamic Lookup set filter when the selection mode was checkbox or radio button.

For more information, review this KB article.

Universal Resource Scheduling Updates

Requirement Calendar

Schedule anything in Dynamics 365 using Universal Resource Scheduling (URS). Customers can enable scheduling for any entity including custom entities. For example, customers can enable scheduling for the opportunity form and schedule marketing visits for the opportunities. This same functionality is available for the case form and scheduling time to work on cases.

URS also includes a requirement calendar to create requirement details. When creating a resource requirement, each requirement record is associated with a calendar. On the requirement form, there is a “modify calendar” option on the ribbon bar, which allows customers to modify the calendar for the requirement.

For more information how to use this feature, review this post on the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team blog.

Extensibility Documentation

Detailed documentation for URS scheduling extensibility is now available. For more information and additional resources such as sample walkthroughs and an overview video, review this post.

Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release

The latest update to the Field Service and Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 is now available. This release includes improvements to quality, performance, and usability, based on customer feedback and requests.

Field Service enhancements (v7.5.1.37)

Resolved issue:

• Fixed: Cannot add new line for revised service quote

Project Service Automation (v2.4.4.30) Enhancements

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed: Unable to add any lines to the project contract if the contract has 2 lines for same project.
• Fixed: After clicking update prices, the actual cost/sales of tasks become 0
• Fixed: Resource Requirement is not taking project work template into consideration while creating generic resources
• Fixed: Time entries refresh issue on importing bookings

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements

Note: Improvements and bug fixes for Universal Resource Scheduling apply to Field Service and Project Service Automation as well as to other schedulable entities in the Sales or Service applications.

Improvements include:

• Display completely unavailable resources with Schedule Assistant
• Search icon added to resource search bar on Schedule Board
• Selecting resource in hourly Schedule Assistant loads booking panel

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed: Changing settings on Schedule Board vertical view removed demand panel when in Schedule Assistant.
• Fixed: Users can no longer create rating values outside specified range on rating model.
• Fixed: Issue booking work order service tasks if the entity was enabled for scheduling.

For more details and to see previous release notes, review this blog post.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.6

The Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.6 is now available.

New and updated features:

• When an administrator assigns a Social Engagement license to a user, this user will get Power Analyst and Responder permissions. This enables users to create search topics and engage in conversations with other authors.
• The retention time for Social content has been reduced to 15 months.
• Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols 1.0 and 1.1 are disabled.

For more information review this blog post.

Additional News

Microsoft + GitHub = Empowering Developers

Microsoft announced an agreement to acquire GitHub, the world’s leading software development platform. GitHub is a great resource for Dynamics 365 developers. From Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, “Microsoft has been a developer-focused company from the very first product we created to the platforms and tools we offer today. Building technology so that others can build technology is core to our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”

For more details on the why behind the purchase and the opportunities ahead, review this blog post from Satya.

Training Corner

Removing records from the AsyncOperationBase/WorkflowLogBase table

When an async workflow is triggered in a Dynamics 365 organization, a record will be created in the AsyncOperationBase table to track the processing of the async job. Additional records will also be created in the WorkflowLogBase table to maintain logs for the workflow execution.

Business Process Flows also store BPF stage transition and action logs for the BPF in the WorkflowLogBase table.

For organizations that use workflows or business process flows heavily, these table will grow over time and eventually become large enough to introduce performance issues as well as consume excessive storage in the database.

Customers can leverage the bulk delete system job under Settings > Data Management > Bulk Record Deletion to delete unneeded records from these tables.

For details on how to setup the bulk delete system job, review this blog post.

Transforming Customer Engagement at Microsoft

With the rise of mobile and social technologies, customers are now more powerful than ever. Their always-connected status and ability to find information in seconds puts them in control of their own experience, and this trend has forced businesses of all sizes to rethink how they engage and connect with their customers. Businesses are no longer focused on “touch points” during the marketing, sales and customer service process, but instead find a need to engage in meaningful, ongoing relationships that involve frequent online and real-world interactions.

Your Roadmap for a Digital-First Business provides insight on how businesses can stay relevant as unprecedented processing power, revolutionary cloud storage, and continuous connectivity change the face of business. This e-book provides ideas on how Dynamics 365 helps businesses:

• Reinvent productivity and enable a data-driven culture.
• Optimize and enhance analytics and mobility.
• Create new delivery systems and models for HR services.
• Test new products and services at a fraction of the cost.

Microsoft Business Applications Summit

Microsoft is bringing together the Dynamics 365, Power BI, Excel, PowerApps and Microsoft Flow communities to connect and collaborate at the Microsoft Business Applications Summit. The summit takes place in Seattle, Washington, July 22-24. This is a perfect opportunity for Analysts, Business Users, IT Professionals and Developers to advance their skills, learn about applications that are critical to their business, learn how to simplify the management of data and identify key elements of the platforms to help drive innovation.

For more information and to register, visit the event website.

Featured News

Modernizing the way we update Dynamics 365

To enable businesses everywhere to accelerate their digital transformation, Microsoft is continuously enhancing Dynamics 365 with new capabilities. As new product enhancements are added and performance improvements are made at a rapid pace, Microsoft is optimizing the way in which updates to Dynamics 365 are delivered.

There will be two major releases per year – April and October – each with new capabilities and functionality. These updates will be backward compatible so your apps and customizations will continue to work post update. New features with major, disruptive changes to the user experience will be off by default. This means administrators will be able to first test before enabling these features for their organization.

Microsoft is working to provide early visibility to help customers prepare for the new updates. Release notes will be published, which provide a summary of all the new features and improvements and information on when they are planned to be available.

In addition to the two major updates, Microsoft will continue to deploy regular performance and reliability improvement updates throughout the year.

