On March 19th, 2024, we announced the end of support of Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation on commercial cloud.

For Project Service Automation customers on US government cloud, we will have a future announcement regarding upgrade and the availability of Project Operations.

Beginning March 31^st, 2025, Microsoft will no longer support PSA on commercial cloud environments. There will not be any feature enhancements, updates, bug fixes, or other updates to this offering. Any support ticket logged for the PSA commercial cloud will be closed with instructions to upgrade to Dynamics 365 Project Operations.   

We strongly encourage all customers of PSA commercial cloud to start planning your upgrade process as soon as possible so you can to take advantage of many new Project Operations features such as:  

• Integration with Project for the Web with many new advanced scheduling features 
• Project Budgeting and Time-phased forecasting   
• Date Effective price overrides  
• Revision and Activation on Quotes    
• Material usage recording in projects and tasks  
• Subcontract Management  
• Advances and Retained-based contracts  
• Contract not-to-exceed  
• Task and Progress based billing  
• Multi-customer contracts  
• AI and Copilot based experiences.  

Upgrade documentation and FAQ links 

Upgrade from Project Service Automation to Project Operations | Microsoft Learn 

Project Service Automation end of life FAQ | Microsoft Learn   

Feature changes from Project Service Automation to Project Operations | Microsoft Learn 

Project Service Automation to Project Operations project scheduling conversion process | Microsoft Learn 

Plan your work in Microsoft Project with the Project Operations add-in | Microsoft Learn 

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Project Operations 

Project Operations was first released in October 2020 as a comprehensive product to manage Projects from inception to close by bringing together the strengths of Dataverse, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management, and Project for the web assets.

Want to learn more about Project Operations? Check this link and navigate to our detailed documentation!  

Want to try Project Operations? Click here and sign up for a 30-day trial!  

The post Announcing End of Support for Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation (PSA) appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is about knowing today the best way to approach tomorrow. It’s about collecting accurate snapshots of various business functions at any point in time, so leaders can make clear, careful decisions that poise the organization to thrive in the future.    

ERP sprang from systems designed to help manufacturers track inventory and raw material procurement. As businesses have become more complex and computing more ubiquitous, ERP platforms have grown into aggregated tech stacks or suites with vertical extensions that track data from supply chain, logistics, asset management, HR, finance, and virtually every aspect of the business. But adding all those facets—and their attendant data streams—to the picture can clutter the frame, hampering the agility of an ERP platform. 

Generative AI helps restore clarity. One of the animating features of AI lies in its ability to process data that lives outside the ERP—all the data an organization can access, in fact—to output efficient, error-free information and insights. AI-enabled ERP systems increase business intelligence by aggregating comprehensive data sets, even data stored in multiple clouds, in seconds, then delivering information from them securely, wherever and whenever they may be needed.  

Today we’ll examine a few of the many ways AI elevates ERP functionality. 

Transform your business

Perform better with AI-powered ERP.

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AI tailored to modern business needs

ERPs began as ways to plan material flow to ensure smooth manufacturing runs. Today’s supply chains remain as vulnerable as ever to price fluctuations, political turmoil, or natural disasters. In many firms, buyers and procurement teams must handle fluctuations and change response in large volumes of purchase orders involving quantities and delivery dates. They frequently have to examine these orders individually and assess risk to plans and downstream processes. 

Now, ERPs can use AI to quickly assess and rank high- and low-impact changes, allowing teams to rapidly take action to address risk. AI-enabled ERPs like Microsoft Dynamics 365 allow users to handle purchase order changes at scale and quickly communicate with internal and external stakeholders.  

Using natural language, an AI-assistant can bring relevant information into communications apps, keeping all parties apprised of, say, unexpected interruptions in supply due to extreme climate events or local market economics—and able to collaborate to find a rapid solution.  

