On January 25, 2024, we published the 2024 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, a compilation of new capabilities planned to be released between April 2024 and September 2024. This first release wave of the year offers hundreds of new features and improvements, showcasing our ongoing commitment to fueling digital transformation for both our customers and partners.

This release reinforces our dedication to developing applications and experiences that contribute value to roles by dismantling barriers between data, insights, and individuals. This wave introduces diverse enhancements across various business applications, emphasizing improved user experiences, productivity, innovative app development and automation, and advanced AI capabilities. Watch a summary of the release highlights.

Explore a heightened level of convenience when examining Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans using the release planner. Enjoy unmatched flexibility as you customize, filter, and sort plans to align with your preferences, effortlessly sharing them. Maintain organization, stay informed, and remain in control while smoothly navigating through various active waves of plans. For more information, visit the release planner.

Highlights from Dynamics 365 

Dynamics 365 release wave

Check out the 2024 release wave 1 early access features.

Learn more

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales enhances customer understanding and boosts sales through data, intelligence, and user-friendly experiences. The 2024 release wave 1 focuses on providing sellers timely customer information, expediting deals with actionable insights, improving productivity, and empowering organizations through open configurability and expanded generative AI leadership. Check out this video about the most exciting features releasing this wave.

Microsoft Copilot for Sales continues to deliver and enhance cutting-edge generative AI capabilities for sellers by enriching the Copilot in Microsoft 365 capabilities with sales specific skills, data, and actions. Additionally, the team will focus on assisting sellers on the go within the Outlook and Microsoft Teams mobile apps.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service will continue to empower agents to work more efficiently through Copilot, filtering response verification, diagnostic tools for admins and agents, and usability improvements to multi-session apps. Additionally, we’re making enhancements to the voice channel, and improving unified routing assignment accuracy and prioritization. Watch this video about the exciting new features in Customer Service.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service is a field service management application that allows companies to transform their service operations with processes and experiences to manage, schedule, and perform. In the 2024 release wave 1, we’re introducing the next generation of Copilot capabilities, modern experiences, Microsoft 365 integrations, vendor management, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Operations integration.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance continues on its journey of autonomous finance, building intelligence, automation, and analytics around every business process, to increase user productivity and business agility. This release focuses on enhancing business performance planning and analytics, adding AI powered experiences, easing setup of financial dimension defaulting with AI rules guidance, increasing automation in bank reconciliation, netting, expanding country coverage, tax automation, and scalability. See how the latest enhancements to Dynamics 365 Finance can help your business.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enhances business processes for increased insight and agility. Copilot skills improve user experiences, while demand planning transforms the forecast process, and warehouse processes are optimized for greater efficiency and accuracy. See how the latest enhancements to Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management can help your business.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations is focused on enhancing usability, performance, and scalability in key areas such as project planning, invoicing, time entry, and core transaction processing. The spotlight is on core functionality improvements, including support for discounts and fees, enhanced resource reconciliation, journals, approvals, and contract management, with added mobile capabilities to handle larger projects and invoices at an increased scale. See how the latest enhancements to Dynamics 365 Project Operations can help your business.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides is bringing several new capabilities and enhancements including supporting high-detail 3D model support through Microsoft Azure Remote Rendering and greatly improved web content support that enable customers to build mixed reality workflows that are integrated with their business data. Additionally, support for Guides content on mobile will be generally available in the coming wave through a seamless integration with the Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile application.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources will continue to improve recruiting experiences with functionality to integrate with external job portals and talent pools and offer management. We will continue to expand our human capital management ecosystem to include additional payroll partners and build better together experiences that span the gamut of what Microsoft can offer to improve employee experiences in corporations of any size and scale across the globe. See how the latest enhancements to Dynamics 365 Human Resources can help your business.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce continues to invest in omnichannel retail experiences through advancements in mobile point of sale experiences like Tap to Pay for iOS and offline capabilities for Store Commerce on Android. The business-to-business buying experience is enhanced with new capabilities, and a streamlined order management solution for buyers who work across multiple organizations.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is delivering substantial enhancements, with a central emphasis on harnessing the power of Copilot. Available in more than 160 countries, the team is focused on Copilot-driven capabilities to streamline and enhance productivity through enhanced reporting and data analysis capabilities, elevated project and financial management, and simplified workflow automation. We have also upgraded our development and governance tools and introduced improvements in managing data privacy and compliance.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data empowers every organization to unify and enhance customer data, using it for insightful analysis and intelligent actions. With this release, we’re making it easier and faster to ingest and manage your data. AI enables quick insights and democratized access to analytics. Real-time data ingestion, creation, and updates further enable the optimization of experiences in the moments that matter. Check out this video about the most exciting features releasing this wave.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys brings the power of AI to revolutionize how marketers work, enabling businesses to optimize interactions with their customers with end-to-end journeys across departments and channels. With this release, we empower marketers with a deeper customer understanding, we enable them to create new experiences within minutes, reach customers in more ways, and continuously optimize results. Thanks to granular lead qualification, we continue to boost the synergy between sales and marketing to achieve superior business outcomes. Check out this video about the most exciting features releasing this wave.

Highlights from Microsoft Power Platform 

Microsoft Power Platform

Check out the 2024 release wave 1 early access features.

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Watch this video about the most exciting features releasing this wave in Microsoft Power Platform.

Microsoft Power Apps focuses on integrating Copilot to accelerate app development with AI and natural language, enhancing user reasoning and data insights in custom apps. The team is also simplifying the creation of modern apps through contemporary controls, responsive layouts, and collaboration features. Additionally, they’re facilitating enterprise-scale development, enabling makers and admins to expand apps across the organization with improved guardrails and quality assurance tools.

Microsoft Power Pages interactive Copilot now supports every step of site building to create intelligent websites—design, page layouts, content editing, data binding, learning, chatbot, accessibility checking, and securing the site. Connect to data anywhere with the out-of-the-box control library and secure the website with more insights at your fingertips.

Microsoft Power Automate is bringing Copilot capabilities across cloud flows, desktop flows and process mining. This will allow customers to use natural language to discover optimization opportunities, build automations, quickly troubleshoot any issues, and provide a delightful experience in managing the automation estate. For enterprise-scale solutions, maintenance is made easier with improved notifications on product capabilities.

Microsoft Copilot Studio brings native capabilities for extending Microsoft Copilot, general availability for generative actions, and geo-expansions to the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Norway, Korea, South America, and South Africa. We’re also introducing rich capabilities to integrate with OpenAI GPT models, along with new channels such as WhatsApp, and software lifecycle capabilities such as topic level import/export and role-based access control.

Microsoft Dataverse continues to make investments focusing on enhancing maker experience by improving app building productivity infused with Copilot experiences, seamless connectivity to external data sources, and AI-powered enterprise copilot for Microsoft 365.

AI Builder invests in three key areas: prompt builder for GPT prompts, intelligent document processing with new features and models, and AI governance improvements, including enhanced capacity management and data policies. These initiatives aim to empower users with advanced generative AI, streamline document processing, and strengthen governance across AI models within Power Apps.

Early access period 

Starting February 5, 2024, customers and partners will be able to validate the latest features in a non-production environment. These features include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled for users in production environments during April 2024. To take advantage of the early access period, try out the latest updates in a non-production environment and effectively plan for your customer rollout. Check out the 2024 release wave 1 early access features for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform or visit the early access FAQ page. 

For a complete list of new capabilities, please check out the Dynamics 365 2024 release wave 1 plan and the Microsoft Power Platform 2024 release wave 1 plan, and share your feedback in the community forums via Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Power Platform.

