Today, more than ever, it’s critical for manufacturers and distributors alike to ensure product quality and compliance as new regulations continue to emerge and supply chains are increasingly complex. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management offers many out of the box capabilities for quality and compliance, directly integrated with the execution of supply chain processes like procurement, production, and fulfillment. This April, we’re adding new, advanced features to enhance quality compliance in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. These provide extended quality control throughout the supply chain, ensuring compliance with regulations, boosting product quality, and enhancing customer satisfaction. These new features foster continuous improvements and risk mitigation through a feedback-driven approach. They also minimize reliance on third-party quality management solutions.  

What’s New

In Public Preview in Dynamics 365 version 10.0.44, these capabilities extend the existing quality management solution, adding support for the following requirements:  

• Enhanced user experience – New forms and fields introduced for registering test results for quality orders, enabling faster and more detailed data entry. Additionally, a new quality management workspace provides an intuitive interface for following up on quality orders and performing trending analysis. 

• Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPA) Management – Create and maintain records of actions taken to manage and resolve non-conformities or defects. Through structured planning, tracking, and analyzing CAPA cases, this feature helps develop efficient processes for handling recurring issues. CAPA management ensures a formal and controlled process for addressing issues arising from manufacturing, engineering, quality, or data sources. 

• Flexible sampling plans and triggers – Flexible sampling plans enable adjustments to item sampling over time based on test findings. For instance, initial rounds of testing may inspect 50% of a receipt, which can later be reduced to 10% based on consistent quality. Skip lot sampling allows you to bypass testing specific batches, such as inspecting 10 units and skipping the next 10. Additional event triggers are now available for quality orders. This includes transfer order processing and customer returns, alongside existing triggers like purchase receipts and sales picking. 

• Test instrument calibration – Time-based or usage-based plans ensure regular and precise calibration of instruments. Maintain their accuracy and compliance with defined schedules or usage metrics. 

• Electronic batch record (EBR) – EBR digitizes batch manufacturing documentation, replacing traditional paper records with electronic versions that enhance data integrity and accessibility. These records include quality test results, batch attributes, ingredients, work instructions, and electronic signatures for production journals. Ensure regulatory compliance and efficient production workflows. 

• Production dispensing – Advanced dispensing capabilities for hazardous or sensitive materials minimize contamination and maintain safety. Key features include setting dispensing thresholds, returning unused materials, restricting access to authorized personnel, and requiring electronic signatures for verification. 

• Approved customer list – Similar to the approved vendor list for items, the approved customer list now tracks which customers are authorized to purchase specific items, preventing unauthorized sales. 

• Customer-specific Certificates of Analysis (COA) – This feature enables customization of COAs to include data tailored to individual customer requirements. COAs can also be automatically printed when generating a sales order packing slip, ensuring compliance and improving customer satisfaction. 

• Electronic signatures – Expanded electronic signature capabilities now support regulatory compliance activities. This includes quality order validation, instrument calibration, production dispensing, and CAPA signoffs. Additionally, configurations are available for password formats and expiration dates for electronic signatures. 

Check out this video showing the new flexible sampling plans.

Learn more 

As of April 25^th, these features are now in public preview. Enhance quality compliance with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management today! For more information, check out the Dynamics 365 release plan.

We will add a link to the user documentation shortly.

The post Enhance quality compliance with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Efficient supplier communication is the backbone of successful procurement operations. Yet, many purchasing teams face challenges such as manual processes, delayed responses, and missed opportunities for optimization. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supplier Communication Agent is here to transform the way purchasing professionals interact with suppliers and suppliers. Reimagining supplier communications in Dynamics 365 and enable leaner, faster, and more accurate workflows. 

The Problem: Manual Processes and Lost Time 

Purchasing personnel often spend up to 50% of their day managing supplier communications. This includes tasks such as: 

• Sending purchase orders to suppliers and suppliers. 

• Following up on delayed orders. 

• Updating purchase orders based on supplier emails. 

These manual, repetitive tasks not only consume valuable time but also increase the risk of errors, delayed orders, and lost revenue due to customer dissatisfaction. 

The Solution: Supplier Communications Agent in Dynamics 365 

The Supplier Communications Agent processes inbound and outbound communications with suppliers and suppliers, allowing purchasing teams to focus on higher-value tasks. Here’s how it works: 

Key Features 

1. Follow-up: The agent  follows-up with suppliers con delayed and missing confirmations, eliminating avoidable delays due to oversight.   

