New capabilities in Dynamics 365 Field Service & Customer Service in the 2024 release wave 2

The 2024 Release Wave 2 for Dynamics 365 service applications brings transformative features to enhance your service operations. From advanced field service management to more efficient customer support, this update includes significant upgrades to Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Customer Service. These enhancements are designed to improve service delivery, streamline operations, and provide deeper insights into customer interactions. In this blog, we’ll explore the latest innovations and capabilities in Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Customer Service, highlighting how these updates can elevate your service strategy and drive greater customer satisfaction.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 for Dynamics 365 Field Service brings advancements in AI and Copilot features designed to boost efficiency and streamline workflows. These updates include enhanced Copilot capabilities in the web app and the ability to view work order summaries directly in Outlook, improving how service managers and technicians interact with their data. Discover how these new features can transform your field service operations.

• Enhanced Copilot experiences in the Web App: The updated Copilot in the web app now provides quick access to critical data with improved usability. Users can efficiently retrieve work order information with new prompt guides, ensuring they always have the latest data from Microsoft Dataverse at their fingertips.
• Summarize work orders with Copilot in Outlook: The Outlook add-in for Dynamics 365 Field Service lets users view work order summaries directly in Outlook. This feature keeps users within their communication app while accessing consistent and customizable work order information.

The legacy schedule board will be permanently disabled on October 1, 2024, and all users will be transitioned to the new schedule board experience. Additionally, in the 2024 release wave 2, the new schedule board in Dynamics 365 Field Service receives significant improvements in accessibility, usability, and performance.

• Enhanced user experience: The schedule board now features a modern React-based architecture, replacing the legacy extJS framework. This change results in a more responsive and intuitive user interface for technicians and dispatchers.
• Improved performance: With a new efficient diffing algorithm and virtual DOM, the schedule board offers faster load times and immediate response to user interactions, even during peak usage.
• Future-proof technology: The updated schedule board leverages the latest web technology advancements, ensuring improved maintenance and scalability.
• Usability and modernization improvements: The new schedule board includes requested features like a working-days-of-the-week selector, week numbers, customizable tab reordering, enhanced day line visibility, and better accessibility.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 brings a notable enhancement to Remote Assist, integrating mixed reality annotations directly within Microsoft Teams. This update allows service technicians to receive real-time guidance through video calls with 3D spatial annotations, all within the Teams mobile app. This seamless integration eliminates the need to switch between applications, making it easier for technicians to collaborate with experts and resolve issues more efficiently.

Currently available on iOS devices, this feature will soon extend to Android devices, further streamlining the support process and improving first-time fix rates by providing technicians with instant, interactive support.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 introduces advanced offline sync capabilities for Dynamics 365 Field Service, enhancing mobile efficiency and performance. With new options to customize offline data and insights into sync performance, users can ensure a smooth and responsive experience both online and offline.

• Selective table column sync: You can now choose which columns from Dataverse tables are downloaded for offline use on mobile devices. By selecting fewer columns, you speed up the data download process and optimize offline app performance.
• Enhanced offline profile configuration: The updated mobile offline profile configuration interface allows you to select individual columns for offline use and displays which columns are required by the application. This customization helps tailor offline profiles to specific business needs.
• Insights through Application Insights: Use Application Insights to monitor and report on offline sync performance. Gain visibility into offline sync statistics such as sync duration, success or failure rates, and device information to optimize user experience and troubleshoot issues effectively.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 for Dynamics 365 Customer Service introduces AI and Copilot updates aimed at streamlining workflows and enhancing agent productivity. These updates include the integration of external systems via Copilot plugins and the introduction of proactive prompts and insights, making it easier for customer service representatives to access information and provide efficient service.

• Extend Copilot with plugins: Connect external systems to Copilot through plugins, allowing agents to securely access data without switching tabs. This integration reduces the need for multiple tools and enhances resolution times and customer satisfaction.
• Proactive prompts and insights: Copilot now offers contextual prompt starters and follow-up suggestions to help agents discover useful information effortlessly. Proactive prompts also provide insights based on case, conversation, and email context, improving the quality and efficiency of interactions.

