A motto for Microsoft’s Business Applications team is, “We’re all in this together.” Throughout the coronavirus crisis, Microsoft has been working to live out that ethos, supporting businesses and healthcare organizations on the frontlines. This support effort has focused on robust cloud services, with Microsoft Teams leading the charge for telemedicine and teleworking.
With this in mind, Microsoft’s Business Application team has announced a few update schedule changes to ensure business continuity and avoid disruption in these challenging times.
What’s changing for the Dynamics 365 Release Update Schedule
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement legacy (also known as classic) web client deprecation has been delayed by two months, to December 1, 2020
- This change ensures organizations using the existing classic interface do not experience disruption to everyday activities during the crisis
- Based on this, training operations and onboarding efforts for Unified Client Interface (UCI) can be postponed
- Update pauses
- The ability to pause updates via Lifecycle Services for Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and Dynamics 365 Commerce has been simplified. To pause an update, go to Project Settings > Update Settings in the Lifecycle Services project area.
- Updates can be paused three consecutive times for model-driven apps (Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and Project Service automation).
- An additional deferral option for Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is now available. Customers who which to do this can take this survey or submit a service request with the Dynamics 365 support team.
- Wave 1 Updates
- Mandatory uptake for this update is being pushed back a month.
- Wave 1 updates for Dynamics 365 model-driven apps, including Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and Project Service automation, will now go live between Friday, May 22 – Sunday, May 24, in North America.
- For a full list, broken down by geographical region, please see the Dynamics 365 Release Schedule.
What’s not changing for the Dynamics 365 Platform Update Schedule
- Features scheduled for April 2020 will continue as planned, as long as they do not impact the operations of end-users. This roll-out includes Dynamics 365 Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Resource Scheduling Optimization and Project Service Automation
- 10.0.9 Platform update 33 for Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management and Commerce will continue as planned
Microsoft is considering feedback from release validation, early access programs, and customer deployment channels. Sentiment from these sources will be monitored going forward and will help drive critical decisions on deployment schedules for the rest of the year.
The goal to reduce the number of versions in distribution remains, as this helps to improve platform reliability and ease of service for everyone. Microsoft wants to continue to drive innovation during this time while safely supporting mission-critical operations in healthcare, government, and business.
If you have any questions as to how your business is affected by these updates, Dynamic Consultants Group is your trusted partner.
For specific industries with excess capacity, this also may be the right time to assess internal operations efficiencies and advancement. Do you have a list of Dynamics 365 projects your organization has been waiting to tackle? Contact our team of consultants and technical experts today to see how we can be of assistance.
