Enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms were designed to help integrate the fragmented processes that comprise the operation of a large enterprise. But the way we do business keeps fundamentally changing. New business models disrupt the way companies sell products and services, blurring industry lines and transforming customer experiences.

Business complexity continues to intensify, and the rise of data as a driver of business—plus the attendant proliferation of data streams—means reaping the full promise of comprehensive ERP platforms can still be elusive.

In fact, according to a Gartner® Research report, “by 2027, less than 30% of customers who adopted new solutions from ERP platform mega-vendors will have proven their original adoption business case.”¹

The arrival of generative AI brings hope of renewed promise. AI is elevating performance and creating advantages for those who understand how to apply it to data-centric systems like ERP platforms. By 2027, according to the same Gartner report, at least 50 percent of ERP systems with AI-enabled features will be enabled through generative AI capabilities.¹

People often think of generative AI as a tool to automate routine tasks, but its capabilities are so much broader. Improved decision-making is an area where AI becomes a valuable tool. In fact, a report from the market research firm IDC found that, by mid-2024, 30% of global organizations will take advantage of human-like interfaces in their enterprise applications to gain more insights quickly, improving decision velocity.²

While AI can inform and enhance any number of operations across an enterprise, it’s worth looking at some specific processes in detail to see how much AI can elevate ERP solutions. Learn more about current trends in ERP platform modernization in the age of generative AI in this webinar.

How AI creates a better plan-to-produce process

Most manufacturing firms implement a plan for how they will schedule production runs to meet materials capacity, deliver quality products on time, and maintain cost-effectiveness.

Sometimes, though, this plan-to-produce process becomes an accretion of good ideas at the time, a fragmented assemblage of tools and strategies trying to work together to paint the big picture of what’s happening on the production floor. This can lead to quality control issues, and manpower and equipment shortages that fail to meet production surges, or inaccurate forecasts that waste resources or leave customers high and dry—among other issues.

Generative AI integrated with a robust ERP system can aggregate data from across an enterprise—even data residing in multiple clouds—in real time, so managers have a clear picture of the state of play at any given moment, allowing them to reduce lead times necessary to plan or alter production runs.

The complicated interdependence of tasks on a manufacturing floor—for example, Part A must be installed before Part B can be attached—is a perfect puzzle for AI to help solve. The predictive analytics capacity of generative AI allows it to better forecast demand and synch production with supplies, and then optimize timing to match resource availability with manpower. AI can also forecast and build scenarios for supply chain disruption or changes in demand.

Whether a manufacturer needs to increase production volume to meet increasing demand or build whole new facilities, AI excels at building scalable networks, finding efficiencies, and reducing costly interventions.

Learn more about how Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and other applications optimize the plan-to-produce process.

Optimizing the procure-to-pay process

Another process most large organizations seek to optimize is the integration of procurement with accounts payable. When you need to spend the money, it’s good to know that you have the money. IDC reports that, by mid-2025, 70% of global businesses will use embedded financing to collect and make payments.²

More than most industries, healthcare organizations must reckon with a complex field of myriad payers, purchasers, and suppliers. Healthcare organizations face layers of challenging regulatory compliance and the need to control ever-rising costs. Many organizations in this field still rely on antiquated, paper-based invoicing and payables.

Fragmented processes and siloed data make regulatory issues more fraught, while also increasing attack surfaces to create security risks. AI can remove complexities by integrating processes in one ERP platform, helping to reduce vulnerabilities. By mapping operations to standards, AI supports compliance efforts, efficiently creating the audit trails and tedious reports that often take staff hours to produce.

AI streamlines procurement, reducing the potential for human error present when ordering supplies and equipment from a diverse range of providers. It tracks expenses to help control costs, providing easily accessible price information about competing products and services so the organization can continually find cost efficiencies.

An ERP solution enhanced with AI allows planners to automate the maintenance of inventory with both real-time and predictive information, reducing the risk of stockouts or overstock situations and more effectively communicating with suppliers.

Quicker quote-to-cash with personalization and automation

AI integrates and improves the sales, finance, and supply elements of an ERP platform by increasing automation in negotiations, contract lifecycles, production, order management, billing, and delivery. For businesses with retail components, making the quote-to-cash cycle faster and more accurate creates efficiencies—which can help keep customers happier.

