How CFOs and finance leaders can make data-driven decisions and optimize business performance.

Why being data driven is key for CFOs

Amid the growing demand on CFOs to catalyze growth, maintaining a holistic view of business performance can be crucial. Data-driven finance leaders not only ensure this is possible within their team, but also empower the entire organization with access to the analysis and insights needed to make informed decisions within the flow of their work, securely.

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The data-driven CFO can use Business Central to optimize business performance.

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According to a recent white paper for CFOs (9 Emerging Trends for the Futurist CFO), more than 50% of the identified trends that will affect their departments and businesses over the next few years are about data and reporting.

And if you ask Microsoft Copilot: What are the top three challenges that CFOs in small and medium-sized businesses face in 2024 that can be improved with internal reporting?

You might get an answer such as: In 2024, CFOs in small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face several key challenges that can be significantly improved with effective internal reporting. Here are the top three:

1. Economic uncertainty: With ongoing fluctuations in the global economy, CFOs need to make informed decisions quickly. Detailed financial reports can provide insights into market trends, helping CFOs to forecast and plan more accurately.
2. Cost management: Identifying and controlling costs is crucial for maintaining profitability. Internal reports can highlight areas of inefficiency and suggest where cost-saving measures can be implemented without compromising quality.
3. Performance measurement: Tracking the performance of various departments and projects is essential for strategic planning. Internal reports provide valuable data on key performance indicators (KPIs), enabling CFOs to assess progress and make data-driven decisions.

How can you as a CFO or financial leader turn this advice into something more practical, allowing you to help people become more data driven in their day-to-day work? Read on to understand how the business intelligence (BI) triangle model breaks analytics scenarios down into tangible tasks with suggestions of which tools are appropriate for each of them.

The BI triangle: Mapping analytics scenarios to tools

One of the challenges that you face is how to access, analyze, and present data in a way that suits your needs and preferences. Different scenarios and roles in the office of the CFO may require different tools and formats to deliver the best insights and outcomes. That’s why Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central offers a comprehensive and flexible set of analytics tools and capabilities that can address the diverse needs and preferences of finance leaders.

We call this the “BI triangle”, which consists of four types of analytics tools:

• Microsoft Power BI finance reports: Access these reports out-of-the-box including powerful semantic models and stunning and interactive visualizations. You can use the Power BI reports to get an overview of finance KPIs, dive deeper into your data, create custom dashboards and metrics, and share your insights with others. The new Power BI reports are coming in the 2024 release wave 2.
• Financial reporting: This capability set provides no-code financial reporting specialized for producing financial statements that look the way you want.
• Ad-hoc data analysis: Delivers the ability to filter, group, and pivot data directly in Business Central. Use it to get an overview of analytic scenarios not covered by standard reports, drill down into details, and export data to Excel.
• Excel finance reports: Excel reports use Microsoft’s familiar and widely used spreadsheet tool, which is loved by financial professionals for its powerful capabilities in performing calculations, analysis, and formatting. Whether you need to bring your financial data into Excel for easy manipulation, create charts and tables, apply formulas and functions, or analyze outliers with Copilot in Excel, the built-in Excel reports provide the flexibility to present your data exactly as you prefer.

With the BI triangle, you can choose the best tool for the job, depending on your scenario and audience. You can also switch between the tools seamlessly, as they are all integrated with Business Central and use the same data source.

Access more information about the BI triangle here.

Analyze your business data with new Power BI reports

One of the benefits of using Power BI reports is that you can access a rich set of new and improved reports designed specifically for Business Central and that cover various aspects of your business, such as finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, and projects.

These reports are available out of the box and can be accessed from within Business Central or from Power BI.

Another benefit of using Power BI reports is that you can access your data and insights while on the go from various devices. Whether you’re in the office, on the road, or at home, you can use the Power BI app on your phone or tablet to view and interact with your reports, get notifications and alerts, and stay on top of your business performance.

In the 2024 release wave 2, Dynamics 365 Business Central will include more than 70 reports covering analytics scenarios across finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, and projects.

Track your finance KPIs with Power BI metrics and get alerted in Microsoft Teams when they cross thresholds

With Power BI, you can create and monitor metrics, which are key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure progress toward your goals and objectives. You can easily create metrics on any number shown in your Power BI finance reports and set targets and thresholds for them. You can also view your metrics on your Power BI dashboard and see how they change over time and compare to your targets and thresholds.

You can even integrate your KPIs with Teams and get alerted when your KPI metrics cross certain thresholds, such as when your expenses exceed your budget or when your revenue falls below your forecast. This way, you can stay informed and act quickly and efficiently.

Get executive summaries on your finance data with Copilot in Power BI

Want to use AI to get more from your data? With Copilot in Power BI, you get a conversational AI assistant that can help you get answers and insights from your data using natural language. How about asking Copilot for an executive summary on your financial overview?

You can use Copilot in Power BI to ask questions about your data, such as: “What is my net income for the last quarter?” or “How does my cash flow compare to the previous year?”. Copilot in Power BI will analyze your data and provide you with relevant and concise answers in the form of charts, tables, or text. You can also use Copilot in Power BI to get executive summaries on your data, by using prompts such as: “Summarize my financial performance for the last month” or “Highlight the main drivers of my revenue growth”. Copilot will generate a summary report that highlights the key facts and insights from your data in a clear and engaging way.

Other ways that Business Central supports the data-driven CFO

Power BI is not the only way that Business Central supports the data-driven CFO. Other analytics features and capabilities can help you access, analyze, and present your data in an effective and efficient way. Here are some examples:

Create financial statements with no-code financial reporting (new templates coming in 2024 release wave 2). This feature allows you to create and customize your own financial statements, such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, using a simple and intuitive interface. You can choose from a variety of templates; add or remove accounts, columns, and rows; and format and style your statements. You can also drill down into the details of your data or export your statements to Excel or PDF to share them with others. Access more information about the new Financial Reporting templates in the 2024 release wave 2 here.