For more information about these changes, review this July Announcement and for more information about the process, review Manage Updates and FAQs for Dynamics 365 Update Policies.

October ’18 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Release Notes

The October ’18 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Release Notes are now available. These release notes describe functionality that may not have been released yet. Review the following links to see the features and target release months for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement:

Summary of what’s new in Sales, Customer Service, Project Service, Field Service, Marketing, Microsoft Social Engagement and PowerApps.

Adxstudio Portals: End of Support August 1st, 2018

On September 14, 2017, Microsoft announced transition options from legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 to Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals. Microsoft began the process of ceasing new license sales for the legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 product in late 2016. Consistent with Microsoft’s approach to prioritizing cloud first applications, Microsoft decided to end support for legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 on August 1, 2018. For more information on this announcement and next steps, download the Adxstudio Discontinuation Customer FAQs or visit the Adxstudio from Microsoft Community website.

Updates & Releases

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement US Government

In response to the unique and evolving requirements of the United States public sector, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Government was created and made available to qualified government entities in the United States. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Government entails a continuity of the protected environment that was originally branded Microsoft CRM Online Government where the protections afforded to the government community cloud (GCC) are represented by four discrete functions: Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and Project Service Automation.

As Microsoft strives to maintain functional parity between our commercially available service and that which is servicing the GCC, there are notable exceptions to this affected by dependent service, partner-solution availability, market priorities, and compliance regulations.

At this time, preview features in the commercial offering are not available to the GCC. This is intentional, as the GCC represents a community leveraging generally available services, further protected with heightened compliance demands of the U.S. Government and the government community customers. To provide more clarity on what customers have access to in the GCC, an updated Feature Availability list is now available in the Microsoft Documentation site

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Releases

The July 2018 Service Updates for Dynamics 365 online versions 9.x and 8.x are now available. Click the links below for more details.

Service Update 4 (9.0.2.1072 or higher) resolved issues include:

• Performance is sub-optimal in case create scenarios where there are more than 85,000 entitlements
• Quick Create forms display redundant empty space lines when there are a few fields on the form
• Tracking a contact from the MailApp creates the contact in Dynamics even though it is missing required fields
• A tab that is hidden by default becomes visible after adding an activity
• The Multiselect field won't display on forms for custom entities
• The Business rule to set visibility is not working properly

Service Update 18 (8.2.2.2160 or higher) resolved issues include:

• Users with more than 2,100 access teams can't log into CRM
• Form onload handlers only display a single row forcing the user to scroll if there is additional content
• Read-only values paste twice when copied via double-click in Chrome
• Duplicate (Inactive) contacts are added into email To and CC fields
• User is unable to publish customizations after choosing the Sitemap areas to be displayed for an entity
• Importing solutions containing JavaScript libraries fails
• An "Access denied" error appears when an email is sent without saving

Service Update 28 (8.1.1.2457) resolved issues include:

• Incremental system-wide performance improvements have been made in this update
• Metadata sync telemetry does not report which header rows are invalid
• Search bar does not show any results when tracking an email in Compose mode
• A script error occurs on On-Premise Dynamics: "Out of stack space"

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.7

The Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.7 is now available.

New and updated features:

• A new sign-in page is available to sign in directly to Social Engagement
  http://social.dynamics.com/login
• Removal of interaction functionality for Facebook user profiles

Resolved issues include:

• Increased the number of characters displayed for Tweets from 140 to 280
• Fixed a redirection issue when authenticating a new social profile for Twitter
• Fixed and updated several translations in the user interface

For more information review this blog post.

Additional News

Preview Feature: Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement

Microsoft Teams allows customers to manage all their conversations, files, and tools in one workspace. Users can create and edit documents right in the app and enjoy instant access to SharePoint, OneNote, PowerBI, and now, Dynamics 365 (online). The feature to integrate Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement with Microsoft Teams is now in preview. For more information, review a demo video here. Note: This feature currently has limited availability.

Documentation for using Postman with Web API

Postman is an API development environment that makes working with APIs faster and easier. Documentation on using Postman with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Web API to authenticate to a Dynamics 365 instance is now available. For more information, review this article.

Training Corner

How To: Configure Data Export Service with an Azure SQL Database using Azure Resource Manager

Review this step by step instructional guide to learn how to easily configure the Dynamics 365 Online Data Export Service solution with an Azure SQL Database using the Azure Resource Manager.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service

Providing great customer service is an important choice of—and loyalty to—a brand. While it helps earn customers for life, it also improves an organization’s bottom line.

Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact study to examine the potential return on investment for organizations that deploy Dynamics 365 for Customer Service. Watch this webinar for a summary of the findings and to learn how excellent customer service can increase an organization’s return on investment.

Next, download the Microsoft 2017 State of Global Customer Service report to:

• Hear what customers think is most important—and frustrating.
• Identify steps your organization can take to build brand loyalty.
• Validate and refine your customer service strategy.
• Gain insight into the most popular engagement channels and digital trends

Business Applications Summit Sessions on-demand

With over 4,000 total attendees, the Business Applications Summit brought together a community of users and partners to see how Microsoft’s end-to-end business application platform delivers real, powerful results. Visit the Dynamics 365 sessions on-demand page to view topics such as CRM on-premise to Dynamics 365 Migration Service, Dynamics 365 for Marketing Application Deep Dive and Changing the Customer Service Game with Bots and AI.

Microsoft Ignite

Join us in Orlando, September 24-28 for Microsoft Ignite. This conference offers attendees a chance to learn the latest insights and gain new skills from technology leaders and practitioners shaping the future of cloud, data, business intelligence, teamwork and productivity. From demos to keynotes, learn about new tech in a way that speaks to you. Plus, get exclusive access to the latest updates and developments across Microsoft’s products and solutions. This year’s keynote speaker is Microsoft’s very own Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella.

