Customer journey orchestration: The next frontier of connected experiences

Customer journey orchestration: The next frontier of connected experiences

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

A decade ago, marketing was focused on guiding the customer through predictable stages of awareness, consideration, and purchase. We were relatively assured that if we reached x number of eyeballs, we could expect y number of responses and z number of conversions.

That world no longer exists. Eighty-one percent of consumers1 want to purchase from brands that get to know them, but nearly three-quarters2 are frustrated by tons of irrelevant content which makes them feel so disconnected. That feedback exposes how the customer experience is falling short and reminds us that it’s no longer enough to employ tactics that focus on volume, or even segmentation. Traditional approachescampaigns, offers, and adsexist in siloes. The customer journey doesn’t. It doubles back, skips forward, and spans digital and physical channels. The marketer’s approach should likewise cut across traditional siloes of existing functions, roles, or channels.

Brands should recognize these fundamental shifts and look for solutions that keep up with surging expectations. Customer journey orchestration in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing delivers an individualized, end-to-end experience to every customer, across all touchpointsat scale. Each individual travels a unique path, based on evolving needs. The result is a refreshing two-way conversation that’s customer-centric, rather than brand-centric. Where one customer may need additional education and proof points, another may be ready to select among different models. In the past, they would both receive the same, predefined, offer after signing up on the brand’s website. This traditional approach falls flat, failing to take into account key contexts like previous interactions and intent. With customer journey orchestration, brands can harness everything they know about the customer, across all channels, and mobilize the organization to engage in the moment to deliver a fluid and seamless experience. For an organization with thousands or millions of customers, optimizing individual experiences at scale can have an enormous impact on growth through increased acquisition and retention.

According to BCG, organizations implementing customer journey orchestration have achieved3:

  • Revenue gains of 10-20 percent
  • Cost reductions of 15-25 percent
  • Customer advocacy score improvements of 20-40 points

Optimizing customer experiences with customer journey orchestration might seem daunting, but it helps to focus on three areasdata, decisioning, and delivery. Most organizations already have a lot of customer data, but they need to bring together the data to gain a 360-degree view of the customer. Then they can turn the data into actions with real-time decisioning to determine which offer to surface or what content to display or what kind of communication to send. Next is the delivery of the actions through alignment and integration with the MarTech stack.

Building a resilient data foundation

Journey optimization begins with a strong data foundation. With help from a customer data platform, organizations can create unified profiles to gain a single view of customers. Savvy organizations go a step further and consider the ever-changing nature of datafrom new data sources to regulatory and compliance requirements that seemingly spring up overnight. Adapting by identifying and bringing in new data sources like digital behavior, customer sentiment, third-party enrichment, or emerging channels contribute to a resilient data foundation that easily flexes to the ever-changing environment. With always up-to-date rich and adaptive profiles, organizations maintain an edge by gaining a deeper understanding of customersas long as it’s built with a privacy-first approach. Growing mistrust over data privacy has promoted big changes like the sunsetting of third-party cookies and data reform. A future-proof customer data platform needs to be designed from the ground up to be consent-enabled, allowing the organization to automatically honor customer consent and privacy across the entire journey.

Scaling with real-time decisioning

Decisioning enables organizations to automatically determine the next best action for an individual customer. The real-time nature of decisioning ensures immediate action, converting an expression of interest (or dissatisfaction) into continued engagement. Based on signals that reveal customer intent, decisioning determines, at the precise moment, the exact interaction to optimize the customer experience. Decisioning goes hand in hand with customer journey orchestration, mobilizing data and AI to decide how best to design and adjust individual journeys to increase customer lifetime value while decreasing cost to serve through intelligent automation and scale.

Delivering connected experiences

The focus on the longer journey, instead of a single touchpoint, is the key to elevated experiences. This end-to-end approach requires continuity and contextevery time. Decisioning works in tandem with customer journey orchestration to move analytics outputs and insights through the MarTech and AdTech stack, informing activation in the application layer, resulting in a cohesive journeybubbling up the next best offer, content, conversations, and experiences seamlessly for each customer, regardless of the place or time.