Automating price and quote information speeds up the resolution of even highly complex deals. The same is true once a quote is accepted—an accurate, automatically generated proposal follows immediately. AI-generated purchase orders and invoices free sellers to spend more time interacting with customers and accounting teams to focus on tasks that increase the organization’s productivity.

AI’s predictive analytics ensure on-time delivery of products but also allow firms to quickly identify current and future trends and make data-driven decisions about ordering and pricing. Automating invoicing tracks payments accurately and creates a real-time picture of cash flow. AI can continually improve cash flow forecasts by comparing projections with results and adjusting from the outcomes over time. And analytics enabled by AI offer suggestions for improving sales performance and strategic decisions.

Learn more about how Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance optimizes the quote-to-cash and other retail business processes.

Get more from your business data with AI-enabled ERP processes

Across the organization, optimizing finance and supply chains can create a connected enterprise that allows enterprises to infuse AI, automation, and analytics into ERP processes. Today, companies can confidently move to the cloud with AI-powered ERP solutions, modernize business processes, and unlock the agility needed to lead the way in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace. 

A recent Forrester Research study interviewed IT leaders and professionals who had experience using Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software.³ Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that has 5,000 employees and generates USD1 billion in annual revenue. Forrester found that, over a three-year period, the value added to the composite included:

• USD1.2 million in increased profitability from real-time visibility and enhanced decision-making.
• USD8.9 million in increased productivity from unified data access, streamlined processes, automated workflows, and other gained efficiencies.
• USD3.9 million in reduced infrastructure and IT operations spend from cloud migration.
• USD8.9 million in productivity improvements in finance/accounting, supply chain/logistics, and other personnel.

The study estimated a net present value of USD8.1 million and an ROI of 106%, as well as additional benefits like an improved cybersecurity posture and enhanced employee experiences. The composite organization would pay back its investment in Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software in 17 months.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software

Learn more about the total economic impact of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software

Read the report

AI-enabled ERP platforms allow you to protect, connect, and get more from your business data while gaining security. With the right ERP solution, you can scale globally to drive business expansion and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) while ensuring regulatory compliance, supercharging productivity, and realizing the business impacts of generative AI even faster.

Sources

¹ Predicts 2024: ERP Evolves Planning With Automation and AI, Denis Torii, Gartner Research, April 5, 2024

² IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Intelligent ERP 2024 Predictions, doc #US51300923, October 2023

³ The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP, Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Dynamics 365 ERP, a Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study commissioned By Microsoft, April 2024

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

The post Transforming ERP, and the speed of business, with generative AI appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We are thrilled to announce the public preview of Approvals management in Dynamics 365 in release 10.0.41. Approvals management is a mobile experience that unifies approval workflows across the Dynamics 365 product family. Along with Approvals management, we are releasing approval workflows for purchase orders and purchase requisitions in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.

Add flexibility and efficiency with Approvals management mobile experience

Users who are responsible for approving purchase requisitions and purchase orders are now empowered with a mobile experience, built in Power Apps, that adds flexibility, efficiency, resiliency, and responsiveness to the approval process. Supported activities include approvals related to purchase requisitions, requisition lines, purchase orders, and order lines.

Next steps

Want to learn more about the new Approvals management mobile experience? Check out the release announcement: Approve POs and requisitions from mobile device

Get started today: Approvals Management mobile app overview (preview)

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

The post Approve on the go with Dynamics 365 Approvals management 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.

View the infographic

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.

Introduction 

In fast-paced, complex supply chain environments, ensuring product quality throughout the journey from supplier to customer is more critical than ever. We’re excited to address this with a powerful new feature in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management Landed Cost module, enabling quality control for goods in-transit orders. 

Addressing a Critical Gap in Supply Chain Management 

Traditionally, quality control measures in supply chain management focus on initial stages of production and receipt of purchase orders at their final destination. We see a growing need for more comprehensive quality assurance processes covering all phases, including the in-transit phase. Now, businesses can conduct quality checks on goods while they are in transit. This new feature ensures product integrity throughout the entire supply chain journey. 

How it works 

The quality control for goods in-transit feature is seamlessly integrated into the Dynamics 365 SCM framework. Here’s how it enhances the supply chain process: 

Setup of Goods in transit order in Quality associations: Businesses can now define goods in-transit order as a new quality association type with pre-defined event blocking approach.  This proactive measure ensures any potential quality issues can be identified and addressed before the goods reach their final destination.

Automatic Quality order creation: During the Goods in-transit order registration/receive operation, depends on the previous step’s configuration, the corresponding quality order will automatically create to reflect the quality control.