Featured News

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update Policy

For customers who are currently running older versions of Dynamics 365, Microsoft will continue to provide you with the ability to schedule an update to the latest version and will send reminders to your Dynamics 365 administrators to schedule your update.

• Dynamics 365 (Online) version 8.2 will be fully supported until January 31, 2019. After that date, all customers will be updated to Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0.
• From February 1, 2019, onwards, Microsoft will only support the latest generally available version.

Here are the recent versions of Dynamics 365:

View the Manage Updates page on the Microsoft Documentation site for more details.

New user experience to Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement

The next update to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement is coming in October, bringing a brand-new user experience among a host of new and updated capabilities.

The Unified Interface is a new metadata driven client interface that provides consistent experiences across all applications, devices, and forms. Whether you are on a browser, tablet, or phone, you will be able to consume similar experiences, including:

• Similar forms to update and view your records
• Interactive dashboards across all devices to view your information and drill into it
• Reference Panel is now available to be used with all entities supported in Unified Interface
• Support for right-to-left (RTL) languages
• Accessibility improvements across all experiences on Unified Interface

The complete list of features is available here. More details will be provided about the preview program through the Insider portal soon.

The new update—Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps, Version 9.0.2, On-premises update—will release in October 2018. Customers currently in “December 2016 Update for Dynamics 365” (Microsoft Dynamics 365 version 8.2) can update to this version once it is available.

Announcing: Dynamics 365 for Marketing August 2018 update

Microsoft is proud to announce the August 2018 update of Dynamics 365 for Marketing is now available. Dynamics 365 for Marketing is a marketing-automation application that helps turn prospects into business relationships. The app is easy to use, works seamlessly with Dynamics 365 for Sales, and has built-in business intelligence. Some key features include:

• Customizable templates to create graphical email messages and online content such as landing pages
• Drag-and-drop design tools to create multichannel campaigns to send emails, generate follow-up activities and launch workflows
• Import leads from LinkedIn
• Use dashboards and reports to track the performance of marketing initiatives

Review this announcement for information on how to get the update and additional documentation on the application features.

Updates & Releases

Update for editable grids in Dynamics 365 for phones mobile app

Users of the Dynamics 365 mobile app can view and quickly edit entity data in views and sub-grids using editable grids. This capability has existed since the introduction of the editable grids feature in Dynamics 365. While this feature has been beneficial for tablet users, Microsoft has received feedback from mobile phone users that their experience has been limited. This is because the editable grid control was optimized for tablets and, subsequently, does an automatic rendering of the editable grid control on phones resulting in a less than optimal experience for phone users.

At this time, Microsoft has made the decision to restrict the use of editable grids on phones. For more information, review this post in the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Team Blog.

Unified Service Desk 4.0 Release

The Unified Service Desk 4.0 Release is now available. With the release of Dynamics 365 (online), version 9.0, Microsoft introduced a new user experience which uses responsive web design principles to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience for any screen size, device, or orientation. Unified Service Desk supports the apps built using Unified Interface framework. Version 4.0 includes the following new features:

• .Web Client - Unified Interface Migration Assistant to help seamlessly migrate existing Unified Service Desk configurations from Dynamics 365 Web Client to Dynamics 365 Unified Interface App
• Close Confirmation Window is introduced to prevent the accidental closure of the Unified Service Desk client application
• Unified Interface KM Control is introduced to enhance the knowledge base search experience
• Some of the features that are not yet in the Unified Interface can now be accessed in the Unified Interface client to include Advanced Find, Bulk edit, Merge records and Record Sharing.
• Previews are also available for new features that may be added

For more information on the release, review this blog post.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.8

The Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.8 is now available.

New and updated features:

• After signing in to Social Engagement, customers can select the smiley symbol and provide feedback about the app and the service.

• When a comment on WordPress is removed by the author, it's also removed from the Social Engagement databases.
• In accordance with the Facebook Graph API v3.0 changes from August 1, 2018, Social Engagement no longer supports engagement actions for Facebook user profiles.

For more information on the update, review this blog post.

Dynamics 365 Resource Scheduling Optimization Version 2.7

The Resource Scheduling Optimization v2.7 release is now available.

New and updated features:

• Enabled capability of scheduling ‘Location Agnostic’ resources.
• Ability to create simulated optimization from the schedule board and visualize it.
• Hardening of schedule definition experience through validation rules
• Able to reset 1 or more RSO optimization schedules (instead of reset all)

For more information on the features included in the release, review this blog post.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Portal Capability Releases

The September 2018 portal capability updates for Microsoft Dynamics 365 are available (v9.0.9.2).

Some of the resolved issues include:

• Knowledge Article Feedback calculation was not correct and always showed a value between 0-1.
• Portal was throwing a generic error if multiple instances of same field were placed on Entity forms or Webforms.
• Confirmation dialog Yes/No buttons were not aligned within the Close case dialog.
• If entity list actions had confirmation dialog setup, they didn't work properly when the entity list was used in a web template.

For more information on the features included in the release, review this blog post.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Releases

The August and September 2018 Service Updates for Dynamics 365 online versions 9.x and 8.x are now available.

The naming conventions for versions 9.x have changed to clarify the link between the version number and service update. For example, Service Update 14 will correspond to version number 14XX. Occasionally a Service Update will be canceled and all the associated fixes will be rolled into the next Service Update, thus the Service Update numbers will not always increase incrementally.