Analyze finance data your way with Copilot in Dynamics 365 Business Central analysis assist. This feature allows you to analyze your finance data using natural language and get suggestions and recommendations from an AI assistant. You can explore your data, discover patterns and trends, and find answers and insights.

If you prefer to slice and dice the data, you can open any list in Business Central, switch on analysis mode, and group, filter, and pivot the data your way. When your analysis is ready, you can save it, or maybe share it with a coworker.

Use out-of-the-box Excel reports for finance (when you want the power and flexibility of Excel). Business Central comes with pre-built and curated Excel reports that cover various aspects of your finance data, such as Trial Balance by Period, Aged Account Receivables, and Aged Account Payables. You can use these reports to view and manipulate your data in your familiar and preferred data tool, create charts and tables, and use formulas and functions, or analyze for outliers with Copilot in Excel.

Harness the full potential of the analytical tools within Business Central

As the roles of the CFO and finance teams continue to evolve, the ability to harness data for strategic decision-making is a necessity. Dynamics 365 Business Central offers a comprehensive and flexible set of analytics tools and capabilities that can empower finance leaders to make data-driven decisions and optimize business performance. Whether you need a quick and easy way to view and explore your data, a powerful and popular tool to analyze and visualize your data, or a familiar and widely used tool to manipulate and present your data, Business Central has you covered. With Business Central, you can also take advantage of the power of AI and cloud to access your data and insights while on the go from various devices, and to get answers and summaries from natural language queries and commands. You can also integrate your data and insights with other Microsoft products, such as Teams, to collaborate and communicate more effectively with your colleagues and partners.

Learn more about using Business Central

If you want to learn more about how the data-driven CFO can use Business Central, visit the financial analytics section of our documentation, where you can find more information and resources on the various analytics scenarios and tools.

The post Experience the new generation of financial analytics and reporting in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

On July 16, 2024, we published the 2024 release wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. These plans are a compilation of the new capabilities planned to be released between October 2024 to March 2025. This release introduces a wealth of new features designed to enhance customer understanding and improve overall user experience, showcasing our dedication to driving digital transformation for our customers and partners. 

The upcoming wave is centered around utilizing advanced AI and Microsoft Copilot technologies to enhance user productivity and streamline operations across diverse business applications. These enhancements include intelligent automation, AI-powered insights, and immersive user experiences that are designed to break down barriers between data, insights, and individuals. Watch a summary of the release highlights. 

Discover the latest features that empower organizations to operate more efficiently and adaptively. From AI-driven sales insights and customer service enhancements to predictive analytics in supply chain management and autonomous financial processes, the new capabilities enable businesses to proactively address challenges and capitalize on opportunities. 

Highlights from Dynamics 365 

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Check out the 2024 release wave 2 Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Copilot for business features

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales continues to enhance customer understanding and boost sales through data, intelligence, and user-friendly experiences. In this release, we are focused on including natural language copilot for summarizing information, creating a new full-screen Copilot Home with curated insights and role-specific actions, and using AI-powered insights to find leads. Watch this video to discover the new and enhanced features included in this release wave. 

Microsoft Copilot for Sales continues to deliver and enhance cutting-edge generative AI capabilities for sellers by enriching Copilot in Microsoft 365 capabilities with sales-specific workflows, data, and actions. We will focus on using AI-powered insights to create leads, deepen the integration into Copilot in Microsoft 365, and use natural language capabilities to allow sellers to ask data-related questions of their CRM. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service will continue to empower agents to work more efficiently through new copilot capabilities such as proactive prompting, ability to access data from external systems securely with plugins, email enhancements, and AI-infused routing. Watch this video to discover how the latest enhancements to Customer Service can benefit your business. 

Microsoft Copilot for Service is now generally available, bringing new capabilities to enhance user experiences. These features will be integrated across Outlook, Teams, Microsoft 365 Chat, and Copilot embedded in third-party CRMs. View this video about the features launching in this wave for Copilot for Service. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center will add new features for voice, messaging, Copilot, AI-infused routing, and contact center operations including out of box support for additional CRMs. Watch this video to learn about the new features releasing in Dynamics 365 Contact Center this wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service enables a shift from reactive to proactive and predictive service, empowering digital transformation and innovative business models. Using Copilot, frontline workers will be able to retrieve critical information and initiate mixed-reality remote assist calls within Teams through Copilot. Managers will be able to create, update, and manage work orders effortlessly across web, Outlook, and Teams interfaces. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance continues its journey of leading in autonomous finance, using AI to transform common end-to-end financial processes. This release focuses on in-app copilot capabilities, immersive persona-based user experiences, expanding country coverage, electronic invoicing enhancements, business performance analytics and planning enhancements, and autonomous reconciliation capabilities. Discover how the latest enhancements to Finance can benefit your business in this video. 

Microsoft Copilot for Finance is expanding data reconciliation capabilities in Excel with assisted data sanitization and preparation routines. Extending variance analysis capabilities with support from additional data sources and enabling collaboration on findings with stakeholders will also be a focus in the upcoming wave. Additionally, the Teams integration will facilitate collections calls with suggested scripts and automated recording of action items in the financial system. Check out this video to see the exciting new features releasing in Microsoft Copilot for Finance.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is advancing along the path of an autonomous supply chain by integrating intelligence, automation, and analytics into every facet of business procedures, thereby improving user productivity and enhancing organizational adaptability. In this update, the spotlight is on improving order-promising capabilities for manufacturers. Demand planning is upgraded to incorporate forecasting with external signals, and the inclusion of Copilot weaves insights and analyses directly into workflows, identifying trends and irregularities, while also allowing for specific data inquiries at the cell level. Additionally, Traceability Copilot keeps track of actual products in production and compiles a comprehensive historical record of related activities. Watch this video to discover the exciting features launching in this release wave. 

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 AI-assisted core functionality improvements in estimation, proposal generation, journals, approvals, and contract management, with added mobile capabilities and scale improvements to handle larger projects and invoices at an increased scale. Watch this video to learn about the new features releasing in Project Operations this wave. 

