Get ready to take your productivity to new heights as we dive into the latest updates for Microsoft Power Platform. Whether you’re a small startup or a global enterprise, these exciting enhancements are designed to empower you with unparalleled tools and capabilities to drive your business forward.
- Featured News
- Deprecations and Retirements
- Product Updates
- Microsoft Boosts Sales Productivity with Sales Copilot
- Dataverse & Power Apps Maker | Introducing New Ways of Creating Tables
- Copilot Brings the power of Intelligence to your Favorite Power App
- Power Apps Maker | Secure Implicitly Shared Connections in Preview
- Announcing General Availability of Custom Connectors in Solutions as well as Environment Variable Secrets
- New Power Apps home page now generally available with expanded Copilot access
- Power Pages | Overview of AI-powered and Copilot features in Power Pages (preview)
- Power Pages | Streamline digital agreement workflows with Microsoft Power Pages and DocuSign
- Power Automate | Announcing the integration of Power Automate telemetry data with Azure Application Insights
- Power BI | august 2023 feature summary
- Learning Corner
Featured News
Power Platform and Dynamics 365: 2023 Release Wave 2
The 2023 Release Wave 2 announces the latest updates to customers as features are prepared for release. It contains hundreds of new features across Power Platform applications including Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, AI Builder, Power BI, Microsoft Dataverse, and Dynamics 365
- Please visit Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform Release Plans to understand what’s coming.
- Also visit the General Availability deployment & Dynamics 365 release schedule to view deployment timelines and plan for releases.
Release channels for your model-driven app
Microsoft provides new (and updated) features for your model-driven apps, on a regular basis. You can control how often the users in your organization get these new features by specifying the release channel. Environment admins use the Power Platform admin center to select the channel for the environment. The existing cadence of twice-yearly release waves is called the Semi-annual channel and is the default for all existing orgs. The new monthly channel option enables GA-ready features to be turned on each month with a four week preview notification period to allow customer validation with existing customizations.
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Category |
Monthly Channel |
Semi-Annual Channel |
|
|
Recommended use |
Provide your users with new end user impacting features only once a month and on a predictable schedule. |
For users in your organization where more training and extensive testing are needed before rollout out of new end user impacting features. |
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Release frequency |
Once a month, on the first release for the month and following the gradual weekly rollout. |
Twice a year, starting early April and early October and following the gradual weekly rollout. |
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Upcoming Microsoft Events
Microsoft Power Platform Conference – in person!
- October 3-5, 2023
- Las Vegas – MGM Grand Conference Center
- Register
- Charles Lamanna is ready for MPPC23!
Microsoft Ignite
- In-person: November 14-17, 2023
- Join Online: November 15-16, 2023
- Seattle
- Learn More
Deprecations and Retirements
jQuery 2.1.1 to be removed in model-driven apps
As part of a service update designed to improve security within Microsoft Power Apps we’re removing jQuery version 2.1.1 from model-driven applications. In October 2023 we’re removing the library located here: /_static/_common/scripts/jquery-2.1.1.min.js
Dynamics 365 for phones and tablets will be deprecated – January 2024
Effective January 2024, Dynamics 365 for phones and tablets (iOS and Android) will be deprecated for online users. Online users must migrate to the Power Apps mobile app. The Power Apps mobile app provides updated capabilities, a modern user experience, and fast load times.
Model-driven app controls deprecation
Effective January 2023, the following controls for model-driven apps are deprecated: auto-complete, input mask, multimedia player, number input, option set, and star rating.
Existing control instances will work on existing forms until April 2024.
Dynamics 365 Sales
Exchange-based cards will be deprecated
Starting from Sunday, October 1, 2023, Exchange-based cards will be deprecated. After the cards are deprecated, they’ll no longer be available. You can create your own cards using Power Automate.
Rank optimization of insight cards will be deprecated
Starting from Sunday, October 1, 2023, the rank optimization feature of insights cards will be deprecated. After the feature is deprecated, existing ranking rules will be unavailable and will not apply to insight cards. To optimize and prioritize the cards, turn off those cards that are not in use.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Customer Service workspace legacy layout is deprecated
The Customer Service workspace legacy layout is deprecated as of April 2023, and won’t be supported after October 2023.
Omnichannel for Customer Service agent-facing app is deprecated and will be removed in June 2024
Effective April 2023, the Omnichannel for Customer Service agent-facing app is deprecated. Support is available until June 2024. We recommend that you migrate your omnichannel configuration to Customer Service workspace. More information: Migrate from Omnichannel for Customer Service to Customer Service workspace.
Other Deprecation Articles
Important changes coming in Power Apps portals.
Deprecated features in Dynamics 365 Sales
Deprecated features in Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Deprecated features in Dynamics 365 Field Service
Deprecated features in Universal Resource Scheduling
Removed or deprecated features in Finance and Operations apps
Product Updates
Microsoft Boosts Sales Productivity with Sales Copilot
- Microsoft Viva Sales is rebranded and part of Microsoft Sales Copilot
- It is a seller super companion app that brings together data from Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams app…) and CRM systems allowing sellers to improve customer experience, increase productivity, and gain valuable AI-insights into their customers – all in the flow of work
- Catch up on the latest improvements before everybody else at Sales Copilot blog.
