Happy New Year!  (belated of course) Welcome to another monthly update for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.  In this article you'll find the latest highlights.  Note that as of today, the 2023 Wave 1 release plans have been made available.  Rest assured we'll be covering those topics in upcoming updates!  For now, enjoy the content here, find previous monthly updates, check out our update briefing webcast when you get a chance, and review the services our team has to offer!

Featured News

Power Platform & Dynamics 365 | Do More With Less to Empower Growth and Agility

As companies across industries navigate a period of uncertainty, every investment in people and technology must be strategic and decisive to help people do more with less—less time, less cost, and less complexity.

• Do more with less by becoming more agile and efficient with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.
• The 2022 release wave 2 unlocks durable growth by unifying business data, relationships, and workflows with a single, cohesive business cloud. 

• Short videos:
  • Do More with Less – 2022 Release Wave 2 launch
  • Power Platform – 2022 Release Wave 2 Launch
  • Customer Experience – 2022 Release Wave 2 Launch
  • Eika – Sales and Marketing Teams - Customer story
  • Customer Service- Omnichannel engagement – Customer story
  • Field Service, Mixed Reality, Connected Spaces
  • Finance, Operations & HR- Customer story

LEARN MORE>>

 Power Platform & Dynamics 365 | 2022 Release Wave 2

All regions and customers have moved to the Release Wave 2 of Power Platform & Dynamics 365

• Check out the Regional deployments agenda.
• 2022 Release wave 2 describes new features releasing from October 2022 through March 2023.
• Video 2022 RW2 Release Highlights: Dynamics 365 Sales 2022 Release Wave 2 Release Highlights
  

Check features that will impact user experience and enabled by default -

• Check out the list of 2022 Release Wave 2 features enabled by default for Power Apps HERE
• Check out the list of 2022 Release Wave 2 features enabled by default for Dynamics 365 Apps HERE
• Check out the list of 2022 Release Wave 2 features enabled by default for Pro development HERE

UPCOMING RELEASE WAVE IN 2023:  Upcoming 2023 release wave 1 : Public Preview in February 2023 and GA in April 2023.

Planned 2022 Release Wave 2 Features From January to March 2023

• For planned features in Dataverse - HERE
• For planned features in Power Apps - HERE
• For planned features in Power Pages - HERE
• For planned features in Power Automate - HERE
• For planned features in Power Virtual Agents - HERE
• For planned features in Data Integration - HERE
• For planned features in Power BI - HERE
• For planned features in Governance and Admin - HERE
• For planned features in ISV Experience - HERE

Deprecation and Service Retirements

Review, Plan, Prioritize Remediation Efforts

Deprecation Power Apps & Power Automate

Deprecation Power Apps portals  

Deprecation Canvas Apps

Deprecation for Power Platform Apps

Dataverse OData v2.0 Service will retire on APRIL 30, 2023

• We plan to remove the Dataverse OData v2.0 Organization Data Service on April 30,2023. This was originally scheduled for November 11, 2022, but the date has been extended.
• This announcement does not involve the deprecated Organization Service SOAP endpoint.
• The Organization Data Service was deprecated with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement v8.0 in favor of the Web API, an OData v4.0 service.
• Any code that uses the Organization Data Service should be migrated to use the Web API before that time.

Learn more>>

Model-driven app controls deprecation (2023 Release Wave 1) APRIL 2023

With the upcoming 2023 release wave 1 these controls for model-driven apps will be deprecated:

auto-complete, input mask, multimedia player, number input, option set, and star rating.

 Why is this needed?

• We will be introducing new Fluent controls which have better usability, accessibility and dark mode support.

Action required by you

Learn more>>

Some admin apps are deprecated in APRIL 2023

With the release of the Customer Service admin center app that consolidates admin experiences across the Customer Service suite, we announce that the following admin experiences will be deprecated and support will end in April 2023.

Learn more>>

More information: Get started with Customer Service admin center

Previous Deprecations and Retirements

Dynamics 365 Connector is deprecated - Oct 2022

Learn More>>

Data Export Service (DES) Retired Nov 30, 2022

Learn More>>

Release Updates

Power Platform - Manage Release Wave Updates

We bring new innovations, new features, and capabilities into the products through 2 Waves per year.

• CURRENT RELEASE WAVE: 2022 Release Wave 2.
• UPCOMING RELEASE WAVE IN 2023:  Upcoming 2023 release wave 1 : Public Preview in February 2023 and GA in April 2023

Release Planner Website (Preview)

WANT TO KNOW ABOUT RELEASE WAVES FEATURES SCHEDULE? 

Use Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release planner that allows admins, makers and power users to review the new features of a release wave, timeline and track changes in a new portal experience as you sign in to flag releases you are interested in

Understand Release Wave Updates

• Release Wave Plan for visibility on what is coming.
• Release Wave schedule  for visibility on deployment timelines for Power Apps, Dynamics 365 CE Apps, and Industry Clouds. 2 waves per year:
• Wave 1 Period:   April – September
• Wave 2 Period: October to March.
• Release Wave Opt-in to early access update.
  • Understand the opt-in process to early updates for Dynamics 365 environment and how to opt-in to early access updates.
• General Availability deployment
  • After a release cycle has been made "generally available" to users, environments are typically automatically turned on. This is so users can receive ongoing mandatory updates which will enable the early access features and general available features of the release.

