This post was co-authored by Michael Mendoza, Director of Service Transformation, Hitachi Solutions.

The era of AI came upon us quickly, and many business leaders are scrambling to determine AI strategies that provide the best way forward for their employees and customers alike. The 2024 Microsoft Work Trend Index shows that 79% of leaders agree that their company needs to adopt AI to stay competitive; however, 60% of leaders worry that their organization lacks a plan and a vision for implementing AI.¹

Many leaders in service organizations see AI as a boon for providing capabilities that can help them improve operations and serve customers better. After all, these days, high service quality is absolutely critical to driving greater revenue and customer satisfaction. But having a vision for AI and implementing that vision are two different things. Service leaders want to implement AI solutions in the most impactful way possible to ensure that service agents and field technicians alike feel confident using the solutions to help them be more productive throughout the day. And they also want to ensure that customers reap the benefits of these AI solutions as well through more positive and efficient interactions with agents and technicians and faster resolution times.

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The promise of AI for field service organizations

Enabling quick, first-time resolution of customer issues in the field is critical to ensuring the efficiency of service operations and providing the best possible experience for customers, to help build loyalty and grow revenue. Arming field technicians with intuitive, AI-powered solutions that combine capabilities such as workflow automation, scheduling algorithms, and mobility can significantly enhance service outcomes. Research shows that high performing field service organizations have been early to embrace AI and automation to help improve job performance—and 93% of mobile workers in high performing organizations also report job satisfaction as a significant benefit.²

A key area for modernizing field service and improving operational efficiency is automation. Over 60% of frontline workers like service agents and field technicians struggle with having to do repetitive or menial tasks that take time away from more meaningful work. According to a recent McKinsey study, service organizations have the potential to use AI-powered workflows to help automate tasks that currently take up to 70% of field service employees’ time.³ This means that both agents and technicians can get back time that lets them focus on servicing more customers.

And all of this is good news for business: more than 55% of GDP gains by 2030 are expected to be driven by improved labor productivity powered by AI.⁴ Smart service organizations know that strategic implementation of AI-powered solutions helps agents and technicians find information and experts, personalize service, and automate mundane tasks. So the question is: Where to begin?

Preparing field service for AI

The benefits of AI—improved service, increased efficiencies, and deeper business intelligence—to name a few—are clearly compelling. But successfully implementing AI solutions and making them part of the organization’s work culture requires careful planning and certain key steps.

We’ve identified five critical steps to help field service organizations prepare for implementing AI solutions in a way that benefits employees and customers alike.

Step 1: Focus on a framework for capturing and proving business value

Proving business value is absolutely critical to the success of any AI strategy. Field service leaders must identify their overall goals for adopting AI solutions, ensuring they are relevant and aligning them with the organization’s overall priorities for the business. They must consider the specific goals, whether they include optimizing processes for faster service resolution, improving customer experience by enhancing key customer touchpoints, or increasing overall revenue by servicing more customers. Then, they can identify their key performance indicators (KPIs) aligned with these goals, such as resolution rates, customer satisfaction scores, or revenue goals.

Step 2: Evaluate the use cases for AI applicability

Once the high-level objectives are clear, field service leaders should take a closer look at daily operations to understand where AI solutions can most help them improve. For example: Do service agents waste a lot of time responding to and managing customer email, or searching for customers’ service history? What processes are they using to schedule field technicians? Do they need help automating scheduling and filling gaps for service? In the field, do technicians need better access to service manuals or technical experts that can help them resolve issues quickly?

Identifying these use cases can help field service leaders understand which areas could benefit from AI-powered solutions most quickly to gain quick wins, and which AI use cases might take more time and training to implement.

Step 3: Enable innovation and collaboration early on

The whole idea behind adopting AI-powered solutions for field service is to help break down information and communication siloes and improve processes to increase efficiency and keep customers happy. The right AI tools provide clear visibility into processes, surface experts and other critical contacts, and enable collaboration to resolve customer issues—all within the flow of work.

Step 4: Design for iteration, feedback, and agility

Empowering field service organizations with AI-powered, low-code solutions provides the opportunity for field service teams to develop and test new apps and processes quickly. This keeps the service organization agile and helps it do a better job of both meeting the demands of the business and improving customer experience. For example, the ability to tweak a new automated scheduling process based on real-time feedback from field technicians could show immediate benefit in helping technicians reach more customers and resolve more issues each day.

