Organizations in different industries need to visualize their customer interactions in different ways. With customized columns in the conversation table, organizations can enable agents to quickly summarize the purpose of the interaction, and they can associate conversations with leads. The ability to customize the conversation table improves agent productivity and creates positive customer outcomes.  

Improve agent productivity and CSAT with conversation table customization 

When agents converse with customers, the Active Conversation form helps capture the details of the interaction. And consequently, supervisors and other agents can easily understand it. 

Ana is a customer service agent at Contoso who works tirelessly, juggling multiple customer problems over chat throughout the day. After every conversation with a customer, she patiently reviews her interaction, summarizes the issue, and writes wrap-up notes. She wishes there were a better way to quickly capture the outcomes of customer interactions and move on to serve other customers instead of spending time wrapping up the conversation.   

Dynamics 365 Customer Service does not have an out-of-the-box solution to serve her needs. However, admins can now customize the conversation table to help agents like Ana wrap up cases more quickly. Conversation table customization now supports adding columns, charts, views and connecting conversations to leads or any other activity-enabled table. 

Now that the conversation table is customizable, contact centers can tailor the agent experience to business-specific use cases like Ana’s. When the conversation table is customizable to Ana’s needs, she can save time, serve more customers, lower wait times for customers, and leave them happy with Contoso’s service.  

Create positive customer outcomes by associating leads with conversations  

Contoso enabled Conversation disposition as a custom column on the conversation table and added it to the active conversation form.  

Olivia, a Contoso customer, contacts Contoso support over webchat. She wants to find out why she was charged full price for her coffee subscription instead of the promotional price. The agent assigned to address Olivia’s concern, Ana, checks with her account team, and rectifies the error. Ana quickly wraps the conversation by specifying “Pricing dispute” disposition instead of having to write elaborate notes. Ana or any other agent connected to Olivia in the future can quickly get the context and complete interaction history through dispositions instead of having to go through one note after the other.

With the ability to view service and sales data in a single record, Ana can pitch a special offer to Olivia and associate a lead to this conversation immediately in the same form. Contoso’s sales team can follow up with Olivia subsequently through the lead.  This single source of information offers a true end-to-end customer experience without having to juggle between sales and support lines.  

Contact center supervisors can review interactions like Olivia’s pricing dispute or other dispositions and take appropriate preventive measures based on aspects of the conversation such as volume or sentiment.  

The use cases for customization are truly limitless and best left to the imagination of our customers and their business scenarios.  

Customize the conversation table 

Now you can extend the conversation table just like any other Dynamics 365 table from the customization experience in Power Apps. Use the Regarding column to associate any activity enabled entity to Conversation. You can create additional columns, views, and charts. This feature is enabled by default for all customers with our April 2023 release wave.  

Learn more

Watch a quick video introduction.

To find out more about conversation customization in Customer Service, read the documentation:

• Customize the Active Conversation form | Microsoft Learn
• Customizations supported by the Conversation table and form | Microsoft Learn 

The post Customize the conversation table for your business needs  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Support agents often have to manage complex and lengthy conversations and cases. These require a lot of time and attention to understand and resolve. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to quickly get the gist of what’s going on without having to read through every single message or all the information linked to a case? 

Now agents can use Copilot to ramp up fast. Copilot summarization automatically generates concise and informative summaries of conversations and cases in simple, intuitive natural language. Agents can read these summaries in seconds and get up to speed on the most important details. 

Conversation summarization

Conversation summarization is available for any digital messaging or voice conversation that involves a virtual agent handoff to live support, an agent consult, or conversation wrap-up notes. You can also request a conversation summary on demand at any time during the conversation. 

A conversation summary will capture the key information such as the customer’s name, the issue or request, the steps taken so far, the case status, and any relevant facts or data. It will also highlight any sentiment expressed by the customer or the agent, plus action items or next steps.

Case summarization 

Case summarization is available in a single click, right on the case form. It captures highlights from key case fields such as Customer, Case title, Case type, Subject, Case Description, Product, and Priority. It also considers linked timeline records such as notes, emails and conversation summaries when the conversation summary feature is enabled. Case summaries can help support agents catch up on who has worked on the case so far. They can also see what has happened in previous communications, and any issues that have been addressed to date. This information helps agents quickly determine the best next steps.  

A case summary is valuable during case collaborations, transfers, and final resolutions when support agents are documenting what occurred throughout the case lifecycle. They are especially valuable in accelerating the administrative tasks surrounding multiday or long running cases. 

Extensibility and customization

Copilot summarization is flexible and adaptable to your organization’s needs and preferences. You can customize and extend the feature in various ways. 

With conversation summary, administrators can specify which actions trigger a conversation summary in the Customer Service admin center. For example, you can enable conversation summary only for handoffs and consults, or only for conversation wrap-ups, or for all three. 