Finance and Operations cross-app capabilities will continue to invest in capabilities applying to Finance, Supply Chain Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources, and Project Operations. We are infusing copilot experiences across applications, including natural language chat, embedded AI, and intelligent process automation, and enabling extensibility for copilot scenarios. We will also bring more value and insights to finance and operations apps data and enhancements to ensure continued enterprise-grade security and compliance at scale. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources continues to build intelligence, develop automation and analytics around the hire-to-separate process, increase user productivity, and empower business agility. We are enhancing recruiting with AI-driven assessments and offer management, improving experiences for employees and HR business partners in benefits and performance management, and advancing analytics, insights, and planning through business performance planning and analytics capabilities. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce is using the power of AI to empower retailers to streamline their operations and drive increased customer loyalty and conversions. With Copilot, retail managers, sales associates, and merchandisers will gain new AI-powered insights into customer buying patterns and preferences, recommendations for positioning and selling products, and business intelligence on store performance. Improvements to the self-checkout POS make customer checkouts more efficient, and user experience updates to Store Commerce app streamline daily tasks for faster, more efficient sales and service. Watch this video to see the new features releasing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is focused on maintaining service reliability performance and security standards. We’ll continue enhancing productivity by optimizing core processes with Copilot, expanding to cover more than 170 countries, and offering enhanced reporting with more than 80 Microsoft Power BI reports. Additionally, integration with Field Service will be expanded, along with new financial management features. We will also enhance development tools and governance, along with improved data privacy and compliance management. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist will bring significant improvements to the quality of Mixed Reality (MR) annotations in Teams mobile for both iOS and Android users. The update will enhance the accuracy of MR ink on irregular and complex surfaces, making it easier for remote experts and technicians to collaborate seamlessly. Mixed Reality annotations in Teams mobile will be generally available in the next wave, along with ongoing investments in stability, performance optimization, and usability improvements across HoloLens 2 and iOS and Android applications. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—Data empowers every organization to unify and enhance customer data, leveraging it for insightful analysis and intelligent actions. This release enables you to streamline data integration by using Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Fabric, attach your data in OneLake to Customer Insights, accelerate time to insights with data in Data Lake format, increase control when attaching to data in Dataverse, and seamlessly generate insights from marketing. Discover how these latest enhancements can benefit your business in this video. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—Journeys brings the power of AI to redefine the workflow for marketers, enabling them to be more productive than ever before. Businesses can optimize every interaction with their customers with end-to-end journeys across departments and channels. With this release, you will have more flexibility and control when it comes to journeys, managing your web forms and tailoring Copilot to your business. Watch this video to learn about the new features releasing in this wave. 

Highlights from Microsoft Power Platform 

Microsoft Power Platform

Check out the 2024 release wave 2 Microsoft Power Platform features

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Watch this video to explore the exciting new features releasing across Microsoft Power Platform. 

Microsoft Power Apps will continue to transform app experiences with infused intelligence, enabling users to be more productive by using Copilot to work with data, get insights, and improve their apps. Makers will continue to benefit from AI-assisted development, enabling rich and complex applications to be built with monitoring, control, and unmatched governance for admins, ensuring organizations can adopt low-code and AI transformation at scale. 

Microsoft Power Pages will expedite site building for a low-code maker or pro developer to build intelligent sites that reimagine the way you interact with your employees, customers, and partners. 

Microsoft Power Automate will continue to make it easier to build flows by using natural language and multi-modal generative AI capabilities across cloud flows and desktop flows, troubleshooting runs, and managing your automation estate with an end-to-end view. This, along with improvements in process mining to jumpstart creation of automation through Microsoft 365 integration and ongoing improvements to scaling, means it’ll be easier than ever for new users to get started and scale. 

Microsoft Copilot Studio is advancing copilot capabilities and IVR support with Customer Service and will expand geographically to the United Arab Emirates and Germany. Additionally, the team is improving software lifecycle management capabilities with topic-level import/export and role-based access control (RBAC), as well as enhancing governance and administration functionalities. 

AI Builder is investing in Prompt Builder for creating and deploying GPT prompts with enterprise data to enhance flows, apps, data tables, and copilots. We are also enhancing Intelligent Document Processing with a new validation station in Power Automate, application lifestyle management (ALM) support, and pre-built AI models for translation, classification, and personally identifiable information (PII) detection. Lastly, we’ll improve AI governance through capacity management, data policies, and including AI Builder capacity in the Power Apps developer plan. 

Microsoft Dataverse is enhancing the maker experience by boosting app building productivity with Copilot, ensuring seamless connectivity to external data and knowledge sources, and integrating AI-powered Enterprise Copilot in Microsoft 365. These investments aim to streamline development and use AI for more efficient and intelligent solutions. 

Governance and administration continues to advance via tools and insights that empower Microsoft Power Platform admin to easily get their job done. This wave focuses on governing Copilot adoption and easily securing low-code assets, helping enterprises boost adoption of Microsoft Power Platform solutions in their organization while keeping their digital environment safe. 

Early access period 

Starting July 29, 2024, customers and partners can validate the latest features in a non-production environment. These updates include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled in production environments by October 2024. Take advantage of the early access period to test these updates and effectively plan for your customer rollout. Explore the 2024 release wave 2 early access features for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform or visit the early access FAQ page for more information. 

For a complete list of new capabilities, please refer to the Dynamics 365 2024 release wave 2 plan and the Microsoft Power Platform 2024 release wave 2 plan. We also encourage you to share your feedback in the community forums for Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Power Platform. 

The post 2024 release wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform now available  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In the quickly changing world of AI, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is leading the way with innovations that have equipped more than 30,000 small and medium-sized businesses to succeed. Powered by next-generation AI, Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Business Central introduces new ways to streamline workflows, boost productivity, and unlock creativity. At a time when nine out of ten people want simpler ways to automate daily tasks, Copilot helps to free time so employees can focus on their most meaningful work.¹

Copilot in Business Central is your everyday AI companion, helping you to speed through tasks, build momentum, and improve the way work gets done. With Copilot, you can:

• Get answers quickly and easily using natural language.
• Spark creativity with creative content ideas.
• Save time by automating tedious, repetitive tasks.
• Anticipate and overcome business challenges.

