Let’s face it—customers don’t just want fast service anymore. They want businesses to know what they need before they even ask. Whether it’s a reminder about a missed payment, a heads-up about a delivery delay, or a quick check-in after a dropped call, customers appreciate when companies practice proactive engagement. 
 
At the same time, businesses are under pressure to do more with less. Reducing call volumes, improving customer service representative (CSR) productivity, and delivering consistent experiences across channels are no longer nice-to-haves—they’re essential. 
 
That’s where proactive engagement comes in. It’s about flipping the script: instead of waiting for customers to reach out, you reach out to them—with the right message, at the right time, on the right channel. At the end of the day, it’s about relationships. Proactive engagement helps businesses show up for their customers in ways that are meaningful and memorable. It’s about being there before you’re needed. About solving problems before they become complaints. About turning every interaction into an opportunity to build trust. And in a world where customer loyalty is earned one moment at a time, that makes all the difference. 

The platform behind the vision 

So how does it all work? At the heart of proactive engagement is a powerful platform built on Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys (CIJ), and Copilot Studio. Together, they’re changing how organizations connect with customers. 
 
With this platform, you can design intelligent, automated outreach that feels personal. For example, AI-powered voice bots can handle routine calls—like reminding someone about a payment or updating them on a service issue—while seamlessly handing off to a customer service rep when the situation calls for a more personal touch. And the best part? You don’t need to be a developer to make it all happen. The platform is designed with low-code tools. Business users can build and manage customer journeys across voice, SMS, and email—all from one place. 
 
It’s flexible, scalable, and built for the real world, where customer needs change fast and every interaction matters. 

How proactive engagement works

There are two main ways to kick off outbound interaction. One is through Customer Insights – Journeys (CIJ). This is where you can build event-driven journeys that automatically trigger calls based on real-time signals—like a missed payment or a service disruption, or segment-based journeys that target customers that meet a specific criteria. The other is through the CCaaS API, which is perfect if you already have campaign tools or CRMs in place and want to plug into the platform for things like scheduled callbacks. 
 
Once the trigger is set, Contact Center takes over. It handles the orchestration. That is, it figures out the best time to call, checking if the customer is within their preferred contact window. It also manages the pacing of calls so CSRs aren’t overwhelmed. It’s a seamless handoff and it ensures that every call feels intentional, timely, and relevant. 

Dial modes: Tailored for every scenario 

One of the most powerful aspects of proactive engagement is its flexibility, especially when it comes to placing calls. Additionally, it offers dial modes optimized for different types of customer interaction. 

Copilot dial 

This is the most automated option. The system places the call, and a conversational AI bot—your Copilot—takes the lead. It’s perfect for transactional scenarios like payment reminders, service outages, or shipping updates. Copilot can handle the entire interaction. However, if it senses the need for a more nuanced conversation, it can seamlessly bring it to a CSR. It’s a major upgrade from traditional IVR systems, offering a more natural, helpful experience. 

Preview dial 

Here, the CSR is in the driver’s seat from the start. Before the call is even placed, the CSR gets a full view of the customer context—past interactions, preferences, and the reason for the outreach. Once they’re ready, the system dials the customer. This mode is ideal for high-touch engagements where personalization is key, like follow-ups on complex service issues or high-value sales conversations. 

Progressive dial 

This mode strikes a balance between automation and human touch. The system waits until a CSR is available, then places a call to a customer. If the customer picks up, the CSR joins the conversation. It’s efficient, but still ensures that someone is ready to help the moment the customer answers. You can even use Copilot to verify the customer before the CSR joins, adding an extra layer of smart filtering. 

Use cases 

The beauty of proactive engagement is its versatility. It’s a platform that spans the entire customer journey, not just for one department or one type of interaction. Think about a utility company sending outage alerts before customers even notice a problem. Or a bank reminding customers about upcoming payments. Or a retailer following up on an abandoned cart with a personalized offer.  

Whether it’s transactional, commercial, or customer-initiated, proactive engagement makes it easy to deliver the kind of service that feels thoughtful, timely, and human. 

What’s next for proactive engagement

Microsoft is continuing to invest in expanding the capabilities of proactive engagement to support even more sophisticated, scalable, and compliant outreach. One of the most exciting additions on the horizon is predictive dialing, designed for high-volume outreach—like marketing campaigns or large-scale service updates—ensuring CSRs stay productive while customers get timely responses. This mode uses AI to forecast CSR availability and customer pickup rates, allowing the system to place multiple calls per CSR to maximize efficiency.  