With case summary, administrators can add the case summary card to any form that uses the case entity in Power Apps. This makes it easy to extend the functionality to any customized application that support teams use. 

Copilot summarization is a powerful tool that can help you accelerate your support processes and improve customer satisfaction. By providing agents with quick access to the most relevant information, Copilot helps save time, reduce errors, and enhance communication. Try it today and see how it can transform your support experience. 

Plan for future updates

We plan to update Copilot experiences monthly with features and enhancements. The AI models and prompts will be updated regularly behind the scenes, and you’ll see the quality of Copilot’s responses improve over time. The following features are already on our roadmap:  

• Out-of-box analytics. These reports will give supervisors insight into how their agents are using Copilot and its impact on their tracked support metrics.  
• SharePoint support for Copilot knowledge. Organizations who have their support content outside of Dynamics today can easily connect to a SharePoint content source. 

AI solutions built responsibly 

Enterprise grade data privacy at its core. Azure OpenAI offers a range of privacy features, including data encryption and secure storage. It allows users to control access to their data and provides detailed auditing and monitoring capabilities. Copilot is built on Azure OpenAI, so enterprises can rest assured that it offers the same level of data privacy and protection. 

Responsible AI by design. We are committed to creating responsible AI by design. Our work is guided by a core set of principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. We are putting those principles into practice across the company to develop and deploy AI that will have a positive impact on society.

Learn more

For more information on extending the case summary, see Configure Copilot features for custom case forms and custom apps | Microsoft Learn 

The post Accelerate support ramp-ups, handoffs, and wrap-ups with Copilot summarization  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Hello to the Project Service Automation (PSA) Community!

Back in November 2022 we announced the availability of the second phase of Project Service Automation to Project Operations upgrade, making it possible to upgrade projects with up to 500 tasks.  If all projects in your environment contain 500 tasks or less, we strongly encourage you to start your upgrade process as soon as possible so you can take advantage of many new Project Operations features such as: 

• Integration with Project for the Web with many new advanced scheduling features

• Project Budgeting and Time-phased forecasting  
• Date Effective price overrides 
• Revision and Activation on Quotes   
• Material usage recording in projects and tasks 
• Subcontract Management 

• Advances and Retained-based contracts 
• Contract not-to-exceed 
• Task based billing 
• Multi-customer contracts 

Learn more

Curious to know details about the upgrade process? Please check this link and learn more about it! 
 
Want to learn more about Project Operations? Check this link and navigate to our detailed documentation! 

Want to try Project Operations? Click here and sign up for a 30 days trial! 

Thank you

The Microsoft Project Operations Product Team 

The post Upgrade Project Service Automation to Project Operations appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In Resource Scheduling Optimization, dispatchers can lock existing scheduled bookings to Resource, Time or Time Range, or Resource and Time based on their scheduling scenarios.

What are locked options and why are they needed?

Once a booking is created, a lock can be set on the Scheduling Lock Options field in the Resource Scheduling Optimization tab of the Bookable Resource Booking record.

There are 4 options:

• Lock to ‘Time Range’. A repair work order is scheduled for tomorrow and a confirmation sent to customer stating that a technician will be arriving between 9am to 12pm in the morning. In case if this repair work order needed to be rescheduled as part of rescheduling or re-optimization process, RSO will need to make sure estimated arrival time for this booking still between 9am to 12pm but may move this booking to other resource if needed in order to optimize global scheduling results.

• Lock to ‘Resource’. Sometimes, certain technicians manage work order requests for specific service accounts, in this case, dispatchers can configure technician as ‘Must choose from’ resource on Resource Requirement record before requirement gets fulfilled, or if the booking already created lock the booking to this resource. RSO will make sure to keep this booking assigned to the same resource but may move to another time in order to optimize global scheduling results.

• Lock to ‘Time’, similar like Lock to ‘Time Range’, instead of keeping the booking within a time window, RSO will make sure to keep the estimated arrival time for this booking at exact time but may move this booking to another resource if needed in order to optimize global scheduling results.

• Lock to ‘Resource and Time’: Sometimes, there are specific commitments with customers, which requires booking time or assigned technician to not change, with this lock option, RSO will NOT change this booking at all, it may recalculate estimated travel time based on prior booking changes.

How did RSO handle locked bookings before?

Before this changes, RSO administrators could select and rank ‘Locked booking’ objective on optimization goal, RSO will try to include locked bookings and optimize together with other bookings. When there are too many locked bookings in optimization scope, it reduces the flexibility of RSO system to generate optimal results. To improve global optimization results, RSO may decide to NOT include some locked bookings in the new proposed schedule, and since RSO will not delete locked bookings either, these locked bookings will be treated as ‘Ignored’. Dispatchers will end up seeing overlapping bookings on schedule board, or technician gets double booked which causes confusions and disruption.