Order control and release: Depending on the configuration, the quality order completeness will block the downstream business operation if it’s not passed. This control makes it easy for businesses to adopt and implement without significant changes to their current quality control processes for Goods in-transit order.

Benefits of Quality Control for Goods In-Transit

While the enhanced return receiving process in Dynamics 365 SCM represents a significant leap forward, transparency is key. We have multiple planned backlogs coming soon, such as:

Implementing quality control for goods in-transit offers several significant advantages:

• Enhanced Supply Chain Reliability: By ensuring quality at every stage, businesses can significantly reduce the risk of receiving defective or non-compliant goods.
• Cost Efficiency: Early detection of quality issues minimizes the need for costly rework or returns, leading to substantial cost savings.
• Regulatory Compliance: The feature supports compliance with various regulatory standards, ensuring that products meet all necessary legal requirements.
• Improved Customer Satisfaction: Delivering high-quality products consistently enhances customer trust and satisfaction, ultimately driving business growth.

Conclusion

The introduction of quality control for goods in-transit orders in Microsoft Dynamics 365 SCM represents a significant advancement in supply chain management. It empowers businesses to ensure product quality at every stage of the supply chain, from production to final delivery. By adopting this feature, companies can enhance their supply chain integrity, reduce costs, comply with regulatory standards, and deliver superior products to their customers.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to innovate and expand the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics 365 SCM to meet the evolving needs of the global supply chain.

Call to action

Enable the feature: Turn on the Landed cost module and related features for your system – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

Learning Article:   Quality orders – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

The post Enhancing Supply Chain Integrity: introducing quality control for goods in-transit orders in Dynamics 365 SCM  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Introduction

Companies are increasingly facing regulatory and consumer requirements for traceability. Traceability ensures product compliance with regulations, captures sustainability metrics, and even demonstrates commitment to ethical sourcing and manufacturing practices. Traceability has long been critical for companies in industries like food and beverage, aerospace, and life sciences. Now, it’s also coming to the forefront for many emerging or developing industries.  

Traceability in Dynamics 365 enables your business to track product genealogy information and custody events. It can also collect data against unique identifiers such as serial numbers and batch numbers. Built on the Microsoft platform, it allows you to connect to any sources of traceability data across your business. This allows you to quickly access the data you need to support your genealogy requirements. The intuitive user interface provides multiple options to view the data and Copilot summaries to drive insights to actions.

With Traceability, businesses can reduce the time and cost of completing product recalls and pass regulatory audits with ease. Traceability helps businesses use insights to improve product quality and increase customer satisfaction. We are pleased to announce the Traceability add-in for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is now available in preview. 

Benefits 

Improving product traceability in your business can help with the following areas:

Capabilities 

Traceability offers the following capabilities as part of the preview release:

Genealogy trace reporting 

One out-of-the-box reports offered with Traceability is the genealogy trace report. Search for any batch or serial number and view the multi-level bill of materials of the batch or serial item. The graphical interface drills in quickly to any of the specific components or view further details of relevant attributes and events tracked on the traced item. 

Where-used reporting with Copilot summary  

If companies need to recall products quickly and efficiently, the where-used reporting allows quick views of any items that have consumed a batch or serial component in your manufacturing process. Coming in Wave 2 2024, Copilot will provide summaries of where-used products, so you can assess the impact and scope of a recall much faster. With Copilot-summarized impacted goods and suggested next steps, QA managers will feel informed and competent because they can quickly view a list of impacted finished goods, evaluate the impact, and take the right action for those goods offline. 

Microsoft Platform architecture 

Traceability is built on the Microsoft platform, so it connectsto any product genealogy or traceability system in your network, like quality management systems, manufacturing execution systems, or third-party ERP systems. The backend uses a managed Azure Data Lake to retain the data, so you can rest easy knowing you’ll have long-term access.  

Native integration with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management 

Traceability is part of Dynamics 365 SCM, so product genealogy data captured in Dynamics 365 is shared natively with Traceability. This now includes linking specific batch and serial components to batch and serial produced items with release of the tracked components feature in April 2024. Coming next is support for additional modules like Procurement, Sales, Asset management, Quality management, and more. 

Scenario Example

Contoso-EV, an electric vehicle manufacturer, recently received customer complaints about power attenuation in their latest model. After root cause analysis, the quality engineer identified that this issue was caused by a specific batch of batteries. The solution is to replace the battery pack. 

