Microsoft is rolling out a new Support Center for Dynamics 365. It’s still in Preview (as of June 2018), but if you meet the Prerequisites then, you can check it out now! It’s really simple to navigate when you have the appropriate Office 365 role. After logging into Portal.office.com, just go to https://admin.dynamics.com to see the new support center. Once you’ve submitted a ticket, you can monitor open support issues from the same place, https://admin.dynamics.com

Dynamics 365 Spring 2018 release – updates and resources

On June 1st, Microsoft announced on their official Dynamics 365 Twitter channel (@MSFTDynamics365) that the Dynamics 365 Spring 2018 release notes are updated. Several changes were made to the Field Service, Social Engagement, Talent, Finance and Operations, PowerBI, Microsoft Flow and Data Integration sections of the Spring 2018 release notes.

This follows another series of updates announced on May 1st, so if you’ve read the Spring 2018 update notes upon their first release last April, there is now a lot of new information!

Information and links about the Dynamics 365 Spring 2018 release:
•Dynamics 365 Spring 2018 release page (with on-demand videos to learn more about the Dynamics 365 capabilities)
•Spring ’18 Release Overview page on the Microsoft website (includes link to download the release notes)
•Spring ’18 change history (to check everything that has changed since April)
•Dynamics 365 Spring 2018 release – documentation & readiness (for a few additional resources)
•Watch the Business Applications spring launch event on‑demand – for more information about Dynamics 365 Business Central

In the Microsoft Documents site, you will find information and a number of resources to help you understand how Dynamics supports GDPR and tools for customers to define and support their GDPR obligations.

Visit the site to access the following types of information:
•White papers
•Data Subject Requests
•Compliance Manager
•Webcasts
•Blogs
•eBooks
see https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/05/21/microsofts-commitment-to-gdpr-privacy-and-putting-customers-in-control-of-their-own-data/

Customer consent is major aspect of the regulations. It is important that you include relevant information in your marketing objects (like landing pages and email marketing message) that unambiguously informs your audience about the data you collect and the purpose of your processing. Your audience must have the option to give consent freely, make an informed decision, and be able to review, update, or revoke consent at any time.

Dynamics 365 for Marketing:
• Allows you to request, capture, and store consent
•Lets you design your marketing activities to respect the consent given by your audience

see this informative post https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/lystavlen/2018/06/07/consent-management-in-dynamics-365-for-marketing/

Microsoft delivers new features and improvements to Dynamics 365 (online) through service updates that are periodically delivered to customers. They recommend you update to the latest major version when it becomes available. The update policy defines how customers move from one version to the next. Customers have the option to provide consent prior to updating their organization. Customers also have the choice to either take the updates as they become available or take only one update per year. If a customer chooses to take only one update per year, then this update is mandatory and the customer will be required to take the update during the available dates for that release.

In keeping with this policy, all organizations running version 8.1 (two versions behind the current version) will be upgraded to Dynamics 365 (online), version 9.0.2. The automatic update will take place during your normal maintenance window. So please ensure you plan for testing and any updates you need to make.

At the beginning of the year, Microsoft set out to bridge the gap between Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, the future of Dynamics 365 and Outlook integration, and the legacy Outlook add-in, Dynamics 365 for Outlook. The latest improvements to server-side synchronization and Dynamics 365 App for Outlook in Dynamics 365 (online) version 8.2,enable customers to track emails, appointments, and tasks in Outlook with a special “Tracked to Dynamics 365” Outlook category enabled through server-side synchronization. Assigning the category to an email, appointment, or task in Outlook will track the item to Dynamics 365. Category-based tracking via server-side synchronization is an opt-in experience. This is currently available on Dynamics 365 (online) version 8.2, with support for version 9.0 soon to follow.

Service Update 8 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 8.2.2 (online) is now available. Resolved issues include:
• Recurring Appointment occurrence is not updated correctly when synchronizing with Dynamics 365 for Outlook
• A user should able to Untrack an auto tracked email before email tagger processes the item
• Duplicate Detection triggers when SuppressDuplicateDetection parameter is set to true
• Views saved with Custom Filters do not respond to changes in filter criteria
• Generic SQL Error occurs while trying to perform an Offline Sync with the Dynamics 365 for Outlook
• Unable to filter Orders by Currency
• Associated View icon for Leads does not appear on an Account

The latest update to the Field Service and Project Service Automation solutions for Dynamics 365 version 9.0.x is now available

The Voice of the Customer app provides a new experience in survey and theme designing. The new survey designer provides a simple and intuitive experience to add, remove, and modify survey pages, sections, questions, and answers. see https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2018/05/23/whats-new-in-voice-of-the-customer-version-9-0-1162/

Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Update 1.5 is now available. Social Engagement now shows attached images and videos in private messages on Facebook and direct messages on Twitter directly in the post list. Resolved issues include:
• Fixed an issue to ensure that private messages in any language are acquired by Social Engagement.
• Fixed an issue where private messages in Indonesian language were discarded due to wrong language mapping.
• Fixed an issue where the ‘Link to Dynamics 365’ filter didn’t have a tooltip, making it impossible in some languages to understand if a post from Social Engagement is or isn’t linked to Dynamics 365.
• Fixed an issue that prevented adding multiple Facebook pages as social profiles.

Microsoft Inspire is next month! It will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, from July 15th to July 19th.