Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update - continued

This is a second part of the previous article.

So what's new in the CRM 2016 Update in the Service area?

Interactive service hub I am really looking forward to this feature, as it should make the work for service agents easier and more smooth.
MS says: "Dashboards and forms have been completely redesigned for the interactive service hub. Visual filtering and applied filtering in the new dashboards will help you prioritize your workloads and complete your most urgent tasks. The interactive service hub comes with a multi-stream dashboard for use by, for example, Tier 1 agents and a single-stream dashboard for use by, for example, Tier 2 agents."


External party access - new possibility to access the CRM from external application.

Knowledge management - this area was not updated for a while, so now we get the new version. Some of it comes from the Parature, which is great.

Also, with the new survey designer you can create and send out questionnaires to collect feedback from customers about your products or services. Customers can take a survey on a phone, tablet, or computer. When a customer completes a survey, you can use rules to trigger follow-up actions that occur immediately. The only limitation is that, customers will need Azure subscription, so if you already have ClickDimensions, you will probably stick with it.

Unified Service Desk - Especially configuration and installation should be easier. Also custom control can now be distributed in the customization file.

Dynamics Marketing

Dynamics Marketing is taking over all the CRM marketing capabilities and Microsoft is focusing on this application rather then the existing Marketing module.
This app is not available in all markets and also the new features like SMS marketing will be limited only to certain countries.

Social Engagement

Support for RSS and  internal non-public sources like Yammer will be added.

Social Engagement will automatically detect potential leads versus cases.

Social center will let you publish tweets and Facebook posts.

Social Engagement will be available in the following languages:

English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish.


Have a great day,
Michal

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update

Last time I have posted a link to the introduction video of the new version of CRM.

Now it is clear, that the next version will be called 2016 Update and for OnPremise version it will deliver the Update 1 features which are yet available only for CRM Online. However, the 2016 Update will have some features limited to CRM Online. Microsoft is also going to offer some features of the new version only to customers with certain number of licences.
It is quite obvious that MS is pushing customers to CRM Online and also trying to sell more licenses to the existing customers.

For registered partners, the preview version will be available very soon.

The final version should be available by the end of this year.

I would like to comment on some features that have been already announced.

Excel integration - very nice feature, it can increase the productivity a lot. Users will be able to view sales data in familiar Excel templates, perform what-if analysis, and upload the changes, all while maintaining the CRM context. I am looking forward to the mobile devices capability, which should be also improved.

CRM App for Outlook - It was stated, that the CRM App for Outlook preview feature is available for CRM Online customers. This is very neat feature and we need it for OnPremise as well.

Office Delve - I have started to use Delve this year and it looks very promising. With the CRM integrated in it, it can server as the starting point for daily work.

Office 365 Groups - already available for preview, it should make collaboration easier, but from my point of view it is getting very complicated to set everything properly.

Document generation - We should be able to generate documents with one click. This is requested by a lot of CRM customers, as the current possibilities are not sufficient.

Very big potential is in the in-app learning, but the new in-app learning layer will be available for CRM Online only.

Mobile offline support - great improvement announced for users - they don't have to save your drafts as they did with the previous offline experience. However, this feature will be available only for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update customers with 30 or more Enterprise or Professional licenses.

Mobile client enhancements - right in the mobile app we will be able to view the documents associated with the case, opportunities and any other entities.
When you design new mobile form, you will be able to preview it in the web client - this will save a lot of time for the customizers.

Task flows - it is going to be a preview feature, so I do not expect the final functionality, but it will be good for getting the idea of where the CRM is going.

In the next article, I will say a few words about service, social engagement etc....

The Marketing Module in the core CRM application is not being improved and it looks like that all customers should go for the Dynamics Marketing or ClickDimensions if they want some more marketing capabilities....

Enjoy you CRM Day.

Michal