Quality engineers use the “Where-used” report in Traceability to search for vehicle identification numbers (VIN) associated with defective batteries. From sales order activity tracking, Traceability helps the quality engineer find cars sold to customers or dealerships as a subset of all cars sold by Contoso. This saves engineer from having to review every single car sold to identify which are impacted by the battery issue. The engineer uses the “Item trace” report to identify the vendor who sold the defective batteries and opens a non-conformance, ensuring the issue does not happen again. 

The quality engineer orchestrates a coordinated response involving the sales team to inform customers and dealerships of the issue, with Contoso-EV committing to complimentary repair services. With Traceability in Dynamics 365 SCM, Contoso rapidly identifies issues in their products and deploys the fix, improving customer satisfaction. 

Conclusion

The Traceability add-in for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management heralds advanced insights, sophisticated data modeling, and robust track and trace storage capabilities. It seamlessly integrates with Dynamics 365 SCM and extends public API support for third-party integration. This innovation amplifies transparency and control, underpins regulatory compliance with centralized data management, and elevates customer satisfaction and trust in suppliers’ brand reputations.

Call to action

Please join the Yammer group to communicate with others and refer to help for detailed information. Any questions? Please contact Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Traceability for support.  

The post Introducing Traceability add-in for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management  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

Learn more

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

Learn more

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.

As enterprises are asked to manage increasingly complex business processes and data environments, context-aware AI summarization by Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 streamlines operations by synthesizing data from multiple sources across Supply Chain Management, Finance, Commerce, and Human Resources. By delivering clear, actionable insights from ERP data, this generative AI feature eliminates context-switching and allows users to make better decisions faster.

Transformative AI summarization in Dynamics 365

Copilot generative AI features are revolutionizing the user experience in Supply Chain Management, Finance, Commerce, and Human Resources. Insights that used to require literally dozens of clicks, searches, and views in multiple windows—and a lot of deep thinking about complex data—are now presented to the right user, at the right time, automatically. Let’s take a closer look at how Copilot aggregates data from multiple sources and displays it in easily digestible and context-aware summaries.

Vendor summary streamlines understanding of vendor performance and financials

What do we mean by “context-aware”? One meaning is that Copilot summarizes data based on the user’s role to deliver real-time, role-specific insights. Take the vendor summary, for example. Traditionally, procurement managers had to navigate multiple forms to understand vendor performance. Copilot summaries streamline these insights by providing quick access to crucial information, such as active contracts, purchase orders, late deliveries, and overdue payments. For accounts payable teams, however, the vendor summary presents essential financial details about a vendor. For both roles, the vendor summary enables faster, data-driven decisions for better vendor interactions.

Sales order and purchase order summaries pinpoint critical items in open orders

Another perspective on “context-aware” is AI summarization based on task. Consider purchase and sales orders. Procurement and sales teams often spend significant time following up on open orders. Getting a comprehensive overview or pinpointing lines that need attention can be challenging, because the necessary data is typically spread across multiple forms. Copilot summaries consolidate the information, enabling users to easily identify critical items.

It’s not just about summarizing data, though. AI summarization also facilitates quicker action on next steps. Copilot’s summary includes convenient one-click filtering options, allowing users to swiftly access the information they need to act.

Customer summary streamlines insights by role for more effective customer relationships

When it comes to customer information, “context-aware” refers to everything that creates a relationship between an organization and its customers—information that’s often found in multiple, disparate tables, reports, and modules. Copilot addresses the challenges faced by roles such as accounts receivable agents, sales order agents, and customer account managers, who need comprehensive and role-specific information about customers that’s often scattered across multiple systems. For example, while accounts receivable teams need quick access to open invoices, sales order teams require details on open orders and shipments. Copilot consolidates all relevant data into a single, context-aware summary that’s specific to each role, allowing agents and account managers to tailor their interactions with customers, strengthen relationships, and enhance operational efficiency.

Warehouse worker home screen brings warehouse teams up to speed quickly

“Context-aware” can also refer to a user’s surroundings and situation. Warehouse start-of-shift stand-up meetings can miss important updates, and they don’t cover changes that happen throughout the day. Copilot’s dynamic operational summary on the Warehouse Management home screen brings warehouse workers up to speed at the start of their shifts and keeps them on top of the situation as they go about their day, helping them quickly adapt to changes and ensure daily goals are met.