Service Update 14 (9.0.2.1455) resolved issues include:

• The error message text for SLA-related failures has been improved
• PowerBI on the CRM dashboard is not rendering correctly on Internet Explorer 11
• Outlook freezes when setting the Regarding field while the mail notification is visible
• Characters in a text field within a subgrid are truncated
• The pop-up window for duplicate detection is too small
• Improvements made to the number of requests that can be included in an OData batch call

Service Update 17 (9.0.2.1708) resolved issues include:

• The PublishAll action times out
• Scrollbar and paging buttons are not appearing for inline Subgrids in Chrome
• Escaped HTML tags appear in the body of some email clients
• Activating account records via the ribbon changes read-only fields to editable
• Opportunity Edit Properties are displaying nearly invisible text boxes
• The Customer field does not populate when converting Email to Opportunity

Service Update 20 (9.0.2.2061) resolved issues include:

• The editable subgrid is not properly rendered on refresh method
• When creating bar charts, the x-axis labels are not properly rendered
• Upgrading to version 9.0 causes performance issues during upgrade
• When a user inserts a dynamic field in the URL configuration of a hyperlink in a workflow, it is displayed as "NULL"
• Custom security role names revert back to the default name upon upgrade
• Emails with attachments are not synchronizing into CRM

Service Update 22 (9.0.2.2257) resolved issues include:

• After canceling openConfirmDialog, the Quick Create form stays loading and the Save button does not work
• SQL errors produce intermittent performance issues
• The timeout has been extended for UpdateBusinessIdForEntity
• The Activity Wall Create Task button opens the main form instead of the inline form when clicked from More [...] command list
• ValidFor properties are not set correctly for system attributes when the attribute metadata is updated
• Dynamic Help for Server-Side Sync passes unsafe characters in the call stack parameter

Service Update 23 (9.0.2.2381) resolved issues include:

• Wrong icons displayed after importing a customized solution to v9
• Read-only fields became editable when field metadata was modified
• Rollup field value was not displayed automatically in the IE and Chrome browsers
• Users could not read the complete Instance name unless column width was expanded manually
• Jquery not displaying when bulk editing custom entity settings
• Error "An item with the same key has already been added." occurred when upgrading to V9.0

Service Update 19 (8.2.2.2257) resolved issues include:

• Performance Improvement: Async jobs are validating slowly
• The Look-Up field needs to be selected twice to function
• Custom messages feature not functioning. Default message displayed instead of custom one
• The From field on emails is not automatically populated when there is custom field mapping between the account and email
• In some scenarios, record GUIDs are appended in a Word template
• CRM App gives an error when attempting to load

Service Update 20 (8.2.2.2361) resolved issues include:

• Email forwards time out when containing an attachment of 10 MB or larger
• The multi-line text field does not break the line on the phone app when set as read-only
• Client telemetry has been updated to report offline draft information
• Orphan Active Workflow records are created when importing a new version of a solution
• The Import Data, Option Set field mapping is not showing the scrollbar
• Upgrading a solution will fail if there are multiple sitemaps

Service Update 21 (8.2.2.2423) resolved issues include:

• Server allows plug-in assemblies with unsupported .NET Framework versions to be registered in error
• The Date Only record field displays a date and time instead of just a date
• Encrypted org properties are not cached when the 'cache encrypted org properties indefinitely' option is selected
• Business process flows cannot be imported into organizations as part of a solution
• Fetching entities from CRM results in null ref exception
• A sync error deletes user metadata, preventing an application from loading

Additional News

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Outlook is unable to render webpages

When attempting to render webpages via the Outlook folder pane using the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Microsoft Outlook add-in (Outlook client), the view pane remains blank and "Waiting for a page to be retrieved from a CRM server..." displays, but the corresponding webpage does not load.

When tracking an item or opening an already tracked item in Outlook, the tracking details section that normally shows the Regarding and Tracking Status is blank.

These issues are due to the an issue found in the August Office Insider Update where DDPI settings (optimizations for multiple monitor displays) causes the add-in to never be able to display the pages requested.

As a workaround while this issue is under investigation, System Administrations can navigate to the following location within Outlook:

File > Options > General > User Interface Options > When using multiple displays

And change the value of this setting to "Optimize for compatibility" (it will also notify you an application restart is required).

For more information, review this support article.

The 2018 State of Global Customer Service Report

Customer experience is quickly becoming the number one brand differentiator. So it’s no surprise that 95 percent of survey respondents in the new 2018 Global State of Customer Service report indicated that customer service is important to their choice of and loyalty to a brand.

What are customers looking for? These are just a few of the findings:

• A desire to be heard. Customers want a voice. An average of 90 percent of respondents wanted to provide feedback about their experience but are only given the opportunity 37 percent of the time.
• Service anytime, anywhere. Customers expect to receive service through any channel and on any device, with 59 percent of respondents having used multiple channels to get questions answered.
• Digital and emerging tools. AI-driven virtual agents are trending. Bots built using technology like natural language processing and machine learning can provide an intelligent, conversational and effortless customer service experience.

Download the 2018 Global State of Customer Service Report to learn more.

Training Corner

Microsoft Ignite

Join us in Orlando, September 24-28 for Microsoft Ignite. This conference offers attendees a chance to learn the latest insights and gain new skills from technology leaders and practitioners shaping the future of cloud, data, business intelligence, teamwork and productivity. From demos to keynotes, learn about new tech in a way that speaks to you. Plus, get exclusive access to the latest updates and developments across Microsoft’s products and solutions. This year’s keynote speaker is Microsoft’s very own Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella.

Featured News

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Connection Security

As of October 5, 2018, Dynamics 365 (online) version 8.2 in the Dynamics 365 Government environment requires connections to the Customer Engagement applications to utilize Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 or higher. This aligns with updated Microsoft and industry security policies and best practices.

Please note: This change only affects Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Customer Engagement, not on-premise versions.

What is the change: All Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement online versions support TLS 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2, but to comply with federal requirements, Microsoft will begin blocking connections to the product from clients or browsers that are using TLS 1.0 and 1.1.