Planners can proactively stress-test supply chains by simply prompting the AI Assistant with “what-if?” scenarios. Risk managers might ask, “If shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf is interrupted, what are our next fastest supply routes for [material] from [country]?” Empowered with AI’s ability to reason over large volumes of data, make connections, and then deliver recommendations in clear natural language, the right ERP system could help provide alternatives for planners to anticipate looming issues and downgrade risk. 

Learn more about Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.

AI enables better project management 

Supply chain may be where ERPs were born, but we’ve come a long way. ERPs now contribute to the run of business across the organization—and AI can make each of these more powerful.  

Whether you call them project managers or not, every organization has people whose job it is to manage projects. The chief obstacles for project managers typically involve completing projects on time and on budget. An AI-enabled ERP can cut the time project managers spend compiling status reports, planning tasks, and running risk assessments.  

Take Microsoft Copilot for Dynamics 365 Project Operations, for instance. With Copilot, creating new project plans—a task that used to take managers hours to research and write—now takes minutes. Managers can type in a simple description of the project, details of the timeline, budget, and staff availability. Then, Copilot generates a plan. Managers can fine-tune as necessary and launch the project. Along the way, Copilot automatically produces real-time status reports in minutes, identifies risks, and suggests mitigation plans—all of which is updated and adjusted on a continuous basis as the project progresses and new data becomes available. 

Learn more about Copilot for Dynamics 365 for Project Operations.

Follow the money: AI streamlines financial processes  

Timely payments, healthy cash flow, accurate credit information, successful collections—all of these functions are important for competitive vigor. All are part of a robust ERP, and all can be optimized by AI.  

At the top of the organization, real-time, comprehensive snapshots of the company’s financial positions enable leadership agility. But at an ongoing, operational level, AI can improve financial assessments for every department as well. By accessing data streams from across the organization—supply chain, HR, sales, accounts payable, service—AI provides financial planners with the ability to make decisions about budgets, operations planning, cash flow forecasting, or workforce provisioning based on more accurate forecasts and outcomes.  

AI can help planners collaboratively align budgets with business strategy and engage predictive analytics to sharpen forecasts. Anywhere within an ERP enhanced visibility is an advantage, AI provides it—and more visibility enables greater agility. AI can, for instance, mine processes to help optimize operations and find anomalies the human eye might fail to catch.  

An AI-enabled ERP system also elevates the business by closing talent gaps across the organization.  

Learn more about Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP.

The future of smarter: Finding new workflows with generative AI  

These are just a few of the ways AI eases current workflows. The untapped strength of AI in an ERP lies in companies finding new workflows enabled by AI that add value—like predictive maintenance algorithms for machines on a factory floor, or recommendation engines to find new suppliers or partners, or modules that aid in new product design enhanced by customer feedback. 

The future rarely looks simpler than the past. When faced with increasing complexity, a common human adaptation is to compartmentalize, pack information into silos that we can shuffle around in our minds. In a business context, ERP platforms were conceived to integrate those silos with software, so people can manage the individual streams of information the way a conductor brings the pieces of a symphony together, each instrument at the right pitch and volume, in the right time.   

Generative AI helps us to do just that, collecting all the potential inputs and presenting them in a relationship to each other. This frees planners to focus on the big picture and how it all comes together, so we can decide which elements to adjust and where it all goes next.   

Learn more about Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365.

Using generative AI responsibly is critical to the continued acceptance of the technology and the maximizing of its potential. Microsoft has recently released its Responsible AI Transparency Report for 2024. This report details the criteria for how we build applications responsibly, decide when to release generative applications, support our customer in building responsibly, and learn, grow, and evolve our generative AI offerings.   

The post Generative AI in ERP means more accurate planning across the organization   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 

Dynamics 365 release wave

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 today’s rapidly evolving service landscape, organizations must manage their entire operations lifecycle efficiently—from initial client interaction to final service delivery and profitability. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations stands out as the comprehensive solution designed to meet the unique needs of service-centric organizations. It seamlessly integrates service-based operations, from sales and project management to resource allocation and financials, ensuring a smooth journey from prospect to profit.

