Understanding your Azure savings plan recommendations

Understanding your Azure savings plan recommendations

by | Aug 11, 2023 | Technology

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

Learn how you can save money with the Azure saving plan recommendations. with your host Thomas Maurer and Azure savings plan expert Obinna Nwokolo.


 


Azure savings plan feature recap.


 


Azure savings plan for compute is an easy and flexible way to save money on compute services spend compared to pay-as-you-go (PAYG) prices. What customers do is you can commit to an hourly amount to spend over a one to three-year and in exchange for that you get significant discounts over the on-demand prices.


 


Purchase savings plans in the Azure portal.


 


You can purchase Azure savings plan by going to Azure Portal.


 



  1. Login to the Azure Portal.

  2. In the search box, search for “Savings plan”, click on that.


 


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  1. You’ll be brought to the Savings plan blade where you can click “Add” and then you can go through the purchasing process just by filling out the necessary information.


How are savings plan recommendations generated?


 


Thomas mentioned that when he talks to customer using the savings plan, he gets a few common questions such as “How much commitment should I make?” or “How do I select the right savings plan?” and so on because it varies by individual cases One other question, he gets asked is “How are Azure savings plans recommendations generated?”


 


From Obinna’s experience it is very difficult to figure out exactly how much to commit and so Microsoft tries to do that work for you. Microsoft looks at your hourly usage, what you’ve spent on savings plan eligible resources over the last 7, 30, and 60 days. Then Microsoft does some calculations where they try to determine what would have been the optimal savings plan amount for each hour within the 7, 30, or 60 day timeframe. Then Microsoft takes that optimal savings plan amount and attempts to simulate what would have happened had you made that savings plan purchase and your savings projected. After all those simulations have been done, Microsoft takes the top ten of those simulations that resulted in positive savings and presents those to you as recommendations. Your recommendations are based on what you’re actually spending.


 


Demo of Azure savings plan and explanation of calculations.


 


In the video below there is a segment where there is a demo. For example, let’s talk about a customer that would be a good fit for Azure savings plan. Our fictional customer Contoso runs a helpdesk service and because they are serving globally, it’s important for them to leverage compute services through multiple regions over the course of the day.


 


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This makes them a really good candidate for the Azure savings plans. So, in this example how does Microsoft generate the recommendation is going to go through several steps.


 



  1. Microsoft figures out what did you spend, this could be called the “commitment candidates”. These are the amounts that say for this hour this is the optimal savings plan amount.

  2. Then some simulations are run where Microsoft figures out what you would have saved if you had that commitment.

  3. Then Microsoft simulates all 720 commitment candidates; it is going to say here are the top 10 and this is what we’re going to present to you as a customer.


 


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To recap, Microsoft wants to start by looking at your usage. In this scenario, when Microsoft looks at Contoso’s usage over 720 hours. Microsoft goes through hour one, hour two all the way down to the last hour for that period and says “this is your usage and what did they actually spend?”.


 


You can see how this is calculated in this example a little bit over $7.00, so $7.32 and fractions of that. Then Microsoft says, “let’s figure out that same answer for all of the remaining hours within that 30 day look back period.” Which in this case is 720 distinct hours (24 hours x 30 days = 720 hours). So now that Microsoft knows what they were spending for every single hour, Microsoft wants to understand what the optimal savings plan amount is for each one of those hours.


 


Microsoft then applies the Azure savings plan discount for each one of those hours and then calculates what’s the net resultant savings plan commit optimal amount. So, in this example their usage of on demand cost was $7.32 for hour one. When the savings plan discounts are applied, we find that the right amount for them, from a savings plan perspective, is a little bit more than $3.30.


 


So, we now know this is the optimal amount for our number one. Let’s take our number one’s value and apply to our number two, our number three and all the remaining hours in that 720-hour window. And so, we’re going to follow the benefit application rules that exist for savings plan, look at the meter that has the greatest discount and apply the savings plan to that first and then work our way down. As we go through that process in this particular example, we find that a $3.30 savings plan isn’t actually enough to fully cover that first meter so there’s going to be some overage. We’re going to fully consume the savings plan and then we’re going to incur an on-demand cost of $1.57. Then we’re going to go on that second meter and we’re going to, because the savings plan is gone, just charge that one as the full on-demand rate. So, the net of this is as we go through this, we see that we incurred a total simulated cost of $6.87. That’s actually still better than the on-demand cost that the customer had coming in which was $7.32. So, this $3.30 savings plan for our number two resulted in a net savings of $0.44 which is progress. As we go through each one of those hours, if a candidate results in a positive savings, we want to keep it because it’s got potential but if it doesn’t, we want to discard it. So we’re going to run this analysis for our number two, our number three, all the way to 720 when we finish for each individual hour, each individual simulation, we want to compare all of them.