Looking ahead

Brands that recognize the fundamental shift in customer expectations are boosting their customer experience capabilities. Learn how the new customer journey orchestration capabilities in Dynamics 365 Marketing can make one-to-one experiences a reality. Visit the Dynamics 365 Marketing website and sign up for a free trial.


1-“From me to we: The rise of the purpose-led brand,” Accenture, Dec. 5. 2018

2-“Harness change to create 360 value,” Accenture

3-“Customer Journey Programs Are Hard to Get Right,” Bharat Poddar, Yogesh Mishra, and Prateek Tandon, BCG, Jan. 29. 2020

The post Customer journey orchestration: The next frontier of connected experiences appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Customer journey orchestration: The next frontier of connected experiences

The importance of empathy in customer service

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

The pandemic has been challenging in many ways. It has impacted nearly every facet of our lives with disruptions in supply chains, millions furloughed, and much more. Despite such, the pandemic was positive in one regardit tested our capacity to come together and innovateand frankly, we soared on so many levels. In a blink of an eye, we united to create solutions to blend the human spirit and technology to deliver resilient solutions to outlast the pandemic. This was never more evident than in customer service.

Together, we transformed into superheroes. Turning our kitchen tables into remote workspaces, sliding into our commuter slippers each morning, and logging in with a few taps on a keyboard. We accepted our instinctual need for human interaction and turned to relationship-building using communication tools like Microsoft Teams to maintain relationships and fight the isolation. We built AI-driven solutions that focus on the human element with conversational chatbots designed to answer questions at any hour of the day. We accelerated transformative changes that were expected to take years to deploy, but through sheer determination, these changes were achieved in a matter of weeks. We reached deep and ascended to new heights with empathy resonating with every word.

Customer service organizations became the epicenter of resilience, moving forward and boldly going where no customer service organization had gone before. We shifted mindsets and conquered the foreboding of implementing change and pivoted in ways we never thought possible. While the changes made were sometimes uncomfortable initially, we quickly adjusted and thrived. Customer service organizations did not combust or implode, but blossomed and prospered.

Customer service organizations overcame pandemic-induced barriers to safety and wellbeing. Maintaining social distancing and protecting employees within a contact center was next to impossible. But in a matter of weeks, agents began logging into their customer service app and resolving customer issues from the safety and comfort of their homes. Not only did cloud-based customer service and omnichannel communication solutions bridge the always-on customer service gap and help keep companies solvent, but agents also continued to strengthen relationships while resolving customer issues, growing call volumes, and less than patient customers.

Customer service managers learned much about themselves and their agents. But more importantly, they learned empathy. They learned to listen more and acknowledge the concerns of their team. Organizations that came out to stand behind their agents and their safety were rewarded with increased loyalty.

During the peak of the crisis, customer service agents became a life ring where both the organization and the customer held on tightly to maintain some sense of normalcy. The degree of empathy shared by the organization was reciprocated by the agent in terms of loyalty and lower turnover. The empathetic agent influenced the customer, creating a reciprocal and symbiotic rapport. Empathy created a domino effect and has now become a critical force in building trust and strengthening relationships with both employees and customers alike.

Empathetic organizations create a dynamic of mutual loyalty and dedication. Managers and agents are inspired and lend extra effort to achieve organizational goals. It’s no surprise that these organizations are more agile and resilient than other organizations in a volatile economic landscape.

In a recent study, empathy in the workplace positively related to job performance, and managers who practice empathetic leadership were viewed as better performers. Empathetic managers have lower turnover and increased productivity. Agents pay this empathy forward by humanizing the connection and personalizing the customer conversation. Empathetic agents are proactive, thinking, and connecting to make sure each interaction supports the customer. By demonstrating empathy, agents have the power to deliver the short-term benefit of resolving an issue and the long-term benefit of building brand loyalty through a two-way emotional connection.

Building empathy

Empathy is a skill and cannot be faked. It’s a mindset, a culture, and the core of a healthy organization. Empathy should be a driving force that envelops all activities inside an organization, whether or not it’s customer-facing. Empathy starts with listening, understanding, and anticipating the needs of another. In customer service, this means putting yourself in the shoes of the customer and seeing the issue from their point of view. Empathy is anticipating what the wants and needs are of the customer at a specific moment within their journey. Then, it is all about delivering on these wants and needs by creating a positive and friction-free experience. Remember, being empathetic doesn’t mean you have to agree with the personit simply means you understand their point of view. And unlike sympathy, in which you may feel sorrow or pity the customer’s situation, empathy reduces the distance between the two parties building upon respect and trust.