Step 5: Ensure training and enablement to drive adoption

While resistance to change can sometimes be a barrier, the latest Microsoft Work Trend Index shows that when it comes to AI, employees are ahead of employers when it comes to being ready. However, even the most exciting technologies can end up on the shelf—so to speak—once the novelty has worn off. That’s why field service leaders need a clear plan for driving adoption and training for AI solutions. Selecting an AI solution provider that provides training resources, along with developing internal champions within the field service organization, can help employees feel more confident about when and how to use AI solutions in their daily work.

Making the AI vision a reality

AI has the power to drive new levels of productivity and efficiency in field service, so it’s critical to take the right steps to ensure your organization has the most effective approach to adopting—and gaining the most value from—AI solutions. If you want to learn more about how to turn your AI vision into a reality, register for our upcoming webinar. 

Sources:

1 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report, AI at Work Is Here. Now Comes the Hard Part, May 2024

2 ZDNET, AI improves field service quality and customer experience, January 2023

3 McKinsey Digital, The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier, June 2023

4 PwC, Sizing the prize: What’s the real value of AI for your business and how can you capitalise?

The post 5 steps for becoming AI-ready in field service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

On July 16, 2024, we published the 2024 release wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. These plans are a compilation of the new capabilities planned to be released between October 2024 to March 2025. This release introduces a wealth of new features designed to enhance customer understanding and improve overall user experience, showcasing our dedication to driving digital transformation for our customers and partners. 

The upcoming wave is centered around utilizing advanced AI and Microsoft Copilot technologies to enhance user productivity and streamline operations across diverse business applications. These enhancements include intelligent automation, AI-powered insights, and immersive user experiences that are designed to break down barriers between data, insights, and individuals. Watch a summary of the release highlights. 

Discover the latest features that empower organizations to operate more efficiently and adaptively. From AI-driven sales insights and customer service enhancements to predictive analytics in supply chain management and autonomous financial processes, the new capabilities enable businesses to proactively address challenges and capitalize on opportunities. 

Highlights from Dynamics 365 

Dynamics 365 release wave

Check out the 2024 release wave 2 Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Copilot for business features

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales continues to enhance customer understanding and boost sales through data, intelligence, and user-friendly experiences. In this release, we are focused on including natural language copilot for summarizing information, creating a new full-screen Copilot Home with curated insights and role-specific actions, and using AI-powered insights to find leads. Watch this video to discover the new and enhanced features included in this release wave. 

Microsoft Copilot for Sales continues to deliver and enhance cutting-edge generative AI capabilities for sellers by enriching Copilot in Microsoft 365 capabilities with sales-specific workflows, data, and actions. We will focus on using AI-powered insights to create leads, deepen the integration into Copilot in Microsoft 365, and use natural language capabilities to allow sellers to ask data-related questions of their CRM. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service will continue to empower agents to work more efficiently through new copilot capabilities such as proactive prompting, ability to access data from external systems securely with plugins, email enhancements, and AI-infused routing. Watch this video to discover how the latest enhancements to Customer Service can benefit your business. 

Microsoft Copilot for Service is now generally available, bringing new capabilities to enhance user experiences. These features will be integrated across Outlook, Teams, Microsoft 365 Chat, and Copilot embedded in third-party CRMs. View this video about the features launching in this wave for Copilot for Service. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center will add new features for voice, messaging, Copilot, AI-infused routing, and contact center operations including out of box support for additional CRMs. Watch this video to learn about the new features releasing in Dynamics 365 Contact Center this wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service enables a shift from reactive to proactive and predictive service, empowering digital transformation and innovative business models. Using Copilot, frontline workers will be able to retrieve critical information and initiate mixed-reality remote assist calls within Teams through Copilot. Managers will be able to create, update, and manage work orders effortlessly across web, Outlook, and Teams interfaces. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance continues its journey of leading in autonomous finance, using AI to transform common end-to-end financial processes. This release focuses on in-app copilot capabilities, immersive persona-based user experiences, expanding country coverage, electronic invoicing enhancements, business performance analytics and planning enhancements, and autonomous reconciliation capabilities. Discover how the latest enhancements to Finance can benefit your business in this video. 