The post 2024 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform now available appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Across industries and around the world, field service leaders face any number of challenges in areas including digitalization and modernization of traditionally paper-based processes, rising customer expectations, and employee training and retention. With these challenges top of mind, we have continually invested in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service as a solution to meet the growing requirements of field service management (FSM) operations. That’s why we take great pride in sharing we’re the only vendor positioned as a Leader in the following four IDC MarketScapes:

• A Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Field Service Management Applications 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US49989523e December 2023)
• A Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Service Life-Cycle Management Platforms 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US49989623, October 2023)
• A Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Field Service Management Solutions for Utilities 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US50036223, October 2023)
• A Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Field Service Management Solutions for Oil and Gas 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US50040023, November 2023)

Field service management applications

According to the 2023 report “Product Innovation and Aftermarket Service Survey,” IDC notes that “the top metric prioritized by service leaders as determining success in service was customer satisfaction (46.2%), followed by customer retention (39.0%).” This means frontline worker roles such as service agents and field technicians are absolutely critical to ensuring the best possible customer experience. That’s why we’re continuously developing Dynamics 365 Field Service so that organizations can equip those workers with modern digital tools to make them more responsive and efficient.

Microsoft was positioned as a Leader in the 2023-2024 IDC MarketScape for worldwide field service management applications based on two strengths: “innovation at scale and pace” and “infusion of AI into field service processes.” The IDC MarketScape notes that “Microsoft’s end-to-end service experience capabilities aid field service companies in a continuous transformation journey. As customer expectations evolve, frontline workforces shift, and business models get disrupted, Microsoft leverages its platform to incorporate technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), mixed reality, industrial metaverse, and digital twins.” In addition, the IDC MarketScape says that in the areas of AI and generative AI, which would include Copilot in Field Service, “Microsoft is enabling service organizations to realize near-term and long-term strategies around this innovative technology.”

The IDC MarketScape suggests that organizations consider Microsoft field service solutions “if they are looking for a vendor that can incorporate end-to-end capabilities with innovative technologies for transformation and growth.”

Service life-cycle management

IDC has noted that service is no longer something that happens only after a sale is complete. More and more, organizations are aligning services and sales to help drive greater revenue through better alignment and new service offerings. This IDC MarketScape report highlights two key Microsoft strengths: an integrated platform supporting the front and back office, and innovation accelerators that enhance experiences.

From an integration standpoint, the IDC MarketScape notes that “the service team can no longer operate in a silo and requires tools that allow it to connect to other business functions, customers, and the wide network of partners. Microsoft’s integrated platform of back-office, midoffice, and front-office applications aids customers across their digital journey and not just within a single function.” The integration of Dynamics 365 Field Service with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams is key. Dynamics 365 Field Service integrates with Outlook, Teams, and Microsoft Viva Connections so that frontline workers and managers can create, view, and manage work orders within Outlook and Teams. This integration enhances collaboration between dispatchers, frontline technicians, and managers by enabling work order data to sync automatically between Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. Additionally, frontline technicians can quickly start their day with access to key workday information at a glance, with work orders visible from the Viva Connections homepage in Teams. Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 empower technicians with the right information to resolve issues the first time, which is key to creating a positive customer experience.

When it comes to innovation, the IDC MarketScape explains, “Microsoft through its AI, GenAI, IoT, and mixed reality capabilities and tools allows service organizations to deliver enhanced experiences for the service team and the customer. Microsoft customers value this level of shared innovations, which has cemented partnerships for shared growth.” Dynamics 365 Field Service can be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on Microsoft HoloLens, Microsoft HoloLens 2, Android, or iOS devices to enable technicians to collaborate more efficiently by working together from different locations. This means service technicians can find and connect with technical experts working at other locations to share what they’re seeing, receive remote assistance, and quickly resolve customer issues. Dynamics 365 Field Service can also be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides to attach mixed reality guides to Field Service tasks. Overall, the integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, Dynamics 365 Guides, and tools like HoloLens helps to elevate field service operations by enabling them to optimize processes and deliver unparalleled customer experiences.

The IDC Life-Cycle Management report suggests organizations “consider Microsoft when searching for capabilities that will enable continuous exploration of innovation across the service life cycle and partner networks. Microsoft has enabled a broad set of innovation capabilities, which support collaboration, co-innovation, and prescriptive service at speed and a global scale.”

Field service management for utilities

For customers in the utilities industry, the IDC MarketScape explains that a key strength for Microsoft is that “[customers] recognize Dynamics 365 Field Service as a well-engineered, flexible FSM solution, offering a solid user experience in terms of usability, configurability, ease of integration into complex landscapes, and extensibility thanks to the Microsoft portfolio.”

The IDC MarketScape also notes, “Microsoft is putting considerable resources behind the product, including significantly increasing the engineering budget this year.” It also states that “[the] ability to instantly access this innovation through a pure-play SaaS ultimately results in good value for money.” Many Field Service customers experienced this with the addition of the Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service Outlook add-in, which streamlines work order creation with relevant details pre-populated from emails and optimizes technician scheduling with data-driven recommendations based on factors such as travel time, availability, and skillset. Frontline managers can see relevant work orders and review them before creating new work orders, and they can easily reschedule or update those work orders as customers’ needs change.

Field service management for oil and gas

For customers in the oil and gas (O&G) industry, the IDC MarketScape stated, “Microsoft’s FSM solution comes in an integrated and comprehensive portfolio catering to core O&G field services and asset operations. By seamlessly integrating FSM with Mixed Reality, Microsoft 365, AI, IoT, and Azure, it provides customers the flexibility to tailor solutions, enhancing efficiency, driving innovation, and boosting productivity in a highly customizable manner.”

“Drawing on its long-established customer base, Microsoft works with major O&G players addressing a wide range of field service challenges. Typically, these collaborations focus on enabling frontline workers and optimizing planning and service workflow automation in vast scale operations spanning large assets such as refineries, petrochemical plants, LNG facilities, renewable gas plants, and the extensive network of gas stations.” For service technicians on the frontline, a primary benefit of Dynamics 365 Field Service is the Field Service mobile app which enables technicians to see their workdays at a glance so they can view and update work orders, customer assets, accounts, and more, no matter where they are working—even in areas with limited connectivity. Technicians can also easily access up-to-date inventory information, eliminating the need for cumbersome manual inventory checks and reducing delays caused by missing parts. The Field Service mobile app also incorporates safety checklists and real-time reporting, helping to ensure compliance with safety regulations and to improve the well-being of service technicians who often work under hazardous conditions.

We invite you to read the following IDC MarketScape report excerpts for full details:

• IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Field Service Management Applications 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment
• IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Service Life-Cycle Management Platforms 2023–2024 Vendor Assessment
• IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Field Service Management Solutions for Utilities 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment

Learn more about how Microsoft customers are optimizing service operations with Dynamics 365 Field Service:

• G&J Pepsi optimize field operations, exceed service expectations while maximizing revenue and cost savings with Dynamics 365 Field Service
• Phillips Corporations modernized its service operations and increased revenue using Dynamics 365 Field Service
• Vattenfall streamlined service operations to help employees become more efficient and improve customer service and engagement.
• XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, tapped into IoT and the cloud to optimize operations and drive growth with Azure and Dynamics 365 Field Service.

Source: IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe. Vendor market share is represented by the size of the circles.  