Empathy helps agents personalize the interaction, predict customer follow-up questions, and proactively answer them. Empathetic agents can also predict the customer’s response by understanding the customer’s point of view. Empathy has a direct effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty as customer satisfaction and loyalty translate to increased sales. Telling a customer “no” or that what they want will cost more or that the warranty has expired, for example, can be hard enough, but when conveyed with empathy, the agent can build trust and strengthen the relationship despite not being able to resolve the issue to the customer’s liking. When the customer’s point of view is understood, empathetic agents can address and make customers feel heard and respected, which is the first step in resolving issues.

When you don’t understand where the customer is coming from, it’s easy to assume they are overreacting. It’s not easy to be empathetic under these circumstances. To overcome this reach, figure out who your customers are and what your product or service means to them. Identify the age, gender, education, and other attributes so you can bridge the gap and grow more empathetic.

Expressing empathy

Active listening. Listening can be a challenge, especially in a noisy environment. To truly empathize, you must focus on the customer and determine the issue the customer is experiencing. Typically, customer service is contacted during the peak of customer frustration so notice not just what the customer is saying, but how they are saying it. For example, determining the tone and language used during service delivery. Real-time customer sentiment analysis is a must-have tool for agents in identifying slight nuances in the customer’s mood and responding accordingly. This may mean mirroring the tone to help navigate through the problem. It can also mean remaining silent for much of the time so the customer can converse without interruption. Be sure to ask questions to delve deeper into the customer’s issues to avoid misunderstandings. Try to put yourself in the caller’s situation. Listen for subtle cues so you can tell when you’ve achieved a positive customer interaction.

Personalize interactions. When you see the customer’s profile, strive to see the person, not just the summary of their journey. Recognize the issue and validate the customer’s feelings. Respond, restate, and summarize using the same words your customer used. Validate their point of view to encourage additional information. Promote trust, respect, and understanding by asking pertinent questions about what course of action they have already tried. Never assume the customer hasn’t tried to resolve the issue before contacting customer service.

Collect feedback. Want deeper insights into the quality of your service delivery? Ask your customer. Gather feedback directly from your customers via email, SMS, live chat, or social media. Automatically sending customer service surveys following a service interaction can help deepen customer retention. Once the survey is completed, you can share insights across applications. If you spot patterns about customers not feeling heard, respected, or helped to the best of an agent’s ability, you can bridge those gaps.

Better together

COVID-19 has touched us all, but the gift we least expected from this tragedy was learning to empathize with other human beings. Empathy has become a vital ingredient to an organization’s ability to persist, to remain resilient in times of social and economic volatility. From empathetic managers becoming better leaders to the empathetic chain reaction of frontline workers paying it forward, we all benefit by returning dividends of kindness to each other. We don’t have to agree there is a problem, but we can agree that we all deserve respect and understanding of our point of view.

Learn how Dynamics 365 Customer Service can help your organization become more resilient by personalizing the customer experience and cultivating greater empathy toward the customer by better understanding their journey.

The post The importance of empathy in customer service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Customer journey orchestration: The next frontier of connected experiences

Merging of HR offerings brings capabilities together for customers

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

It’s time for us to bring all new and future HR capabilities and enhancements within Dynamics 365 Human Resources to all our customers.

We currently have two separate sets of human resources capabilities on two different infrastructures within Dynamics 365:

  • Dynamics 365 Human Resources, which is a complete stand-alone application running on an independent infrastructure. Our customers use this application to increase organizational agility and get workforce insights. All investments over the last three years have been focused on this application.
  • The HR module, which is a legacy set of capabilities that was previously part of our Unified Operations licensing bundle. Our customers received these HR capabilities as part of Dynamics 365 Finance or Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. We have not been adding capabilities or enhancements to this module. The HR module runs on the same infrastructure as the other applications within our operations portfolio, which was previously named Finance and Operations.