How to Stay Informed on Updates Notifications

WANT TO STAY INFORMED ON IMPORTANT SERVICE UPDATES AND MAJOR CHANGES?

• Use Message Center notifications through Email preferences for Dynamics and PowerApps using Microsoft 365 Admin center   
• Manage email notifications to admins using PowerShell

Product Updates

Delegate the Mailbox Approval Process

The mailbox approval process can now be delegated to another user instead of always requiring a Global or Exchange admin.

What’s new? 

• A new security role named Delegated Mailbox Approver is now available. A Global or Exchange admin can assign (delegate) this role to one or more users. A user with this role will be able to approve a mailbox without being a Global or Exchange admin.
• For additional details, see Delegate Mailbox Approval.  

Learn more >>

Automate deployments with pipelines in Power Platform (Preview)

Power Platform Pipelines aims to democratize application lifecycle management (ALM) for Power Platform and Dynamics 365 customers by bringing deployment automation capabilities into Managed Environments in a manner that’s more approachable for all makers, admins, and developers.

See pipelines and Managed Environments in action with this new Microsoft Mechanics video and go deeper with this new video from Power CAT Live.

Learn more>>

Microsoft Dataverse Data Archival Capabilities (Preview is coming)

Value

• Customers can continue with rapid digitization that increases online transaction processing data volumes. The archival feature can be used to reduce non-active data in the transaction store while ensuring regulatory requirements are met for long-term data storage.

Feature details

• Application admins will be able to define an archival policy for a root table. The root table and all child tables will be archived in Microsoft Dataverse. A new dashboard will be available to manage the archival jobs.
• Dataverse retrieve API's will support read-only to the archived data. The Dataverse connector for Power BI will enable customers to build reports. Managed Azure Synapse will be an option to query the archived data.

• Public Preview: March 2023

Learn more>>

Power Pages Annoucements

• This TechTalk covers new features and deprecations announced recently around Microsoft Power Pages.  Learn more>>

Power Pages - general availability

• In May 2022, Microsoft Power Platform announced Power Pages as a standalone product in preview. Power pages is now generally available.
• Power Pages enable citizen developers and professional developers alike to rapidly spin-up low-code, scalable, and secure business-centric websites.

• Learn more about Power Pages:
  • Power Pages overview, Design and Build
  • Configure Power Pages and  Customize, extend Power Pages
  • Administration, Capacity and Governance of Power Pages
  • Power Pages capabilities
  • Secure Power Pages and Web Application Firewall for Power Pages (Preview)
  • Deprecations in Power Pages
  • Try Power Pages

• Now that Power Pages is General Available, see how Microsoft can help HERE

Learn more>>

How-To: Monthly Testing Power Pages Websites

Testing Websites Monthly?

• Yes you could opt-in to Early Upgrade process to preview and test your sites for impacts of the monthly updates this way: Upgrade a portal - Power Apps | Microsoft Learn

Recommendations:

• We recommend all critical projects especially with UX or Pro Dev customizations always find a Test environment and opt-in to Early Upgrade.
• Then monthly you will get a notice in Admin Center, and do your testing.
• Do not apply this in Production or critical path Dev instances, so you are not blocked on project or mitigation.

LEARN MORE>>

Power Platform & SAP Integration

We are excited to announce the General Availability (GA) of a broad set of new functionality in the Power Platform that will make it easier for organizations running SAP to digitally transform and automate their business processes.

>> Prebuilt Power Apps for Common SAP Processes

>> Prebuilt Power Automate Flows for Common SAP Processes

>> Advanced SAP System Connections

LEARN MORE>>

Power BI December 2022 Feature Summary

• Reporting
  • Slicer type formatting moved to Format Pane
• Modeling
  • Making it easier to do comparison calculations
• Data connectivity and preparation
  • Anaplan (Connector update)
  • Azure Databricks, Databricks (Connector update)
  • CData Connect Cloud (New Connector)
  • Cosmos DB V2 (New Connector)
  • Dremio Cloud (Connector update)
  • Google BigQuery (Azure AD) (New Connector)
• Service
  • Power BI org app Multiple Audiences will be generally available next year
  • Announcing the deprecation of ‘Getting Started’ in the Expanded View of the Power BI Service
  • Upcoming changes to the ‘Get Data’ experience in the Power BI Service
• Mobile
  • Track your Metrics on the Windows app
• Developers
  • Dynamically setting data chunk size
• Visualizations
  • New visuals in AppSource
  • Update on Charticulator status

Learn more>>

Learning Corner

Protecting data with Dataverse Part 2: Security from Internal Threats

This post will focus on protecting data from internal user threats.

• Secure Data from Internal Data Leaks and Disgruntled Employees
• How can I minimize user access to sensitive data in my applications?
• How can I ensure users have the right privileges necessary to access a Dataverse environment?
• How can I make sure users do not have the ability to intentionally leak or allow others to easily access and leak sensitive data in my environment? 

Learn more here >>

Case Swarming - Improve Agents Productivity and Collaboration to Resolve Complex Issues

Resolving a customer issue often requires input from multiple departments across the company.

Agents ranked collaboration as the second most important part of their job, behind only customer engagement.

We want customers to do more with less, that's why we've made collaboration easier in Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

With collaborative customer support powered by embedded Microsoft Teams chat and case swarming, agents can resolve issues faster, whether it requires consulting a peer, a team, a department, or an entire organization and that makes for happier agents and customers.

Learn more >>

Useful Links