Workflow history summary streamlines review and approval of invoices and expense reports

AI summarization streamlines examination of workflows by providing a concise overview of recent actions and comments, allowing approvers to quickly act without navigating through separate detail screens. Copilot summaries apply to workflows in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Finance, Commerce, and Human Resources, aiding review and approval processes and supporting informed decisions for things like vendor invoices, time-off requests, and expense reports.

Product preview summary consolidates product details for quick consumption

Procurement managers typically must navigate multiple forms to gather product details such as name, description, dimensions, hierarchy, life cycle state, and release policy. Copilot consolidates this information and other key product attributes in a single, concise summary, making these details quick and easy to consume.

Product detail summary streamlines inventory management

When a warehouse manager views the product detail page, Copilot’s summary focuses on relevant information that would take multiple clicks to find, such as on-hand inventory levels, purchase information like main vendor, and batch numbers that are expiring soon.

Employee workspace summary makes leave management easier for both HR and employees

An organization’s success relies on both employees and customers. Effective time-off management is crucial for employees to make informed decisions and for the organization to optimize time-off utilization and manage financial liabilities from unused leave. Time-off information is scattered across multiple screens in the employee self-service portal. Copilot consolidates key details like vacation and sick leave balances and potential forfeitures due to policy, and includes a link to submit leave requests, all in one summary view.

Retail statement summary provides insights about risky transactions across multiple stores

Physical stores send cash-and-carry transactions to Dynamics 365 Commerce for inventory and financial updates. The store operations team must ensure proper posting, but identifying pending transactions can be difficult across multiple stores. Summaries of posted and unposted retail statements highlight stores needing attention and flag risky transactions like returns without receipts or price overrides. Brief error summaries for failed statements aid in quick resolution, enhancing store management efficiency.

Merchandise workflow summary streamlines managing product configurations

For retail merchandisers, the challenge lies in managing complex product configurations without errors. Copilot addresses this challenge by streamlining merchandising workflows, offering a clear summary of settings, automating data validation, and providing a risk preview to anticipate issues. Here, context-aware AI summarization enhances efficiency, reduces the risk of lost sales, and drives growth.

More benefits of context-aware AI summarization of ERP data

Beyond the specific benefits we described earlier, Copilot summaries in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Finance, Commerce, and Human Resources enhance user experience and operational efficiency in multiple ways.

• Enhanced productivity: With key data points automatically summarized, users spend less time analyzing vast datasets and can focus on strategic decision-making and core activities.
• Proactive problem-solving: With real-time summaries, users can anticipate challenges and address them proactively, improving business agility and resilience.
• Improved accuracy and insight: Copilot highlights critical information and trends, reducing the risk of human error in interpreting complex data. Analysis is more accurate and insightful, crucial for effective decision-making.
• Customized user experiences: Each summarization feature is tailored to the specific needs of different roles within an organization, ensuring that every user receives the most relevant and actionable insights.
• Seamless integration: AI features integrate seamlessly into your existing Dynamics 365 framework, providing a smooth user experience without the need for extensive setup or training.
• Scalable decision support: Whether for small tasks or large-scale strategic decisions, Copilot summaries meet the needs of businesses of all sizes, scenarios, and requirements.

These benefits collectively contribute to a more streamlined, efficient, and informed ERP environment, setting the stage for more advanced AI features to come.

Introducing generative AI responsibly

Integrating generative AI into ERP products presents challenges. It requires ensuring that the AI features are reliable and robust enough for mission-critical business settings. It also requires building customer trust in the AI capabilities. Our vision is an autonomous ERP system that automates and optimizes business processes with minimal human intervention. However, this is a journey we’re embarking on together to instill confidence in the results and encourage greater adoption over time.

Our approach is to gradually introduce low-risk AI features that provide immediate benefits and time savings, gather user feedback, and build excitement. This way, we can improve the AI features based on user needs and business operations, laying the foundation for more advanced AI features in the future. We prioritize the safe deployment and continuous improvement of AI features in our ERP suite and are leading the way for responsible and impactful integration of AI in the ERP landscape.

Ensuring the ethical use of AI technology

Microsoft is committed to the ethical deployment of AI technologies. Through our Responsible AI practices, we ensure that all AI-powered features in Dynamics 365 adhere to stringent data privacy laws and ethical AI usage standards, promoting transparency, fairness, and accountability.