Reclaim time for important work

In a small or medium-sized business, there is often a lot to do and not enough people to get it all done. Everyday activities like tracking down documents and bringing new employees up to speed can drain your valuable time. Conversational chat using Copilot in Business Central helps you answer questions quickly and easily, locate records faster, and even learn new skills—all using natural language. Save time and effort by navigating to documents without having to use traditional menus, and rapidly onboard new users with answers to questions on how, when, or why to do things.

Unlock creativity with marketing text suggestions

Copilot in Business Central helps product managers to banish writer’s block and drive sales with compelling AI-generated marketing text suggestions. Using key attributes already in Business Central like color and material, Copilot can create product descriptions in seconds tailored to your preferred tone, format, and length. Once you’ve made any adjustments, you can easily publish to Shopify or other ecommerce platforms with just a few clicks.

Simplify the sales order process

Creating or updating customer orders can be a tedious process, often requiring repetitive lookups or navigating through extensive product catalogs. To quickly add items to a sales quote or order, Copilot enables you to describe the goods or services needed, paste in relevant details from an email, or reference a previous order. Based on your prompt, Copilot then suggests line items from your product catalog. By streamlining the order taking process, Copilot frees time for sales teams to focus on building relationships and delivering exceptional customer experiences. 

Automate workflows quickly and easily

Streamlining business processes is easier than ever with Copilot helping to create Microsoft Power Automate flows using natural language. Users can simply express their needs directly in Business Central, and Copilot drafts an initial automation flow for you. You can continue refining the flow in Power Automate with Copilot by your side, streamlining the process of tailoring best-practice workflows to your business.  

Nine out of ten people want simpler ways to automate daily tasks so they can focus on the work that matters.¹

Streamline month end with enhanced bank reconciliation

Reconciling bank transactions has traditionally been a time-consuming monthly task, especially with complex scenarios where multiple charges consolidate into a single transaction. Copilot in Business Central makes bank reconciliation easier by analyzing bank statements that you import into Business Central, matching transactions, and proposing entries for transactions that weren’t auto-matched. By comparing and interpreting transaction descriptions, amounts, dates, and patterns across fields, Copilot can help you improve the accuracy of your financial records while reducing manual effort.

Keep finances organized with e-invoice matching

Say goodbye to hours spent manually merging incoming e-invoices with outstanding purchase orders. Using rule-based matching and assistance from Copilot, you can quickly compare and map incoming e-invoices to your open orders. Save time and keep your accounts payable current, all while building positive supplier relationships with on-time payments. 

Make data-driven decisions with analysis assistance

Business Central has powerful built-in capabilities to create analytical views of data, but manually constructing those views requires time and skill. Copilot simplifies analysis by transforming raw data into clear views with totals, grouping, pivots, and filters—all from simple text instructions and without ever leaving Business Central. Prompted by just a simple sentence, Copilot can identify trends and anomalies in your data, helping you make data-driven decisions that propel your business forward.  

Boost customer service with inventory forecasting

Effective inventory management is crucial in a competitive business environment as it can significantly influence a company’s success and customer retention. This process involves balancing customer service with cost control. Maintaining low inventory reduces working capital, but risks missing sales due to stock shortages. Using AI, the sales and inventory forecast extension uses past sales data to forecast future demand, helping to prevent stockouts. Once a shortfall is identified, Business Central streamlines the replenishment process by generating vendor requests, helping you keep your customers happy by fulfilling their orders on time.  

Reduce risk with late payment prediction

Managing receivables effectively is vital for a business’s financial wellbeing. With the late payment prediction extension, you can reduce outstanding receivables and refine your collections approach by forecasting if outstanding sales invoices are likely to be paid on time. For instance, if a payment is anticipated to be delayed, you could modify the payment terms or method for that customer. By proactively addressing potential late payments and adapting accordingly, you can minimize overdue receivables, reduce risk of non-payment, and ultimately improve your financial performance.

Improve financial stability with cash flow analysis

Powered by AI, Business Central can create a comprehensive cash flow analysis to help you monitor your company’s cash position. Cash flow is a critical indicator of a company’s solvency, and cash flow analysis is an important future-focused planning tool that helps you maintain control over your financial health and make proactive adjustments to meet your financial commitments. With insights from Business Central, you can pivot quickly to safeguard your company’s fiscal wellbeing, such as by obtaining loans to cover cash shortfalls or cutting back on credit when you have surplus cash.

Transform the way work gets done with Copilot in Business Central

Copilot gives your company an edge with AI-powered innovations that are a catalyst for unleashing human potential, fostering creativity, and driving efficiency in ways previously unimaginable. The integration of AI into everyday business processes is not just about staying ahead in a competitive market, it’s about redefining what’s possible in the workplace. With Dynamics 365 Business Central, your company is empowered to navigate today’s complex business environment with agility, precision, and a renewed focus on what truly matters.

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Sources

¹  Four Ways Leaders Can Empower People for How Work Gets Done, January 2023

The post Work smarter with Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Business Central appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We’re excited to announce a new project onboarding feature is now available in the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal. The portal makes it easier to deploy Dynamics 365 projects successfully by guiding you from the start of your project to the end, giving you valuable insights and recommendations along the way. All you need to do to get started is create your implementation project in the portal, and the new onboarding wizard makes it easy. Here’s how:

User-friendly interface removes technical barriers. The onboarding wizard’s intuitive and user-friendly interface is designed to make the onboarding process accessible whatever your technical background. It acts as a virtual assistant, walking you through each step of project creation with clear instructions and prompts.

Projects are ready to use immediately. On completion of the onboarding process, your Dynamics 365 implementation project is instantly available, streamlining collaboration and ensuring that stakeholders have swift access to project resources.

