With the first release of the year already completed, Microsoft's second wave of updates for 2021 is kicking off, which includes interesting new features in Dynamics 365 Sales. We review some of the main enhancements and features that will be released from this October until March 2022.
Dynamics 365 Sales Accelerator
A new guided selling experience that drives AI recommendations for sales reps to close more sales.
Management dashboards and KPIs for the sales person
Using better data leads to better results. The management dashboard gives managers the ability to observe the performance of their teams and provides data such as the following:
- Number of active leads in the organization compared to previous periods.
- Conversion ratio between leads and opportunities.
- Leads by vendor and by origin.
You can also define KPIs so that salespeople can track their progress in real time:
- Number of qualified leads.
- Number of calls and meetings.
- Estimated value.
Improved worklist to focus salespeople on the right actions
The salesperson will be able to keep track of his activities and sort his work list. This functionality is based on the fact that the work lists will now be populated according to activity ownership, not entity ownership.
Boost sales productivity with a smart work list
Use an updated smart worklist to provide suggested actions, help prioritize leads, etc. For them, the worklist user interface is enhanced with filters and other capabilities that contribute to salespeople's efficiency.
Build better relationships with automated and structured workflows with sequence management.
New functionalities to improve and maintain the sequences and strategies defined by sales managers to build customer loyalty.
Grid view on sequences for better sales results
Improved sequences to facilitate the organization and efficiency of sales managers.
Focus on the highest impact activities through advanced filters and classifications
A new functionality allows salespeople to filter information from both standard and custom fields. Managers will be able to define filters relevant to business scenarios.
Preconfigured templates for rapid sequence implementation
Sequence templates help system users speed up sales processes with faster and easier implementation.
Leverages LinkedIn actions as part of intelligent sequences
One of the big new features in Dynamics 365 Sales. The integration of LinkedIn into the sales accelerator will allow the most relevant sales social channel functions to be included directly into the sequences.
Easily move sequences between environments to get salespeople up and running as quickly as possible
This feature allows you to move sequences between systems. For example, if a sequence is created in a development environment it can be moved to the production environment.
Quickly find context with more complete views of worklist cards
The job listing cards are enhanced to have more relevant information for each scenario. For example, an opportunity will have information in the title, a contact will have role information or an account on open opportunities. This feature will allow salespeople to make decisions faster by glancing at the cards.
Automatically routes leads to the right salesperson to improve qualification results
This functionality will improve lead conversion rates through better lead assignment and faster qualification times.
Increased salesperson productivity with higher quality leads through data hygiene
Salespeople often waste time interacting with the wrong leads and not finding the leads most likely to close a sale among all the available information. This feature seeks to ensure that only quality leads are assigned to salespeople with accurate data that allows personalized interactions. This will save salespeople time and allow them to close more business opportunities.
Integration with Microsoft Teams
Another new feature in Dynamics 365 Sales is to improve the sales collaboration experience within the app through integration with Microsoft Teams.
Easily edit Dynamics 365 records within a Teams conversation
This functionality allows the following:
- Conversation participants can quickly update or edit a record from a Teams conversation using adaptive cards.
- Conversation participants can change the record status from within the Teams conversation itself.
- Support for custom forms and organization-specific business rules.
- Access control ensures that only those with specific security permissions have write access.
Easily add activities and notes to Dynamics 365 records from a Teams channel or chat.
The details of this functionality are:
- Add a note or activity to the timeline of a record from the context of a Teams message in a chat or channel.
- Support for custom forms and organization-specific business rules.
- Only users with the required security permissions will have write access.
Share Dynamics 365 records in a Teams message
Allows:
- Send a quick summary of a record in a chat or Teams channel as an interactive card.
- Search Dynamics 365 records organized by relevance.
- Search and filter through Dynamics 365 records to share with conversation participants.
- Allows conversation participants to add activities or notes to a record through interactive cards.
- Ensure that only those with permissions can view log details.
Boost salesperson productivity with a seamless experience between Dynamics 365 and Teams meetings.
This is achieved with the following functionalities:
- Create and join Teams meetings directly from Dynamics 365.
- Access and update sales records within the context of a Teams meeting.
- Capture notes during a Teams meeting and sync them directly into Dynamics 365 records.
- Leverage premium conversational intelligence to analyze calls in Teams meetings in real time.
Keep additional stakeholders informed by sending automated chat notifications from Dynamics 365 to Teams
- Use mentions in the timeline of a record and ensure that that user will automatically receive the notification in a Teams chat via Dynamics 365 Sales bot.
- Get AI-derived insight notifications from the Sales assistant; automatically send updates of configured information. For example, email alerts.
- Get chat notifications for records you are following; use the follow/unfollow feature in Dynamics 365 for automatic notifications for sales records.
- Configure the notifications you want to receive in Teams, where and how often.
Collaboration using Teams chat from within Dynamics 365
Teams chat embedded in Dynamics 365 allows salespeople to collaborate with other parties without leaving their workspace:
- Teams chat capabilities are integrated.
- Contextual chat and chat list.
- People discovery: leverages CRM intelligence to recommend contacts.
Quickly add interested parties to the Teams chat using suggested contacts
A salesperson has more contact suggestions based on the app or the entity they are in. On the other hand, an administrator can:
- Have control over contact suggestions.
- Customize suggestions per app in Dynamics 365.
- Also customize suggestions by identity.
- And customize suggestions based on custom fields.
More information on what's new in Dynamics 365 Sales for the coming months can be found here.