How will customers be impacted: All supported browsers for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (versions 7.x – Version 9.x) currently comply with the TLS 1.2 standards and will continue to work as before. If customers have disabled the TLS 1.2 protocol on their browser or utilize a custom Windows client built with .NET 4.5.2, they will lose connectivity to organizations with Dynamics 365 (online), version 8.2. For customers who have deployed a non-Windows application that connects to a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement instance, they will need to verify that the technology stack used supports TLS 1.2.

For details on how to avoid or mitigate the impact and examples of errors, review Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (online) to require TLS 1.2 for connectivity.

Dynamics 365 Sitemap and Command Bar Updates

Microsoft has been listening intently to customer feedback since the Dynamics 365 Unified Interface was introduced. Customers have found the navigation model to be too complex. As part of the October update, Microsoft has taken some steps to improve the product navigation. The latest UI update comes with some changes to the sitemap. These changes will be the default experience for new email trials and will eventually roll out to the entire community.

Some of the changes include:

• The Sitemap is expanded by default and is persistently pinned to promote user recall.
• The sub area in focus is highlighted to indicate where in the app the user is.
• The command bar background color is changed to show association with the area it effects.

Review this announcement to see examples of the updates in the site map and the command bar.

Preview: Introducing the Power platform Admin center

If you’ve monitored the metrics and analytics of Dynamics 365 then you have probably used the Organization Insights solution. If you've managed Dynamics 365 (online) tenants and instances, then you've used the Dynamics 365 Admin Center. With the merge of Common Data Service and the Dynamics 365 platform, Microsoft is launching a new Power platform Admin Center to allow customers to view Customer Data Service for Apps analytics without having to install a separate solution. The Power platform Admin Center will also include admin settings. For more information on the analytics, view Common Data Service for Apps analytics. Once customers confirm they see the new Common Data Service for Apps analytics, then they can remove the Organization Insights managed solution.

The Power platform Admin center will continue to add functionality until this becomes the only admin center to accomplish all tasks related to Power platform. Until the move to the Power platform Admin center is complete, customers can still manage their admin settings for Customer Engagement as usual, but keep in mind that many of these settings:

...are moving here:

For more information about the Power platform admin center, review:

Preview: Introducing the Power platform Admin center

New Dynamics 365 (online) support center

Manage Common Data Service for Apps Settings

NOTE: This topic is pre-release information and is subject to change.

Microsoft Introduces Dynamics 365 Government for the Department of Defense

In the first half of calendar year 2019, Microsoft will introduce the suite of Business Applications capabilities and features designed to meet workloads at Impact Level (IL) 5, as defined by the Department of Defense (DoD). This means Dynamics 365 Government will soon be available in Microsoft’s DoD cloud which is for the exclusive use of the DoD. This suite of business application is designed to provide DoD customers seamless integration with Office 365.

Microsoft is also expanding the Dynamics 365 capabilities and features to begin supporting the complex regulatory compliance requirements of the DoD, to include processing DoD controlled unclassified information. We’re making major progress in delivering this environment and are on track to make Dynamics 365 Government for IL 4 generally available to customers with regulations that require it by end of this calendar year (2018); authorization to follow in 2019.

For more information, review this post on the Microsoft Industry Blog.

Updates & Releases

Dynamics 365 for Marketing Update Release

The latest update of Dynamics 365 for Marketing is now available. This update provides many performance and stability improvements, plus a few new features. To benefit from this update, customers must manually apply it to each of their Dynamics 365 for Marketing instances as described in this article, Keep Marketing up to date.

What’s New:

• The segmentation designer now makes it easier to understand and update existing segments by keeping all entity relationships visible and editable.
• Email insights now include a calculated click-through rate (CTR) that tells you how often recipients clicked on a link included in the message.

Announcements:

• Dynamics 365 for Marketing is now available in all the languages and countries/regions supported by Dynamics 365 (online).
• The Dynamics 365 for Marketing pricing model has been adjusted to better reflect the way marketers use the product and consume its resources.

For more information about the update, review this post and for the announcements, review this post.

Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release

The latest update to the Field Service and Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 are now available. This release includes improvements to quality, performance, and usability, based on customer feedback and requests.

Field Service enhancements (v7.5.2.61)

Resolved issues include:

• Numerous issues and improvements to the solution upgrade process
• Permissions privilege validation prior to Address suggestion window pop-up
• Mark as complete for Work Order Service Task from grid fails in background
• Update sharing logic not to use ExecuteMultiple

Project Service Automation (v2.4.5.48) Enhancements

Resolved issues include:

• Duration is not respected for manual tasks after refreshing when auto-scheduling
• 502 Timeout Exception on MS Project publish to existing project after deleting high number of tasks
• Error assigning an account when the quote is closed
• Unable to add existing or write in opportunity product line item in opportunity form

For more information on the features included in the releases, review this blog post.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.9

The Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.9 is now available.

New and updated features:

• After signing in to Social Engagement, the app presents a new start page called Home. It provides helpful resources and additional information in one spot. More features will be added in future releases.
• Quick setup and initial insights in fresh solutions on the new Home page.

For more information visit What’s new in Social Engagement.

Preview: Dynamics 365 (on-premises) version 9.0.2

The public preview for Dynamics 365 (on-premises) version 9.0.2 is now available through the Insiders Program https://experience.dynamics.com/insider/. For customers who have never enrolled in the Insider program, a registration is required. Once signed in, customers can select Dynamics 365 v9.0.2 to access the English language (en-us) download and 90-day trail key. Customers also have the option of downloading and testing the following components: Dynamics 365 for Outlook v9.0 and the Dynamics 365 version 9.0 Report Authoring Extension (with SQL Server Data Tools support). Reminder: Do not test with production data or as a production environment.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Releases

The October 2018 Updates for Dynamics 365 online versions 9.x are now available.