For example, there are two requirements, Repair work (1 hour) and Install boiler (8 hours). We have one resource (Jeff) that works 8 hours per day. If you book repair work (1 hour) to the resource Jeff and lock that booking to Jeff, when RSO runs with the objective of maximizing total working hours, RSO decides to ignore the booking for Repair work (1 hour) and create another booking for Install boiler (8 hours) to maximize the total working hours. Since Repair work (1 hour) gets ignored from the final schedule and not being deleted, Jeff ends up being double booked.

Improved logic for locked bookings

With the improved logic for locked bookings shipped along RSO 3.4.0.8, RSO will ALWAYS include locked bookings in the new proposed schedules, and schedule other bookings around.

In the previous example for Jeff, RSO will make sure that booking for Repair work (1 hour) remains on the schedule, won’t create booking for Install boiler (8 hours) to avoid overlapping.

Excessive use of lock constraints may result in poor optimization of the final schedule. For example: Jeff has low utilization as there isn’t any other requirement can fit into the remaining hours.

Booking lock options should be used wisely to maximize Resource Scheduling Optimization results and minimize interference with other Resource Scheduling Optimization objectives.

Will RSO still respect locked bookings when locked bookings violate scheduling constraints?

Sometimes, dispatchers may lock a booking explicitly without being aware that the locked booking potentially violates certain scheduling constraints.

E,g: skill matching, a booking gets assigned to a technician who does not have the required skill. 

In this case, RSO will still respect locked bookings and make sure this locked booking is in the final schedule, as RSO respects user decision of the ‘locked booking’.  RSO shows a prompt: “Locked booking is infeasible, has invalid match of resource skill” to let the user decide in case they would like to correct manually and explicitly.

These are some of the new enhancements to allow efficiency in resource scheduling. Do review the detailed documentation on Universal Resource Scheduling for Dynamics 365 Field Service overview – Dynamics 365 Field Service | Microsoft Learn for further information.

The post Maximizing efficiency in Resource Scheduling: Prioritizing Locked Bookings appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In today’s competitive business landscape, maximizing the value sellers derive from sales tools is paramount. One key aspect of achieving this is the ability for customers to customize Viva Sales forms, enabling them to have the right business information at the right time. This blog post explores how the latest Viva Sales update empowers administrators to add relevant out-of-the-box or custom entities to enhance the Viva Sales experience, so sellers can reduce context switching across applications and instead focus on building stronger relationships with their customers to close deals faster. 

We have integrated Viva Sales settings with the underlying CRM app, offering a more cohesive admin experience. When adding a new entity to Viva Sales, administrators now have the option to select an existing view from the CRM app to retrieve metadata information. This CRM view determines the fields to be shown, their order, filtering, and sorting definitions for Viva Sales forms and list views. 

Adding new entities to Viva Sales 

Viva Sales administrators can easily add entities from the Viva Sales settings. It’s important to note that only entities directly related to existing Viva Sales entities are available for selection. Additionally, administrators can control how the new entity is related to relevant existing Viva Sales entities. This influences its visibility in the Outlook side pane. For example, when admins add the Case entity, defining its relation to Contact and Accounts will determine how it displays in the main view and the detailed entities view within the Outlook side pane. Entities related to other entities will appear in the detailed view of their corresponding entities. For instance, adding the “Opportunity Product” entity will show the product list for a specific opportunity in the detailed view of opportunity records. 

Adding new entities through customization extends their availability across various Viva Sales experiences, including the Outlook side pane and the Teams message extension. This ensures that sellers can access and interact with the relevant information seamlessly within their preferred Viva Sales flow of work. 

Sellers have additional entities in the Viva Sales side pane and can click to see entity details and related entities. Sellers can also share any entity with their colleagues in Teams using an adaptive card. 

Keeping Viva Sales customization up to date 

When changes are made to the CRM entities exposed in Viva Sales it is important to refresh the Viva Sales settings area to reflect the update. These changes are not automatically refreshed and require action to keep a consistent experience across the applications.

Removing entities

Administrators have the flexibility to remove entities from Viva Sales. If an entity has related entities within Viva Sales, these related entities will be removed together with the main entity. This will happen unless they are still associated with other entities. Contact remains an exception and can’t be removed from Viva Sales. Removing entities doesn’t remove any data from Viva Sales or your CRM app. It only impacts the visibility of CRM data in the Viva Sales app. 

Saving Outlook emails and meetings to custom entities 

Empowering sellers with greater flexibility, the latest customize Viva Sales update enables saving Outlook emails and meeting activities to any Viva Sales out-of-the-box or custom entity. Sellers can now save activities to any entity that has been added to Viva Sales. Please note that today saving to custom entities is currently available exclusively for Dynamics 365 customers. 