Data is protected automatically. If the implementation project targets a tenant other than the one you’re signed in to, the onboarding wizard starts an approval flow. Two reviewers for the targeted tenant must both approve the request before information such as the customer name and telemetry insights are made available. This automatic review process ensures compliance with data protection regulations and builds trust with customers.

Successful Dynamics 365 implementations by design

The Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal is based on Success by Design, a systematic approach for successful cloud deployment that was developed by Microsoft. Success by Design provides prescriptive guidance for designing, building, and deploying your new Dynamics 365 solution. The onboarding wizard represents a pivotal advancement in the journey towards a successful Dynamics 365 implementation. By guiding you through the creation of your implementation projects, facilitating reviews, and offering relevant insights, the Implementation Portal and the onboarding wizard help your business harness the full potential of Dynamics 365 with confidence and efficiency.

Next steps

Sign up for the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal and read the documentation.

Learn more about the onboarding wizard.

Have feedback or questions about the onboarding wizard or the Implementation Portal? Let us know! Email us at ftd365ip-support@microsoft.com.

Not yet a Dynamics 365 customer? Take a tour and get a free trial.

The post Create Dynamics 365 implementation projects easily with the new onboarding wizard appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Delivering exceptional service is key for building customer preference and loyalty. Today, we’re introducing new capabilities for Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service that help service managers and technicians efficiently find the information they need to resolve issues right the first time while keeping customers updated at every step of the process. Additionally, with the introduction of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist capabilities within Microsoft Teams and seamless data flow across Dynamics 365 Field Service, finance, and operations applications as well as Microsoft 365, we’re helping break down application silos and making it easier to stay in the flow.

Streamlining work order management with next-generation AI

With new capabilities generally available starting today, field service managers can interact with Copilot to find pertinent information about work orders using natural language in the Dynamics 365 Field Service web app. Copilot can assist in retrieving work order details, summarizing them, and presenting them in an easily digestible format. Copilot can also go beyond searching work orders to searching other Microsoft Dataverse records, including accounts, contacts, opportunities, and more. In addition, organizations can now configure the data that Copilot uses to generate work order summaries in Dynamics 365 Field Service to meet their specific business needs.

“The introduction of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, with its powerful summarization capabilities, is a game-changer. Not only does it benefit our leaders, but it also streamlines internal communications, aids finance, and helps customers stay up to date. By automating this process, we reduce manual work and ensure critical information isn’t overlooked.”

Amit Nene, Business Applications Director, BW Packaging Platform, Barry Wehmiller

With new capabilities generally available starting today in the Dynamics 365 Field Service Outlook add-in, field service managers can go beyond asking Copilot for help creating work orders based on customer emails and scheduling them. They can now also ask Copilot to draft email updates to customers recapping details of scheduled work orders or suggesting next steps for unscheduled work orders.

Boosting technician efficiency with new tools in Teams

With the Dynamics 365 Field Service plugin for Microsoft Copilot now generally available, field service managers and technicians can use natural language chat in the flow of work in Teams to find key information about their work orders and other Dataverse records. Starting today, technicians can also use this experience to ask Copilot to search through lengthy product manuals and find relevant answers to resolve product issues faster.

Should technicians need additional assistance from remote experts to resolve issues, starting today they can access Dynamics 365 Remote Assist capabilities in the flow of work in Teams. As a technician shares what they see through their mobile device’s camera during a video call, the mixed reality tools enable technicians and remote experts to use annotations and arrows to refer to specific parts of a machine. These spatial annotations stay anchored even if the camera moves. Access to Dynamics 365 Remote Assist is available at no additional cost with Dynamics 365 Field Service, and licensed customers can try out Remote Assist’s spatial annotation capabilities available in preview starting today within their Teams mobile app for iOS.

To further streamline collaboration among field service managers, technicians, and remote experts in Teams chats, meetings, or channels, Dynamics 365 Field Service users who have installed the Field Service app in Teams can now share links to work orders that automatically expand to provide key details. This link unfurling capability is generally available starting today.

Introducing efficiencies with more integrated offerings

To help the frontline and back office stay in sync as service deliveries impact financial and inventory systems, the Dynamics 365 Field Service integration with Dynamics 365 finance and operations applications is now generally available. Additionally, for small businesses, seamless financial and inventory data flow between Dynamics 365 Field Service and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is also now generally available.

Learn more at Hannover Messe 2024

Next week at Hannover Messe 2024, the world’s leading industrial trade fair, organizations across engineering, digital technologies, energy, and more will gather to demonstrate solutions for high performance, sustainable industries. The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service team is honored to attend to showcase how the innovations announced today can help manufacturers. Visit us at the Hannover Messe expo, Hall 17, Stand G06 to discover new ways to transform your service operations with generative AI and mixed reality.

Dynamics 365 Field Service

New capabilities generally available today.

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The post Introducing new Microsoft Copilot capabilities to optimize Dynamics 365 Field Service operations   appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In an era where service management is increasingly complex, the integration of core business functions has become critical. Fragmented systems can lead to a cascade of issues—inefficient scheduling, delayed invoicing, and a decline in customer satisfaction. Today we are thrilled to announce the general availability of the native integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Business Central. This integration equips organizations with a comprehensive approach that harmonizes service delivery with financials, resources, and inventory management. It also equips frontline workers with modern tools, ensuring exceptional service from the outset. Let’s explore the advantages that this seamless integration provides.

Bridging the gap between Field Service and ERP systems

The division between Field Service and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems has long presented significant challenges, including:

• Lack of financial visibility: Without integration, businesses struggle to understand job costs and profitability, leaving their financial health in the dark.
• Inefficient scheduling: Siloed systems lead to inefficient scheduling of technicians, resulting in lost time and resources.
• Delayed invoicing: Manual processes and disconnected systems often cause delays in invoicing and payments, leading to cash flow disruptions.
• Data inconsistencies: Inconsistent data across systems creates errors and confusion, impacting decision-making.
• Costly and slow integrations: System integrations can be expensive and time-consuming, leading to slow time to value and ongoing maintenance cost. 

The integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Business Central directly addresses these challenges by providing:

• Real-time visibility: Through comprehensive integration from front-line operations to back-office functions, organizations gain immediate visibility into all aspects of their operations, including finances, inventory, and resource management.
• Improved scheduling: With Copilot-assisted scheduling in Field Service dispatchers can match the right technician to the right job at the right time.
• Streamlined financial operations: Automated billing and invoicing not only accelerate the payment cycle, improving cash flow management, but also reduce errors, enhancing overall profitability, and transforming every work order into an opportunity for growth.
• Empowered frontline workers: Access to a modern mobile app empowers frontline workers to see their work on the go, access it offline, and make updates while on the job – providing more accurate data for the back office.
• Fast and cost-effective integration: This out-of-the-box integration reduces the cost and time associated with traditional integrations, leading to quicker time to value and less ongoing maintenance cost. 

Key Capabilities

The integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Business Central not only addresses existing challenges but also enables new opportunities for businesses to enhance efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and drive growth. Key capabilities include: 

• Data synchronization: Ensures a single source of truth by synchronizing key data between the two systems.
  • Product inventory and pricing: Business Central provides the inventory data and price lists for Field Service, which helps with accurate work order creation and product usage tracking. When products are used, the inventory levels are automatically adjusted.
  • Projects and Accounts: Work Orders are seamlessly synced with Business Central Projects and Customer Accounts, ensuring precise project tracking and customer billing. 
  • Resources: Resources are automatically synced, enabling invoicing based on resource usage and rates established in Business Central for Work Order services.
• Accurate invoicing through automation: Automates the syncing of field activities with Business Central, minimizing manual effort and errors. Organizations have control over when information is synced, and can choose to post project journals manually or automatically upon Work Order completion.
• Efficient scheduling for dispatchers: Simplifies technician scheduling by suggesting the right resource based on availability, skills, and distance to the job site using Copilot-enabled scheduling capabilities in Field Service.

• Mobile access for frontline workers: Empowers technicians with the Field Service Mobile app, providing access to necessary information on the go, even in remote offline areas. Features like Inspections, Guides, and Remote Assist enhance technician capabilities.

• Comprehensive reports and analytics for service managers: Comprehensive data leads to comprehensive reporting. Organizations can access information on service delivery, financials, and inventory, allowing for improved business decision making.

Call to action

The integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Business Central is a deliberate stride towards operational coherence and efficiency. Companies that adopt this integrated solution stand to witness an increase in operational productivity, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction metrics. Transform your operations today and unlock new growth opportunities with Dynamics 365 Field Service and Business Central integration. 

Ready to begin? Learn more about Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Already a customer? Dive into configuring this integration at Microsoft Learn.

The post Seamless integration, seamless operations: Introducing native integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service and Business Central appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Today we launched the 2024 release wave 1 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, a rollout of new features and enhanced capabilities slated for release between April and September 2024. These updates include new Microsoft Copilot capabilities across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform—as well as role-based extensions of Copilot for Microsoft 365—that transform business processes with natural language processing, AI-generated insights, and assistance with time-consuming tasks.

This morning’s Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event, available to view on-demand, includes highlights and demonstrations of features from the release wave, as well as a firsthand look at how organizations like Lenovo, Sonepar, Ford, Omnicom Group, and G&J Pepsi are using these capabilities in transformative ways.  

Extend Microsoft 365 with role-specific Copilot capabilities

The central theme across this release wave is how, across the business and productivity applications organizations depend on, Copilot is helping to better empower employees, improve business processes, and engage customers. In fact, 68% of surveyed Copilot users told us that it helps them jumpstart their creative process, and 70% said Copilot made them more productive so that they could do their job faster and easier.¹

Since each role is unique, we have extended Copilot for Microsoft 365 even further to tailor Copilot experiences for specific business functions. This includes Microsoft Copilot for Sales, Microsoft Copilot for Service and the recently announced Microsoft Copilot for Finance—all integrated with the apps and data you use every day so that you can spend less time searching for data and more time engaging with customers and driving a strategic agenda for your organization.

Underpinning these Copilot extensions is Microsoft Copilot Studio, which makes it easy to customize and build your own customer and internal-facing copilots using your data and workflows. We are excited to dive deeper into Copilot this release wave and help you use it to transform your business.  

Business Applications Launch Event

Tune into demos of new capabilities, on demand.

Watch here

Transforming customer and field service with generative AI 

Release wave 1 introduces new Copilot capabilities to help customer service agents and frontline workers boost efficiency, reduce training costs, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. 

New Copilot capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Microsoft Copilot for Service—which infuses generative AI into your existing contact center and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions—include Copilot-drafted knowledge articles to streamline the knowledge creation process, as well as proactive Copilot responses for conversations with customers. 

At the launch event, we shared how Lenovo is integrating Dynamics 365 Customer Service, third-party solutions, and custom bots to scale its innovative service delivery solution, Premier Support Suite for PC devices. Thousands of agents can now provide omnichannel support to customers in 200 regions and in more than 40 languages globally.   

We also spotlight how G&J Pepsi, the largest family-owned and operated Pepsi franchise bottler in the U.S., has reduced operating costs by 6.6% and increased revenue by 8% with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Sales, and Microsoft Power Platform. They expect Copilot to further streamline work order management and enhance their best-in-class service by giving the field service teams access to a complete picture of their accounts in real time.   

Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Copilot for Service, and Dynamics 365 Field Service.  

The future of enterprise resource planning (ERP)

ERP is going through a once-in-a-generation transformation. For decades, employees across the globe have manually completed a significant amount of ERP processes daily to keep their companies running. Microsoft is pioneering a new vision for ERP—a world where ERP solutions powered by AI operate more independently, continually adjusting to evolving circumstances, involving users when necessary, and opening new possibilities for businesses.  

At the launch event, we spotlighted how Omnicom Group, a global leader in marketing communications, envisions leveraging Dynamics 365 for a new, autonomous ERP model that will help it to accelerate growth, become more efficient, and power its ability to innovate. They can use the new Copilot to optimize their strategic decision-making and transform their operational processes, such as prompting Copilot to identify opportunities for growth expansion and gauge the performance of initiatives.  

