Welcome to the April 2025 release update of unified routing in Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Dynamics 365 Contact Center! This update brings a suite of new features designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your routing strategies. This post covers unified routing features released from October 2024 to April 2025. Let’s dive into some of the key features. 

Least active routing method in messaging 

This month, we are extending the least active routing method to messaging channels. Least active routing provides efficient workload distribution by ensuring work items are assigned to service representatives based on when they end their last conversation and have the least active in the queue. This approach prevents back-to-back assignments. Additionally, it ensures agents have adequate rest between customers. This leads to better utilization of agents, improved customer satisfaction (CSAT), service representative satisfaction (ASAT), and lower average handling time (AHT).

Learn more: Assignment methods for queues | Microsoft Learn 

Presence synchronization APIs 

Service representatives work across multiple Dynamics 365 environments and use different collaboration tools. This raises the need for synchronizing the right presence status across these instances to ensure service representatives are not overbooked. Also, it provides a seamless engagement experience for both customers and service representatives. 

The introduction of presence synchronization APIs, will help contact centers in managing presence status’ of service representatives better. Organizations can retrieve, modify and subscribe to presence change events in real time.

Learn more: Synchronize agent presence status across multiple systems | Microsoft Learn 

Workforce management with shift-based routing 

Shift-based routing is a game-changer for organizations with varied working hours and global teams. To reduce conversation rejections, transfers, and customer wait times, it is critical to assign conversations and records to service representatives based on their working shift schedules and plans. This feature allows supervisors to create workforce management shift plans and assign them to one or more representatives. This ensures representatives receive assignments only during their scheduled work times. It optimizes resource usage and enhances customer satisfaction by reducing wait times during off-peak hours.

Learn more: Configure routing based on external schedules (preview) | Microsoft Learn 

Customized notifications for returning chats 

Reconnecting a returning customer to the last service representative they interacted with is now more efficient with a new notification template for returning conversations. This template provides greater control over the assignment process, ensuring that the original service representative is notified and given the opportunity to take the chat, thus maintaining continuity and enhancing the overall customer experience. 

With customized notifications for returning persistent chats, admins can configure a separate notification template for returning chats, choose the auto-assignment behavior, set a distinct notification title, and even customize the timeout period. This feature helps maintain service representative-customer continuity, enabling faster resolution and a smoother experience. 

Templates for managing routing rulesets in bulk

In order to simplify routing configuration and improve administrative efficiency, we are delighted to introduce the bulk management of routing rules through templates. 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. 

Learn more: Manage template rulesets for unified routing | Microsoft Learn 

Make sure to explore these new features to maximize the potential of unified routing in your contact center. Stay tuned for more updates and enhancements!

Learn more about unified routing

See our upcoming and recently released features here:

• Dynamics 365 Customer Service – Unified routing | Microsoft Learn 

• Dynamics 365 Contact Center – Unified routing | Microsoft Learn 

The post What’s new in unified routing: April 2025 feature update  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

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.

Efficient workload management is essential in customer service environments where diverse customer interactions flow through multiple channels. With advanced prioritization capabilities in Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Dynamics 365 Customer Service, organizations can provide tiered service levels based on customer value, respond to customer sentiment, and ensure adherence to SLAs. 

Why use advanced prioritization? 

Prioritization in Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Dynamics 365 Customer Service empowers organizations to: 

• Offer dynamically tiered service levels: Traditionally, SLA commitments in contact centers were enforced through entitlements and queue-specific configurations. With cross-queue prioritization, organizations can now centrally define and dynamically enforce service tiers based on real-time factors like customer value, sentiment, or business context. This approach makes it easier to configure, scale, and adjust prioritization rules across queues, reducing administrative overhead while improving consistency and responsiveness. 

• React to SLAs dynamically: Contact centers can use prioritization rules to meet time-sensitive commitments across queues. 

These capabilities extend across multiple configuration points, including our newest offering to prioritize work across contact center queues. 

Contact center level prioritization 

Contact center or “cross-queue” prioritization provides flexibility in routing and enhances business outcomes by: 

• Enabling channel-level priorities: Respond to voice calls first, then chat conversations, then cases. 

• Supporting business priorities: Prioritize refund queues over sales inquiry queues to align with organizational goals. 

The second type of prioritization occurs within a queue for added control over SLA commitment, urgency, sentiment and so on. 

Advanced prioritization business scenarios 

Example 1: Prioritize by customer channel

Consider a scenario where a customer service team prioritizes interactions across channels. The voice channel is the most urgent channel, followed by chat, and then case. The administrator sets the queue priority attribute to reflect these priorities, so agents receive phone calls immediately. 

Example 2: Prioritize by customer and inquiry type 

A company, Contoso Coffee, operates four queues: 

1. VIP Case Queue (Priority: 1) 

2. Premium Support Queue (Priority: 2) 

3. General Support Queue, prioritized by severity (Priority: 3) 

4. Billing Inquiries Queue (Priority: 4) 

Agents handle work items using the following process: 

• Agents handle VIP cases first to ensure top-tier customers receive white-glove support. 