The naming conventions for versions 9.x have changed to clarify the link between the version number and service update. For example, Service Update 14 will correspond to version number 14XX. Occasionally a Service Update will be canceled and all the associated fixes will be rolled into the next Service Update, thus the Service Update numbers will not always increase incrementally. For more information about the October service update for Dynamics 365 (online), review this blog post.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 9.1 (online) Update (9.1.0.0012 or higher) updates and resolved issues include:

• Incremental system-wide performance improvements have been made in this update
• The wrong tooltip displayed when using custom icons
• Grids appeared as white screens instead of showing a loading icon
• Users were unable to view newly created opportunities in a shared account
• The New Case button could not be customized
• Users received a script error when accessing Orders and Quote records

Service Update 1 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 9.1 (9.1.18101.0001 or higher) updates and resolved issues include:

• When Word template download failed, the Word template progress dialog remained open and the wrong error message did not display
• Queues dropdown did not appear for users with certain roles assigned
• App designer displayed a different form than the one selected in the case entity settings
• In the IE browser, users could not change form sections after opening a record
• Users saw overlapping panes when viewing a contact
• An error occurred when selecting Print preview option from a Case form

Additional News

New AI and mixed reality business applications for Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft introduced Dynamics 365 two years ago to tear down the traditional silos of customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Microsoft set out to reimagine business applications as modern, unified, intelligent and adaptable solutions that are integrated with Office 365 and natively built on Microsoft Azure. With the release of new AI and mixed reality applications, Microsoft is taking another step forward on the journey to help empower every organization on the planet to achieve more through the accelerant of business applications.

Microsoft is happy to announce the following new class of AI applications that will deliver out-of-the-box insights by unifying data and infusing it with advanced intelligence to guide decisions and empower organizations to make informed actions:

Dynamics 365 AI for Sales: Helps salespeople prioritize their time to focus on deals that matter most, offers a detailed analysis of the sales pipeline, and surfaces insights that enable smarter coaching of sales teams.

Dynamics 365 AI for Customer Service: Surfaces automated insights that help guide employees to take action and leverage virtual agents to help lower support costs all without writing any code.

Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights: Helps empower marketing, social media and market research teams to make better decisions.

For more information on the offerings and to see them in action with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella and a member of the Dynamics 365 engineering team, review this announcement.

Connected Field Service for Azure IoT Central

Microsoft is pleased to announce a new integration between Azure IoT Central and Dynamics 365 for Field Service, coinciding with the general availability of Azure IoT Central. When customers encounter unplanned outages in a traditional break-and-fix service model, they expect a well prepared technician to respond immediately. Unplanned outages can cost the customer quite a lot: $647 billion is lost globally each year when assets, machines, equipment, and systems are unavailable. Harnessed by Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled assets, it is possible to catch issues before they occur, and then plan for scheduled maintenance. However, implementing integrated solutions from IoT devices all the way up to business applications can prove challenging and complicated, and often calls for an interdisciplinary understanding of IoT and business application systems such as CRM or ERP.

Microsoft has made it our mission to provide a powerful yet simple, get-started experience to integrate Azure IoT Central with Dynamics 365 for Field Service in minutes, so that organizations are able to quickly move from idea, to pilot, to production, without requiring code expertise.

For more information about Connected Field Service for Azure IoT Central, check out this blog post, this overview, and these quick tutorials.

Upcoming changes to new trials and new Common Data Service (CDS) for Apps environments

Unified Interface uses responsive web design principles to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience for any screen size, device, or orientation. Today users land in the legacy web client experience as soon as they sign in, causing confusion if they have their workloads defined in apps. Upcoming changes to the new trials and new Common Data Service (CDS) for Apps environments will help simplify this experience. Users will land on the app selection page when they sign in instead of the legacy web client application and this page will showcase applicable app modules to the user. When creating a new app module, customers will only have the option to do so based on the Unified Interface and not the legacy experience.

For more information on the changes and to sign up for a trial, review this blog post.

Preview: Dynamics 365 Channel Integration Framework

Channel Integration Framework is a cloud-to-cloud extensible framework—set of APIs (methods, events, and protocols)—to build and integrate immersive communication experience. This allows third-party communication widgets running on channel provider cloud to interact with Dynamics 365. With this framework, customers can bring their own (third-party) channel provider or channel aggregators into Dynamics 365 Unified Interface Apps, where the Channel Integration Framework acts as an interface between the channel providers or aggregators and Unified Interface Apps.

Advantages:

• The framework is channel agnostic. Build channels like voice, video, chat, co-browse, social media, and any channel that is a JavaScript based widget.
• The Channel Integration Framework exposes standard and supported JavaScript APIs that customers can consume for the communication between the channels and Unified Interface Apps.
• Configure screen pops to display the customer information that can aid the agents to start the conversation efficiently and effectively.

For more information, review this blog post.

Training Corner

Monitoring Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Service Health

The Office 365 Admin Center provides health information for multiple cloud services to include Dynamics 365. Some customers require greater visibility into monitoring the service health of their Dynamics 365 instances, but users must have the appropriate roles within Office 365 to access the messages in the Admin Center. Customers can use the Office 365 Service Communications API to query and get the current service status specifically for Dynamics 365. For more information and sample queries, review Monitoring Dynamics 365 CE service health and messages using the Microsoft Office 365 Service Communications API.

How to trigger a plugin when Product License is updated in Office 365

Review this step-by-step instructional guide on how to trigger a plug-in in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement when Product License is updated in Office 365 for a Dynamics 365 user.

