Dynamics 365 Monthly Update-July 2018

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.