• Once agents clear the VIP items, the system evaluates Premium Support cases next. 

• Within General Support, the system evaluate cases for severity and prioritizes high severity cases (such as service outages or urgent account issues) above routine queries. 

• In the Billing Inquiries queue, the system applies layered rules: 

• Cases involving overdue bills are flagged for immediate attention, as they often indicate payment barriers such as disputes, failed transactions, or missing billing information. 

• These cases take priority over in-SLA cases, which may involve scheduled payments, invoice copies, or non-urgent queries. 

With advanced prioritization capabilities in Customer Service and Contact Center, businesses can align routing decisions with customer and business priorities. Whether it’s assigning channel-level priorities or addressing specific business needs, these capabilities provide scalability and flexibility for modern customer service operations. 

Learn more

Watch a quick video introduction.

For more details on prioritization options in unified routing and how to use them, read the documentation: Assignment methods for queues | Microsoft Learn  

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Rolling out a new ERP or CRM system is a stressful transformation that can take months or even years to complete if you go it alone. The business process catalog for Dynamics 365 can help you deliver implementation projects faster and with less stress. The business process catalog is a critical component of the Success by Design framework, created by Microsoft to provide official guidance on everything you need, from functional configuration to implementation methodologies, helping companies deploy a Dynamics 365 solution with higher adoption rates and less risk in less time, at lower cost.

Process, meet product: The business process catalog for Dynamics 365

Among the challenges that most implementation projects face is connecting real-world processes to application functionality. Traditional application documentation is often very technical, describing how the system can be configured, but not necessarily how it should be to meet the needs of your business.

That’s where the business process catalog for Dynamics 365 comes in. The catalog helps organize software implementations in terms of end-to-end business processes, like “concept to market” and “inventory to deliver” instead of siloed technology formatting. Resources in the business process catalog include a complete process catalog with diagrams, scenarios, and best practices for how to configure each business process based on factors like industry and business model. And the business process catalog includes an Azure DevOps template to help organize implementation methodology in a process format, helping to ensure that every decision ultimately ties into an end-to-end process for a seamless and successful solution. This approach helps businesses connect what they do today with what they will be doing tomorrow and helps to ensure that the solution will be the right fit for the business.

The business process catalog provides workshop templates that help organizations and their implementation partners and customers structure their discovery conversations around business processes. These templates provide guidelines for involving the right stakeholders, agendas to keep discussions on track, and key questions to cover important topics. When used with process flow diagrams, customers can visualize standardized processes in business terms and identify differences with their own operations. This fit-to-standard approach saves time and money, while recognizing and capturing each organization’s unique needs through Dynamics 365’s extensible platform.

The business process catalog in action: Long View

To understand the real value of the business process catalog and using a business process approach to implementation, look at Long View, a professional services organization that recently replaced its aging legacy ERP solution with Dynamics 365. Long View worked with implementation partners RedCat Consulting Group and Team Bennett Consulting using the business process catalog and Success by Design, maximizing the use of out-of-the-box configurations to accelerate deployment and user adoption, and reduce project costs. The following are just some of the benefits Long View achieved using the business process catalog.

Eliminate customizations

The business process catalog allowed Long View to use best practices and out-of-the-box functionality, eliminating the need for 22 customizations that had been required in the old system. Minimizing customizations also reduces maintenance and risk during security and version updates, allowing Long View to adopt new capabilities quicker and enjoy constant support from Microsoft.

Speed up implementation

Using the business process catalog as a template, Long View and its partners RedCat Consulting Group and Team Bennett Consulting reduced the expected timeline of the discovery phase from two to three months to just six weeks. Later phases were accelerated as well by carrying over the initial processes structure and deliverables into each subsequent project activities.

Accelerate organization-wide adoption

Traditional implementations are often siloed by functional area: separating finance and sales, for example. Taking a process-centric approach, the Long View project team broke down departmental silos and redesigned processes more efficiently. The handoffs between departments in each process were clearly documented, and the design focused on delivering a successful end-to-end result instead of just looking at each team’s individual needs. The result is more usable solutions for everyone and overall productivity gains across the business.

Read more about how Long View uses Dynamics 365 to support its business in the case study.

Embracing a process-focused approach in an AI-powered world

In today’s rapidly evolving, AI-focused world, the importance of a process-focused approach to technology implementation cannot be overstated. Poorly designed processes can lead to inefficiencies, errors, and suboptimal outcomes when automated. An implementation methodology based on the business process catalog for Dynamics 365 helps to ensure the systematic and efficient integration of new technologies aligned with organizational goals. Without a deep comprehension of the underlying processes, attempts to implement Microsoft Copilot or agents may not yield the expected results.