The post Microsoft named as a worldwide Leader in four IDC MarketScapes for Field Service Management & Service Life-Cycle appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post is co-authored by John Ryan, Manager Functional Architect Dynamics 365 Field Service, Avanade.

One of the most exciting things about the introduction of AI into tools people use every day to do their jobs is the way AI can help revolutionize the way people work. Especially at the frontlines of business, AI provides organizations with innovative and personalized ways to serve customers. According to IDC, 28% of organizations are investing significantly in generative AI.¹ This is what’s exciting about the introduction of Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service.

No doubt about it: modern solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service have already come a long way in helping frontline workers be more productive and efficient in helping customers. But Copilot takes things to the next level by bringing the power of next-generation AI to the frontlines, enabling faster resolution and better service.

Streamline Field Service operations with Copilot

Copilot provides a leap forward in the field service space.

Read how

Enabling next-level support with Copilot for Field Service in Outlook and Microsoft Teams

Email has long been a critical communications tool for frontline managers and technicians. New data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report reveals that over 60% of frontline workers struggle with having to do repetitive or menial tasks that take time away from more meaningful work.² Now, the Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service Outlook add-in can streamline work order creation with relevant details pre-populated from emails.

So, what does that mean, exactly? Copilot can also optimize technician scheduling with data-driven recommendations based on factors such as travel time, availability, and skillset. Frontline managers can see relevant work orders and review them before creating new work orders, and they can easily reschedule or update those work orders as customers’ needs change. In addition, organizations can customize work orders for their frontline needs by adding, renaming, or rearranging fields. Even better, Copilot can assist frontline managers with work order scheduling in Microsoft Teams, saving time and effort to find the right worker for the job.

Frontline managers can also easily open the Field Service desktop app directly from the Copilot add-in via Outlook or Teams to view work orders. There, they can see booking suggestions in the work order and book a field technician without opening the schedule board. The booking is created in Microsoft Dataverse and also gets recorded on the Field Service schedule board automatically. All this saves frontline managers valuable time because they can stay in the flow of work, reduce clicks and context-switching between apps, and create work orders quickly without copy/paste errors. In the Field Service app, they can also review work order list views and edit a work order right in the list without having to reopen it.

Getting answers faster with natural language search with Copilot in Teams

Searching work orders to find specific details about customer jobs or looking for information about parts inventory used to mean switching between apps and searching across different sources for information. Now, to search for work orders or other customer data, agents can ask Copilot through a Teams search. They simply ask what they’re looking for using natural language, and Copilot will return specific information related to their work orders in Dynamics 365 Field Service including status updates, parts needed, or instructions to help them complete the job. The more agents use Copilot, the more the AI assistant learns and can assist agents at their jobs. The future is now.

Empowering field technicians with modern user experience

Frontline managers aren’t the only team members getting a productivity boost from more modern tools. The new Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile experience, currently in preview for Windows 10 and higher, iOS, and Android devices, empowers field technicians by giving them all the relevant, most up-to-date information they need to manage work orders, tasks, services, and products and get their jobs done thoroughly and efficiently. This modern user experience supports familiar mobile navigation, gestures, and controls to streamline managing work order Tasks, Services, and Products. Technicians can save valuable time by quickly updating the status of a booking, getting driving directions to a customer site, and changing or completing work order details. They can even get detailed information about tasks with embedded Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides, which provide step-by-step instructions, pictures, and videos.

Changing the game for frontline technicians with Copilot in mobile

For field service technicians, having Copilot generate work order summaries that include concise, detailed descriptions of services as well as pricing and costs is a game changer. Work order summaries are generated by Copilot on the fly, synthesizing information from various tabs and fields to break down tasks, parts, services, and problem descriptions into a simple narrative, making it easy for technicians to understand job requirements. And because field technicians often need to work with their hands, they can use the voice-to-text feature to update work orders by describing details including exactly what they did on a job, when they started and finished, and what parts they used. When the work is completed, they can use the app to collect a digital signature from the customer or use voice-to-text to capture customer feedback.

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service is a leap forward in the field service space. Can’t wait to see what’s next!

Learn more about the AI-powered experiences in Dynamics 365 Field Service, Teams, and Microsoft’s mixed reality applications for your frontline workforce announced at Microsoft Ignite 2023:

• Transforming service organizations with generative AI 
• Reimagine the frontline with next-generation AI and fast deployment 

[1] IDC Analyst Brief sponsored by Microsoft, Generative AI and Mixed Reality Power the Future of Field Service Resolution (Doc #US51300223), October 2023

[2] The Work Trend Index survey was conducted by an independent research firm, Edelman Data x Intelligence, among 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed workers across 31 markets, 6,019 of which are frontline workers, between February 1, 2023, and March 14, 2023. This survey was 20 minutes in length and conducted online, in either the English language or translated into a local language across markets. One thousand full-time workers were surveyed in each market, and global results have been aggregated across all responses to provide an average. Each market is evenly weighted within the global average. Each market was sampled to be representative of the full-time workforce across age, gender, and region; each sample included a mix of work environments (in-person, remote vs. non-remote, office settings vs. non-office settings, etc.), industries, company sizes, tenures, and job levels. Markets surveyed include: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

The post Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service helps take field support to the next level appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Today, at the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event, we kicked off the 2023 release wave 2 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, a six-month rollout of new and enhanced capabilities scheduled for release between October 2023 and March 2024.

This release wave introduces hundreds of new features across Microsoft Power Platform applications, including enhanced capabilities for governance, administration, and professional development. Updates for Dynamics 365 include innovation to help employees be more productive, create exceptional customer experiences and deepen relationships, and drive meaningful growth across the business. This release also features new AI capabilities in Copilot—which more than 130,000 organizations have now experienced—that help to improve insights, save time, and enhance creativity across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.  

Tune in to the launch event, live or on-demand, for a concise overview of the release wave, as well as a firsthand look at how organizations like Nestlé, Kodak Alaris, Northern Trust, Centrica, Spark NZ, Domino’s Pizza UK and Ireland, and Suffolk are adopting these capabilities to drive transformative changes in their businesses.

Some of the themes at the event include:

• A new era of AI-powered customer service and field service
• Transforming enterprise resource planning (ERP) with AI
• Enhancing customer experience through AI-driven transformation
• Leading a new era of AI-generated low-code app development with Microsoft Power Platform

A new era of AI-powered customer service and field service

As a frontline for customer loyalty, service agents and field teams need access to information and insights to understand customer needs and respond appropriately. New Copilot capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service will help reduce time spent on common tasks, as well as introduce enhancements to the Customer Service workspace. Updates include improved inbox functionality, a redesigned voice experience, enhanced collaboration through Microsoft Teams, and integrated diagnostics for administrators—all aimed at boosting agent productivity and operational efficiency.

During the session led by Jeff Comstock, Corporate Vice President, Customer Service, we demonstrated how Copilot assists customer service and field service processes, including customer self-service, across various channels.

We also revealed how customers like Northern Trust Corporation, a leading wealth and asset management institution, can use Copilot to assist the client services team with tasks ranging from account reviews and case investigations to post-resolution wrap-ups. Northern Trust Corporation has not only gained recognition for its innovative financial services, but also for its unwavering commitment to customer service. With Dynamics 365 Customer Service as a steadfast component of its journey, the latest capabilities in release wave 2 can help the client service teams at Northern Trust be even more efficient, effective, and customer-focused, streamlining its workflow and enhancing its ability to provide timely and accurate support to clients. 