Dynamics 365 Project Operations: Connect your service-centric organization, effortlessly 

For service-centric businesses, managing operational complexities requires a robust platform that provides end-to-end visibility and control over the entire service lifecycle. Dynamics 365 Project Operations is engineered to fulfill this need. It brings together crucial functions into a single, connected solution, including deal management, project delivery, financials, resource planning, and customer engagement.

With Dynamics 365 Project Operations, service organizations can:

• Enhance client engagement: Manage customer relationships effectively from initial prospecting to project delivery, ensuring consistent and personalized client experiences.
• Streamline project execution: Coordinate and manage complex service delivery processes, ensuring projects are delivered on time, within scope, and on budget.
• Optimize resource allocation: Allocate resources efficiently, balancing demand and capacity to maximize productivity and reduce costs.
• Boost financial performance: Gain deep financial insights to manage project profitability, from budgeting and forecasting to billing and revenue recognition.
• Facilitate collaboration: Connect teams across geographies and functions, fostering collaboration and ensuring access to real-time data and insights.

The crucial role of time tracking

Accurate time tracking is a cornerstone of operational efficiency for service-centric organizations. It directly influences key aspects such as billing, project costing, and overall profitability. Delays or inaccuracies in time entry can ripple through the organization, leading to postponed invoicing, misalignment in project cost tracking, and ultimately, a negative impact on profit margins. Ensuring that time entries are precise and timely is not just a matter of administrative accuracy; it’s a critical factor in maintaining financial health and operational integrity.

Recognizing the importance of efficient time management, Microsoft has introduced a groundbreaking feature within Dynamics 365 Project Operations that aims to revolutionize how service organizations handle time entry.

Introducing Copilot in time entry: Elevating efficiency and accuracy

To address the complexities and challenges associated with time tracking, Dynamics 365 Project Operations now includes a time entry feature, equipped with Microsoft Copilot abilities. This AI-powered assistant is designed to simplify and enhance the time entry process, making it more intuitive, accurate, and less burdensome for employees.

Copilot in time entry

Simplify the time entry experience and reduce steps for project team members

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Revolutionizing time entry with AI

Traditional time entry can be a significant pain point for service organizations. It often involves manual, time-consuming processes prone to errors and inaccuracies. This not only affects financial accuracy but also disrupts project management and resource planning.

Copilot in time entry addresses these challenges by offering an intelligent, AI-driven solution that simplifies the entire process. Here’s how it revolutionizes time entry for service-centric operations:

1. Intelligent suggestions: Copilot uses AI to provide intelligent time entry based on projects and tasks, making it easier to capture time accurately.
2. Context-aware assistance: It offers contextual recommendations, allowing users to input detailed and precise time entries without having to recall every task manually.
3. Streamlined process: By automating repetitive and administrative aspects of time tracking, Copilot frees up employees to focus on higher-value tasks.
4. Reduced errors: The system’s automated checks and suggestions help minimize errors, ensuring that time entries are accurate and compliant with project requirements.

Business outcomes and benefits for service-centric organizations

The Copilot in time entry feature is a game-changer for service-centric organizations, delivering substantial benefits that enhance operational efficiency and financial performance:

1. Boosted productivity and efficiency: By simplifying the time entry process, Copilot allows employees to save time and focus more on delivering high-quality service to clients. This boost in productivity translates into better project outcomes and increased client satisfaction.
2. Enhanced accuracy and compliance: Automated, AI-driven time entries can lead to greater accuracy, reducing the likelihood of discrepancies and errors. This leads to more precise billing, better compliance with contractual terms, and improved financial tracking.
3. Increased employee satisfaction: By reducing the administrative burden associated with time tracking, Copilot improves employee satisfaction. This allows them to concentrate on their core responsibilities, enhancing their engagement and performance.
4. Actionable insights for strategic decision-making: Reliable time tracking data provides valuable insights into resource utilization, project costs, and operational efficiency. This empowers service organizations to make more informed decisions, optimize their processes, and drive strategic growth.