Also on the roadmap: 

• Enhanced regulatory compliance for commercial calling (e.g., TCPA, OFCOM) 
• Post-call outcome processing (e.g., voicemail detection, retries) 
• Conversational SMS and Conversational WhatsApp support for outbound journeys 

Learn more about proactive engagement

To learn more, read the documentation: Configure proactive engagement (preview) | Microsoft Learn

Try the preview and ensure your organization stays ahead of customer expectations. Send your feedback to pefeedback@microsoft.com.

The post The power of proactive engagement in Dynamics 365 Contact Center appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The schedule assistant on the schedule board receives a new feature that enables time zone agnostic scheduling. It’s designed to eliminate the complexities of time zone conversions, and it simplifies the process of scheduling resources across time zones.  

Address cross-time zone challenges 

Scheduling resources in a globally distributed team presents unique challenges. A team with members in different regions may find it difficult to align schedules because their working hours appear differently on a schedule board that is locked to a single time zone.  

By normalizing working hours to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), this feature ensures that scheduling is both accurate and effortless, enabling smoother operations for teams spread across the globe. The unified format makes it easier to focus on availability without the distraction of manual conversions. 

Book requirements across time 

Let’s check out an example. A project manager at a consulting firm manages a team of consultants which work remotely from various locations. All consultants work from 9am-5pm in their local times. Mark works in Singapore, Patrick in New York, and Sarah is based in Seattle. By default, their resource availabilities show haphazardly on the schedule board, which is set to UTC. This makes scheduling tricky. 

The new time zone agnostic schedule assistant feature solves this problem. After enabling the feature, the project manager can launch the schedule assistant and see all resource availabilities normalized to UTC. 

In other words, it visualizes all consultants to be working from 9am-5pm regardless of their time zones.  The project manager can now book the requirement in the consultants’ local time. Schedule assistant automatically converts the booking to the resources’ time zone, which is Eastern Time for Patrick.  

Get started today 

Ask your administrator to turn on the time zone agnostic scheduling assistant feature and experience the difference it makes in your scheduling workflows. For more information, see [DOCS] 

We’re eager to hear your feedback. Let us know what you think about seamless scheduling across time zones in the Community Forum and submit feature suggestions in the Ideas page. 

The post Seamless scheduling across time zones in Dynamics 365 Field Service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

As Microsoft continues innovating and investing in cloud solutions and technologies that help customers enhance productivity and streamline business processes, we are announcing updates to Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL product availability.

Dynamics GP 

After more than 40 years of availability, in September 2024 we announced that Dynamics GP’s product enhancements, regulatory (tax) updates, and technical support will end on December 31, 2029, with security updates available until April 30, 2031. The following related changes will be effective April 30, 2031: 

• Service Plan coverage ends for Dynamics GP products. 
• Subscription licenses for Dynamics GP (via Solution Provider Agreement (SPA)/Dynamics Price List (DPL)) are no longer renewable.
• Additional perpetual users on existing Dynamics GP systems can no longer be added.
• Subscription use of Dynamics GP via Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) licensing (not to be confused with SPA program) is expected to end.

As a reminder, the final day for new customers to license Dynamics GP subscriptions is April 1, 2026. 

Dynamics SL 

Similarly, after serving customers for 30 years, mainstream support for Dynamics SL ended July 11, 2023, and its extended support (such as security updates) period will end on July 11, 2028. The following related changes will be effective January 15, 2030: 

• Service Plan coverage ends for Dynamics SL.
• Last day to license more perpetual users on existing Dynamics SL systems.
• Expected last day to use Dynamics SL via SPLA subscriptions (this is not to be confused with the SPA program).

These dates may seem far off, but full cloud migration is not something that can be accomplished overnight, and forward-thinking organizations should begin the conversation today.

Why migrate to Business Central today?

Recently, we provided an in-depth review of the reasons, steps, and benefits of moving from Dynamics GP to Business Central. Here are some of the many reasons why customers running either Dynamics GP or Dynamics SL should consider migrating to Business Central today:

• Future-proof your business. Business Central is a comprehensive solution for SMBs, covering sales, finance, project management, manufacturing, supply chain, and service—all on a single, AI-ready platform.
• Use AI now. With built-in Microsoft Copilot capabilities and customizable AI agents, Business Central helps you automate and optimize operations today—not someday.
• Reduce technical debt. Modernizing from legacy on-premises systems eliminates redundancies, cuts costs, and improves visibility into business performance.

How to migrate to Business Central

Microsoft provides a number of tools to help support the efficient and comprehensive transfer of business data from both Dynamics GP and Dynamics SL to Business Central. The first step in a migration process is to consult with your partner on the scope of migration and implementation timeline. If you need additional support or don’t know where to start, you can engage with a Microsoft representative.