Learn more about AI summarization in Dynamics 365

Interested in learning more about the power of AI summarization to transform your business processes with unparalleled efficiency and insight? Here’s how you can dive deeper:

• Watch a brief video demonstrating the new AI summarization feature.
• Read the documentation to understand the specifics of each Copilot summarization feature:
  • AI summaries with Copilot in Supply Chain Management
  • Customer page summary in Finance
  • Enable Copilot statement posting summaries – Commerce | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn
  • Workflow history summary in Finance
  • Employee self service leave summary – Human Resources | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn
• Engage with other Dynamics 365 users in our community forums to learn from their experiences and share your own.

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

The post AI summarization in Dynamics 365 synthesizes and simplifies complex data appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Editor: Denis Conway

Introduction

This blog post is a follow-up to the Leverage Warehouse management only mode to optimize your business blog post. Warehouse management only mode was presented as a transformative tool for enhancing warehouse operations without the need for extensive system overhauls. Warehouse management only mode improves efficiency, and flexibility within existing infrastructure. The preview release of Warehouse management only mode was explored to discover its potential in revolutionizing warehouse management practices.

In this blog post you will learn about how a wholesaler used the Warehouse management only mode feature in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to handle shared warehouse operations for multiple sales subsidiaries.

Business requirements

The client’s requirement was to distribute product master data among all sales subsidiaries, and to restrict each one to managing only their own physical inventory in the same distribution centre (DC) building. The DC building needed to handle all inbound, outbound, and correction updates for all sales subsidiaries.

Implementation

The client chose to use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management in a single-instance deployment model. They set up a separate legal entity for each sales subsidiary and an additional legal entity for distribution.

The implementation uses an inventory owner dimension for each sales subsidiary to control the physical inventory in the DC for the same item numbers. This ensures that the DC only allows shipping an item when physical inventory exists for the related legal entity.

The distribution legal entity maps item numbers using a dedicated source system record to define the source system items.

Each sales subsidiary has an external warehouse linked to the DC building in the distribution legal entity.

The system automatically creates inbound and outbound shipment orders each time a sales subsidiary releases purchase and sales orders against the DC.

The DC can combine several shipment orders from different sales subsidiaries into a single load and report back via an external warehouse shipment order updates message to each of the legal entities, when it completes the receiving or shipping of the requested inventory.

In each sales subsidiary an automated process updates the related purchase and sales order line transactions, so each sales subsidiary can continue with the order processing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the integration of Warehouse management 0nly mode within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management has effectively addressed the intricate demands of the wholesaler, facilitating streamlined management of shared warehouse operations across multiple sales subsidiaries. Through the utilization of this advanced feature, the client has realized significant improvements in efficiency and flexibility within their existing infrastructure.

The establishment of separate legal entities, coupled with meticulous configuration of inventory owner dimensions and source system mappings, has ensured seamless management of physical inventory for each sales subsidiary within the distribution centre. Moreover, the automation of inbound and outbound shipment orders, alongside the capability to consolidate multiple orders into a single delivery, has greatly enhanced logistics processes and overall operational efficiency.

As a result, the wholesaler is positioned to capitalize on the benefits of this implementation, with optimized warehouse management practices fostering smoother operations and laying the foundation for future growth and success. Don’t miss this opportunity to try out this feature and see how it can transform your business. 

Learn More

Try out the preview release today and get ready to experience the power of Warehouse management only mode.

To learn more about how Warehouse management only mode works and how to set it up, see Warehouse management only mode in Supply Chain Management.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management capabilities

Modernize your supply chain to enhance visibility, improve planning, streamline procurement, and optimize fulfilment – Learn More

The post Maximizing Efficiency: Operating an External Shared Warehouse with Warehouse Management Only Mode appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Editor: Denis Conway

Empower your manufacturing journey with Tracked Components: Unveiling the future of precision, compliance, and efficiency in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Introduction

We’re thrilled to unveil the public preview of our latest feature, Tracked Components, as part of our manufacturing capabilities in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. This feature, released in version 10.0.40 on April 26 2024, streamlines the process of registering batch and serial numbers for components used in manufacturing processes, seamlessly matching them to the batch and serial numbers for the finished products being produced.

Enhanced track and trace capabilities in manufacturing offer a compelling value proposition. They provide real-time visibility into the supply chain, ensuring quality control, regulatory compliance, risk mitigation, enhanced productivity, and improved customer satisfaction. These systems empower manufacturers to optimize operations, reduce errors, and base decisions on data, ultimately leading to increased efficiency and superior products.