Embracing the future of service operations

The introduction of Copilot in time entry to Dynamics 365 Project Operations highlights Microsoft’s commitment to innovating and enhancing service-centric operations. It showcases how AI can be harnessed to streamline complex processes, reduce administrative overhead, and improve overall efficiency.

For service-centric organizations, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, enriched with Copilot capabilities, is the key to managing the entire lifecycle effectively—from initial client engagement to project completion and beyond. By adopting these advanced tools, businesses can enhance their operational excellence, boost financial performance, and sustain a competitive edge in a rapidly changing market.

Discover how Copilot in time entry can revolutionize your service operations. Learn more about Dynamics 365 Project Operations and explore the transformative potential of AI-driven time tracking by visiting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations.

The post Discover the power of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Project Operations for faster time entry appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

A well-defined data maintenance strategy improves the quality and performance of your database and reduces storage costs. In part one of this series, we covered the roles and responsibilities of your data strategy team, tools for reviewing storage usage, and data management features in Dynamics 365 finance and operations apps that your strategy should include. We recommended that you start your planning by decommissioning unneeded sandbox environments in your tenant. In this post, we focus on creating a data retention strategy for tables as part of your overall storage maintenance strategy.

Create a data retention strategy for tables

After sandbox environments, tables have the greatest impact on total storage volume. Your data maintenance strategy should include a plan for how long to retain the data in specific tables, especially the largest ones—but don’t overlook smaller, easily manageable tables.

Review table storage by data category

In the Power Platform admin center capacity report for the production environment, drill down to the table details.

Identify the largest tables in your production environment. For each one, determine the members of your data strategy team who should be involved and an action based on the table’s data category. The following table provides an example analysis.

Consider whether table data needs to be stored

For each large table, continue your analysis with the following considerations:

• Current business use: Is the data used at all? For instance, was database logging turned on by accident or for a test that’s been completed?
• Retention per environment: Evaluate how long data should be in Dynamics 365 per environment. For instance, your admin might use 30 days of batch history in the production environment to look for trends but would be content with 7 days in a sandbox.
• Data life cycle after Dynamics 365: Can the data be purged? Should it be archived or moved to long-term storage?

With the results of your analysis, your data strategy team can determine a retention strategy for each table.

Implement your data retention strategy

With your data retention strategy in place, you can start implementing the actions you decided on—running standard cleanups, updating retention settings, configuring archive functions, or reaching out to your ISV or customization partner.

Keep in mind that implementing an effective strategy takes time. You need to test the effect of each action in a sandbox environment and coordinate with multiple stakeholders.

As you implement your strategy, here are some best practices to follow:

• Delete or archive data only after all stakeholders have confirmed that it’s no longer required.
• Consider the impact of the data life cycle on customizations, integrations, and reports.
• Choose the date range or the amount of data to target in each cleanup or archive iteration based on the expected duration and performance of the cleanup or archiving routine, as determined by testing in a sandbox.

Need more help?

Creating a data maintenance strategy for Dynamics 365 finance and operations apps is a complex and ongoing task. It requires a thorough analysis and collaboration among different roles and departments. For help or guidance, contact your Microsoft representative for a Dynamics 365 finance and operations storage capacity assessment.

Learn more

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

The post Create a data maintenance strategy for Dynamics 365 finance and operations data (part two) appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Data maintenance—understanding what data needs to be stored where and for how long—can seem like an overwhelming task. Cleanup routines can help, but a good data maintenance strategy will make sure that you’re using your storage effectively and avoiding overages. Data management in Dynamics 365 isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Your strategy will depend on your organization’s implementation and unique data footprint. In this post, the first of a two-part series, we describe the tools and features that are available in Dynamics 365 finance and operations apps to help you create an effective storage maintenance plan. Part two focuses on implementing your plan.