The session also delved deeper into the field service domain, where Centrica, a global energy services company, effectively manages its sizable workforce of 12,000 field operatives on site by harnessing the new capabilities of Dynamics 365 Field Service, streamlining processes from task assignments to issue resolution.

To learn more about release wave 2 capabilities for Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Field Service, visit the release planner.

Transforming ERP with AI

The new release wave harnesses AI, automation, and analytics to help organizations drive greater operational efficiency across finance, supply chain, and operations—capabilities that enhance visibility, automate processes, extend coverage, and deliver a more integrated experience across departments.

Updates to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance include the general availability of extended planning and analysis, which brings together operational and financial planning to continuously plan, act, and analyze. In addition, the general availability of business performance analytics streamlines financial reporting by centralizing data from multiple business processes and in an easy-to-use interface.

Updates to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management include improvements in demand planning, as well as procure-to-pay processes. Copilot will now suggest actions that can help purchasing agents make better decisions in response to new and updated information that affects open purchase orders.

At the launch event, Georg Glantschnig, Vice President, AI ERP, showcased how Domino’s Pizza UK and Ireland is improving its demand planning accuracy by using AI. These new features have greatly enhanced its capacity to serve more customers by precisely planning food requirements, thereby reducing food waste, and improving environmental sustainability through more efficient facility operations. Additionally, the process of fulfilling purchase orders has also seen a remarkable enhancement, thanks to Copilot.

We also demonstrated how New Zealand’s largest telecommunications and digital services provider, Spark NZ, is transforming its finance and supply chain operations with Microsoft Dynamics 365. It can now automate many of its financial processes—including vendor invoice processing, automatic revaluation of foreign currency transactions, transaction reconciliation, billing, and complex tax calculations. Human resources can also streamline processes, from hiring to self-service vacation time requests and tracking.

See the release plans for Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, Project Operations, and Human Resources.

Enhancing customer experience through AI-driven transformation

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, and Copilot you can use data and insights that used to be hidden, unlock capabilities previously out of reach, and reach new levels of productivity and collaboration.

The new release wave introduces a variety of solutions to help marketers and sales professionals use Copilot to deepen their understanding of their target customer base, streamline engagement processes, and push the boundaries in crafting exceptional customer experiences. 

In the closing keynote session, Lori Lamkin, Corporate Vice President, Customer Experience, demonstrated how Kodak Alaris, a global technology company, effectively used Copilot within Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Insights. Taking advantage of the new AI capabilities, it tapped into previously hidden data to target its customer base, unlocking capabilities that were once out of reach. Using Copilot, it was able to create unique personalized content to keep customers informed about its services and effortlessly establish new levels of productivity and customer connection, attracting new businesses like never before.

For more details, review the release plans for Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

Leading a new era of AI-generated low-code app development with Microsoft Power Platform

Copilot in Power Platform ushers in a new era of AI-assisted low-code development. Copilot features in release wave 2 make it even easier to quickly create solutions.

At the launch event, Sangya Singh, Vice President, Power Pages, showcased how Copilot plays a vital role in democratizing development, enabling a broader audience—both citizen and professional developers—to create innovative solutions using natural language.

Through the lens of Suffolk, one of America’s largest construction companies, we demonstrated how Microsoft Power Automate helped them streamline critical material request processes, enabling teams to use Copilot in Power Automate to build flows by describing what they need.

We also showcased how Microsoft Power Apps can help Suffolk facilitate efficient coordination of construction status updates, and how the generative answers capability in Microsoft Power Virtual Agents can search industry resources for answers, reducing manual research. We also demonstrated how Microsoft Power Pages improves collaboration with multiple partners on construction projects, and how Microsoft Power BI can help Suffolk visualize safety data at construction sites across the globe, highlighting the trends, causes, and outcomes of incidents and near misses so that preventative actions can be easily identified and implemented.

In addition to enhancing daily business operations, Copilot within Microsoft Power Platform has significantly improved the governance and administrative experience, expediting the development of these applications.

Visit the Microsoft Power Platform release planner for more details.

Tune in to the Microsoft Business Applications Virtual Launch Event 

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event

Tune in live or on-demand for a concise overview of the release wave.

Watch now

Watch the launch event on-demand for in-depth insights and demonstrations of the new capabilities across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. You can also delve into several deep-dive presentations on topics including Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, responsible AI practices, and a fireside chat that explores the latest features in this release wave.

Don’t forget to explore the detailed release plans for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform to stay informed about what’s new and on the horizon.

We also invite you to learn more about the latest AI innovation at Microsoft Ignite 2023, taking place in Seattle from November 14 through November 17, 2023, with online sessions available live and on-demand on November 15 and November 16. Register today.

The post Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event introduces wave of new AI-powered capabilities for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post was co-authored by Caroline Dent, Senior Solutions Consultant, Velrada.

Due to fierce competition and increasing customer expectations, many organizations are looking to transform their field service operations to increase customer satisfaction, drive greater efficiency, and ensure higher service effectiveness. Digital transformation for field service operations is often focused on providing modern tools for service dispatchers who manage customer requests and create and dispatch work orders. But what about the people on the frontlines—the service technicians in the field?

Consider a utility provider with field service technicians who may work in remote areas with low network coverage or sometimes brave challenging weather conditions to support customers experiencing outages. Like any other organization, that provider needs a solution that enables it to streamline field service operations as much as possible, not only for controlling costs but also for providing the best possible experience for its customers. But when bad weather hits, it also needs a solution that ensures its field support can be productive even in extreme conditions and from the most remote locations.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, organizations with service technicians on the frontlines can help maximize productivity with AI-driven assistance and remote expert support in the flow of work. And specifically for service technicians on the frontlines, Dynamics 365 Field Service offers a comprehensive Field Service mobile app for Windows, iOS, and Android devices that provides a set of digital capabilities that extend far beyond the traditional scheduling and dispatching of work orders.

Dynamics 365 Field Service

Transform your service operations

Explore Field Service

Implementing Field Service to optimize operations

As a long-term Microsoft global partner, Velrada has emerged as a pioneering force in implementing Dynamics 365 Field Service to empower frontline workers. With a rich history of innovation and a strong commitment to business transformation, Velrada has consistently demonstrated its expertise in implementing Dynamics 365 Field Service to help its customers optimize operations.

“The field service industry is undergoing a profound transformation, and at its forefront is the demand from our customers for innovative solutions that go beyond the scheduling and dispatching of jobs,”

David Conti, Product Director, Velrada

Let’s take a closer look at how organizations are empowering field service workers with more innovative solutions by deploying Dynamics 365 Field Service.

Empowering technicians with real-time information for better service

A primary benefit of Dynamics 365 Field Service is the Field Service mobile app, available on Windows, Android, and iOS devices. Service technicians can see their workdays at a glance in Microsoft Teams, including their latest work orders. They simply click on a work order to launch the Field Service mobile app, so they can view and update work orders, customer assets, accounts, and more, no matter where they are working—even in areas with limited connectivity. This means that even during the worst weather events, workers can get real-time dispatch updates from service agents that keep them informed about the latest outages and ready to tackle challenges regardless of the weather conditions.

Using the Field Service mobile app can also help organizations like the utility provider equip field technicians with digital workstations right on their mobile devices, so they can conduct digital inspections, manage forms, and complete service checklists—everything they were previously required to do on paper, often at the end of a long work day.

Enabling efficient on-site assessments

Using the Field Service mobile app, technicians can conduct on-site assessments with unmatched efficiency. They can capture photos, record notes, provide customers with immediate estimates, and even get their sign-off by capturing their digital signature in the app. This accelerates decision-making and facilitates faster service delivery, a crucial advantage in remote and challenging locations.