 


In this case, again, we have 720 candidates. We’re going to simulate each one of those against every single hour. The result of this is about a little bit over 500,000+ calculations in this period and when we finish this whole process, we’re going to select up to the top 10 candidates that actually resulted in savings and that’s what you end up seeing within the Azure portal UI when you click into the billing into the hourly commitment.


 


You’ll see in this example we’ve presented for $1.43 all the way to $1.43 and a little bit more change along with providing the commitment amount, we do provide additional information. It says here’s your expected savings percentage as well as the expected coverage and this is the coverage that this savings plan and any other reservations and or savings plan you’ve previously purchased would have provided for you.


 


We think that’s really good information to help you make the right choice, but you still also have the ability to put a custom amount if you want to go a little bit less. We wouldn’t recommend going over because as you go over you have additional waste and again this is focused on making sure we provide you with the greatest cost savings.


 


Resources to help you learn more about Azure savings plan.


 


Microsoft has lots of resources to help you figure this out. Learn more at the Azure savings plan for compute https://aka.ms/savingsplan-compute to understand broadly how savings plan works. You can also read about Azure savings plan for compute at Microsoft Learn https://aka.ms/savingplans/doc and about Cost Management APIs at Microsoft Learn https://aka.ms/CostManagement/API.


 


Recommended Next Steps:


 


 If you’d like to learn more about the general principles prescribed by Microsoft, we recommend Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for platform and environment-level guidance and Azure Well-Architected Framework. You can also register for an upcoming workshop led by Azure partners on cloud migration and adoption topics and incorporate click-through labs to ensure effective, pragmatic training.


 


You can view the whole video below.


 


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Azure Marketplace new offers – August 10, 2023

Azure Marketplace new offers – August 10, 2023

by | Aug 10, 2023 | Technology

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

We continue to expand the Azure Marketplace ecosystem. For this volume, 106 new offers successfully met the onboarding criteria and went live. See details of the new offers below:


 



































































































































































































































































































































































































