Your data maintenance team

Data maintenance is often thought to be the sole responsibility of system admins. However, managing data throughout its life cycle requires collaboration from all stakeholders. Your data maintenance team should include the following roles:

• Business users. It goes without saying that users need data for day-to-day operations. Involving them in your planning helps ensure that removing old business data doesn’t interfere with business processes.
• BI and reporting team. This team comprehends reporting requirements. They can provide insights into what data is essential for operational reports and should be kept in live storage or can be exported to a data warehouse.
• Customization team. Customizations might rely on data that’s targeted by an out-of-the-box cleanup routine. Your customization partner or ISV should test all customizations and integrations before you run a standard cleanup in the production environment.
• Auditors and controllers. Even financial data doesn’t need to be kept indefinitely. The requirements for how long you need to keep posted data differ by region and industry. The controlling team or external auditors can determine when outdated data can be permanently purged.
• Dynamics 365 system admins. Involving your admins in data maintenance planning allows them to schedule cleanup batch jobs during times when they’re least disruptive. They can also turn on and configure new features.
• Microsoft 365 system admins.The finance and operations storage capacity report in the Power Platform admin center is helpful when you’re creating a data maintenance strategy, and these admins have access to it.

Tools for reviewing storage usage

After you assemble your team, the next step is to gather information about the size and footprint of your organization’s finance and operations data using the following tools:

• The finance and operations storage capacity report shows the storage usage and capacity of your Dynamics 365 environments down to the table level.
• Just-in-time database access allows you to access the database of a sandbox environment that has been recently refreshed from production. Depending on the storage actions you have set up or the time since the last database restore, the sandbox might not exactly match the production environment.

Features for managing storage

A comprehensive data maintenance strategy takes advantage of the data management features of Dynamics 365 finance and operations apps. The following features should be part of your plan.

Environment life cycle management is the process of creating, refreshing, and decommissioning sandbox environments according to your testing and development needs. Review your environments’ storage capacity and usage on the Finance and operations page of the capacity report.

Critically assess the environments and their usage and consider decommissioning sandboxes that you no longer need. For instance, if the system is post go-live, can you retire the training environment? Are performance tests less frequent and easier to run in the QA environment when users aren’t testing?

We highly recommend that you don’t skip the sandbox decommissioning discussion. Reducing the number of sandboxes has a far greater effect on total storage usage than any action that targets a specific table.

Cleanup routines are standard or custom functions that automatically delete temporary or obsolete data from the system.

Retention settings schedule automatic cleanup of certain data after a specified length of time. For example, document history includes a parameter that specifies the number of days to retain history. These cleanup routines might run as batch jobs or behind the scenes, invisible to admins.

Archiving functions move historical data to a separate storage location.

Compression routines reduce the size of data in storage. For example, the Compress payment tokens feature applies compression to stored payment property tokens.

Next step

In this post, we covered the roles and responsibilities of your data strategy team, tools for reviewing database storage, and data management features beyond cleanup routines. We suggested that you begin your planning process by reviewing your sandboxes. In part two, we discuss a strategy for specific tables and actions to take.

Learn more

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

The post Create a data maintenance strategy for Dynamics 365 finance and operations data (part one) appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Dynamics 365 Project Operations has made significant improvements to consistently apply tax calculations and expanded support for scenarios including sales tax across the application. This new functionality standardizes behavior and establishes common rules to simplify how taxes are calculated and ensures consistency in how cost price, sales price, and taxes interact together. Read on for more information.  

Streamline cost price and sales price calculations 

With the 10.0.32 release, the Streamline cost price and sales price calculations feature is available to be enabled in your Dynamics 365 environment. With this change, improvements have been made to project-related scenarios in the following areas: 

• Purchase orders and vendor invoices created in combination with the general ledger parameter for applying taxation rules 
• Purchase orders and vendor invoices in combination with posting with amounts including sales tax 
• Tax involving use tax 
• Funding source limits 
• Committed costs 
• Purchase order corrections 
• Adds support for “amount include sales tax” in the Purchase Order header 

Let’s dive into the basics of how sales and costs interact. This feature and scenarios are targeting the Dynamics 365 Project Operations for production/stocked deployment model. For any project expense type transaction, Dynamics 365 can modify the sales price dynamically based on one of several factors defined in the sales price – expense form. One of the commonly used methods is to apply a charges percentage markup, to mark up all costs by a set amount. For example, a 5% markup on all expenses which makes a $1000 expense invoiceable at $1050 by defaulting that sales price in the vendor invoice which will later transfer to our customer invoice.  