2. Updates based on emails from suppliers: It reads incoming emails, understands the intent, and extracts relevant data to summarize changes or update purchase orders.  

Let’s see in detail below.  

Follow up on delayed or unconfirmed orders 

Define the follow-ups based on the criteria you would like, such for unconfirmed orders for the next week or month, or for orders that have not been received after two days. Configure your own criteria and define which tone, information and even signature you would like on the email.  

Configure the criteria yourself as in the following image: 

And have the emails drafted for your review as shown below: 

Or if you prefer, send them automatically. Plus, email is written in the supplier’s language.  

Updates based on emails from suppliers 

• Updating to confirm orders: The agent scans supplier emails and suggests to update the purchase orders when a confirmation is received. 

• Managing delivery changes: The agent identifies changes in delivery quantities and receipt dates, allowing purchasing agents to review and easily accept updates. 

Select which mailbox you would like the agent to monitor; it could be your common procurement mailbox or each user if you use the purchaser’s mailbox for communications. Then you select which suppliers’ addresses you would like to enable the agent for. If you wanted to start with just a few until you are on your way to automating all communications, then that’s something you can do. 

After setup, the agent will automatically read the emails and show you the summary: 

You can also teach the agent, so it becomes smarter and smarter over time – for example, you can help it improve its data mapping from supplier emails or PDF documents to Dynamics 365  

Save your purchasing department’s time on repetitive tasks and streamline the process by just following up on them, as you will easily with the agent activity: 

Timeline and Availability 

The Supplier Communications Agent is rolling out in Public Preview with release 10.0.44.  Begin reimagining supplier communications today!

Dynamics 365 Supplier Communications Agent is revolutionizing procurement by streamlining supplier interactions, decreasing the risk of manual errors, order delays and ensuring seamless collaboration.  

The post Reimagining Supplier Communications with Dynamics 365 Supplier Communications Agent  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In September 2024, Microsoft announced the end of product support and updates for Dynamics GP on December 31, 2029. Microsoft is incredibly grateful to existing GP customers, and is committed to facilitating a stable, supported, and smooth migration for GP customers to a cloud solution.

As a follow-up to that announcement, I wanted to discuss the advantages of beginning the migration process now and review the many resources that Microsoft and our partner community have to support you.

Why migrate to Business Central today?

Microsoft has made sure to provide a lengthy runway so customers currently running Dynamics GP can comprehensively prepare for migration to a new system, but there are clear benefits to moving now, rather than waiting.

Here are a few key considerations.

• Don’t wait to future-proof your business. Business Central is the leading comprehensive business management solution, designed for small and medium businesses, and engineered for Microsoft Copilot. On a single platform, it includes harnessing sales, finance, project management, manufacturing, supply chain, and service on a single platform, today. Migrating on your timeline means more time to help ensure you’re realizing value at every input.

• Get ahead of the curve with AI. Most business leaders are curious about what AI will allow their business to achieve. With Business Central, you don’t need to wonder—you’ll benefit from what AI can do today with new use cases, prebuilt agents, and updated workflows. With the AI-powered agents, both prebuilt as well as customized, Business Central capitalizes on and offers a foundation that will put you ahead when this technology quickly becomes a “need-to-have”.

• Avoid technical debt and realize time and operational savings. Waiting means sitting on a legacy on-premises tech stack than can and should be modernized. Migrating to modern Business Central today can help eliminate redundancies, save money, and offer more visibility into business health and areas for improvement.

Realizing big value for businesses of all sizes

The material value of upgrading is clear: In 2024, Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to create a benchmark for the value-add to companies upgrading from an on-premises solution to Business Central. The results of the Total Economic Impact™ study were based on a combination of primary research, customer interviews, and methodological analysis.

Forrester aggregated the data collected into a composite organization with USD15 million annual revenues, 150 total employees, and 28 Business Central users across finance, supply chain, operations, and sales.

An organization of that size saw:

• Realization of payback in less than six months.
• 265% return on investment in three years.
• Net Present Value (NPV) of USD529K over three years.
• Productivity improvement of 12.5% for operations staff, 15% for sales staff, and 15.6% for finance staff.
• More than USD80,000/year in third-party fee avoidance.

They achieved these savings through the move to Business Central from on-premises, which allowed:

• A clear reduction in manual operations.
• More direct access to systems and data remotely.
• Clearer and more consistent access to data across the Microsoft ecosystem.
• Significantly lower infrastructure, maintenance, and personnel costs, as well as upgrade fees.