- Stay connected on new updates following this new video post series: Dynamics 365 Bites | What’s New in Sales Copilot – July & August 2023-Video (NEW)
- What’s New in Sales Copilot – August 2023
Dataverse & Power Apps Maker | Introducing New Ways of Creating Tables
- We are excited to share with you the updated tables page experience, which is now generally available for all makers.
- With the new tables page experience, you will be able to create tables with the versatile options that suits your need.
- We recently introduced to the new home page, including conversation-based table creation and one-click table upload from your Excel file, both powered by Copilot.
Copilot Brings the power of Intelligence to your Favorite Power App
COPILOT IN MODEL-DRIVEN APPS AND CANVAS APP
- We are announcing the availability of Copilot for users of model-driven apps and a major expansion of Copilot control’s capabilities in canvas apps.
- Now, all Power Apps can be intelligent apps. Makers can easily build apps to boost productivity for users, powered by next-generation AI in an intuitive experience.
Power Apps Maker | Secure Implicitly Shared Connections in Preview
- Secure implicitly shared connections are in full preview (default on for new apps.).
- This preview feature defaults to on for all new apps in Power Apps. It is available in all commercial regions as Preview.
- Power Apps’ implicitly shared connections are ones that use a fixed credential such as a SQL Server connection string rather than the end user’s specific credentials (e.g., AAD.) The most prominent use of implicitly shared connections is for SQL Server.
- With this preview release authors now get a message in the App if there is an implicitly shared connection that needs attention.
Announcing General Availability of Custom Connectors in Solutions as well as Environment Variable Secrets
- We are announcing the General Availability (GA) of a few connector related features within the Power Platform ecosystem:
- custom connectors in solutions
- environment variable secrets using Azure Key Vault secrets
- connector activity logs
- These empower you to extend the capabilities of the Power Platform and enhance your application lifecycle management (ALM) processes.
New Power Apps home page now generally available with expanded Copilot access
- We are announcing that the new Power Apps home page is now generally available for all users.
- The new home page features a modern design that offers an intuitive and user-friendly experience.
- The new layout showcases the latest AI Copilot app creation flow, plus simplified “Start from” options, making it easier than ever for you to start creating apps to solve your business needs.
- Whether you are new to Power Apps or an experienced maker, you will find the new home page convenient for your app development journey.
Power Pages | Overview of AI-powered and Copilot features in Power Pages (preview)
Next-generation AI enhancements using Copilot in Power Pages is revolutionizing how to build and launch data-centric business websites.
- As a maker, your tasks are simplified using Copilot. These enhancements enable you to construct forms, incorporate text, and embed chatbots into your Power Pages sites, all through a user-friendly, dialogue-like interface, bypassing the need for complex coding proficiency.
- Watch this video to learn how Copilot can empower you to better respond to your customers’ needs and requirements.
- To learn how to use the new AI features in Power Pages, see:
Power Pages | Streamline digital agreement workflows with Microsoft Power Pages and DocuSign
- Microsoft announced new, seamless interoperability between Microsoft Power Pages and DocuSign available in public preview.
- Power Pages makers can now effortlessly create data-centric websites with document generation and e-signature capabilities that empower businesses to improve their agreement workflows.
Power Automate | Announcing the integration of Power Automate telemetry data with Azure Application Insights
- As organizations run more business-critical automation workloads on Microsoft Power Platform, it is critical to have deeper visibility into the performance of automations.
- We are announcing the public preview of a new feature – integration of cloud flow telemetry data with Azure Application Insights.
- With this new capability, administrators can connect their Microsoft Power Platform environment to an Azure Application Insights instance for advanced diagnostic and monitoring of their automations.
Power BI | august 2023 feature summary
- Check the latest Power BI August 2023 update
Video here
- Area covered:
- Reporting
- New layout switcher | New bubble range scaling setting | On-Object Interaction – Updates(preview)
- Modeling: Update for ORDERBY function
- Data Connectivity
- New modern data connectivity and discovery experience in Dataflows | Lakehouses (Connector Update)
Learning Corner
Customer Stories
Early Reviews of Dynamics 365 copilot by organizations
- Only months after announcing Copilot capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, employees at more than 63,000 organizations from various industries—including brands like 3M, Prada Group, Campari, and Kraft Heinz—have had the opportunity to experience some of the AI-assisted features firsthand—and the reviews are in.
- Read the full story here Learn more>>
Learning
Sales Copilot in Outlook & Teams | Help Sellers Ramp Up Quickly
- Sales Copilot Learn Module to help all your sellers ramp up quickly: Boost sales performance with Microsoft Sales Copilot – Training | Microsoft Learn
- What’s new in July and August 2023
- Microsoft Sales Copilot Blog
June & July 2023 updates for modernization in power apps – theming and more
- Modern controls updates in canvas apps
- There is critical progress made with exciting updates on theming, releasing new controls and improvements on existing controls.
Dynamics 365 customer journey – Application Lifecycle Management Best Practices
As businesses continue to leverage the power of Dynamics 365 CI Journey to engage customers and drive growth, implementing effective Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) practices become crucial.
- ALM encompasses strategies, processes, and tools that ensure the successful development, deployment, and management of applications. In this series of articles, we will delve into ALM best practices tailored to Dynamics 365 CI Journey.
- This article, the first in a series, delves into the basics of ALM.
- Learn more on these various topics here
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