Tag Archives: Dynamics 365

Microsoft Cost Management summary for 2022

The Microsoft Cost Management tools help you to manage your Microsoft cloud costs across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and Azure. There’s an excellent article giving an overview of the improvements that were made to the tools in 2022, as well as the new ways to save money that were introduced.

You can find the article here: http://bit.ly/3Wltkkw, with its many links to lots of useful resources.

General Availability of Viva Sales

Microsoft announce that Viva Sales is generally available as of 3 October, 2022. Viva as a brand is about improving the employee experience, with the Viva Suite aimed at employees in any role across a business.

Viva Sales, however, is tailored to improve the employee experience for a specific role – sellers – and it enables these users to use Office 365 and Teams to automatically capture, access and register data into a CRM system, eliminating the administrative burden of manual data entry.

Viva Sales is included in Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Premium licences, and is also available as a standalone licence priced at $40 per user per month.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3fZC28I, with links to other useful resources such as pricing information and an “Introduction to Viva Sales” course on Microsoft Learn.

Viva Sales in preview

Microsoft announce that Viva Sales is in preview. Viva as a brand is about improving the employee experience, and the Viva Suite is aimed at employees in any role across a business. Viva Sales is tailored to improve the employee experience for a specific role – sellers – and enables users to use Office 365 and Teams to automatically capture, access and register data into a CRM system, eliminating the administrative burden of manual data entry. In the public preview, Viva Sales will be available at no additional charge to organisations who use Microsoft 365 and Teams, and you’ll need to be licensed for Dynamics 365 to try out the full experience. Further details on licensing will be released when Viva Sales is generally available.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3bPH0TR, and a useful FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3vRZPwz.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare adds cloud services to support healthcare scenarios for customers already licensed for Microsoft 365 and/or Dynamics 365.

At its launch in November 2020 it was licensed via User SLs, but from 1 April, 2022 it will move to a per tenant licensing model costing $20,000 per month.

Find a useful datasheet here: https://bit.ly/3DNDPFU, and information on how to transition to tenant-based licensing here: https://bit.ly/3NT0pl3.

Dynamics 365 Sales Insights capabilities added to Sales Enterprise licences

Microsoft announce that Dynamics 365 Sales Insights capabilities are added to Sales Enterprise licences. It’s not the same capacity that you’d get with a full Sales Insights licence, but Sales Enterprise-licensed users can now make use of Business Card Scanning, Conversation Intelligence, Sales Accelerator, and Lead & Opportunity Scoring.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3sj4dmR, and find details of the capacity included and how it compares to a full Sales Insights licence on page 24 of the February 2022 Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide. Get that guide here: https://bit.ly/3uEes6G.

Device licences for Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist

Device licences are now available for Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist. As you’d expect, there are no limits on the number of users who may use a licensed device, and all users use a shared login rather than their own credentials. Note that the Guides device licence only allows a user to operate a guide, rather than to author one, but the Remote Assist user and device licences give access to the same functionality.

You can find details on the ins and outs of assigning Guides device licences here: https://bit.ly/3uBVJZD.

Dynamics 365 Voice Channel

Microsoft announce the availability of Dynamics 365 Voice Channel, an additional app for the Customer Service module, helping organisations to offer a continuous, personalised customer experience across all communication channels.

AI plays a big part with AI-based routing of calls to the best skilled agent, automatic transcription and translation of calls for agents, as well as live customer sentiment analysis.

Power Virtual Agent also has a role as a chatbot, or as an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system allowing customers to select menu choices through the telephone keyboard or their voice response.

From a licensing perspective, it’s licensed via a User SL for users already licensed with a Customer Service Enterprise licence. Alternatively, customers also needing the Digital Messaging app can now buy a combined Digital Messaging and Voice Channel User SL. Voice Channel relies on Intelligent Voicebot Minutes and Call Intelligence Minutes and initial capacity is included in the Voice Channel licences, as well as being available as additional capacity.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3HGbGlN.

Dynamics 365 Marketing Customer Journey Orchestration

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Customer Journey Orchestration capabilities in Dynamics 365 Marketing, with the aim of helping organizations to create deeper relationships with their customers through more meaningful interactions. This gives rise to a change in the licensing of Dynamics 365 Marketing. Previously centred entirely around Marketing contacts, there are now allocations for interactions included (10 for each Marketing contact licensed per month), with Additional Interactions packs available.

Find the Customer Journey Orchestration GA announcement here: https://bit.ly/3j5PF5k, and information on pricing and official definitions for Marketing contacts and interactions here: https://bit.ly/384JQyL.