First Look & Demo: Dynamics 365 AI for Sales

Microsoft Dynamics 365 has infused built-in AI since early 2016 with embedded intelligence such as the Relationship Assistant, Email engagement and forecasting features. One of the newest additions to the AI features is Dynamics 365 is AI for Sales. For more information about this new feature and to watch a demo, take a look at this post on the Dynamics 365 Community site.

Microsoft Ignite On-Demand Sessions

Connecting with tech professionals and posing questions to the experts who build the tools you use every day. Nothing compares to experiencing Microsoft Ignite in person—but even if you couldn’t make it this year, you can still benefit from the learnings and inspiration. Here’s your chance to see the sessions you missed that everyone else is talking about. Take a look at the On Demand Sessions. There are over 100 sessions for Dynamics 365 including topics on Adobe Marketing Cloud, Common Data Service for Apps, data migration from on-premise to the cloud and business transformation with AI.

Featured News

Dynamics 365 administrators will be notified via the O365 Message Center and will receive an email when the Dynamics 365 version 9.0 Update is available. The target to make update scheduling available is January 2018, and the window for processing the scheduled updates is February 2018 – August 2018.

To see the update availability, navigate to the UPDATES tab in the Dynamics 365 Administration Center. Instances that are eligible for upgrade will have a Status of ‘Update available’.  From there, customers can schedule their update and book preferred and alternate dates.

Customers can upgrade to version 9.0 from version Dynamics 2016 (8.0), Dynamics 2016 UPD1 (8.1) or Dynamics 365 (8.2). For more information on the update process, see Manage Updates.

Note: The update availability to Dynamics 365, version 9.0 for Dynamics 365 Government and Dynamics 365 Germany is not part of this announcement. The availability of version 9.0 for these customers will be announced at a later date.

Reminder: The Microsoft Dynamics Marketing service will be discontinued effective May 15, 2018. Customers will need to take advance action prior to May 15, 2018, to transition to an alternative solution and continue automating their business marketing activities.

Microsoft is pleased to announce that some customers can get early access to the Public Preview for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing in select countries and languages (Microsoft field resources, Dynamics 365 MVPs and Microsoft Dynamics Marketing (MDM) customers). An announcement will be made when the preview is available to all customers and partners.

For more details on the new service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing, review the training section below.

Updates & Releases

Portal capabilities version 8.3.3.153 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is now available. This release includes an updated portal host and updated solution packages (new solution packages will be available after portal host upgrades have been completed globally). The portal host will automatically be updated by Microsoft, but action must be taken by your organization to upgrade the solution packages.

This update resolves the following issues:

· Added a new error message for password confirmation screen when attempting to send email fails due to contact email preference being disabled.

· Case timelines would display encoded html tags for emails that have originated from within Dynamics 365 making them difficult to read.

· Deactivated forum threads appear on the portal.

· External Web Links in navigation may redirect to the home page instead of the intended external URL.

· Fields that are using DateOnly behavior may not display the correct date on entity lists.

· Increased cache performance of knowledge articles in portal.

· Portal may experience an error when uploading a file that is larger than the configured maximum size instead of displaying the configured file size error text.

For more information, review this support article.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.11 is ready for release in December 2017.

New and updated features include:

• Support for Twitter's extended tweet length
• A new table view added to existing charts so uses can view the data as a chart or a table
• A new styling for charts with colored areas now includes patterns in addition to solid colors

Resolved issues include:

• Updated the mapping of the language recognition for private messages
• Updated Social Engagement documentation regarding Facebook Acquisition Tokens, Facebook comment actions, adding Custom Tags, and requirements for YouTube Engagement actions

For more information, review What’s new in Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.

Voice of the Customer for Dynamics 365 (9.0.823.1 - 9.0.959.8) is live on all Geos. This version of Voice of the Customer is compatible with Dynamics 365 version 8.2 and later.

New and updated features include:

• Changed the way survey responses are sent to the Dynamics 365 database to improve reliability
• The previous limitations of maximum 2400 survey responses per day has been removed and the number of email survey invitations has been increased to 50000 to improve scalability
• Made change tracking available on Voice of the Customer entities

Resolved issues include:

• Feedback entity does not work properly on all locales specified in Dynamics 365
• The default count resets to five in a start-rating question even after modification
• Respondent can skip Single Rating question even though it is marked as mandatory

For more information, see What’s new in Voice of the Customer version 9.0.823.1 to 9.0.959.8.

The latest update to the Field Service application and Project Service Automation application for Dynamics 365i snow available. This release is compatible with Dynamics 365 9.0.x. To update to this release, go to the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, solutions page to install the update.

Field Service enhancements (7.2.0.43)

New and updated features include:

• Improved logic when changing a booking status from Cancelled to Active (not cancelled)
• Removed unused views and renamed forms for Field Resource Hub
• Changed command name for completing Service Tasks to "Mark Complete"

Resolved issues include:

· Add New Product line item doesn’t work on the opportunity, quote, order, or invoices form

· After creating a work order type, the error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" appears when the user saves the Quote Booking Setup on a related tab

· When a Dispatcher clicks the Book button on a work order, the window doesn’t load

Universal Resource Scheduling Enhancements

NOTE: Improvements and bug fixes for Universal Resource Scheduling apply to Field Service and Project Service Automation as well as to other schedulable entities in the Sales or Service applications.

New and updated features include:

• In the Schedule Assistant view, a new sort option lists the resources with the highest or lowest total available hours in ascending or descending order
• If there are no bookings on the schedule board date range being displayed for a resource, the expand arrow no longer shows
• When resource capacity is less than the requested hours and the booking method is front load, the user can’t book a resource from the schedule board

Resolved issues include:

• On the schedule board, only first page results are displayed for the list of resources when switching from horizontal to vertical view
• When popping out the schedule board in Internet Explorer, clicking a resource cell doesn’t select all the grids
• Clicking resources to select cells takes 10 seconds on Internet Explorer and 3 seconds on Google Chrome

For more information, review the Release Notes for Field Service and Project Service Automation Update Release 2 post in the Dynamics 365 Team blog.

