One aspect of Dynamics 365 Field Service’s adaptability lies in the flexibility of its ‘status’ functionality, driving a meaningful work order lifecycle tailored to each organization. Field Service helps manage work orders and bookings across diverse use cases. This blog series explores critical status concepts: 

• System Status and Substatus for Work Orders 
• Booking Status and Field Service Status for Bookings 
• Booking Status Impact on Work Orders Across Single and Multi-Booking Scenarios 

Grasping these concepts allows organizations to leverage the solution’s functionality, optimize field service processes, and ultimately provide better customer service. 

This blog will expand upon many of the concepts discussed in the existing work order and booking status documentation: Work order life cycle and statuses – Dynamics 365 Field Service | Microsoft Learn 

Work Order Status Concepts: System Status and Substatus 

System Status 

Work orders in Dynamics 365 Field Service have a column called System Status which helps organizations manage their field service processes efficiently. There are six values available for System Status: 

• Unscheduled: Work order has been created, but resources have not been assigned. 
• Scheduled: Work order has resources assigned and is ready for execution. 
• In Progress: Work order is currently being executed by the assigned resources. 
• Completed: Work order has been executed and finished. 
• Posted: Work order has been invoiced and is now closed. 
• Cancelled: Work order has been cancelled and will not be executed. 

As the documentation highlights, an organization must use this field as is because these values allow the FS solution to interpret the current state of the work order record and apply appropriate behaviors and validations. If this list is changed, it could cause many issues both immediately and unanticipated, down the line. New values in this list would not be interpretable by the solution. However, the Field Service solution has a powerful related concept that provides infinite flexibility which can be mapped directly to these System Status values. 

Substatus 

In Dynamics 365 Field Service, the Substatus table plays a crucial role in providing organizations with the ability to create meaningful states that are mapped to System Statuses. One noteworthy feature of the Substatus table is the option to define a “Default” Substatus for each mapped System Status. This default Substatus will be automatically applied when a work order transitions into the corresponding System Status through the out-of-the-box (OOTB) logic.  

The Default Substatus feature within the Substatus table allows organizations to streamline their work order management process by automatically applying a predefined Substatus when a work order moves into a particular System Status using the out-of-the-box logic. This helps ensure consistency across work orders while still allowing for customization and adaptability when needed.

For example, if your organization has a default Substatus of “Pending Customer Confirmation” for the System Status “Scheduled,” any work order that moves into the “Scheduled” System Status due to the standard logic will automatically be assigned the “Pending Customer Confirmation” Substatus. This helps maintain consistency and simplify the management of work orders, especially when dealing with a high volume of work orders. 

It’s important to note that if a work order already has a different Substatus applied within the same System Status, the default Substatus will not be applied. This means that, if an organization adds custom logic to set a substatus, the default logic will not override it. The existing Substatus will remain in place, allowing organizations to maintain flexibility and customization for specific work order situations. It is also worth noting that any custom logic is still subject the allowed System Status validations (for example: the Work Order cannot be forced into a Scheduled System Status if there are no bookings). 

Further, direct updates to the Substatus field will drive updates to the work order’s System Status, within the allowable System Status changes. For example, using some of the Substatus records proposed below, if a work order is in the “Technician Assignment Pending” Substatus, which maps to the Unscheduled System Status, a user could change the Substatus directly to “Customer Canceled” which will immediately move the System Status of the work order to Canceled. It is worth noting that the default form UI should filter the available Substatus values to allowed changes, based on the current state of the work order and the mapped System Status of the Substatus. In this example, none of the Subtatuses which mapped to the Scheduled or In Progress System Statuses would have shown up in the UI. They would have been dynamically filtered out so that a user couldn’t make a choice that wouldn’t have been allowed. 

Example: Substatus Records with Mapped System Status 

The following are an example set of possible meaningful Work Order Substatuses. These Substatuses will be mapped to the appropriate System Status to help drive actions and behaviors in the system while communicating meaningful information to anyone who looks at the work order in Dynamics 365 Field Service. 

Conclusion

While these are examples of Substatuses which may be valuable, each organization can create their own, set the defaults that make sense, and map them to relevant System Status values. 

Next up in the blog series –

Part 2 – Booking Status Concepts: Booking Status and Field Service Status
Part 3 – Booking status impact on work orders across single and multi-booking scenarios 

The post Status-Driven Success: Managing Your Work Order Lifecycle through Statuses – Part 1   appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Continuing our 3-part series exploring Dynamics 365 Field Service’s adaptability using critical status concepts. We have viewed the following concept Work Order Status Concepts: System Status and Substatus  in our last blog.

This blog explores the concept of:

• Booking Status and Field Service Status for Bookings 

Grasping these concepts allows organizations to leverage the solution’s functionality, optimize field service processes, and ultimately provide better customer service. 

