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What You Should Know About Dynamics 365 for Connected Spaces

by Allie Wolf
6 minutes read

Dynamics 365 Connected Store — Microsoft’s retail solution that generates insights about physical stores and the customers who shop in them — is getting a major revamp. Earlier this month, Vishal Sood, the product’s general manager, announced some exciting new features that you need to know about. 

The biggest change is the platform’s name. Connected Store will become Connected Spaces, meaning this product is no longer just for brick-and-mortar stores but all physical spaces. You can still uncover intelligence about customers and track trends and patterns. However, Dynamics 365 for Connected Spaces will take observational data to the next level with more customization and improved synchronicity with your existing surveillance cameras.

These changes won’t happen overnight, and you can’t preview them in Connected Spaces until December 1. In the meantime, check out these forthcoming features that will make Spaces your next favorite Dynamics 365 product.

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More Support for Cameras

Dynamics 365 for Connected Spaces builds on the observational data insights generated by Connected Store with better scalability and a streamlined setup process for surveillance cameras. Now it’s easier to add new cameras to the platform, so you can collect insights and understand customer behavior with greater accuracy than ever before. With the help of computer science, you can connect cameras to track traffic patterns, promotional display interactions, and other activities in your physical space.  

Read more: Recent Events Are Causing Businesses to Seek Supply Chain Management Solution.

New Alerts

Connected Store sent retailers alerts about various in-store scenarios, allowing managers to respond to real-time situations. Connected Spaces will also have this feature, but there will be a wider range of customizable alerts for scenarios such as long queue times and maximum store occupancy. Or receive a notification if a shopper lingers at a promotional display so you can send a staff member to engage with the customer. You can have these alerts delivered to Microsoft Teams or Outlook. 

There’s also a new and improved dashboard that provides insights into all these scenarios, so you can delegate tasks to the right team members and improve the customer experience. Connected Spaces comes with graphs, charts, and heat maps that make it easy to visualize the events that take place in your physical space. 

Interested in Connected Spaces? DCG provides consulting, support, and migration solutions to data-driven enterprises that use this platform. Call 844-567-2590 to learn more. 

Read more: Prep Your Company for Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Data Migration.

New Insights

With greater support for cameras comes a whole new range of customer insights that will power your sales, marketing, and customer service campaigns. These insights include:

Shopper Analytics

Connect Spaces can analyze footfall trends via cameras positioned at entry and exit locations in your physical space. For example, discover the busiest times of the day in your store so you can hire more staff. 

Queues

Connected Spaces analyzes cameras and provides queue management data that you can use to manage traffic flow, open new checkouts, or hire more staff. 

Promotional Displays

Now you can measure the success of promotional displays. Connected Spaces uses the cameras in your space to gauge how many customers interact with these displays.

“Use this data to do A/B testing to determine the best locations to put your promotional content or to simply understand how the display is doing,” says Sood. 

All of these insights will only be available in preview mode from December 1. However, Connected Spaces will likely make them available for general use soon. 

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Future Developments

Sood promises even more new features for Dynamics 365 for Connected Spaces, including anomaly detection for manufacturers and reduced inefficiencies for managers that use tools and materials. 

“Ease of use is at the center of our product experience, and we’re excited for the potential to use low-code capabilities to enhance pre-built skills to accommodate your business use cases and account for the unique nature of your spaces,” he says. “Looking forward, employees will be able to easily adapt, train, and improve skill accuracy.”

Dynamics 365 for Connected Spaces: Final Word

Big changes are coming for Connected Spaces, formerly Connected Store. Expect more support for cameras, new alerts about events that happen in your physical space, and more insights about customer behaviors and trends. Adding Connected Spaces to your tech stack could improve productivity, sales, and the customer experience. 

Get more value from Connected Spaces for your team when you invest in a Dynamics 365 partner like DCG. Schedule a meeting now to discover more about this platform?