Ensuring seamless inventory management

Technicians can also easily access up-to-date inventory information on their devices. This eliminates the need for cumbersome manual inventory checks and reduces delays caused by missing parts because technicians can ensure they’re well-equipped for their service calls before they leave the service center.

Prioritizing safety and compliance

The Field Service mobile app incorporates safety checklists and real-time reporting, helping to ensure compliance with safety regulations. This not only upholds safety standards but also improves the well-being of service technicians who often work under hazardous conditions, such as near high-voltage transformers or natural gas compressors.

Revolutionizing service with Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and mixed reality

For many organizations, enabling service technicians on the frontlines with digital tools that help eliminate inefficient paper-based processes and ensure workers can be productive even in the most remote locations or extreme conditions is just the beginning. Conti says, “Our customers are constantly looking at ways to innovate, and our next step is to help them give technicians access to more than just transactional information by incorporating mixed reality on top of Field Service solutions.” Organizations using Dynamics 365 Field Service can also be integrated with Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens, HoloLens 2, Android, or iOS devices to enable technicians to collaborate more efficiently by working together from different locations. This means service technicians can find and connect with technical experts working at other locations to share what they’re seeing, receive remote assistance, and quickly resolve customer issues. This is especially critical during outages that affect a large number of customers, but it can also help substantially reduce the need for on-site visits even for routine maintenance or smaller issues, resulting in improved first-time fix rates and elevated customer satisfaction. Using mixed reality in this way helps service technicians make well-informed, real-time decisions. In addition, Remote Assist call data can be securely stored in Microsoft Dataverse and accessed for future analytics on service performance.

In addition to Remote Assist, Dynamics 365 Field Service can also be integrated with Dynamics 365 Guides to attach mixed reality guides to Field Service tasks. This makes tasks like equipment maintenance more precise as service technicians can use mixed reality to overlay digital instructions onto physical machinery, which helps them perform field inspections and review the areas that require maintenance. ensuring efficient upkeep and field inspections are enhanced through annotated issue documentation, improving accuracy and record-keeping. In addition, technicians can benefit from immersive training experiences, reducing onboarding time and accelerating skill development.

Overall, the integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, Dynamics 365 Guides, and tools like HoloLens helps to elevate field service operations by enabling them to optimize processes and deliver unparalleled customer experiences in today’s dynamic business environment. They can empower technicians with immersive training experiences, precise equipment maintenance guidance, and real-time remote assistance. Field inspections become more accurate, data-driven decisions become the norm, and customer interactions reach new heights.

Next steps

Learn how Dynamics 365 Field Service can help you optimize your service operations and deliver exceptional service. And read how Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service can help you accelerate service delivery, boost technician productivity, and streamline work order management with next-generation AI.

The post Enable faster, more impactful frontline services with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post was co-authored by Lax Gopisetty, Vice President, Global Practice Head, Microsoft Business Applications & Digital Workplace Services, Infosys Ltd.

In an age defined by single-click purchases, instant deliveries, and personalized experiences, customer expectations continue to rise, and frontline technicians are expected to meet these ever-changing demands. When customers face a problem, they want it fixed fast and right the first time. For many organizations, customer experience is both a challenge and an opportunity to differentiate from the competition.

It is no longer acceptable for technicians to operate on disparate technologies that individually are good enough to execute work orders, manage assets, and dispatch resources with real-time support. Timely resolution is key in field service, and arming frontline technicians with intuitive solutions that combine workflow automation, scheduling algorithms, and mobility can significantly enhance the customer experience. Tools that empower field technicians with timely inputs to focus on their core responsibilities and enable processes to track each work order closure, along with billing, are now becoming existential.

For example, solutions that unlock efficiencies for telecommunications providers with field service automation, empower medical device service technicians with improved downtime, maintain safe and highly automated facility management operations, and manage smart elevator service with Internet of Things (IoT)-driven field service are all recipes for greater customer satisfaction.

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service integration supports positive customer experiences

Dynamics 365 Field Service integrates with Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Viva Connections so that frontline workers and managers can create, view, and manage work orders within Outlook and Teams. This integration enhances collaboration between dispatchers, frontline technicians, and managers by enabling work order data to sync automatically between Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. Additionally, frontline technicians can quickly start their day with access to key workday information at a glance, with work orders visible as Tasks from the Viva Connections homepage in Teams. Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 empower technicians with the right information to resolve issues the first time, which adds a great deal to creating a positive customer experience.

For example, a leading energy supplier based out of the UK partnered with Infosys to establish itself as a leader in the energy-as-a-service market by offering best-in-class customer experience. The connected field service-based solution unified the capabilities of Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 to unlock a leaner and flexible business model that also enabled future scalability to ensure:

• Better workforce management through flexible scheduling, route optimization, and quota management.
• Field job execution via remote supervision, site awareness/recording, and offline mode.
• Customer intimacy powered by service history management, technician visibility, voice of customer, and closed loop tracking.
• Superior job outcomes powered by higher first-time resolution rates and reduced job aborts.

Connected field service helped redefine the leading energy supplier’s customer engagement model with a seamless work order management process. From streamlining work order creation, scheduling the best suited frontline technician, receiving remote expert assistance, and integrating asset management, Dynamics 365 enabled the customer to transform their field operations. Additional engagement highlights include:

• Seamless migration from more than 20 legacy disparate business apps onto Dynamics 365.
• Implemented core business functionalities with over 75 percent out-of-the-box feature fitment.
• Six phased incremental rollouts to enable more than 1,500 field technicians and more than 600 internal users.
• On track to reduce overall cost of IT operations by over 25 percent.

The leaner, AI-powered, and truly automated business, has unleashed novel revenue streams with infinite potential for the client:

This UK-based leading energy supplier is now well-positioned to drive its future growth. The organization is supported by a skilled and engaged workforce that works seamlessly with connected and leaner processes that together offer a sustainable competitive advantage.

Standardizing and automating processes through connected field service

Field Service continues to break ground into unexplored industries. Capabilities like GPS and routing, which enable timely visits and quicker resolution, are saving the day for thousands of field service professionals. They are now able to summarize completed tasks with inline Microsoft Power Apps component framework (PCF) capability.

Field service solutions must always be driven by an organization’s unique priorities, pain points, and process nuances. Partners like Infosys are co-innovating with clients to address these challenges with Microsoft Power Platform and its extensibility components. They are enabling nontechnical business users to build applications that cater to their unique requirements without the aid of IT experts.

The emergence of AI-embedded innovations like Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service will enhance service further. From creating work orders with the right information and assigning them to the right technicians, to equipping technicians with sufficient support to successfully complete jobs, Copilot will help streamline critical frontline tasks. These advanced functionalities will help companies genuinely standardize and automate field service processes.

Organizations competing in a market with high turnover are using mixed reality-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides for remote support and collaboration. This results in accelerated training with context and seamless transfer of information, insights, and skills, which help in lowering overall costs.

Technology is key to building a scalable and efficient field service operation. However, a significant portion of success still rides on the technician who is delivering the service. So, it is imperative for service organizations to unify field operations, frontline technicians, and customers with connected digital platforms, to unlock value—because service is no longer a cost center for organizations.

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Field Service

Learn how Dynamics 365 Field Service can help you transform your service operations and deliver exceptional service. And read how Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service can accelerate service delivery, boost technician productivity, and streamline work order management with next-generation AI. Watch the video below to see it in action.