We also introduced new Copilot capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that help small and medium businesses to automate processes and complete tasks faster. A new Copilot chat pane allows users to quickly find and go to data, reveal insights, and get help with tasks. Users can prompt Copilot to create sales lines, match e-invoices with purchase orders, answer questions about data analyses, help with repetitive tasks, and more.  

Other updates include sustainability tracking, the ability to connect Business Central with Shopify B2B (business-to-business), and developer tools for Copilot.  

Explore the release plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Microsoft Copilot for Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and Dynamics 365 Business Central.  

Accelerate development with Microsoft Power Platform 

Microsoft Power Platform is the rapid modernization platform of choice of hundreds of thousands of organizations, providing AI-first, low-code tools to build enterprise-wide solutions and automations. Copilot is seamlessly integrated across Microsoft Power Platform, empowering you to create applications, automations, and analytics through simple, natural language and conversational interactions.  

At the launch event, we demonstrate how Ford is leveraging Copilot to produce connected services to enhance the driving experience. Like Ford, organizations can take advantage of new Copilot capabilities in this release wave to transform workflows. Microsoft Power Automate introduces new ways to create cloud flows, desktop flows and process mining using natural language prompts. Microsoft Power Apps accelerates app development with enhanced user reasoning and data insights in custom apps. Microsoft Copilot Studio enables organizations to build custom copilots, with new ways to build custom prompts and generative actions, along with access to OpenAI’s custom GPTs and AI Builder models for extended scenarios.   

Explore the release plans for Power Apps, Microsoft Power Pages, Power Automate, Microsoft Power BI, and Copilot Studio.  

Deliver more personalized customer experiences  

Buyers expect businesses to cater to their unique set of needs. To do so, marketing and sales teams need a unified understanding of the customer and the ability to orchestrate experiences across marketing, sales, and service.  

Sonepar is leveraging Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales to become the first global B2B electrical distributor to provide a fully digitized and synchronized omnichannel experience to every customer. With Copilot alongside sellers, Sonepar can personalize marketing content, improve the quality of leads, and enhance every engagement with customers.  

New Copilot capabilities in release wave 1 provide recommendations, summarize data, retrieve information, and perform actions in context and within the flow of work—so they can stay productive and focus time on engaging customers.  

Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Copilot for Sales, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights. 

Watch the virtual Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event  

We invite you to tune into the launch event on-demand for more details and demos of new capabilities across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. In addition, you can explore several special topic presentations covering the evolution of generative AI, including small language models and AI experiences to help transform strategic, cross-domain business problems.  

Be sure to read the detailed release plans for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform and keep track of what’s new and upcoming, as well as create a personalized release plan in the release planner.  

Sources:

¹ Microsoft Work Trend Index Special Report: What Can Copilot’s Earliest Users Teach Us About Generative AI at Work? (microsoft.com) 

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Learn how the upcoming 2024 release wave 1 will enable you to track and report your greenhouse gas emissions with ease and accuracy.

Sustainability is more than a buzzword. It’s a global imperative that demands urgent action from all sectors of society, including the business world. As regulations and expectations around environmental reporting evolve, organizations need reliable and efficient tools to measure and manage their impact on the planet.

That’s why we’re excited to announce that Dynamics 365 Business Central will soon offer new sustainability features that will help you comply with the latest standards and best practices, as well as drive positive changes for your business and the environment. Starting from the 2024 release wave 1, you’ll be able to track and report your greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across three scopes defined by the ESG standard, using sustainability journals and built-in calculation methods. You’ll also be able to leverage the new Chart of Sustainability Accounts to organize and analyze your emission data with ease and transparency.

The new functionality is designed to oversee and regulate an organization’s environmental footprint by tracking various greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, facilitating proper insights. This functionality will be a multi-wave investment and at this first release we delivered basic framework as a foundation for future expanding. The first version focuses on GHG emissions, and related to that the solution is focused on three emission scopes defined by the ESG standard. This feature supports the basic process of collecting emission data via sustainability journals, allowing for manual entry of known data, or utilizing built-in methods for calculating emissions footprints.

Chart of Sustainability Accounts

The Chart of Sustainability Accounts forms the foundational structured list used for recording all emissions data. It functions as a comprehensive framework that categorizes and organizes these accounts based on their attributes, such as scope or other groupings. Each account is typically assigned a unique code or number for easy reference and tracking, following the same structure as a traditional Chart of Accounts but customized specifically for monitoring sustainability-related data and metrics within an organization.

This chart typically encompasses categories such as energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation, and other pertinent sustainability metrics. Users have the flexibility to add Account Categories and Subcategories to define how the system behaves, selecting dedicated emissions for tracking, emission factors, formulas, and similar configurations.

In essence, the Chart of Sustainability Accounts serves as the backbone of the Sustainability feature, facilitating effective tracking, measurement, and management of sustainability-related data and metrics within the organization.

Chart of Sustainability Accounts

Sustainability Journals

Sustainability Journals are designed to track and record sustainability-related activities, and metrics within an organization, using the same user experience as other journals in Business Central. Within the journal, users have the option to input emissions manually if they possess the necessary information. Alternatively, if they lack this data, they can utilize built-in formulas to accurately calculate emissions based on specific known parameters corresponding to various types of sources and accounts.

When posting with a Sustainability Journal, entries are generated on the Sustainability Ledger. Similar to other journal types, users have the flexibility to utilize various templates and batches with specific configurations. They can opt for standard journals or recurring journals to manage sustainability data efficiently.

Sustainability Journal

Sustainability Entries

The Sustainability Ledger organizes all emission data according to the Chart of Sustainability Accounts. When a user posts the Sustainability Journal, all crucial data is recorded within the Sustainability Entries. Posting to these entries can be regulated by specific rules configured in the Sustainability Setup, and users can use dimensions in a manner consistent with other entries throughout Business Central. All reports are generated based on Sustainability Entries. Presently, there are several existing reports available for analyzing and tracking emissions. However, in future releases, Business Central will introduce additional reports for printing or submission to relevant authorities.