As you can imagine, having two ways to access HR capabilities creates a lot of confusion. It also prevents our customers from experiencing the benefits that each set of capabilities offers.

By merging these capabilities onto the same infrastructure, our customers will see:

  • All the enhancements that we have added over the last three years, including improved leave and absence, benefit management, and reporting.
  • Improved extensibility through the Microsoft Power Platform and the ability to extend business logic to personalize screens and forms.
  • Improved deployment, updates, and maintenance with consistency in terms of Application Life Cycle Management, Lifecycle Services, Geographic availability, and more.
  • More technology innovation within the roadmap, as our engineering team now can utilize shared services, tooling, and reduce platform costs.

Dynamics 365 Human Resources will continue to be licensed and sold as a stand-alone application. With the merge, it will tap into the power of the Dynamics 365 shared infrastructure, the Power Platform, and the Dataverse.

This transition will impact customers that are currently running Dynamics 365 Human Resources and those that are using the HR module.

Here are some frequently asked questions and answers to help with the transition.

When will the Dynamics 365 Human Resources infrastructure merge be completed?

The infrastructure merge will roll out in phases to better support all customers and provide time for transition planning. You will see new capabilities begin to roll out in the 2021 Wave 2 release. For more details, see the Dynamics 365 Human Resources 2021 release wave 2 plan. These phases will align with the version service updates, which start with the One Version service updates that start as a preview in December 2021. The merge will be complete in the 2022 Wave 1 release. (These dates are subject to change, so refer to the release plans for the most up-to-date information.)

When should my organization transition into the new infrastructure?

The transition for each company will depend on your current configuration and readiness to move to the new infrastructure. We recommend working with your business partner to determine the best path forward for your company.

  • Organizations that use the HR module will receive new functionality as part of the regular One Version update process. Features are planned to become generally available beginning in January 2022 (dates are subject to change, so refer to the release plans for the most up-to-date information).
  • Organizations using Dynamics 365 Human Resources will have access to migration tools to complete the infrastructure merge. Please check the release plans regularly to get up-to-date information on when these tools will be available. We will work with our customers to make the transition without an interruption in service. Customers will need to make the transition 12-18 months from when the migration tooling is available.
  • Organizations that use both Dynamics 365 Human Resources and the HR module will also need to use the migration tooling.

Will I lose any features or capabilities that I currently use?

Our objective is to minimize the impact of this transition for our customers, and we will not be removing any features. There will be functional parity between Dynamics 365 Human Resources and the HR module. In cases where the feature exists in both infrastructures, the Dynamics 365 Human Resources experience will be used.

Will the experience change for my users?

New capabilities will be managed through Feature management. This will allow our customers to decide which features they want to utilize. In some cases, we may need to change the experience; however, in those cases, documentation will be provided.

Are there any licensing changes or minimum number of user requirements?

Customers that have purchased Dynamics 365 Human Resources will not require license changes. The additional sandbox stock-keeping unit (SKU) that was specific for Human Resources will no longer be applicable. Instead, customers can choose to buy a Finance and Operations apps Tier 2 sandbox at a lower cost. Existing customers who have purchased a Human Resources sandbox will be migrated to a Finance and Operations apps Tier 2 sandbox at no additional cost. We will continue to require five minimum users for Dynamics 365 Human Resources.

Customers using the HR module will be required to purchase licenses for Dynamics 365 Human Resources starting in February 2025. These customers will get the new functionality as part of their current contract until February 2025 or until the current licensing agreement expires, whichever is earlier. Customers can also choose to move to Dynamics 365 Human Resources licenses earlier if it helps them achieve better cost savings.

What training and resources will be available to help with the migration process?

Full documentation will be provided to describe each step of the migration process in detail. We will also determine if any additional training resources, such as videos and workshops, are needed to help our partners and customers with a smooth transition to the new infrastructure.

Next steps

We recommend that you work with your partner to determine a transition plan that works best for your company. Our objective is to provide customers with the time needed for a smooth transition. You can also email specific questions to the Microsoft Team.

 

The post Merging of HR offerings brings capabilities together for customers appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Customer journey orchestration: The next frontier of connected experiences

Deliver personalized digital customer engagement with Dynamics 365

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Consumers and businesses are increasingly turning to digital platforms for relevant product and service information, making it critical for companies to effectively meet and exceed customer expectations through digital services and technology. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is helping organizations meet this challenge by connecting and unifying commerce and marketing activities.