Efficient case management is crucial for customer service representatives who need to quickly access and manage case information. The 2024 release wave 2 introduces significant enhancements to case controls within the Customer Service workspace, making it easier for agents to handle cases effectively. These improvements focus on simplifying attachment management, note-taking, and field identification, boosting productivity and reducing effort in daily case operations.

• Take notes during case creation: Agents can now easily jot down important details directly on the case form as they work, streamlining the case management process.
• View and upload multiple attachments: The updated case form allows agents to upload and view multiple attachments directly within the case, improving efficiency in accessing and managing case-related documents.
• Consolidated attachment view: All attachments related to a case are now accessible in a unified view, making it simpler for agents to find and review necessary documents.
• Quick overview of case activities: Agents can quickly see upcoming tasks and activities associated with the case, ensuring they stay on top of their responsibilities.
• Color-coded icons for case fields: The new Option set wrapper control uses color-coded icons to help agents identify and manage case fields more efficiently.

These enhancements, available by default on the out-of-the-box case form, significantly streamline daily case management tasks in the Customer Service workspace.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 introduces enhancements to case grids that significantly improve how agents prioritize and manage their active cases. The upgraded case grids feature color differentiators and key data points, enabling agents to quickly identify cases that need urgent attention and navigate to the most recent interactions. These improvements aim to boost productivity and streamline case management processes.

• Icons and avatars for better visibility: Agents can view icons indicating case priority and origin channel, along with avatars for assigned agents, making it easier to assess case status at a glance.
• Key data in Enhanced Active Cases view: The improved case grids display critical information, including case age, next SLA breach, escalation status, and the latest activity, all in one view.
• Quick navigation to latest activity: Agents can swiftly navigate to the most recent interaction on a case, allowing for prompt responses and improved communication efficiency.
• Default and editable functionality: The enhanced case grids are enabled by default for all users, with additional options for administrators to enable editing functionality directly within the grid.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 brings notable improvements to email functionality in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, focusing on a more intuitive attachment process and enhanced recipient handling. These updates are designed to streamline email composition, increase productivity, and improve overall user experience.

• Improved attachment experience: Agents can now drag and drop attachments directly into emails, simplifying the process and saving time. They can also copy attachments from other emails, download and attach emails as files, and manage attachments with bulk download and deletion options. Attachment sizes are displayed in appropriate units, and agents receive reminders if they forget to include an attachment mentioned in the email.
• Enhanced recipient handling: The updated recipient experience allows agents to drag and drop email addresses between TO, CC, and BCC fields, view recipients’ email addresses alongside their names, and resolve email addresses to Dynamics 365 records. Agents can also see recipients’ presence status and out-of-office messages, and block resolution of unresolved email addresses if needed.

These enhancements aim to make email management more efficient and user-friendly, enabling agents to handle their communications with greater ease and accuracy.

In contact center environments, efficiently managing workforce distribution is crucial, especially during high-traffic periods. The latest update in Dynamics 365 Customer Service introduces real-time queue membership updates, enabling admins and supervisors to quickly adjust agent assignments across different queues. This enhancement ensures that when agents are added to or removed from queues, these changes are reflected instantly, allowing them to immediately start working on new tasks or cease receiving work from their previous queues. This capability significantly reduces customer wait times and prevents unnecessary rerouting of tasks, enhancing overall service efficiency.

By eliminating the previous 15-minute delay for queue membership updates, this real-time functionality supports a more agile and responsive contact center operation. Administrators can now manage staffing adjustments more effectively, ensuring that the right agents are available for incoming work as soon as possible. This improvement helps maintain optimal service levels even during peak periods, providing a seamless experience for both agents and customers.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 for Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Field Service introduces impactful updates designed to enhance efficiency and user experience. With new AI-driven Copilot features, real-time queue management, and improved case handling in Customer Service, and advancements in schedule boards, offline sync, and Remote Assist in Field Service, these updates streamline operations and boost productivity.

Rand Group is your dedicated Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Customer Service support partner to highlight new features that your organization should utilize, train your users on the new features, and perform system checks to ensure all modules are performing as planned after each release wave. Ready to start using these new features from the Dynamics 365 2024 release wave 2? Contact Rand Group today to schedule a consultation.