The technical steps, whether you’re migrating from either Dynamics GP or Dynamics SL, will be largely the same.

Initially, the preparation phase helps to ensure that the on-premises environment meets all prerequisites for migration. This includes planning the migration timeline, verifying data integrity, and setting up the cloud migration environment. The data replication phase follows, where data is securely copied from the on-premises Microsoft SQL Server to the Microsoft Azure SQL Database using Azure Data Factory. This phase involves creating pipelines to manage the flow of data and checking that the data is accurately replicated in the new environment.

Once data replication is complete, the data upgrade phase begins, where the replicated data is upgraded to match the Business Central online environment. This step is crucial to facilitate compatibility and functionality. Finally, the completion and follow-up phase involves optimizing the new environment, setting up user access, and decommissioning the old on-premises system. Throughout the process, validation and troubleshooting are performed to address any issues and help to ensure a smooth transition.

Transition support

You may be wondering how the transition to Business Central will impact your workflows, operations, and reporting. Our engineering team is prepared with comprehensive overviews of how each capability functions to help you get started. Here are some videos that show direct companions for common workflows:

• Compare Dynamics SL to Business Central
• Compare Dynamics GP to Business Central

Migrating from Dynamics GP or Dynamics SL to Business Central marks a pivotal step toward modernizing your business operations. This transition not only streamlines financial and operational processes but also unlocks the power of cloud-based scalability, real-time data access, and seamless integration with the broader Microsoft ecosystem.

By moving to Business Central, organizations gain a unified platform that supports remote work, enhances collaboration, and delivers actionable insights through AI and analytics. The migration also reduces the burden of maintaining legacy systems, offering improved security, automatic updates, and lower total cost of ownership.

While the journey may involve careful planning and change management, the long-term benefits far outweigh the initial effort. Whether you’re looking to future-proof your business, improve agility, or align with evolving customer expectations, Business Central provides a robust foundation for growth.

As you consider your next steps, remember that success lies in choosing the right migration strategy, engaging stakeholders early, and using expert guidance. With the right approach, your move from an on-premises solution to Business Central can be more than a system upgrade—it can be a strategic transformation that positions your organization for long-term success in the digital era.

The post Explore migration options for Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics SL customers appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Running an effective contact center requires real-time insights into key operational metrics. Dynamics 365 Customer Service introduces real-time analytics for record routing, a practical tool that helps supervisors monitor and manage contact center performance as it happens. By providing an up-to-date view of workloads, agent activity, and case progress, this feature ensures your team can quickly adapt to meet customer demands and maintain service excellence. 

Key features and benefits of real-time analytics for record routing

Comprehensive reports: 

• Summary Report: Offers a real-time overview of organizational performance through key operational metrics. Additionally, it aids in evaluating the effectiveness of routing by comparing automatic and manual methods. 

• Queue Report: Offers insights into record work items segmented by queue. 

• Agent Report: Highlights the metrics of each service representative and their current states. 

• Ongoing Work Items Report: Tracks active or open records in the past 24 hours 

• Backlog Work Items Report: Tracks active or open records over the historical period 

Enhanced security and permissions: Real-time analytics leverages Microsoft Dataverse security permissions, ensuring that supervisors only see metrics relevant to their business unit-level data based on the security configuration set in you  

Seamless work item lifecycle tracking: Unified routing in Dynamics 365 Customer Service uses work items (conversations) to monitor cases, record routing, and assignments. This feature ensures a seamless tracking process, even when cases are reassigned. 

Customizable dashboards: Supervisors can tailor the visual display of reports to suit their needs and save personalized views as bookmarks. This flexibility ensures that the most relevant data is always at their fingertips. 

Why it matters 

By providing supervisors with actionable insights, real-time analytics for record routing helps maintain high service levels and customer satisfaction. It enables efficient management of operational metrics, service representative allocation, and ongoing cases, ensuring that customer service teams can deliver exceptional experiences. 

Get started with real-time analytics for record routing

To access this feature, supervisors need the CSR Manager role, or they need to add appropriate permissions to the custom roles. The dashboards are available in the Copilot Service workspace app. 

Dynamics 365 Customer Service continues to redefine the customer service landscape, offering tools that empower organizations to excel. With real-time analytics for record routing, supervisors can make data-driven decisions that elevate their contact center’s performance and customer satisfaction. 

Learn more

To learn more, read the documentation: Overview of the real-time Omnichannel analytics dashboard | Microsoft Learn 

The post Unlock the power of record routing with real-time analytics appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.