By bringing together solutions such as Dynamics 365 Commerce and Dynamics 365 Marketing, businesses can more effectively target and deliver engaging, intuitive, and user-friendly digital commerce buying experiences. These tools allow organizations to leverage machine learning models, artificial intelligence infused-personalization, and event and data-driven customer journeys, to deliver bespoke buying experiences across B2B and B2C markets.

Personalized and intuitive experiences

To effectively compete in omnichannel retail, businesses need technology solutions that allow them to deliver personalized and intuitive shopping experiences. Many customers want their shopping experience to be somehow personalized. Effective personalization can also increase store revenue. Yet, delivering personalized and intuitive experiences can be challenging for businesses that, despite multiple in-person interactions with customers and ongoing engagements with them online, cannot collect and connect the data from these experiences.

By unifying the data from every customer touchpoint, retailers can develop a more meaningful and holistic understanding of their customers. This deeper understanding can then be leveraged to quickly move customers from evaluation to purchase decision, regardless of the channel in which the customer chooses to engage. Ultimately, by delivering personalized and intuitive shopping experiences, retailers can improve overall conversion rates and maximize the lifetime value of their customers.

Ste. Michelle Wine Estates

One retailer that is seeing the benefits of delivering personalized and intuitive experiences is Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, one of the largest premium wine companies in the United States, prides itself on superior consumer experiences. To unify its consumer data and provide opportunities for innovation, Ste. Michelle deployed Dynamics 365 Commerce across all of its wine brands.

“The more we know about the consumerand the more adept we can be at using that information in intelligent waysthe better we can make technology an enabler of consumer satisfaction.” Joe Gregg, Chief Information Officer, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates

Learn more: Ste. Michelle Wine Estates customer story

Seamless omnichannel services

Personalized digital customer engagement extends well beyond the confines of online marketplaces and digital storefronts. To deliver a fully seamless and frictionless buying experience, merchants must be able to effectively transition from online to brick-and-mortar and back againand do this without losing the personal touch.

Consumers are more likely to buy from retailers who reference past purchase experiences. These are easy feats for properly configured information systems in online environments, but transitioning to in-store, team member-led experiences can be tricky.

To be effective in this effort, retailers need to empower in-store team members with relevant and timely consumer data. Providing the correct data at the right time can be difficult when retailers are amassing a large amount of consumer data. Fortunately, Dynamics 365 Commerce can leverage AI and machine learning capabilities to deliver personalized recommendations, insights, and loyalty programs access directly into the hands of brick-and-mortar team members. Ultimately, by connecting digital, in-store, and back-office operations in a single retail platform, merchants can deliver the seamless purchase journeys that modern consumers and businesses have come to expect.

Signature Cosmetics & Fragrances

A retailer positioning itself to take advantage of the benefits of seamless omnichannel service is Signature Cosmetics & Fragrances. Signature Cosmetics & Fragrances, a leading cosmetics and fragrance group, understood the impact the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns would have on its network of more than 170 stores across South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia.

When the company began its modernization program by implementing Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, it did not immediately consider the benefits of connecting its commercial activities in a seamless omnichannel service. As the project moved forward and they gained experience in e-commerce, they quickly grasped the value of such an approach. By implementing Dynamics 365 Commerce, Signature Cosmetics & Fragrances can now deliver a seamless experience across product categorization and loyalty programs in its brick-and-mortar stores and online. One example is that the company can now directly connect a customer’s online wish list with in-store sales opportunities.

“Part of the project plan is once we have all this data following through the productivity software in retail, e-commerce, and supply chain, we will have Power BI sitting above everything and drawing from various departments to present it as reports that really help us make decisions.” Akheel Pragjee, Managing Director of the Signature Group

Learn more: Signature Cosmetics & Fragrances customer story

Next steps

As we have seen, delivering a personalized digital customer engagement is a fundamental necessity for modern retailers. Dynamics 365 provides the ability to adapt and innovate with the only portfolio of business applications that empowers your organization to deliver operational excellence and delight every customer. Two of our solutions, Dynamics 365 Commerce and Dynamics 365 Marketing, combine to allow your company to provide a unified, or connected, commerce solution. Try our free Dynamics 365 Commerce trial today to get started creating personalized and friction-free digital commerce experiences for B2C and B2B businesses.