Boosting Manufacturing Precision with Tracked Components

At Contoso Inc., Jody, responsible for assembling loudspeakers, must register the serial numbers of the components used and match them to the speaker’s serial number during assembly.

Jody selects the assembly job she is working on in the Production Floor Execution interface and open the Tracked components page. First, Jody scans the serial number of the speaker, and then the serial numbers of the two tracked components used in the assembly. The association between the serial numbers of the components and the serial number of the speaker is now complete. As Jody completes the assembly job, all the serial numbers Jody registered are automatically deducted from inventory and consumed.

During quality inspection, an issue is discovered with on one of the speakers Jody assembled early that day. Peter, the quality supervisor, opens the Item tracing report and scans the serial number of the affected speaker to trace the component serial numbers used for further inspection.

Additional information

• Batch and serial numbers can be registered as tracked components in both production and batch orders.
• This feature is accessible in both the web client and the production floor execution interface. Within the web client, the interface for registering tracked components is accessible from various points such as routes, jobs, picking list journals, start and report as finished dialogs, and the current operations page.
• Batch and serial numbers can be registered using either the keyboard or barcode scanning operations. The feature supports GS1 barcodes, enhancing efficiency by reducing the number of scans required during the registration process.
• This feature is prepared for integration to the Traceability add-in for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. The Traceability feature (coming in 2024) seamlessly integrates with the tracked components feature, offering visibility into the genealogy tree, also known as the As-Built BOM structure. This integration enables tracking of the assembly process throughout manufacturing. Furthermore, the feature includes forward and backward search capabilities against the genealogy tree. This empowers manufacturers to not only trace product histories but also manage component associations with greater precision.

Key Business benefits to utilizing Tracked Components

Benefits of Introducing Tracked Components in Manufacturing for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management:

• Enhanced Efficiency: Tracked Components streamline the process of registering batch and serial numbers for components used in manufacturing processes. This efficiency boost translates into time savings and smoother operations on the production floor.
• Improved Quality Control: With real-time visibility into the supply chain, manufacturers can ensure that components meet quality standards before they are used in production. This proactive approach minimizes the risk of defects and rework, ultimately improving the overall quality of the finished products.
• Regulatory Compliance: Tracked Components help manufacturers stay compliant with regulations by providing accurate documentation of component usage and traceability throughout the production process. This ensures that products meet regulatory requirements, reducing the risk of fines or penalties.
• Risk Mitigation: By enabling quick and accurate tracing of component serial numbers, manufacturers can promptly identify and address any issues that arise during production. This proactive approach minimizes the impact of potential disruptions and reduces the risk of product recalls or warranty claims.
• Enhanced Productivity: The seamless integration of Tracked Components into existing workflows allows manufacturers to optimize operations and minimize errors. This increased productivity translates into faster production cycles and higher output levels, ultimately improving overall efficiency.
• Improved Customer Satisfaction: With better quality control and more efficient production processes, manufacturers can deliver products that meet or exceed customer expectations. This leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction and strengthens relationships with clients.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Tracked Components for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management offer a significant boost to manufacturing efficiency and transparency. This feature enables seamless batch and serial number registration and tracing, ensuring quality control and enhancing productivity. With real-time visibility and barcode scanning support, it streamlines operations and integrates seamlessly into existing workflows. The integration with the Traceability add-in further enhances functionality, promising improved efficiency and compliance. Overall, Tracked Components revolutionize manufacturing processes, optimizing operations and customer satisfaction.

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Modernize your supply chain to enhance visibility, improve planning, streamline procurement, and optimize fulfilment: Supply Chain Management | Microsoft Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 increases agility and resilience through supply chain modernization. Plan with confidence, maximize asset uptime and streamline fulfilment to improve overall profitability learn more here with our Supply Chain Modernization Guided Tour

Learn more about how to register and track batch/serial numbers for finished products and their components (preview) – Documentation

The post Introducing Tracked components for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Editor: Denis Conway

Introduction:

The introduction of the Automatic re-waving of shipment lines failed to be allocated is solving issue where failed lines needed to be handled manually in the “Maintain shipments” form. This feature empowers warehouse managers to schedule checks for incomplete shipments to be re-waved and completed. In the past, this would have been a manual task for a warehouse manager to manage, actively going through a list of incomplete shipment lines and manually reprocessing them for the shipments to be completed. This process was time-consuming every time an exception happened, and lines did not manage to allocate inventory.  
A scenario where this could occur would be if inventory levels in a specific picking location were not available. If that was the case, the system would previously add that failed shipment to a list of incomplete shipments, which a warehouse manager would then have to manually manage.  