Microsoft Copilot for Finance is expanding data reconciliation capabilities in Excel with assisted data sanitization and preparation routines. Extending variance analysis capabilities with support from additional data sources and enabling collaboration on findings with stakeholders will also be a focus in the upcoming wave. Additionally, the Teams integration will facilitate collections calls with suggested scripts and automated recording of action items in the financial system. Check out this video to see the exciting new features releasing in Microsoft Copilot for Finance.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is advancing along the path of an autonomous supply chain by integrating intelligence, automation, and analytics into every facet of business procedures, thereby improving user productivity and enhancing organizational adaptability. In this update, the spotlight is on improving order-promising capabilities for manufacturers. Demand planning is upgraded to incorporate forecasting with external signals, and the inclusion of Copilot weaves insights and analyses directly into workflows, identifying trends and irregularities, while also allowing for specific data inquiries at the cell level. Additionally, Traceability Copilot keeps track of actual products in production and compiles a comprehensive historical record of related activities. Watch this video to discover the exciting features launching in this release wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations is focused on enhancing usability, performance, and scalability in key areas such as project planning, invoicing, time entry, and core transaction processing. The spotlight is on AI-assisted core functionality improvements in estimation, proposal generation, journals, approvals, and contract management, with added mobile capabilities and scale improvements to handle larger projects and invoices at an increased scale. Watch this video to learn about the new features releasing in Project Operations this wave. 

Finance and Operations cross-app capabilities will continue to invest in capabilities applying to Finance, Supply Chain Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources, and Project Operations. We are infusing copilot experiences across applications, including natural language chat, embedded AI, and intelligent process automation, and enabling extensibility for copilot scenarios. We will also bring more value and insights to finance and operations apps data and enhancements to ensure continued enterprise-grade security and compliance at scale. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources continues to build intelligence, develop automation and analytics around the hire-to-separate process, increase user productivity, and empower business agility. We are enhancing recruiting with AI-driven assessments and offer management, improving experiences for employees and HR business partners in benefits and performance management, and advancing analytics, insights, and planning through business performance planning and analytics capabilities. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce is using the power of AI to empower retailers to streamline their operations and drive increased customer loyalty and conversions. With Copilot, retail managers, sales associates, and merchandisers will gain new AI-powered insights into customer buying patterns and preferences, recommendations for positioning and selling products, and business intelligence on store performance. Improvements to the self-checkout POS make customer checkouts more efficient, and user experience updates to Store Commerce app streamline daily tasks for faster, more efficient sales and service. Watch this video to see the new features releasing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is focused on maintaining service reliability performance and security standards. We’ll continue enhancing productivity by optimizing core processes with Copilot, expanding to cover more than 170 countries, and offering enhanced reporting with more than 80 Microsoft Power BI reports. Additionally, integration with Field Service will be expanded, along with new financial management features. We will also enhance development tools and governance, along with improved data privacy and compliance management. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist will bring significant improvements to the quality of Mixed Reality (MR) annotations in Teams mobile for both iOS and Android users. The update will enhance the accuracy of MR ink on irregular and complex surfaces, making it easier for remote experts and technicians to collaborate seamlessly. Mixed Reality annotations in Teams mobile will be generally available in the next wave, along with ongoing investments in stability, performance optimization, and usability improvements across HoloLens 2 and iOS and Android applications. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—Data empowers every organization to unify and enhance customer data, leveraging it for insightful analysis and intelligent actions. This release enables you to streamline data integration by using Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Fabric, attach your data in OneLake to Customer Insights, accelerate time to insights with data in Data Lake format, increase control when attaching to data in Dataverse, and seamlessly generate insights from marketing. Discover how these latest enhancements can benefit your business in this video. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—Journeys brings the power of AI to redefine the workflow for marketers, enabling them to be more productive than ever before. Businesses can optimize every interaction with their customers with end-to-end journeys across departments and channels. With this release, you will have more flexibility and control when it comes to journeys, managing your web forms and tailoring Copilot to your business. Watch this video to learn about the new features releasing in this wave. 

Highlights from Microsoft Power Platform 

Microsoft Power Platform

Check out the 2024 release wave 2 Microsoft Power Platform features

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Watch this video to explore the exciting new features releasing across Microsoft Power Platform. 

Microsoft Power Apps will continue to transform app experiences with infused intelligence, enabling users to be more productive by using Copilot to work with data, get insights, and improve their apps. Makers will continue to benefit from AI-assisted development, enabling rich and complex applications to be built with monitoring, control, and unmatched governance for admins, ensuring organizations can adopt low-code and AI transformation at scale. 