Get it now in our marketplace
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eekox for Team Building: Designed to foster team unity and cohesion, eekox’s instant booking tool allows employees to choose the best space and plan for team building. Foster unity in remote work environments and ensure your team functions smoothly.
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FlyPal-CRS: Simplify crew management and ensure the proper balance of competent, well-rested crew members on board with FlyPal Crew Rostering System (CRS) from BytzSoft. The application can be configured to meet the needs of general aviation operations or commercial airlines.
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FocusX – AI-Powered ERP: This AI-powered ERP with in-memory computing and industry-ready templates empowers businesses with ML-driven statistics, predictive analytics, and forecasting. Customers can cherry-pick their desired modules for effective communication and secure transactions.
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Foresiet: This SaaS offer from Foresiet provides an AI-powered integrated digital risk protection platform that can identify and forecast risks by analyzing over 100+ unique vectors across on-premises and cloud deployments. Get deeper visibility through content-specific threat intelligence.
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Goodbook: Experience the convenience of quickly generating custom pay slips with Goodbook’s intuitive platform. The application provides personalized pay slips and simplifies your payroll process, even if you have no prior accounting knowledge.
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HiFairs: Virtual Art Rooms: This SaaS offer from HIDS Technologies uses augmented, virtual, and extended reality to create 2D and 3D virtual art rooms. It supports artists, buyers, and sponsors by creating a digital ecosystem to assist with branding and selling of art products.
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iAQT: iAQT is an end-to-end SaaS platform for managing your Out-of-Home (OOH) media inventory. It ensures continued visibility of point-of-sale visual media assets and real time campaign status reporting for closed loop management.
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Relatude E-Commerce: Whether you’re working on critical B2B e-commerce solutions or simple B2C web shops, the Relatude e-commerce application seamlessly blends content and commerce, enabling you to build a cohesive online business.
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Rexo ERP: Rexo ERP is a flexible, scalable solution that offers multiple cross-platform features to meet the specific needs of educational institutions. It helps schools of any size manage students, teachers, courses, and academic programs using big data and cloud analytics.
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WireGuard on CentOS 8: This offer from AskforCloud provides WireGuard along with CentOS 8 on a Microsoft Azure virtual machine. WireGuard is an open-source virtual private network (VPN) that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography for encryption.
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WireGuard on Debian 10: Providing a ready-to-use environment to implement encrypted virtual private networks, AskforCloud’s image includes WireGuard on Debian 10. More performant than OpenVPN, WireGuard is a general-purpose VPN that can run on embedded interfaces and supercomputers.
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WireGuard on Debian 11: Providing a ready-to-use environment to implement encrypted virtual private networks, AskforCloud’s image includes WireGuard on Debian 11. More performant than OpenVPN, WireGuard is a general-purpose VPN that can run on embedded interfaces and supercomputers.
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WireGuard on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: This offer from AskforCloud provides WireGuard along with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 on a Microsoft Azure virtual machine. WireGuard is an open-source virtual private network (VPN) that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography for encryption.
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WireGuard on Windows Server 2012 R2: This offer from AskforCloud provides WireGuard along with Windows Server 2012 R2 on a Microsoft Azure virtual machine. WireGuard is an open-source virtual private network (VPN) that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography for encryption.
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WireGuard on Windows Server 2016: This offer from AskforCloud provides WireGuard along with Windows Server 2016 on a Microsoft Azure virtual machine. WireGuard is an open-source virtual private network (VPN) that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography for encryption.
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WireGuard on Windows Server 2019: This offer from AskforCloud provides WireGuard along with Windows Server 2019 on a Microsoft Azure virtual machine. WireGuard is an open-source virtual private network (VPN) that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography for encryption.

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Availability of Defender Vulnerability Management Standalone and Container vulnerability assessments

Availability of Defender Vulnerability Management Standalone and Container vulnerability assessments

by | Aug 9, 2023 | Technology

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

Organizations are increasingly challenged to stay aligned with evolving business requirements and protect against expanding attack surfaces with a diverse portfolio of devices outside of traditional organizational boundaries, adding complexity to the vulnerability management process. Vulnerability management solutions provide understanding of their overall security risk posture and where to prioritize.


 


In recent years, Microsoft has established itself as a leading solution for vulnerability risk management (VRM) by leveraging its industry-leading threat intelligence and security expertise. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides end-to-end capabilities across the VRM lifecycle to identify, assess, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities, making it an ideal tool for managing an expanded attack surface and reducing overall risk posture.


 


Announcing availability of Defender Vulnerability Management standalone  


Earlier this year we released our premium capabilities as an add-on to the core capabilities included with Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 and we are thrilled to announce Defender Vulnerability Management is now offered as a standalone solution. Now organizations not yet on Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, or have another EDR solution, or just looking to replace an existing vulnerability management solution, can take advantage of our context-aware, risk-based prioritization that leverages Microsoft’s unmatched threat intelligence, breach likelihood predictions and business contexts to prioritize vulnerabilities across their portfolio of managed and unmanaged devices.


With this significant addition of a standalone offering, we also introduced enhancements to the Microsoft 365 Defender Unified RBAC permissions model to clearly associate relevant roles & permissions with Defender Vulnerability Management (this change will not affect existing roles).


 


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Figure: Core and premium capabilities in standalone offer


Defender Vulnerability Management premium capabilities provide advanced assessments with in-depth visibility into potential exposure to your assets:


 



  • Security baselines assessment – customized profiles that you can create to assess and monitor endpoints against industry security benchmarks, such as CIS, STIG and Microsoft benchmarks. Instead of running never-ending compliance scans, monitor your organization’s security baselines seamlessly according to customized profiles.

  • Block vulnerable applications – In addition to the core remediation capabilities, proactively reduce risks with this premium capability by taking mitigation steps such as warning users or blocking known vulnerable versions of applications. Leverage software usage insights to understand the impact of the vulnerable application.

  • Hardware and firmware assessment – full visibility into device manufacturer, processors, and BIOs information to assess vulnerabilities for hardware and firmware risks.

