A Tour of All the Official Microsoft Dynamics Updates for 2022

Microsoft introduced several new features and capabilities to Dynamics 365 applications in the first significant release wave between April and September 2022.

As part of Dynamics 365 Release wave 1 for 2022, new updates were made available to assist organizations in keeping up with technology advancements and transforming their processes.

Microsoft added hundreds of new capabilities to Dynamics 365 applications, including Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Supply Chain Management, Business Central, Customer Insights, and Customer Voice.

Regular updates by Microsoft help you stay current and offer greater business flexibility.

Dynamics 365 Sales

1. Conversation Intelligence

With Dynamics 365 Sales conversation intelligence, salespeople are now equipped with tools to improve productivity and relationships. It’s crucial to provide facts and insights gleaned from interactions at the right time and in the right context. 

Thanks to its robust new search capabilities, salespeople can now take advantage of the full potential of this brilliant tool. Here are the feature highlights:

Discoverability

Present critical insights into a salesperson’s workflow at the right time by increasing the discoverability of conversation intelligence within Dynamics 365. Notifications and emails can be added to the app so salespeople can get all the critical information and follow up on their commitments.

Breaking the Silos

Integrating Sales Insights’ strategic and coaching dashboards into Dynamics 365.

Improved Collaboration

Conversation intelligence artifacts can become part of the daily work routine when comments, mentions, and sharing are enabled.

Powerful Search Capabilities

With a powerful search and filter toolkit, conversation intelligence, and rich Dynamics 365 data, salespeople can gain even more insight.

2. Capture mobile phone contacts and recent calls

This new feature allows salespeople who call customers directly from their phones to instantly register information into Dynamics 365 Sales as soon as they make the call.

3. Use the camera on your phone to log information

Microsoft improved how salespeople can record information from business cards and handwritten notes on their mobile phones. Afterward, the recorded data can be linked to the appropriate record or activity.

Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Utilizing Email Templates

Email templates save time, assure consistency, and maintain professionalism when sending regular and recurring emails to customers. This new Dynamics 365 Customer Service feature enhances the email creation experience by including a new insert template gallery with several views and search features for creating messages utilizing existing templates.

Microsoft will also feature a new email template creation experience.

Integration of relevant search for knowledge management in portals

Relevance search delivers rapid and comprehensive search results organized by relevance. Portal users will also have a uniform and smooth search experience when looking for knowledge-based material.

Conversation summary generated by AI for Microsoft Teams Chats 

This new tool generates an AI-generated conversation summary of Microsoft Teams chats, which users can quickly share with others. This saves time reading extensive chat transcripts and composing summaries to be distributed among teams.

Microsoft Dynamics Business Central

Dynamics Business Central is a robust and comprehensive business application solution designed specifically for small and mid-sized organizations. Some of the key highlights of Microsoft Dynamics Updates for Business Central Release Wave 1 are:

• Seamless service experience: Regardless of the size or sector, business customers demand trustworthy services and platforms to help them operate their businesses smoothly
• Improved capabilities: With Business Central’s improved finance and supply chain capabilities, users can now complete business tasks more effectively.
• Administration: Partners will be able to manage tenants, and administrators will be able to manage licenses more easily. 
• Better integration with Microsoft 365: The first wave of the Business Central 2022 release has considerably increased the productivity of joint business operations in Microsoft Teams, Excel, and the Outlook add-in.
• Seamless onboarding: Improved features in release wave one helped clients get up and running quickly.
• Increasing country and regional availability: Business Central was made generally available in more countries and regions with the first wave of releases.
• Power Platform: Microsoft plans to enhance Power Automate’s capabilities, making configuring processes for a given business easier.
• Developer tools: Microsoft continues to invest in areas that improve developer efficiency, as seen by the shift to Visual Studio Code.

Every year, Microsoft Dynamics Business Central receives two significant updates. It is usually a new “wave” in the spring and another in the fall. Release wave two features and capabilities, which build on prior release momentum, will help enterprises to streamline business processes, improve decision-making, and expedite their digital transformation.

Dynamics 365 Release Wave 2 promises a better user experience thanks to a simple, easier-to-use interface and increased connected experiences with Power Automate.

The overall theme for users is fewer clicks and streamlining Business Central’s design features, focusing on eliminating redundancy. Furthermore, additional features can help you improve your supply chain, manage business finances, and more.

Microsoft’s most recent update attempts to make it easier for new users to get started by offering quick access to the required apps. Tooltips and expanded geographic coverage have been explored in this release to increase speed and usability. Microsoft is developing its automation story with Power Automate intending to increase user productivity.

Onboarding

The Onboarding experience will be enhanced in this year’s fall release to provide a quick and seamless start to utilizing Business Central. The new release cycle emphasizes connectivity with third-party corporate productivity services. 

The latest AppSource version improves app discovery, installation, and configuration. There are several prerequisites for suggested apps (including specific criteria for usage and quality and a minimum set of features).

Application 

Every release provides changes based on the most common suggestions for improvement. The latest release wave’s key features are improved reporting, finance, and supply chain improvements. Several of the requested highlights include: 

• Extended text functionality for VAT clauses
• Account schedules have been replaced by financial reporting
• Customizable sorting on the Planning Worksheet page
• Make entry of variant codes required
• Post item charges for each step of the process 
• Find posted and non-posted document lines in the search

Development

Development updates have been issued to continue improving VS code performance. Microsoft has focused on delivering better and more effective AL object management across projects and workspaces in response to demands from several productivity partners throughout the tools experience. These enhancements include:

• Connect to Azure Functions from AL code
• Override entitlements with built-in permissions
• Apply specific code actions across projects and objects. 
• Utilize a split button to combine multiple UI actions
• Promoted action groups and action references 
• View SQL locks during AL debugging
• Define inherent rights as a developer 
• AL-Go for GitHub, a modern DevOps tool for partner

Improved Collaboration with Microsoft 365

Microsoft has recently increased its commitment to guarantee that Business Central and the other Microsoft 365 products function smoothly together. The second release wave gives administrators additional control over OneDrive and Excel in Business Central. Users will benefit from better report layouts and data handling in Excel.

Integration with the Power Platform

The extent to which Business Central is integrated with the Power Platform continues to expand. Power Automate and Business Central will also contain a modern toolset that simplifies expanding and integrating Business Central into other systems.

Conclusion

Microsoft releases two updates every year with increased features and capabilities. This article has compiled a list of the most important Microsoft Dynamics Updates for 2022. We are eager to learn what innovations and developments Microsoft Dynamics Applications will see in 2023. If you are looking forward to upgrading or migrating from your current CRM to Dynamics Business Central, Netsmartz can help you with a smooth transition.