Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 is coming out any moment and over here, at the Connecting-Software, we are quite looking forward to the amazing new features it should bring.
Microsoft calls this “the most comprehensive upgrade ever for Dynamics CRM”, and says it “includes advancements in intelligence, mobility and service, with significant productivity enhancements”. These are pretty confident words, so let´s review some of the biggest changes that the new version should provide.
1. Contextual documents
Users can now open various office apps like SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, and Office 365 Groups for any CRM record. All of that within CRM or the CRM mobile app. It´s good to hear Microsoft is working hard on improvement of the out-of-the-box integration for their other in-house products. However, there is still no info about fixing the problem with SharePoint integration.
2. Next generation of CRM app for Outlook
This will improve the tracking of emails, adding contacts from within an email and improved mobile functionality. Mobile CRM 2016, in general, is experiencing the biggest updates since its official introduction, and the best is just coming:
3. Mobile Offline Support
Lack of ability to modify records while offline is the main issue of current official Dynamics CRM mobile app. That´s why we decided to implement the offline support inside our own CB Mobile CRM app allowing our partners to use Dynamics CRM on mobile even without immediate internet connection, for instance in the roaming or in places with no internet connection.
Microsoft stated that the Dynamics CRM 2016 version will finally fix this issue, so we are really wondering how well will it work. Similarly like our app, all modifications should be stored inside mobile memory until the users maintain internet connection and sync them afterwards.
4.Enhanced Excel experience
Another integration improvement – this feature should help executives and particularly sales people to do things like calculate commissions or manage a sales forecast inside the CRM. All of that without the need to export or switch to Excel.
5.Personalized sales documents
Documents based on CRM data can now be built inside Dynamics. People don´t need to manually extract CRM data for documents like account summaries, quotes, orders or invoices in Word.
6.Cortana integration
This is quite a big topic for Microsoft, but we´re really wondering if this feature will be much appreciated. Microsoft wants to integrate sales activities, accounts and opportunities into Cortana to display what´s most relevant to salespeople at any time. Only time will show the real benefits of this cute feminine A.I. inside Dynamics CRM.
7. Guided user experience
The new Dynamics CRM Online 2016 includes an n-product and context-based learning layer. This should speed up the learning process that comes with every new release so that clients can get back to their normal day-work much faster after the update.
Conclusion
We can see that Microsoft follows the general mobile-migration trend and changes the whole mobile experience quite a lot. On top of that, the new version will bring a lot of additional integration features for the other Microsoft products like SharePoint, OneDrive, Office 365, Excel or Outlook. There are heaps of other improvements, but we can´t name them all. However, if you´re interested in the topic, download the official Release Preview Guide [PDF].
If you want to make your Dynamics CRM 2016 upgrade fast and smooth, feel free to contact us for consultation and additional assistance.
Btw: We’ve made a neat infographic about CRM Market, go and check it out.
sources: Microsoft, Powerobjects