By emphasizing well-designed business processes, organizations can better manage the complexities and potential risks associated with AI technologies. A structured business process approach allows for thorough planning, testing, and iteration, leading to more reliable and scalable solutions, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability and helping organizations to stay ahead in the competitive landscape. Ultimately, a process-focused approach not only enhances the effectiveness of technology implementation but also helps to ensure that the benefits of AI can be fully realized and sustained over time.

Set up for success with process-centric implementation

Taking a process-centered approach to Dynamics 365 implementation helps reduce risk, drives implementation success, and results in positive business outcomes. Together, Success by Design and the business process catalog provide up-to-date best practice guidance to allow organizations to go live with confidence and speed.

The business process catalog for Dynamics 365

Navigate and learn from the catalog.

Learn how

Not yet a Dynamics 365 customer? Talk to our sales team today.

The post Go live with confidence using Success by Design for Microsoft Dynamics 365 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Three AI service agents for Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Contact Center are now available in public preview: Case Management, Customer Intent, and Customer Knowledge Management agents. Collectively these agents learn to address emerging issues, uncover new knowledge, and automate manual processes to boost business efficiency and reduce costs.

With these autonomous agents, contact centers have the opportunity to improve their efficiency and enhance the customer experience. Agents can reveal valuable insights from seasoned customer service representatives using chat logs, call recordings, case notes, and other data sources. They can use these insights to improve self-service with automatically generated knowledge that evolves to meet potential customer issues.

Here is a quick overview of AI service agents:

Automate case management like never before

The Case Management Agent for Dynamics 365 Customer Service is designed to simplify and streamline your case management process. It also reduces handling time and improves customer satisfaction. The process of creating cases, updating details, following up with customers, and ensuring timely closures can be time-consuming and prone to errors. By automating these essential tasks, Case Management Agent reduces handling time and minimizes errors. It allows customer service representatives to focus on what matters most: solving complex customer issues. 

You can seamlessly configure the Case Management Agent with your choice of attributes to meet your business needs. It automates key tasks throughout the lifecycle of a case, from creation to closure. Whether you’re managing live chats or processing incoming emails, this agent handles the details, so you don’t have to. 

During customer conversations, the agent automatically creates a case, fills in relevant fields, and updates them as the conversation progresses. The agent tracks cases requiring attention, sends follow-ups, and even resolves cases autonomously when the customer issue is resolved.  

From managing high case volumes to reducing average handling time, this agent makes life easier for your team. 

Understand customer intent to provide elevated service

The Customer Intent Agent for Dynamics 365 Contact Center uses generative AI to analyze past interactions between customer service representatives and customers. Using this data, it creates an intent library that the agent uses to understand what the customer wants and provide tailored solutions to customer issues. While traditional chatbots and prompts require developers and support staff to update, the Customer Intent Agent updates itself continuously as it receives more data. You can use this agent in Dynamics 365 Contact Center for both self-service and service rep-assisted scenarios.  

Evergreen self-service 

Using the Customer Intent Agent, contact centers can enable their customers to self-serve in a transformative way. Instead of writing a specific menu of responses for each topic, contact center managers and IT professionals can let the Customer Intent Agent use past customer conversations across channels to determine how to answer a question. It uses case and conversation data to find appropriate follow-up questions to ask the customer to refine its understanding of the customer’s intent. 

Supercharged service reps 

When a conversation requires a service representative, the Customer Intent Agent provides valuable context and information so the service rep can give better assistance. It also helps service reps resolve issues in live chat and persistent chat with reduced handling times. Service reps have access to intent-based suggestions through the Ask a question tab in the Copilot help pane, and in the tab-to-complete suggestions in the conversation control. The intent agent uses the context of the conversation to display relevant intent attributes as questions for the service to ask the customer.

Build your organization’s knowledge with efficiency

The Customer Knowledge Management Agent for Dynamics 365 Customer Service helps your organization scale its knowledge with minimal effort from service reps. When admins configure knowledge management and knowledge sources, service reps can generate knowledge assets without spending time synthesizing case data to author them. 

Clear, current, and accurate knowledge is key for service representatives to best assist customers. Contact centers that use Copilot to inform their self-service systems and service reps rely on a well-maintained knowledge base. Creating and maintaining knowledge assets is a time-consuming process. Service reps don’t always have time to put their learnings from cases and conversations into a knowledge article. Furthermore, to maintain good knowledge hygiene, a subject matter expert should check each asset in the knowledge base on a regular basis to ensure relevance and accuracy. 

Organizations can use the Customer Knowledge Management Agent to autonomously create knowledge articles based on cases, conversations, emails, and notes. The agent also checks for existing assets with the same information in your knowledge base before creating a new one. Based on rules that administrators set, members of the organization can approve or reject these AI-generated knowledge assets. Admins can also decide whether to make this knowledge available for self-service in chatbots and IVRs. 

Learn more about AI service agents

You can start using all three AI service agents now in paid public preview. Copilot Studio message capacity is required. Get started with autonomous service agents here: Autonomous agents overview

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