  • Digital certificates and browser extensions assessment – expand your asset coverage beyond devices and gain entity-level visibility into the various browser extensions and digital certificates installed across assets.

  • Network shares analysis– protect against misconfigurations used in the wild by attackers for lateral movement, reconnaissance, data exfiltration, and more.

  • Authenticated scans for vulnerability assessment– run scans on unmanaged devices by remotely targeting by IP ranges or hostnames to remotely access the devices for vulnerability assessment purposes.


Defender Vulnerability Management capabilities are integrated into Defender for Endpoint and Defender for Cloud enabling security teams to assess their exposure and address changes to improve security posture of your organization. You now have flexibility in our offering across endpoints and servers.  More info on our updated website.


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Figure: Availability of Core and premium capabilities across offerings that include Defender Vulnerability Management for endpoints and servers.


 


Your needs for vulnerability assessments and analysis spans platforms, clouds and modalities and our strategy for Defender Vulnerability Management is to support these environments that span multiple platforms across both on-premises and cloud. We have recently added Fortinet to the network devices and container support is our second big news. 


 


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Announcing vulnerability assessment (VA) for Containers powered by Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management in Defender for Cloud


With the rise of containerization and microservices, it’s more important than ever to secure the software supply chain and ensure that container images are free from vulnerabilities.


Today, as a result of Defender for Cloud’s integration with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, we are excited to announce the general availability of agentless container posture management in Defender CSPM and the public preview of vulnerability assessment scanning for container images in Defender for Containers.


These new container vulnerability assessment capabilities powered by Defender Vulnerability Management include:



  • Agentless vulnerability assessment for containers

  • Zero configuration for onboarding

  • Near real-time scan of new images

  • Daily refresh of vulnerability reports

  • Coverage for both ship (ACR) and runtime (AKS)

  • Support for OS and language packages

  • Real-world exploitability insights (based on CISA kev, exploit DB and more)

  • Support for ACR private links


 


Agentless container posture management in Defender CSPM, powered by Defender Vulnerability Management


To help proactively strengthen the security posture of your containerized environments, Defender CSPM provides a new vulnerability assessment offering for containers powered by Defender Vulnerability Management, with near real-time scans of new images, daily report refreshes, and real-world exploitability insights. Vulnerabilities are added to Defender CSPM security graph for contextual risk assessment and calculation of attack paths. Customers can now access out-of-the-box container vulnerability assessments that, combined with attack path analysis and agentless discovery of the Kubernetes estate, enable security teams to hunt for risks with the cloud security explorer and prioritize the vulnerabilities that pose the greatest risks to the organization. This agentless approach allows security teams to gain visibility into their Kubernetes and containers registries across the SDLC, removing friction and footprints from the workloads.


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Figure Attack path analysis outlining a containerized application publicly exposed with high severity vulnerabilities discovered using Defender Vulnerability Management


Enable Defender CSPM with agentless container posture in a single click.


 


Public preview of vulnerability assessment for containers in Defender for Containers, powered by Defender Vulnerability Management


In providing comprehensive cloud workload protection, Defender for Containers’ new integration with Defender Vulnerability Management now provides our customers with vulnerability assessments through one-click enablement, near real-time scan of new images, and daily result refreshes of current and emerging vulnerabilities enriched with exploitability insights – all to help organizations focus on vulnerabilities with the greatest security impact to their organization.


 


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New vulnerability assessment recommendation powered by Defender Vulnerability Management


Enable Container vulnerability assessments powered by Defender Vulnerability Management in one click here.


 


If you’re interested in learning more about Defender Vulnerability Management visit our website for updated pricing and packaging and datasheet. Read more about our plans and capabilities here. To take advantage of our free 90-day trial, check out our interactive guide, and read more information in our product documentation.  


For additional information and other relevant updates on protecting cloud workloads please visit the Microsoft Defender for Cloud blog.


