Microsoft Reveals Plans for Dynamics 365 October 2018 Release

Microsoft revealed their plans for the upcoming Dynamics 365 October 2018 Release at the 2-day Business Applications Summit in Seattle– which kicked off Monday, July 23. The October update includes more than a hundred incremental updates to the core Dynamics Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Portals, Omni-channel Engagement Hub, Field Service, Project Service, Social Engagement, Finance and Operations, Talent, Retail, and Business Central products and services.

The Business Applications October ’18 release allows you to easily transform your business. Starting in October 2018, these new services and capabilities will become available. Some of the new features include:

• Enhancements to Dynamics 365 applications include hundreds of new capabilities across Sales, Marketing, Customer Service Portals, Omni-channel Engagement Hub, FieldService, Project Service, Social Engagement Finance and Operations, Talent, Retail, and Business Central. Microsoft is introducing a new set of mixed reality experiences using Microsoft Layout and Microsoft Remote Assist.
• New intelligent applications employ decades of AI work pioneered by Microsoft Research to make Dynamics 365 more intelligent. Microsoft officials demonstrated a new Dynamics 365 AI for Sales app during the morning keynote. This new Sales app is meant to help teams use technologies, such as call sentiment analysis and warnings about deals at risk- in order to take proactive actions. This app will be in public preview in October 2018 and will enable you to enhance your sales performance and planning.
• New Power platform capabilities enable you to extend, customize, and integrate Dynamics 365 and Office 365 into your environment by combining PowerBI, PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, the Common Data Service for Apps, and PowerBI data flows. These new capabilities are powered by insights and intelligence from data across hundreds of business systems that have built-in connectivity to the platform and tightly integrate with the business applications people use every day.
• Deeper integrations with other Microsoft products which offer seamless experiences with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Outlook, Sharepoint, LinkedIn, Azure, and Stream. Dynamics 365 has been enhanced with data and signal from Office 365 and Bing.
• Performance, usability, and supportability enhancements which improve the applications and underlying platform-allowing you to more efficiently manage your business.

Microsoft moves to a semi-annual update schedule for its updates.

Dynamics 365 will have two major releases– April and October. This correlates with the Windows 10 and Office 365 Pro Plus feature updates. Microsoft execs said the goal is to make these updates as seamless as possible.

In a July 6 blog post, Mo Osborne of Microsoft stated that Microsoft’s plan around changing the way it updates Dynamics 365 “aims to lower upgrade costs, provide all users to the latest capabilities, performance improvements, and offer a better support experience.”

Want more information?

The Dynamics 365 October 2018 Release will begin to roll out in October. For a comprehensive synopsis of what’s coming in the Dynamics 365 October Release, Download the October ’18 Release Notes PDF. To hear James Phillips’ preview from the Summit on what’s coming next in Dynamics 365 click here.
Finally, as a trusted Dynamics 365 partner in the SMB space, enCloud9 has the knowledge to help you successfully deliver a custom Dynamics 365 system to your organization designed around the idea of increasing sales and developing deeper relationships with prospects and customers. Contact us today to start on that journey.