So don’t treat this upgrade as an obligation, but as an opportunity to control the operational headwinds of your organization, virtually eliminate technical debt, and build a strong, repeatable operational framework that will require very minimal intervention in the months and years ahead.

In addition to these smart business reasons, many existing Dynamics GP customers are eligible for substantial promotional discounts offered by Microsoft when upgrading to an online Dynamics 365 Business Central solution. Promotional offers also allow eligible customers to avoid the need to simultaneously spend money on certain Microsoft on-premises fees while migrating. Be sure to ask your Microsoft systems consultant or reseller about your eligibility for Business Central migration offers.

These migration offers are intended to provide GP perpetual-license customers with a strong runway towards the cloud, driving business productivity, while reducing capital spending and costs of maintaining your on-premises applications while deploying Business Central.

The cloud migration process

With the business case clear, let’s discuss the technical steps in migrating your data and transitioning from Dynamics GP to Business Central.

The first step in a migration process is to consult with your partner on scope, costs, and timing. If your migration requirements go beyond need assistance outside of what your Dynamics GP is able to provide, you can engage a Microsoft representative​.

Here’s an overview of the different stages of migration:

1. Migration Assessment, evaluating the readiness of the on-premises deployment for migration using the migration assessment tool.
2. Preparation, developing a migration plan, verifying prerequisites, and checking data is in the best state possible for migration.
3. Cloud Migration Setup, establishing the connection and pipeline between the on-premises database and online tenant database.
4. Data Replication, migrating data from on-premises to online and verifying the migration.
5. Data Upgrade, upgrading the replicated data in the online environment.
6. Completion and Follow-Up, optimizing the new Business Central online environment, setting up user access, and going live.

What data is migrated

When you’re ready to migrate, Microsoft offers a comprehensive set of tools for migrating company data from Dynamics GP. The cloud migration tool typically migrates the following data:

• System and company setup (for example: payment terms, shipping methods, sites)
• Master data for accounts, customers, vendors, and items
• Transactional data
• Vendor 1099

See the detailed overview of data migrated to Business Central.

As mentioned previously, the on-premises environment will remain the active system until the migration process is complete.

Once the cloud migration is set up and underway, data entry in the Business Central online tenant is limited to data not included in the migration from on-premises.

How do Business Central processes differ from Dynamics GP?

It’s natural to have questions about how Dynamics GP compares to Business Central operationally, and Microsoft is here to support with common workflow comparisons available for review here, and on the Business Central YouTube channel. Additionally, we discuss many more of the implications and benefits of migration in this on-demand webinar.

Even with this powerful technology, though, there will naturally be some manual processes. Both Microsoft and your partners are here to support your transition with best practices, documentation, and support. The goal is not just a seamless transition, but an end-to-end enhancement of operations.

With these guides, you will have the tools you need to migrate from Dynamics GP to Business Central with confidence. Reach out to your partner to learn more.

The post Why migrate now: The benefits of moving from Dynamics GP to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We’re continually improving Dynamics 365 Customer Service to help organizations deliver faster, smarter, and more efficient customer experiences. Today, we’re excited to announce that administrators will now be able to maintain routing rules in bulk. This enhancement empowers administrators to update routing configurations across the board with just a few clicks—a game-changing update for teams leveraging unified routing.

Unified routing is an intelligent, scalable routing system that sends work items to the right queues to ensure quality customer service. Administrators can set up unified routing across channels in Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Dynamics 365 Contact center. Routing rules classify and assign work items based on the type of request and organizational data.

Save time by administering routing rules in bulk

Bulk management enables administrators to create routing ruleset templates for queues and workstreams, eliminating the need for multiple versions of the same routing rules. With a few clicks, apply prioritization, assignment, or work classification ruleset templates to multiple queues and workstreams. Administrators can manage rules centrally—any template update instantly applies to all instances in queues or workstreams, removing the need for individual ruleset maintenance. 

By simplifying routing configuration, service teams can devote more time to addressing customers’ needs and less time on administrative tasks. This operational efficiency helps boost overall team productivity.

The ability to maintain routing rules in bulk is now generally available for Dynamics 365 Customer Service customers.

Learn more

To learn more, read the documentation:

• How to set up unified routing
• Manage ruleset templates

The post Transform routing rule administration with bulk management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.