 


 


 

Introducing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, helping your frontline deliver exceptional service with next-generation AI

Introducing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, helping your frontline deliver exceptional service with next-generation AI

by | Aug 9, 2023 | Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Technology

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

Delivering exceptional service is key for building customer preference and loyalty. But timely resolution can get challenging when fragmented tools make it hard to find the right information and service delivery gets delayed with lengthy data-entry processes. Today, we’re introducing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, bringing the power of next-generation AI to service professionals on the frontline to speed time to resolution. From creating work orders with the right information and assigning them to the right technicians, to equipping the technicians with sufficient support to successfully complete jobs—Copilot will help streamline critical frontline tasks.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/RW18MMY

New data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report1 reveals 63 percent of frontline workers struggle with having to do repetitive or menial tasks that take time away from more meaningful work, and 66 percent feel that they don’t have enough time to complete work tasks. The number one thing that frontline leaders value from AI is helping employees with necessary but repetitive/mundane tasks. Whether it’s for a facility inspection, equipment installation, or a maintenance request, frontline service managers want to spend their time figuring out how to improve their team’s efficiency rather than on repetitive tasks such as copying and pasting information from one system to another to create work orders and dispatch technicians. And frontline technicians want the right information at the right time to complete the job, the first time.

Accelerating service delivery

With the preview of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service today, frontline managers who receive service requests or questions via emails can use next-generation AI to streamline work order creation directly within Outlook. Copilot prepopulates relevant data including summaries of customer escalations into draft work orders for managers to review in their flow of work. Once saved, these work orders automatically sync to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service. Additionally, with updates coming this fall, Copilot will streamline technician scheduling by offering data-driven recommendations based on travel time, availability, skill set, and other factors as well as accelerate responses to customer messages by summarizing key details and next steps in email drafts. Copilot will also become available to assist frontline managers in their flow of work within Microsoft Teams.

“I am really excited about working with Copilot capabilities as I believe it will completely change the way our employees at G&J Pepsi interact with Dynamics 365 Field Service. It will be a game changer for our field service and frontline teams, allowing them to enhance their best-in-class service by getting access to the information they need faster than ever before.”

Eric McKinney, Director of Enterprise Infrastructure at G&J Pepsi

Boosting technician productivity

Today, we’re also introducing the preview of a new Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile experience for frontline technicians to swiftly access all the information they need on the go. This modern user experience supports familiar mobile navigation, gestures, and controls to streamline managing work order Tasks, Services, and Products. From changing the status of a booking with a quick swipe to accessing driving directions to a customer site with one tap, the redesign saves valuable technician time for daily work—cutting down the number of taps for key tasks in half. Technicians can not only easily pick, change, or complete work order details, but also add notes with multiple inline images. Technicians who need additional support can now also use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides embedded in Field Service mobile. Embedded Dynamics 365 Guides in Field Service provides technicians with step-by-step guided instructions, pictures, and videos explaining the immediate task.

Additionally, with the preview of the Dynamics 365 Field Service app in Teams starting today, frontline technicians can now see upcoming work orders at-a-glance as Tasks in their Microsoft Viva Connections home experience and can easily drill into details such as location or issue type. Frontline technicians can also now share full work order details through cards in Teams and access the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist app in one click via their home experience in Teams mobile to problem solve with remote experts in real time using 3D spatial annotations that lock to the physical world.

“Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service will support a faster way of working for our organization by simplifying our transactional work order management process. The ease with which an email can be translated into a work order and planned will increase the speed of our customer responses and improve our customer journey. We are also excited to improve the experience for our customer-facing colleagues with the Microsoft 365 integrations. Microsoft Teams is our main internal communication method, and the integration of Field Service into Teams will greatly simplify the communication about a specific work order, account, or other customer case and improve the case lead time.”

Sven van Veldhuizen, CIO/CDO at Joulz

Streamlining work order management

A redesigned Dynamics 365 Field Service work order management experience is now available for early access, featuring a simplified web experience that brings important information front and center—reducing the number of clicks for key tasks by more than a third. The experience not only offers concise information about the work order but also provides relevant next steps based on booking statuses, and supports making quick updates inline or in a side panel to not lose context. Copilot will provide intelligent recaps within this experience to help frontline managers stay up-to-date without having to navigate through all the information in a work order.

Partnering with our ecosystem

Partners have played a key role in helping us refine Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service ahead of its public preview and we are excited to share some of their observations as early adopters.

“We are excited to bring Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service and Microsoft 365 integrations to augment our sustainable energy customers’ field service workforce—enabling them to stay ahead of the game with increased productivity. Just imagine the productivity gain your service department can realize by having a service-related email translated by AI into a field service work order with the right information, and what field service technicians can accomplish when they get a clear and simple view of all the information they need to focus on in whatever Microsoft 365 tool supports their daily tasks the best.”