Future Development

As mentioned in the introduction, Microsoft will continue to enhance this feature by adding more horizontal capabilities and improving its connection with other features in Business Central, without focusing on industry-specific aspects. The development of new features will depend on research of the key elements for such solutions, compliance with regulatory requirements, and useful feedback from partners. Also, it is expected that ISV partners will use this basic framework to create industry-specific sustainability solutions.

The post Sustainability in Dynamics 365 Business Central: A New Way to Measure and Manage Your Environmental Impact appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The pace of business operations continues to accelerate daily, presenting an ongoing challenge for employees who increasingly struggle to keep up. They often find themselves overwhelmed by the very tools designed to enhance their work, leading to frequent switching between various documents, apps, and websites as they hunt for data.  

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Harvard Business Review addresses this issue in its article How Much Time and Energy Do We Waste Toggling Between Applications?, where it describes the prevalent “swivel chair” approach to work, which has become the norm for most employees. This is primarily because many software applications weren’t originally designed to connect with each other. Consequently, employees often serve as the connective tissue bridging the gap between these disparate applications. They engage in manual processes of fetching, transforming, and submitting data from one system to another, constantly shifting between apps. This practice is both time-consuming and mentally draining. 

The true cost of this constant app-switching becomes apparent when we consider that the average user toggles between different apps nearly 1,200 times each day, spending approximately four hours per week reorienting themselves after switching to a new application. Annually, this adds up to a staggering five working weeks, accounting for a significant 9% of their total work time.¹  

What’s the solution to this productivity-sapping dilemma? The answer lies in connecting business systems and productivity tools, providing employees with easy access to the information they need without switching between applications. Seamless sharing of data across tools and applications not only simplifies access for employees but also lays the foundation for AI and Microsoft Copilot to offer proactive insights and assistance within their everyday tools. 

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft 365, businesses can establish a unified experience where data seamlessly connects with productivity apps including Excel, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams. This connectivity ensures that employees can access timely information, gain valuable insights, and collaborate directly within the tools they use daily—all without the need to switch between applications. 

By harnessing connected solutions powered by real-time data, businesses can begin to unlock the full potential of AI-enabled productivity with Microsoft Copilot. With Copilot, businesses can automate tasks and guide users through assisted workflows—saving them time, improving collaboration, enhancing decision-making, and allowing employees to focus on what truly matters—driving business success. 

More collaboration with Business Central and Teams 

Modern workplaces are challenged by fragmented data and communication tools—employees often find themselves juggling various apps and struggling to disseminate timely information, making collaboration difficult. With Teams connected to Business Central, your organization can efficiently share and interact with real-time data, transforming Teams into a centralized hub for your daily operations.  

With Business Central and Teams, employees can: 

• Make data accessible and collaborative. With Teams connected to Business Central, timely data can be shared in group chats or channels, transforming Teams into the hub for all and daily operations that unite employees, processes, and the data they need to work together. 

• Take action from the app they prefer. From Business Central, quickly share data to jumpstart conversations in Teams. From Teams, stay in the flow of work by viewing and editing business data without having to switch apps. 

•  Streamline collaboration across departments. Empower each department to self-serve by unlocking the data they need to work better together—even without a Business Central license. Get read-only access to Business Central data in Teams at no additional cost with your Microsoft 365 license. 

More productivity with Business Central and Excel 

Employees often find themselves working in specific applications that align with their roles and responsibilities. For finance and operations teams, Excel is a fundamental tool that plays a pivotal role in their daily tasks. Enabling these teams to maximize their productivity within their preferred application can lead to significant productivity gains. 

With Business Central and Excel, employees can: 

• Simplify daily tasks. Export any Business Central data to an Excel worksheet to capture data snapshots or share for review. Save time by updating records in bulk in Excel and uploading the revised records to Business Central with just a few clicks.  

•  Go from raw data to insights faster. Get timely operational insights from Business Central as Excel reports and adapt quickly by customizing report layouts as Excel worksheets. Easily analyze transactions and business data using pivot tables, charts, and calculations to get answers quickly. 

• Collaborate in the tools where teams work best. Streamline team-based activities like budgeting and planning with multi-player co-authorship and functionality. Create, edit, and access Excel documents as a team, then publish the final outcomes back to Business Central. 

More impact with Business Central and Outlook 

At the core of most businesses lies the unwavering commitment to deliver exceptional products and services to its customers. To achieve this goal, businesses must foster strong and meaningful relationships with their clients, vendors, and stakeholders. With Business Central and Outlook working together, employees gain valuable business insights delivered directly to their inbox, so they can save time while staying focused on delivering extraordinary experiences.  

With Business Central and Outlook, employees can: 

• Enhance customer experience directly from their inbox. Connect real-time data from Business Central to Outlook. Save time with visibility into customer and vendor information like sales, purchase details, and more without leaving their inbox.   

• Stay in the flow of work. Use templates to quickly send payment reminders, order confirmations, and other emails directly from Business Central connected to a shared mailbox. 

• Go from quote to cash without leaving Outlook. Set up customers or vendors, create quotes, submit invoices, and more from within Outlook so employees can focus on the task at hand. 

Embrace the future of work with AI and Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft 365 

When Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft 365 work together, small and medium-sized businesses can boost productivity and redefine how work gets done. With data delivered directly to familiar apps like Excel, Outlook, and Teams, employees get the information they need without switching between applications. Using next-generation AI with Microsoft Copilot, employees can further streamline routine tasks like drafting content, summarizing meetings, providing email follow up, and quickly finding answers to questions—all within the tools where they work best. 

Learn more about connecting your data with Business Central.

Sources:

¹ Harvard Business Review, How Much Time and Energy Do We Waste Toggling Between Applications, 2022 

The post Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft 365: Connect data to the tools where work is done appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

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

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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

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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.

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