Microsoft and 365 Talent Portal recently ran some webinars for our consultants to give them a sneak peak at Dynamics CRM 2016 – and feedback has been tremendously positive. It’s a pretty comprehensive step forward.
The purpose of Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions has always been to deliver better customer service experience via intelligent customer engagement. The aim of the CRM 2016 release is to improve the customer service experience even further.
The CRM 2016 update has quite an expansive scope: it covers all the CRM component services: Dynamics CRM, Parature, Dynamics Marketing, Microsoft Social Engagement. It focusses on four major themes: Productivity, Intelligence, Mobility and Unified Service.
New capabilities – summary
Marketing
CRM 2016 will make it possible to create SMS campaigns and to integrate SMS marketing to multi-channel campaigns. Both outbound and inbound SMS marketing will be supported.
The email editor from the 2015 release is being improved to make it easier to use for marketers. New capabilities will allow them to see the generated HTML in emails interactively.
Sales
The CRM app for Outlook is being enhanced so that key sales capabilities can be delivered within Outlook desktop and mobile.
New Excel templates are being added to CRM 2016 and will enable users to view sales data from within CRM, perform what-if analysis in Excel, and then to upload the changes directly to the Dynamics CRM database.
Document Generation is being introduced: it is now possible, with one click, to generate documents (such as account summaries, quotes, orders, invoices and product sheets) from CRM using pre-defined Word and Excel templates.
The Cortana Analytics Suite and machine learning will help to provide intelligent processes for sales, customer service and marketing. New capabilities will include: intelligent product suggestions for up-sell and cross-sell, and recommended cases to resolve customer service cases.
Customer Service
A new survey designer will make it easy for end-users to collect feedback from their customers about their products or services.
The user experience for customer service roles has been modernised to make its design more intuitive. It will come with a multi-stream dashboard for Tier One agents and a single-stream dashboard for Tier Two agents – which will facilitate workload organisation.
Unified service: CRM 2016 will continue what was started with the integration of Parature knowledge management in the spring with a new agent-driven experience.
Social
Social listening and social analytics will now enable users to custom information sources via RSS, and it will be possible to include internal non-public sources like Yammer.
Microsoft Social Engagement will help salespeople to detect potential leads, thus increasing sales performance.
Mobile
Mobility: CRM 2016 will continue to extend CRM’s mobile capabilities. Full offline mobile capabilities will be introduced, as well as the ability to create task-based mobile apps.
It will also be possible to open various Microsoft Office documents (stored in SharePoint or OneDrive for Business) within the CRM mobile apps.
Data
New CRM Online datacentres will be introduced in Canada and India during CY2016.
A new Cloud service, the Bulk Data Loader for CRM Online, will make it possible to upload large data files to the Cloud, to perform light data quality functions and to enter the data in CRM online.
User training will become easier: an in-product learning layer has been introduced. It will provide each user with assistance tailored to their role.
Content credits: Microsoft – for more information, see the CRM 2016 release preview guide.
Information and online resources
Microsoft documentation:
– Download the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Release Preview Guide
– Watch the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Release Overview video
– Read Bob Stutz’s article on the Dynamics Community website: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 – Delivering the Next Generation of Intelligent Customer Engagement
– Read Microsoft’s announcement on the Microsoft News Centre: Microsoft reinvents productivity with upcoming release of customer engagement solution
Other articles and resources:
– MVP chat: Looking ahead to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 (Recorded Webcast) on MSDynamicsWorld.com
– Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 and Azure Machine Learning by Zsolt Zombik
– Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 is coming – Get a First Look at What’s New! by Power Objects
Readiness resources:
– Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Readiness Blitz
Access to training and implementation resources:
Need help preparing for the new release? If you are an independent Microsoft Dynamics consultants, you may need assistance to access essential Microsoft Dynamics tools:
– PartnerSource: get the information and resources to manage your implementations and your relationships with end-users.
– Dynamics Learning Portal: get access to Microsoft Dynamics training and be ready for the new certifications.
– Lifecycle Services: Lifecycle Services is expanding and a new platform will be created for Dynamics CRM (more information on msdynamicsworld.com).
About us: 365 Talent Portal is the first online platform that gives Dynamics partners and end-users instant access to hundreds of consultants. With a network spanning 89 countries, it allows companies to search for consultants based on their skills, rates and available dates, enabling them to find the best person for their projects without incurring the hefty fees typical of recruitment agencies. Register here – www.365talentportal.com.
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