Filip Bossuyt, Founder & CEO at 9altitudes Group

“Hitachi Solutions has been working with Microsoft to preview Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service and is already seeing how field service organizations will greatly benefit from AI. Our field service customers want solutions fast. With Copilot work order capabilities in Outlook, our customer’s field service managers can stay in the flow of work and immediately assign resources to solve problems, leading to quicker response times and enhanced service delivery.”

Michael Mendoza, Director of Service Transformation at Hitachi Solutions

“Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service is like a window into the future, nothing like what I’ve seen before. It’s literally taking steps out of my work stream by summarizing emails and coming up with the work order description—saving me seconds each time which add up to minutes each day. This matters a lot when you think about the volume of emails with service requests in today’s world.”

Greg Somogyi, Field Service Senior Consultant at Ludia Consulting

“We are excited to introduce Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service to our facilities clients because we see the power in simplicity. For our clients raising responsive repairs to get the right person with the right skill to the right properties at the right time, Copilot enables frontline teams to go from issue to resolution in just a few clicks.”

Matt Hedges, Products Director at TechLabs London

Lastly, we are excited to announce the interoperation of asset performance solutions from ICONICS and Willow with Dynamics 365 Field Service, making it seamless to share critical insights like equipment health and faults in order to proactively detect and resolve asset issues. The IoT-based solutions elevate asset monitoring and service management to new levels of sophistication, empowering frontline workers to make better-informed decisions based on data when providing service and repairs. The new Copilot capabilities in Dynamics 365 Field Service can also help efficiently summarize and update work orders generated based on these IoT-based solutions. This streamlines service workflows, improves response times, and enhances overall service quality for customers. Read about further details on the solutions here.

Learn more about Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, Microsoft 365 integrations, and more

To try the new Copilot capabilities and Microsoft 365 integrations for Dynamics 365 Field Service, request for your administrator to set up Dynamics 365 Field Service for Outlook (Preview) and Dynamics 365 Field Service (Preview) app in Teams. Administrators can also opt into the new Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile experience available now in preview. To try the new Dynamics 365 Field Service web experience available now in early access, switch to Work Order (Preview) in your system.

Today’s announcement builds on recent AI momentum across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform. Learn more about the latest AI breakthroughs with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot on the Dynamics 365 AI webpage. With Copilot, you’re in control as it is grounded in your business data and automatically inherits your valuable security, compliance and privacy policies, regulations, and processes. Learn about our AI principles that empower impactful responsible AI practices at Microsoft, as well as provide a framework for implementing responsible AI practices at our customers’ organizations.

Close-up side view of a frontline construction worker

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service

Next-generation AI helps your frontline deliver exceptional service.


Set up the preview

End notes:

1 The Work Trend Index survey was conducted by an independent research firm, Edelman Data x Intelligence, among 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed workers across 31 markets, 6,019 of which are frontline workers, between February 1, 2023, and March 14, 2023. This survey was 20 minutes in length and conducted online, in either the English language or translated into a local language across markets. One thousand full-time workers were surveyed in each market, and global results have been aggregated across all responses to provide an average. Each market is evenly weighted within the global average. Each market was sampled to be representative of the full-time workforce across age, gender, and region; each sample included a mix of work environments (in-person, remote vs. non-remote, office settings vs. non-office settings, etc.), industries, company sizes, tenures, and job levels. Markets surveyed include: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

The post Introducing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, helping your frontline deliver exceptional service with next-generation AI appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

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

Save costs and drive efficiency with next-generation AI on the frontline with Microsoft Teams

Save costs and drive efficiency with next-generation AI on the frontline with Microsoft Teams

by | Aug 9, 2023 | Business, Microsoft 365, Technology, Viva Connections, Walkie Talkie, Work Trend Index

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

Frontline workers are the backbone of the global workforce and often the first to interact with customers and manage on-the-ground operations. When organizations invest in fast time to value technology for their frontline workers, it not only drives positive outcomes for businesses’ bottom lines but also for frontline employees.

The post Save costs and drive efficiency with next-generation AI on the frontline with Microsoft Teams appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

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