The post Unlocking customer value with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service through connected services appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Manufacturers worldwide are investing heavily in digital transformation, overhauling almost every aspect of their operations and business models. But one key group—frontline workers —are still awaiting their digital renaissance.

Today, many organizations feel their workers are not empowered or digitally well-equipped. Manufacturers struggle with high turnover and the challenge of training and upskilling new workers. Downtime and worker productivity remain nearly universal issues.

To help address these issues, Microsoft is investing in frontline worker enablement across a broad range of technologies. This includes new solutions to help frontline workers deliver exceptional service with next-generation AI, as well as on our ongoing investment in mixed reality hardware and solutions. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides cultivates collaborative environments where people put knowledge into action. Here are three ways mixed reality is addressing frontline worker training, support, and knowledge transfer across industries:

1. Resolve issues quickly with remote support and collaboration

Unplanned downtime is costly. The average manufacturer confronts over 800 hours of equipment downtime a year, or 15 hours per week. Industrial manufacturers consequently spend almost USD50 billion on downtime every year.¹ In these high-pressure situations, communication across functions can either speed resolution or create blockers to forward progress.

Historically, manufacturing environments fostered knowledge silos with valuable insights confined to individuals, groups, or departments. Mixed reality shifts this dynamic. Workers can share real-time, situational video of their environment, allowing others to experience it firsthand—regardless of location. Expert guidance, troubleshooting, or step-by-step instructions are immediate. This eliminates the need to travel, while minimizing downtime and production disruptions.

Gone are the days where access to experts, communication barriers, or information silos dictate how knowledge is shared or when assets are repaired. Working on assembly or service lines requires specialized skills and expertise. Access to individuals with the relevant, hands-on experience, however, is not always possible. With Dynamics 365 Guides, when specialized skills are required, experts are a Microsoft Teams call away. 

Together, Dynamics 365 Guides and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist with Teams connect workers beyond their physical limits. A communication hub, Teams enables collaboration across the workforce. Its integration with Dynamics 365 Guides allows workers to extend this to the physical world on any device.

2. Accelerate training with information in context

Frontline workers are the backbone of industry operations. These roles demand technical savvy, quick decision-making, and resiliency. Traditional in-place training and onboarding processes are often ineffective or add to the cognitive burden of overwhelmed frontline workers.

Hands-on training with physical assets is expensive, time-consuming, and at times dangerous. Inconsistent quality or impersonal training is often the result. However, holographic environments can mitigate these on-ramping risks. Embracing mixed reality accelerates learning by introducing relevant, task-specific knowledge in new immersive and data rich environments.

Using 3D models and digital twins, frontline workers receive a better understanding of the machines and processes at hand. Related materials are retrieved or amended instantly, nurturing knowledge exchange, which is further enhanced by AI. Mixed reality is the eyes and ears of AI. Delving into operation nuances for personalized, in-depth learning becomes easier. When integrated, mixed reality and AI accelerate worker training, shortening steps and supplying users with the working knowledge they need for the task at hand.

With Dynamics 365 Guides frontline and service workers can start accelerating their role-based knowledge today. Workers receive purpose-built, interactive guidance on complex machinery, assembly protocols, or maintenance steps when and where they need it.

3. Ensure transfer of information, insights, and skills

As employees near retirement, their wealth of expertise needs to be captured and shared. These experts understand the assets and processes that keep production moving. Retaining and transferring that knowledge is vital. There’s just one problem: Manufacturing is experiencing a talent exodus. Globalization, unemployment, and a rapidly aging workforce together are compounding operational challenges. Organizations are rightfully concerned. One-third of manufacturing executives claim retaining and replacing high-performing employees as a strategic priority in 2023.² Mixed reality is poised to help solve this by capturing information for informed decision-making and greater productivity.

Mixed reality facilitates knowledge retention and transfer across an organization through the creation of immersive experiences and simulations, regardless of location or device. The versatility of mixed reality makes up-skilling faster and more accessible. Dynamics 365 Guides offers industrial workers the opportunity to document unique situational processes and procedures not included in asset operating manuals. Step-by-step instructions, annotations, and “on the ground” insights are placed in context and immediately accessible throughout the day.

With Dynamics 365 Guides embedded in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile, mixed reality is democratized for every worker. Organizations now have asset, maintenance, and service information at their fingertips. This combination in one app improves worker accuracy, productivity, and efficiency—while offering powerful guidance on the device at hand.

Realize your future manufacturing potential

Mixed reality is a key part of an emerging technology category known as the industrial metaverse. Its foundational cross-platform technologies—including AI, cloud to edge, digital twins, machine learning, and mixed reality—are shifting our relationship with data from stationary to dynamic experiences.

Mixed reality is an essential glue that visualizes the diverse elements of the industrial metaverse. Seamlessly integrating the physical and digital, mixed reality creates immersive experiences that transcend traditional industrial operations. Guides overlays information atop real-world assets and scenarios, making knowledge available in context where it is needed most.

Prepare your workforce for their smart manufacturing future with mixed reality. Learn how Dynamics 365 Guides can help realize tangible business outcomes.

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¹Manufacturing Without Unplanned Downtime Could Become A Reality Sooner Than You Think, Forbes.

²2023 manufacturing industry outlook, Deloitte.

The post 3 ways mixed reality empowers frontline workers appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post was co-authored by Michael Mendoza, Director of Service Transformation, Hitachi Solutions.

The era of AI is here, and it’s transforming how companies service customers in the field.

The field service industry is always evolving. Shifting customer preferences and demands, unpredictable economic forces, and tight labor markets have all required field service leaders to continuously adapt and innovate to succeed.

That said, Michael Mendoza, Director of Service Transformation at Hitachi Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Partner, expects that AI will bring about the most dramatic change yet for the field services industry: “It’s no exaggeration to say that the advent of AI promises to completely redefine what is possible, offer groundbreaking new opportunities to delight customers, and differentiate and reinvent service delivery for every organization on the planet.”

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Helping to drive that redefinition is Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, an AI-powered assistant that helps accelerate field service productivity and deliver the proactive, “always on” support that customers expect. Three key areas where Copilot impacts field service organizations include:

• Personalizing service experiences for customers to address issues quickly.
• Helping frontline technicians work more efficiently.
• Optimizing service operations for increased productivity.

Let’s walk through a common service scenario to see Copilot’s benefits in action.

Personalizing service experiences

New data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report reveals 63 percent of frontline workers struggle with having to do repetitive or menial tasks that take time away from more meaningful work. Let’s say a service manager for a parts manufacturing company receives an email in Outlook from a customer asking for a technician to come fix a broken circuit on an assembly machine. Before Copilot, the service employee had to find and review the account information and then create a work order separately in Dynamics 365 Field Service. This meant manually copying and pasting or re-entering information from the email into the required fields. The service manager also had to search for past work orders to better determine which service technicians had the right skills and knowledge to fix the issue, as well as which tools and parts were needed for the job.

But now, with Copilot’s AI capabilities and seamless Outlook integration, work order management is streamlined and available at the service manager’s fingertips.

I’m looking forward to providing customers with the ability to work with Field Service features directly in Outlook and Teams without having to switch applications while working with the tools they already use to communicate with customers and technicians.

Bill Caldwell, Director, Service Delivery at Hitachi Solutions

Now, Copilot processes the language in the customer’s email content to identify that creating a work order is the best next action, and suggests the service manager create a work order—all from their Outlook view. With a quick tap, the service manager can create the work order that Copilot has automatically generated (based on its historical knowledge of past work orders pertaining to that machine and incident type) by inserting the customer information, incident, parts needed, technician skills required, and service activities needed. It can also prioritize work orders by intelligently assessing even vague language to determine whether something is urgent or not based on customer language in the subject or the body of the email.