 With the Auto Add to Shipments feature, failed shipment lines will be automatically re-added to a new wave, ending the need for manual exception handling.  
Warehouse administrators have the flexibility to configure this as a batch job. This type of exception management allows our outbound processes to continue even when unforeseen accidents or events occur, without need for hours of manual labor spent on reprocessing the failed waves.  

Image: Warehouse Manager reviewing inventory

In this image, we get a screenshot of the Auto add shipments to wave menu, where the user can do a variety of things, but most importantly we can set up the recurrence for how often we want our failed shipments to be re-run.  

As we can see on the Auto add shipments to wave menu, there is a field named WHS rewave counter and has a default setting of 5. This means that we will only be able to re-wave our shipments a maximum of 5 times. If there is a scenario where we would like this shipment to be re-waved even after the fifth attempt, users can add a shipment ID manually through this page, which enables these previously failed shipment lines for another five re-wave attempts.  

 We can see on the image below that in the form “WHSWaveProcessingRemovedShipment” that one shipment line has failed, and we receive an error message that gives us a hint on why this happened. As we can see, the Shipment status is still “open”, which means the shipment will not be removed from the table. In the WHS rewave counter column there is a 0, which tells us we have not yet tried to re-run that shipment. In the Wave ID field, we can also see the Wave that was affected.

In the image below, we get a snapshot of what the set up for the removal of re-waved shipment lines from the earlier mentioned form looks like. On this screen, users can set up when and how often the re-waving cleanup job should run.

How does the cleanup job work?

The cleanup job was introduced to this feature to avoid failed shipment lines being stuck in the “WHSWaveProcessingRemovedShipmentCleanup” form if they could not be re-waved. Users do not have to set up a cleanup job for the Auto add to shipments feature, however, that means that the staging form will hold lots of shipment lines that have not been re-waved successfully after the maximum number of attempts. The cleanup job will remove lines from the form either via the Cleanup wave threshold field or the Last update older than given number field. This allows users to choose whether they want to remove that line from the form either through a re-wave threshold or after a certain number of days have passed.

In the Cleanup rewave threshold field, users can select how many times they want their shipment lines to be re-waved before they are removed from the ‘WHSWaveProcessingRemovedShipment‘ form.
That means, even as we have the default setting of five attempted re-waves, the cleanup job can remove shipments from the ‘WHSWaveProcessingRemovedShipment’ form earlier than after 5 attempts, by selecting a number lower than 5.
This can be useful if you would only like failed shipment lines to be re-waved a maximum of let’s say 3 times, before they are removed from the ‘WHSWaveProcessingRemovedShipment‘ form.

In the Last update older than given number field, users can select to remove failed shipment lines based on this criterion as well. Setting this to 30 means cleanup job will run and remove all failed shipment lines with the last update being older than the given number. This means, if we select 30 as our number, if we have a shipment line that was last updated 31 days ago, when the cleanup job runs, that line will be removed from the ‘WHSWaveProcessingRemovedShipment‘ form.

Areas of use:

Conceptually, this feature is suited for all kinds of industries, and can aid your outbound processes in more ways, but primarily focuses on scenarios that require exception management related to failed allocation of inventory from a picking zone. This mainly occurs when we allow inventory reservations for e.g., sales orders that are not stored in a picking location or your inventory due that inbound receiving and put-away has not been completed yet, or that production facility has reported inventory after production has been completed but not yet conducted finished goods put-away.

By enabling the re-waving feature for Dynamics 365 Warehouse Management, users reduce time consumption by handling uncompleted shipments, avoiding manual exception handling, and making sure that all shipment lines not allocated will be automatically re-waved and not forgotten.

Take your warehouse to the next level and achieve more with Microsoft Dynamics 365!

More details

Learning articles can be found at: Automatic rewaving of nonallocated shipment lines – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

Welcome to join Yammer group at: Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Preview Programs : Dynamics AX WHS TMS  

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management capabilities

Modernize your supply chain to enhance visibility, improve planning, streamline procurement, and optimize fulfilment – Learn More

The post Streamlining Shipment Processes with Automatic re-allocation of non-allocated shipment lines.    appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.