Microsoft Power Pages will expedite site building for a low-code maker or pro developer to build intelligent sites that reimagine the way you interact with your employees, customers, and partners. 

Microsoft Power Automate will continue to make it easier to build flows by using natural language and multi-modal generative AI capabilities across cloud flows and desktop flows, troubleshooting runs, and managing your automation estate with an end-to-end view. This, along with improvements in process mining to jumpstart creation of automation through Microsoft 365 integration and ongoing improvements to scaling, means it’ll be easier than ever for new users to get started and scale. 

Microsoft Copilot Studio is advancing copilot capabilities and IVR support with Customer Service and will expand geographically to the United Arab Emirates and Germany. Additionally, the team is improving software lifecycle management capabilities with topic-level import/export and role-based access control (RBAC), as well as enhancing governance and administration functionalities. 

AI Builder is investing in Prompt Builder for creating and deploying GPT prompts with enterprise data to enhance flows, apps, data tables, and copilots. We are also enhancing Intelligent Document Processing with a new validation station in Power Automate, application lifestyle management (ALM) support, and pre-built AI models for translation, classification, and personally identifiable information (PII) detection. Lastly, we’ll improve AI governance through capacity management, data policies, and including AI Builder capacity in the Power Apps developer plan. 

Microsoft Dataverse is enhancing the maker experience by boosting app building productivity with Copilot, ensuring seamless connectivity to external data and knowledge sources, and integrating AI-powered Enterprise Copilot in Microsoft 365. These investments aim to streamline development and use AI for more efficient and intelligent solutions. 

Governance and administration continues to advance via tools and insights that empower Microsoft Power Platform admin to easily get their job done. This wave focuses on governing Copilot adoption and easily securing low-code assets, helping enterprises boost adoption of Microsoft Power Platform solutions in their organization while keeping their digital environment safe. 

Early access period 

Starting July 29, 2024, customers and partners can validate the latest features in a non-production environment. These updates include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled in production environments by October 2024. Take advantage of the early access period to test these updates and effectively plan for your customer rollout. Explore the 2024 release wave 2 early access features for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform or visit the early access FAQ page for more information. 

For a complete list of new capabilities, please refer to the Dynamics 365 2024 release wave 2 plan and the Microsoft Power Platform 2024 release wave 2 plan. We also encourage you to share your feedback in the community forums for Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Power Platform. 

The post 2024 release wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform now available  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, efficiency and speed are key to staying ahead. That’s why we’re excited to preview* a new feature for Model Driven applications (Canvas application support coming soon) which is designed to improve your mobile applications offline sync performance, saving valuable time and bandwidth.

Offline table column selection brings a significant enhancement to the offline capabilities of your mobile app. Now, Dynamics customers have the power to customize their offline data sync by selecting specific columns within a Dataverse table to download. This granular control means that only the most relevant data is downloaded to the offline device, reducing the overall volume of data that needs to be downloaded.

An example of how this preview feature can be used is shown with the standard Contacts table. This is a standard out of the box Dataverse table which typically includes 240 columns. By leveraging offline table column selection, you can now reduce the number of columns downloaded offline by **greater than half.

User Benefits:

• Reduced Download Time: By downloading only the necessary columns, the time required for offline sync is significantly decreased. 
• Improved User Experience: Faster offline sync times will lead to less waiting for the mobile application to be ready to go offline, and large updates to the device will happen even faster. This will lead to a smoother and more efficient user experience. 
• Optimized Data Usage: This feature helps in managing data consumption, especially in areas with limited connectivity or data plans. 
• Enhanced Performance: With less data to process, the mobile app will use less battery and bandwidth, allowing for quicker access to critical information. 

The offline table column selection feature is a testament to our commitment to providing solutions that not only meet but exceed the needs of our customers. By enabling enterprise users to tailor their offline data access, we’re empowering them to work smarter, not harder. Experience the difference today and take your field service operations to the next level. 

* Offline table column selection is currently in preview only, please refer to the release plan for general availability

** Required columns may be different by organization and unique business scenarios. Be sure to review your custom business logic to ensure all columns required are selected.

Additional resources

• Learn more about this feature and how to enable for your organization
• Field Service Release update: Select table columns to include in mobile offline sync | Microsoft Learn
• Power Apps Release update: Select columns downloaded on mobile devices | Microsoft Learn

The post Improve Mobile Offline performance with Offline Table Column Selection appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.