Hitachi Solutions has been privately previewing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service and is already seeing benefits for customers. One particular benefit is that, with Copilot’s work order capabilities in Outlook, its service managers can immediately assign resources to solve customer issues, without leaving the flow of work. This means customers experience faster response times and enhanced service delivery. In addition, service managers have an easier time managing customer service requests, resulting in greater efficiency. And, most importantly, Hitachi knows that Microsoft is guided by our AI principles and Responsible AI Standard and decades of research on AI, grounding, and privacy-preserving machine learning. That means it can assure customers that it has measures in place to help protect against data leakage.

Helping frontline technicians work more efficiently

The most recent interaction a customer has with your company is also their final impression. Giving your frontline workers the information and tools, they need to be more productive, effective, and efficient in the field ultimately translates to happier, more loyal customers. New data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report reveals that 65 percent of frontline workers are optimistic that AI will help them in their job.

With Copilot, the technician no longer wastes valuable time determining what tools they need, making wrong guesses, or finding experts who can provide helpful information. Instead, the technician has the relevant information from the Copilot-generated work order and can focus on completing the service tasks at hand. For example, because Copilot uses next-generation AI to create a properly worded and concise description of the work the client needs performed in the work order summary, the technician has a clear understanding of the problem and what needs to be done to complete the task. This means technicians can resolve issues faster and with higher accuracy, minimizing customer downtime and inconvenience, and creating a better customer experience.

Optimizing service operations

Whether dealing with an inspection, installation, or maintenance issue, a happy field service customer is one who receives high-quality service, feels valued, and has a positive overall experience with the service provider—factors that are all ultimately rooted in operational excellence. Timeliness is crucial in field service, and customers value service organizations who prioritize their requests and strive to resolve their issues quickly and effectively without the need for multiple visits or repeat service calls. Now, right in Outlook, the system leverages the power of the Field Service scheduling engine to provide suggestions, so the work order can be dispatched immediately upon creation and even create a reply to the customer with available times for technicians with the appropriate skill set to solve their issue. That means faster, more efficient service.

With Copilot and the power of next-generation AI, service organizations can deliver the personalized and proactive support that customers demand and expect.

Next-generation field service with AI—are you ready?

Service in the era of AI is an exciting time, and Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service is an innovative new capability for empowering field service teams to do their best work and deliver an exceptional customer experience. This is just the beginning of AI for field service, and we can’t wait for what’s to come.

Take a guided tour, or watch a brief video of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service in action.

The post AI at your service with Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Delivering exceptional service is key for building customer preference and loyalty. But timely resolution can get challenging when fragmented tools make it hard to find the right information and service delivery gets delayed with lengthy data-entry processes. Today, we’re introducing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, bringing the power of next-generation AI to service professionals on the frontline to speed time to resolution. From creating work orders with the right information and assigning them to the right technicians, to equipping the technicians with sufficient support to successfully complete jobs—Copilot will help streamline critical frontline tasks.

New data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report¹ reveals 63 percent of frontline workers struggle with having to do repetitive or menial tasks that take time away from more meaningful work, and 66 percent feel that they don’t have enough time to complete work tasks. The number one thing that frontline leaders value from AI is helping employees with necessary but repetitive/mundane tasks. Whether it’s for a facility inspection, equipment installation, or a maintenance request, frontline service managers want to spend their time figuring out how to improve their team’s efficiency rather than on repetitive tasks such as copying and pasting information from one system to another to create work orders and dispatch technicians. And frontline technicians want the right information at the right time to complete the job, the first time.

Accelerating service delivery

With the preview of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service today, frontline managers who receive service requests or questions via emails can use next-generation AI to streamline work order creation directly within Outlook. Copilot prepopulates relevant data including summaries of customer escalations into draft work orders for managers to review in their flow of work. Once saved, these work orders automatically sync to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service. Additionally, with updates coming this fall, Copilot will streamline technician scheduling by offering data-driven recommendations based on travel time, availability, skill set, and other factors as well as accelerate responses to customer messages by summarizing key details and next steps in email drafts. Copilot will also become available to assist frontline managers in their flow of work within Microsoft Teams.

“I am really excited about working with Copilot capabilities as I believe it will completely change the way our employees at G&J Pepsi interact with Dynamics 365 Field Service. It will be a game changer for our field service and frontline teams, allowing them to enhance their best-in-class service by getting access to the information they need faster than ever before.”

Eric McKinney, Director of Enterprise Infrastructure at G&J Pepsi

Boosting technician productivity

Today, we’re also introducing the preview of a new Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile experience for frontline technicians to swiftly access all the information they need on the go. This modern user experience supports familiar mobile navigation, gestures, and controls to streamline managing work order Tasks, Services, and Products. From changing the status of a booking with a quick swipe to accessing driving directions to a customer site with one tap, the redesign saves valuable technician time for daily work—cutting down the number of taps for key tasks in half. Technicians can not only easily pick, change, or complete work order details, but also add notes with multiple inline images. Technicians who need additional support can now also use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides embedded in Field Service mobile. Embedded Dynamics 365 Guides in Field Service provides technicians with step-by-step guided instructions, pictures, and videos explaining the immediate task.

Additionally, with the preview of the Dynamics 365 Field Service app in Teams starting today, frontline technicians can now see upcoming work orders at-a-glance as Tasks in their Microsoft Viva Connections home experience and can easily drill into details such as location or issue type. Frontline technicians can also now share full work order details through cards in Teams and access the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist app in one click via their home experience in Teams mobile to problem solve with remote experts in real time using 3D spatial annotations that lock to the physical world.

“Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service will support a faster way of working for our organization by simplifying our transactional work order management process. The ease with which an email can be translated into a work order and planned will increase the speed of our customer responses and improve our customer journey. We are also excited to improve the experience for our customer-facing colleagues with the Microsoft 365 integrations. Microsoft Teams is our main internal communication method, and the integration of Field Service into Teams will greatly simplify the communication about a specific work order, account, or other customer case and improve the case lead time.”

Sven van Veldhuizen, CIO/CDO at Joulz

Streamlining work order management

A redesigned Dynamics 365 Field Service work order management experience is now available for early access, featuring a simplified web experience that brings important information front and center—reducing the number of clicks for key tasks by more than a third. The experience not only offers concise information about the work order but also provides relevant next steps based on booking statuses, and supports making quick updates inline or in a side panel to not lose context. Copilot will provide intelligent recaps within this experience to help frontline managers stay up-to-date without having to navigate through all the information in a work order.

Partnering with our ecosystem

Partners have played a key role in helping us refine Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service ahead of its public preview and we are excited to share some of their observations as early adopters.

“We are excited to bring Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service and Microsoft 365 integrations to augment our sustainable energy customers’ field service workforce—enabling them to stay ahead of the game with increased productivity. Just imagine the productivity gain your service department can realize by having a service-related email translated by AI into a field service work order with the right information, and what field service technicians can accomplish when they get a clear and simple view of all the information they need to focus on in whatever Microsoft 365 tool supports their daily tasks the best.”

Filip Bossuyt, Founder & CEO at 9altitudes Group

“Hitachi Solutions has been working with Microsoft to preview Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service and is already seeing how field service organizations will greatly benefit from AI. Our field service customers want solutions fast. With Copilot work order capabilities in Outlook, our customer’s field service managers can stay in the flow of work and immediately assign resources to solve problems, leading to quicker response times and enhanced service delivery.”