The latest update to Resource Scheduling Optimization (v2.0.17335.1) is now available. This release is compatible with both Dynamics 365 8.2.x and Dynamics 365 9.0.x. To update to this release, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, Applications page, to apply the update.

New and updated features include:

• Performance improvements for end-to-end optimization

Resolved issues include:

• On Dynamics 365 9.0.x organizations, the Refresh button on the Optimization Request grid on the RSO scope-related schedule board doesn't refresh the grid
• On Dynamics 365 9.0.x organizations, the RSO scope-related schedule board lock icon isn't showing on Edge
• Optimization requested fails with the error message: “System failed to modify some bookings” even though there is no booking being modified during the optimization run
• On Dynamics 365 9.0.x organizations, booking details for optimization don't show unchanged bookings

For more information, review the Release Notes for Resource Scheduling Optimization (v2.0.17335.1) – Dynamics 365 post in the Dynamics 365 Team blog.

Additional News

FastTrack for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a service designed to help customers move to Dynamics 365 smoothly and confidently. Customers will receive guidance on best practices, how to plan for successful rollouts and learn ways to enable new users and expand capabilities.

Services include:

• Data migration & validation
• Assist in go-live activities
• Support user adoption
• Conduct Technical Talks and Workshops

For more information on eligibility and available services, please see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/fasttrack/customer-engagement/microsoft-fasttrack-dynamics-365.

Sort available resources by total available time

In the December 2017 update, out-of-the-box functionality was added that allows users to sort resources by total availability. Previously, the system included two out-of-the-box options for sorting results when searching for available resources, plus any additional custom sort options. Now the system includes this third sort option.

For more information, review this post on the Dynamics 365 Team Blog.

In a previous releases, scheduling extensibility was introduced, opening up countless new scenarios for field service organizations. Now, with the December 2017 update, a custom query can include the date range displayed on the schedule board to return matching bookings within that date range. In the past, customers could modify the custom query and resource card to count of booking for each resource, but not with the knowledge of the date range from the schedule board. Now, customers can query the dates displayed on the board, and return data relevant to the date range.

For examples, review this article in the Dynamics 365 Team blog: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2017/12/15/new-use-schedule-board-date-ranges-in-custom-queries-in-universal-resource-scheduling/

Increased threshold allows for search of more resources

In our December 2017 update, the limit for the number of resources that can be searched at a time has been increased from 100 to 1,000. If a search returns more resources than the limit, the search still successfully completes using the top matches.

For details on how the search function works, review the following blog post: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2017/12/15/increased-threshold-allows-for-search-of-more-resources-at-once-in-universal-resource-scheduling/

To see all the features and enhancements for the Universal Resource Scheduling December Updates, review

What’s new in Universal Resource Scheduling for Dynamics 365 December Update 1

What’s new in Universal Resource Scheduling for Dynamics 365 December Update 2

Training Corner

When users in a tenant create a Dynamics 365 30-day email trial, these trials will show up in the tenant’s Admin Center. This is by design however, administrators have the ability to prevent their users from creating trials against their tenant.

Once blocked, users will receive a message to contact their organization’s admin. The process of blocking requires using Windows Powershell and Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell. Administrators can also block signups for free Power BI. For more information and instructions, review the following articles:

Ability to disable Sign Ups for the Free Power BI

Connect to Office 365 PowerShell

Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Dynamics 365 for Marketing is a marketing-automation application that helps turn prospects into business relationships. The app is easy to use, works seamlessly with Dynamics 365 for Sales, and has built-in business intelligence. Some of the reasons to use Dynamics 365 for Marketing are:

• Create graphical email messages and online content to support marketing initiatives
• Use the drag-and-drop journey designer to create an automated, multichannel campaign that sends personalized email messages, generates follow-up activities, launches workflows, and more
• Connect to LinkedIn and import Leads into Dynamics 365
• Use dashboards and reports to track the performance of your marketing initiatives, and to identify your best lead sources and marketing activities

For more information about Dynamics 365 for Marketing, review this article on the Dynamics 365 Documentation site https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/marketing/overview

Summit EMEA is the User Group (UG) conference that brings Microsoft Dynamics 365, AX and CRM users, industry experts and software development vendors together to discuss important issues, to learn about product updates, and to find genuine solutions that suit your business needs.

Attendees will have direct access to:

• Exceptional, quality content: Technical and functional training for all product versions in a focused environment that you can utilize 365 days a year
• Engaging, organized networking opportunities: Opportunities to connect and network with user group peers, partners and Microsoft team members
• Access to experts: Learn from Dynamics experts on a personal basis including: MVPs, experienced fellow users, Microsoft Engineers and Microsoft Support Technicians

Register now and save with early bird pricing until 31 January.

The July 2017 Update for Dynamics 365 introduced a new feature that supports Business Process Flows as an entity. Customers can now work with each Business Process Flow as its own entity through dashboards, grids, and charts. This also means that you have the ability to interact with them through Dynamics 365 workflows.

For an example on how to accomplish this, review the following blog post: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crminthefield/2017/12/18/automate-business-process-flow-stages-using-workflows/

Ideas for Microsoft Dynamics 365

Help us improve Microsoft Dynamics 365 and its family of products and solutions by discussing ideas, providing suggestions, and giving feedback. Use the forums listed on the Ideas page to share your thoughts. Search through the existing ideas, before suggesting a new one, and you can vote on them to help increase visibility.