The ability to customize Viva Sales forms plays a pivotal role in ensuring the information is highly relevant and impactful for the seller while keeping them working within the applications they prefer. The latest update allows Viva Sales administrators to:

• Effortlessly add new relevant custom and out-of-the-box entities.
• Leverage CRM views.
• Provide sellers with a tailored experience across various interfaces.

By keeping Viva Sales customization up to date and allowing for expanded options when saving Outlook activities, this update equips sellers with the tools they need to excel in their sales endeavors. Embrace the power of customization in Viva Sales and unlock a more efficient and personalized sales workflow. 

Next steps

Don’t have Viva Sales yet? get started now! Microsoft Viva Sales | Microsoft Viva 

Read the getting started guide to customize forms and fields 

The post Enhancing Seller Productivity: Customize Viva Sales Forms  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

With a growing alignment between customer service and brand loyalty, companies recognize the increasing complexity and consequence of the service relationship. Those looking to evolve service delivery have sought new tools and technologies to improve the experience for both the customer and the employee. This includes everything from omnichannel engagement to self-service, automation, and AI-enabled technologies that can assist agents in faster resolution and increase customer satisfaction.

But where should they start? To answer that question, Microsoft developed a service sophistication model that helps organizations assess their current service level and get guidance on evolving to the next level or beyond. Based on the aggregated responses from the assessment since its launch, we now have a white paper that highlights the key findings: Global State of Customer Service Sophistication: Leveling Up to Deliver a Modern Customer Service Experience.

Leveling up service is of interest across geography, industry, and size of organizations

Businesses across the board chose to participate in the assessment. About 65 percent of participants hailed from North America and Western Europe, followed by 26 percent from the Asia Pacific region. Financial services led the pack at 15 percent of respondents, followed by retail, healthcare, and the public sector at about 11 percent each. Businesses of various sizes expressed an interest in customer service needs, including about 20 percent from small businesses (less than 100 employees) and from 25 percent large enterprises (5,000 or more employees).

This illustrates that the interest in creating more robust customer experiences isn’t limited to a particular geography, organizational size, or industry.

A glimpse at how service organizations are looking to evolve

Modern customers expect ease and speed at every touch point; they want to interact with trained, knowledgeable staff who are empathetic to their needs. They want a seamless journey, a personalized approach that anticipates their needs, and they want to feel empowered through self-service options that give them control.

The white paper dives into how many of today’s organizations are looking to evolve their customer service and experience to satisfy these customer needs, with the assessment and guidance providing a solid foundation to start. Some of the key findings are as follows:

While voice still dominates as the primary channel for customer service, omnichannel engagement is making strides.

Manual routing for agent assistance is still the approach for a high percentage of companies; however, automated and AI-powered routing appears to be gaining ground.

While many organizations are working with only basic information, there appears to be a growing interest and trend toward more knowledge-based, holistic, and AI-assisted agent support. Many respondents are still manually generating insights from historic support data, illustrating an opportunity to move toward more automated AI-driven data analysis.

This is just an overview of the assessment findings, with the white paper providing additional details, as well as the implications of the results on customer service today and in the future. Overall, the assessment illustrates not only where the customer service level currently stands for many organizations, but also their commitment to and interest in evolving to take it to the next level and improving customer satisfaction—and in the digital tools that can help organizations reach those goals.

What organizations can do now to improve customer service operations in the future

The assessment responses noted above and further detailed in the white paper provide valuable insights on where organizations are excelling in customer service and where there is room to level up to a more sophisticated offering. That leveling up typically comes through the help of technology, with AI and automation poised to revolutionize the customer service experience.

Fortunately, this evolution doesn’t have to happen at one time. It’s more about embracing the need to create value for every interaction along the customer journey and finding the tools that can offer the connectivity and accessibility to help provide maximum engagement for customers. That digital transformation can begin by implementing small changes and applications with the potential to evolve into a cutting-edge service solution. It’s all about customizing capabilities to each individual business’ needs and making the right changes at the right times.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service can help organizations with this evolution by optimizing service operations, personalizing customer experiences, and increasing overall productivity. A holistic agent experience is the heart of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, which is designed for flexibility based on the organization’s unique business needs. It uses the latest technology, including AI and analytics, knowledge management, collaboration, and more, to streamline case management, enable personalized service with a 360-degree customer view, and provide visibility into how the service is performing.

Microsoft’s service sophistication model

Assess your organization’s current service level and get guidance on evolving to the next level.

Take the assessment

Together with the open and flexible Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform, service organizations can evolve at their pace and create the best experience for their customers.

Assess and evolve your organization’s customer service level

Access the complete Global State of Customer Service Sophistication: Leveling Up to Deliver a Modern Customer Service Experience white paper. Learn more about how your organization can build loyalty and deliver consistent, exceptional customer experiences. And if you haven’t done so already, take the service level assessment today.

The post A report on Global State of Customer Service Sophistication appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.