What to expect from the Dynamics 365 October 2018 release is set out in a 250 plus page document. The coming 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 new Dynamics 365 AI for Sales app, will help sales teams to use technologies, such as call sentiment analysis and warnings about deals being at risk, to take proactive actions. This app will be in public preview as of October 2018.
Expect to see a more tightly integrated Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, LinkedIn, Microsoft Stream video platform, Azure, Azure IoT Central, Outlook together with relationship analytics and predictive lead scoring also in public preview as of October.
Finance and Operations (Dynamics AX, ERP) each feature listed below will be released with general availability
Financial
• Dual currency
• View settlement transactions
• Global number sequences
• Vendor and customer approvals for specific fields
• Data entry dimension values
• Consistent validation actions
• IBAN number validation
• Change cash discounts
• Automatic ledger settlements
• Reverse journal posting
• On-hand inventory report performance
• Simplification through configurable templates
• Enterprise credit management
• Revenue recognition
Operations
• Master planning performance improvements
• Consolidation of planned orders during parallel firming
• Sealed bidding
• Unit of measure
• Public sector enhancements
Globalization
• Russian localization
• Globalization – enhanced configurability
• Regulatory Services, Configuration service
Platform Updates
• Usability and productivity updates
• Personalization improvements
• Additional demo data
• Data resident subscriptions
• Supportability rules
• Test automation support
• Troubleshooting for the document routing agent
• Upgrade automation
• On-premises deployment
• Manage batch jobs
Integration
• Integration with Field Service: Inventory and Projects
• Extend analytical workspaces by mashing up external data with Power BI
Analytics
• BYOD (Public Preview)
• Edit analytical workspaces
• Pin Power BI dashboards to workspaces
• Real-time embedded Power BI Reports
Lifecycle Services
• Dynamics Translation Services API (Public Preview)
Microsoft continues to emphasize the applicability of its HoloLens augmented reality goggles with the company’s business applications. The October 2018 update will feautre integration with Remote Assist, Microsoft’s new hands-free video calling, and Microsoft Layout, which allows space planners to design their spaces.
The Common Data Service, which is part of its “Power Platform,” will also be updated with the October 2018 release.