Next, we want to understand how taxes impact costs. The two scenarios below are situations where taxes should be included in the project cost.  

• Legal entities with the sales tax parameter Sales taxation rules is enabled. Typically, this is US-based legal entities.  
• Legal entities with non-deductible tax percentages. This non-deductible tax is always included in the project cost. 

Let’s look at some specific examples to understand how prices and taxes are calculated. For these examples, the tax percentage is set to 5% and there is a sales price 5% markup on cost price. We will follow the document flow of a purchase order through to a vendor invoice and review the financial impact in the posted project transactions form.  

Similarly, these same rules apply when determining the project cost and sales price when entering a purchase order with an amount that already includes sales tax. In the case of the purchase order or vendor invoice, there is an option in the header that prices include sales tax to indicate the amount entered should be inclusive of tax and the base amount and tax need to be calculated from the entered amount. Since the actual cost and sales price may include a markup of tax, the amounts entered for sales price and cost will be recalculated and different values will be posted in the final voucher. Consider the examples below with the same 5% tax rate and 5% markup described earlier: 

Check it out for yourself 

In conclusion, this new feature is available in Dynamics 365 10.0.32 and later releases. Enable the Streamline sales tax calculations with project cost and sales price feature in your test environment and look for yourself.  

Additional documentation 

For more information, see https://aka.ms/ProjEnableStreamlineCostAndSalesPriceCalcFeature.

The post Improved Project sales tax capabilities now available 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.

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) 

The post 2024 release wave 1 kicks off with hundreds of AI-powered capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

End of support for Project Service Automation (PSA 3.x)

In April 2022, November 2022 and April 2023 release waves we announced the availability of the first, second and third and final phase of upgrade experiences from Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation to Dynamics 365 Project Operations. With the third and final phase of upgrade experiences, it is now possible to upgrade projects of any size to Project Operations.  Today, we are announcing the deprecation of Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation or PSA 3.x.  

As of March 31st 2025, Microsoft will no longer be supporting the PSA application. Beyond this date, there will not be any feature enhancements, updates, bug fixes or other updates to this application. Any support ticket logged on the PSA application will be closed with instructions to upgrade to Dynamics 365 Project Operations.   

We strongly encourage all customers of PSA application to start planning your upgrade process as soon as possible so you can take advantage of many new Project Operations features such as:  

• Integration with Project for the Web with many new advanced scheduling features 
• Project Budgeting and Time-phased forecasting   
• Date Effective price overrides  
• Revision and Activation on Quotes    
• Material usage recording in projects and tasks  
• Subcontract Management  
• Advances and Retained-based contracts  
• Contract not-to-exceed  
• Task and Progress based billing  
• Multi-customer contracts  
• AI and Copilot based experiences.  

Upgrade documentation and FAQ links 

Upgrade from Project Service Automation to Project Operations | Microsoft Learn 

Project Service Automation end of life FAQ | Microsoft Learn   

Feature changes from Project Service Automation to Project Operations | Microsoft Learn 

Project Service Automation to Project Operations project scheduling conversion process | Microsoft Learn 

Plan your work in Microsoft Project with the Project Operations add-in | Microsoft Learn 

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Project Operations 

Project Operations was first released in October 2020 as a comprehensive product to manage Projects from inception to close by bringing together the strengths of Dataverse, F&O and Project for the web assets. Want to learn more about Project Operations? Check this link and navigate to our detailed documentation!  

Want to try Project Operations? Click here and sign up for a 30 days trial!  

Thank you 

Rupa Mantravadi 

GPM, D365 Project Operations 

The post Announcing End of Support for Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.