Michael Mendoza, Director of Service Transformation at Hitachi Solutions

“Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service is like a window into the future, nothing like what I’ve seen before. It’s literally taking steps out of my work stream by summarizing emails and coming up with the work order description—saving me seconds each time which add up to minutes each day. This matters a lot when you think about the volume of emails with service requests in today’s world.”

Greg Somogyi, Field Service Senior Consultant at Ludia Consulting

“We are excited to introduce Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service to our facilities clients because we see the power in simplicity. For our clients raising responsive repairs to get the right person with the right skill to the right properties at the right time, Copilot enables frontline teams to go from issue to resolution in just a few clicks.”

Matt Hedges, Products Director at TechLabs London

Lastly, we are excited to announce the interoperation of asset performance solutions from ICONICS and Willow with Dynamics 365 Field Service, making it seamless to share critical insights like equipment health and faults in order to proactively detect and resolve asset issues. The IoT-based solutions elevate asset monitoring and service management to new levels of sophistication, empowering frontline workers to make better-informed decisions based on data when providing service and repairs. The new Copilot capabilities in Dynamics 365 Field Service can also help efficiently summarize and update work orders generated based on these IoT-based solutions. This streamlines service workflows, improves response times, and enhances overall service quality for customers. Read about further details on the solutions here.

Learn more about Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, Microsoft 365 integrations, and more

To try the new Copilot capabilities and Microsoft 365 integrations for Dynamics 365 Field Service, request for your administrator to set up Dynamics 365 Field Service for Outlook (Preview) and Dynamics 365 Field Service (Preview) app in Teams. Administrators can also opt into the new Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile experience available now in preview. To try the new Dynamics 365 Field Service web experience available now in early access, switch to Work Order (Preview) in your system.

Today’s announcement builds on recent AI momentum across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform. Learn more about the latest AI breakthroughs with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot on the Dynamics 365 AI webpage. With Copilot, you’re in control as it is grounded in your business data and automatically inherits your valuable security, compliance and privacy policies, regulations, and processes. Learn about our AI principles that empower impactful responsible AI practices at Microsoft, as well as provide a framework for implementing responsible AI practices at our customers’ organizations.

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End notes:

¹ The Work Trend Index survey was conducted by an independent research firm, Edelman Data x Intelligence, among 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed workers across 31 markets, 6,019 of which are frontline workers, between February 1, 2023, and March 14, 2023. This survey was 20 minutes in length and conducted online, in either the English language or translated into a local language across markets. One thousand full-time workers were surveyed in each market, and global results have been aggregated across all responses to provide an average. Each market is evenly weighted within the global average. Each market was sampled to be representative of the full-time workforce across age, gender, and region; each sample included a mix of work environments (in-person, remote vs. non-remote, office settings vs. non-office settings, etc.), industries, company sizes, tenures, and job levels. Markets surveyed include: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

The post Introducing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, helping your frontline deliver exceptional service with next-generation AI appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Harness the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) to revolutionize your organization’s service delivery with Field Service. Connected field service refers to IoT connected devices sending information about their performance to a field service organization. This allows the field service organization to perform proactive and predictive maintenance for their clients moving from a break-fix model. Instead of the client calling you and saying, “This machine is broken,” you call the client and say, “We see your machine might be performing less than optimally. We will come in later today to service it.” Based on the service alert, the best-suited technician with the right skill and proximity to customer location is dispatched to resolve the issue resulting in reduced asset downtime.

How does connected field service improve your key performance indicators (KPIs), you ask? Let’s discuss seven KPIs that will improve with connected field service.

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1. First-time fix rate

This is an important field service KPI related to customer experience. According to Aberdeen, the average first-time fix rate for an organization is around 75 percent.¹ That means three out of four service calls are resolved on the first visit by a technician. With connected field service, you notify the customer when things need to be fixed or adjusted. You can funnel information about the problem, as well as customer information, to a technician in real time, and the technician arrives on-site with all relevant customer history.

First-time fix rates remain consistently high in connected field service organizations. This improves customer experience, which increases retention and referral in most organizations. Keeping your customers informed throughout the resolution process builds confidence and trust and leads to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. More importantly, customers want their problems fixed the first time to minimize disruption.

2. Customer retention

This is a standard field service KPI. Think about it along these lines: there is a cost for most of your clients to switch to a different field service provider. They need to do a lot of research, break your contract, initiate a new contract, and so on. In a predictive maintenance context, customer retention tends to be very high because equipment malfunctions are addressed even before customers have the chance to call it in. Remote monitoring of IoT devices enables organizations to enhance their responsiveness to customer needs. With continuous monitoring, you can quickly detect issues and notify customers about service disruptions or necessary actions. Keeping your customers informed throughout the resolution process builds confidence and trust and leads to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. By using Connected Field Service, the client has “one less thing to worry about,” and they are not likely to walk away from those contracts.

3. Percentage of billable hours

Percentage of billable hours is a measure of productivity because it refers to the percentage of time your technicians are doing work that is directly billable to a client. For productivity to increase on the technician side, technicians need tools, guidance, and data they can pull up in real time. Percentage of billable hours typically drops when technicians need to spend a large portion of time on non-essential, more logistical business tasks. When all the resources are transparent within the same customer relationship management (CRM) system—which happens at the intersection of the cloud, IoT, and connected field service—technicians’ time becomes more productive.

4. Completed vs. invoiced jobs

This KPI goes right to your revenue stream, as you typically cannot get paid for a job without invoicing it. You are looking for integrative, intelligence-driven solutions whereby customer information is “speaking” directly to invoicing within your CRM. The goal is to create a seamless loop for the client: you solve a problem they were not even aware of by using information from connected devices, and once the problem is solved, the invoice arrives ready to go. There are no lags. Connected field service can help keep your financials consistent.

5. Cost reduction

IoT-powered Field Service enables organizations to streamline their operations and reduce costs. Remote monitoring and predictive maintenance reduce the need for frequent physical inspections and unnecessary maintenance visits, resulting in efficient resource utilization and reduced operational expenses. Proactive problem diagnosis and maintenance prevent major breakdowns and extensive repairs. Prevented issues lead to cost savings by minimizing downtime, eliminating emergency service calls, and optimizing resource allocation. 

6. Employee retention

Customer retention is crucial to your bottom line, yes, but employee retention is a good measure of how functional your organization is in terms of leadership, managers, and processes. One of the core issues when employees leave any field service organization is lack of communication and collaboration; connected field service can help solve collaboration problems by allowing everyone in your organization open access to the same sets of resources and data. (You can restrict some access to the most senior levels, too.) If employees feel like a valuable part of the business, they are less likely to leave.

7. Resource allocation

With device data and service maintenance information gathered through IoT, organizations can make informed decisions when dispatching technicians. Factors such as device performance data, historical maintenance records, technician expertise, availability, and proximity help to optimize resource allocation. Assigning the right technician with the appropriate skills and proximity to the job ensures efficient service delivery and reduces response and resolution times.

Learn more about connected field service

Connected Field Service can impact almost any KPI. This is a look at seven of them, but there’s more to explore—learn how Dynamics 365 Field Service can help you deliver exceptional service.

Learn how Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service can accelerate service delivery, boost technician productivity, and streamline work order management with next-generation AI, and watch this video to see it in action.

Sources

¹The Numbers Behind First-Time Fix Rates You Should Know About, Fieldpoint.

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