What's new in Dynamics 365 Spring 2018 - Sales

Microsoft has released the latest version of Dynamics 365 applications for Spring 2018. This blog talks about what’s new in the Sales application. 

OOTB there are 2 apps for Sales process in Dynamics 365 – Sales app on the old web client interface and Sales Hub app on the new Unified interface. Sales applications has the following new features –

1. Unified Interface – With Spring 2018 release all the core sales business process entities are on the Sales Hub - new unified interface framework. This includes – Account / Contact / Lead / Opportunity / Competitors / Quote / Invoice / Product / Goals / Sales Literature…

The following apps and integrations are also on the Unified Interface framework

a.       Dynamics 365 App for Outlook

b.       Linked-In Sales Navigator integration

c.       Gamification

It may be important to note that there are some known issues with the new Unified interface framework. You can get more details in this link - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/admin/readme-9#sales-hub-and-customer-service-hub-apps-

Below is an example of the Opportunity form in the Sales Hub app on unified Interface with custom control added to the Probability and Budget amount fields.

Opportunity - Unified Interface form with custom controls

      2. Embedded intelligence – The Sales apps have embedded intelligence capability which enables the Sales person to focus on Sales by providing the necessary actions. 

      The embedded intelligence -

a.       Collects, manages and analyzes the diverse data and communication during the entire sales process

b.       Automatically captures activities and suggests relevant actions to the Sales person

The components of embedded intelligence in the Sales app include – Relationship assistant, auto capture and email engagement. In my demo environment the intelligence configuration was still in the Settings > preview tab as shown below.

Intelligence configuration

The embedded intelligence functionality scans and analyzes the data in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft exchange and generates insights. The insights are shows in the form of Action cards to the user at an appropriate time as configured in the system. There are 10 base cards that can be enabled with the Relationship assistant as shown below - 

Base action cards

In addition to the Base cards there are additional enhanced cards the can be enabled and configured. 

Enhanced Cards

3. Enhanced integration with Linked In Sales Navigator – Linked In Sales Navigator is a online monthly service provided by LinkedIn / Microsoft.

If you have a Team or Enterprise license for Linked In Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 license you can integrate them to work together. Integration is through a managed solution provided by LinkedIn / Microsoft in the Apps marketplace. 

You can get a free trial from here - https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/dynamics-365/linkedin.0cb76fe0-d453-4edb-a68c-65fb9119493a?tab=Overview

Sales Navigator

The enhanced integration enables the Sales person to seamlessly work between Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 and enables the following –

·       Allows users to search and lookup people LinkedIn profile, photo and work history from within Dynamics 365 using a widget in the form

·       Find new leads directly in Dynamics with Lead Recommendations

·       Get Account & Lead Updates including news mentions and job changes when viewing accounts in Dynamics

·       Send InMail, messages, and customized connection requests from within Dynamics

4. Sales / Relationship Insights – This is a new feature (in preview) introduced in Spring 2018 release. This feature can be enabled from within Dynamics 365. 

Relationship Insights

This leverages the data integration within Dynamics 365, Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange and Artificial Intelligence capability to derive insights to help the Sales person to better prioritize customers, leads and opportunities and improve their relationship health. (I will be writing another blog to detail this soon)

I hope this gets you started to try out the new features in Dynamics 365 – Spring 2018 release for Sales. Please do let me know your questions and experience with the new capabilities. 

Thanks for reading.

Mihir Shah

365WithoutCode