The post Deliver personalized digital customer engagement with Dynamics 365 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Gartner® Recognizes Microsoft as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises

Gartner® Recognizes Microsoft as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

We are thrilled that Gartner has recognized Microsoft as a Leader in the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises for Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises, August 2021.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Dynamics 365 Finance offer businesses two standardized enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities on a composable ERP platform, functioning as stand-alone solutions or as a tightly integrated and extensible system. As product-centric enterprises look to renovate their existing ERP platform to improve systems and processes by moving them to the cloud, Dynamics 365 is enabling the transformation and improving IT agility to deliver business outcomes in the process.

For example, Bel Fuse recently selected Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to move away from a legacy version of Oracle that was highly customized and difficult to update. Bel Fuse was able to unify its data and can now more easily manage its supply chain operations and finance processes, gaining more agility to respond quickly to changes in the market.

Dynamics 365 also delivers an enterprise SaaS application capable of providing data, analytical insight, and operational application services by running on the Microsoft Azure cloud. The Azure cloud enables clients to use Microsoft Power Platform for analytics and Microsoft Power Apps for low-code/no-code extensions, allowing organizations to improve operations with real-time, AI-based predictive insights across a broader ERP strategy.

An excellent example of a company leveraging these capabilities is GN Group. GN Group recently adopted Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Dynamics 365 Finance to centralize all its ERP data in the cloud. With help from Microsoft Partner Network member SCALES Group, GN Group evolved its supply chain processes to be more agile and structured. It uses Dynamics 365 Finance to unify financial data and gain AI-based predictive insights in real-time. The company also adopted Microsoft Power Platform to extend its Dynamics 365 business applications. So far, GN Group uses Microsoft Power BI for reporting and analytics and Microsoft Power Apps to build a custom, vendor-managed inventory (VMI) solution that seamlessly connects to Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.

And we continue to invest and expand our capabilities. At the end of July, we acquired Suplari, a leading provider of supplier spend insights that enable companies to proactively manage supplier spend by transforming data from multiple sources, such as contracts, purchase orders, invoices, expenses, and supplier risk, into valuable insight. By bringing Suplari’s spend intelligence insights together with the existing Dynamics 365 capabilities, Microsoft is further helping organizations become insight-driven and enabling business leaders to take strategic action. In August, Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management became generally available. It enables enterprises to optimize and automate fulfillment using real-time inventory, AI, and machine learning. Organizations can truly gain the agility they need to quickly adapt to changing business models, support the latest fulfillment methods, add new order intake channels by seamlessly integrating their existing ERP systems to manage the entire order lifecycle from intake to fulfillment.

Request a demo or take a guided tour of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Dynamics 365 Finance.

* This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Microsoft.

GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises, 24 August 2021, Tim Faith, Denis Torii, Paul Schenck, Dixie John, Abhishek Singh.

The post Gartner® Recognizes Microsoft as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Customer journey orchestration: The next frontier of connected experiences

Finance and Operations authentication upgraded to OpenIDConnect

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

For our customers using the client for Finance and Operations apps, we’re retiring the out-of-support WS-Federation authentication protocol, and replacing it with the industry standard OpenIdConnect OAuth security protocol. OpenIdConnect OAuth security protocol supports modern authentication, which includes multi-factor authentication and conditional access policy.

This upgrade, which will not result in any downtime or require customers to make changes to their system, was released in July 2021. It is available starting from in product version 10.0.20, platform version 7.0.6060.0 or later. The upgrade applies to all environment types except Dev Box, customer-hosted and IaaS environments.

For more information, see Authentication for Finance and Operations app upgraded to OWIN OpenIDConnect in the release plans.

Next steps

This feature is automatically enabled for customers who are on version 10.0.20 or later. If you aren’t on this version and want to upgrade, see the instructions to Self-service upgrade to the latest version.

The post Finance and Operations authentication upgraded to OpenIDConnect appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.