Booking Status Concepts: Booking Status and Field Service Status 

Before delving into the concepts of Booking Status and Field Service Status, it is important to understand the distinction between a work order and a booking in Dynamics 365 Field Service.  

A work order represents a scope of work to be performed for a customer. It includes the required services, the location of the work, type of resources, and other relevant information to complete the job. It also serves as a document which tracks how the scope of work is closed including what products and services were required, what tasks were completed, and other relevant information which someone may want to know about the work. Work orders are essential for organizing and managing service delivery, and their status changes as they progress through various stages, from creation to completion. 

On the other hand, a booking is a scheduled appointment or time slot that is associated with a work order. It is an essential component of the scheduling process, as it assigns a specific technician or resource to perform the services outlined in the work order. While work orders focus on the overall service request, bookings represent the individual appointments which are intersection of the specific time and duration of individual appointments and the assigned resource needed to fulfill the request. Each work order can have multiple bookings, allowing for more complex jobs to be split across multiple appointments or technicians. 

Booking Status 

Bookings for work orders in Dynamics 365 Field Service also have two critical status concepts. The first is Booking Status, which is a record that allows organizations to define their own meaningful statuses for bookings. By customizing Booking Status, organizations can better reflect their specific field service workflows and processes. 

Field Service Status 

The second critical concept for bookings is the Field Service Status value on Booking Status records. This status allows organizations to map their custom meaningful statuses to one of the six key values that the Field Service solution can interpret while driving important solution logic.  

These six key values are: 

• Scheduled: The booking has been scheduled, and the resources are assigned. 
• Traveling: The field service resources are en route to the job site. 
• In Progress: The booking is currently being executed by the assigned resources. 
• On Break: The field service resources are taking a break during the booking. 

• Completed: The booking has been successfully executed and finished. 
• Cancelled: The booking has been cancelled and will not be executed. 

By mapping their custom Booking Status values to the Field Service Status values, organizations ensure seamless integration between their unique processes and the overall Field Service solution. 

Example: Booking Status Records with Mapped Field Service Status 

For a Booking Status to be usable on a Booking which is related to a Work Order, the system expects the Booking Status to have a Field Service Status value. The following are an example set of meaningful Booking Status records. These Booking Statuses will be mapped to the appropriate Field Service Status to help drive actions and behaviors in the system while communicating meaningful information to anyone who looks at the booking in Dynamics 365 Field Service. 

This blog expands upon many of the concepts discussed in the existing work order and booking status documentation: Work order life cycle and statuses – Dynamics 365 Field Service | Microsoft Learn 

Next up in the blog series –

Part 3 – Booking status impact on work orders across single and multi-booking scenarios 

The post Status-Driven Success: Managing Your Work Order Lifecycle through Statuses – Part 2   appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Completing our 3-part series exploring Dynamics 365 Field Service’s adaptability using critical status concepts. We have viewed the following concepts of Work Order Status Concepts: System Status and Substatus  and Booking Status Concepts: Booking Status and Field Service Status

This blog explores the concept of:

• Booking status impact on work orders across single and multi-booking scenarios 

Grasping these concepts allows organizations to leverage the solution’s functionality, optimize field service processes, and ultimately provide better customer service. 

Booking Status Impact on Work Order System Status 

In addition to the status concepts explained earlier, it is essential to understand how the status of a booking, defined by Booking Status and interpreted by the Booking Status’ Field Service Status, drives the status of a work order, which can have more than one booking. This relationship plays a critical role in the efficient management of work orders and bookings in Dynamics 365 Field Service. 

Single Booking Impact on Work Order System Status 

When there is only one booking present: 

1. If the booking is created and its Booking Status maps to the Field Service Status of Scheduled, the work order automatically moves to the System Status of Scheduled. 

2. When the booking is updated to a Booking Status mapping to the Field Service Status of Traveling, In Progress, or On Break, the work order automatically moves to the System Status of In Progress. 

3. When the booking is updated to a Booking Status mapping to the Field Service Status of Completed, the work order automatically moves to the System Status of Completed. 

4. If the booking is updated to a Booking Status mapping to the Field Service Status of Cancelled, the work order automatically moves back to the System Status of Unscheduled. 

Multiple Bookings Impact on Work Order System Status 

When there is more than one booking present, the work order expresses the System Status related to the most active Booking Status (as interpreted by its set Field Service Status). The priorities for determining the Work Order System Status are as follows: 

1. Highest Priority: Field Service Statuses that put a Work Order into the System Status of In Progress (Traveling, In Progress, and On Break). If any of the bookings are in these statuses, the Work Order will be in the System Status of In Progress. 

2. Second Priority: Field Service Status that puts a Work Order into the System Status of Scheduled (Scheduled). If none of the bookings are in the highest priority statuses, but at least one is in the Scheduled status, the Work Order will be in the System Status of Scheduled. 

3. Third Priority: Field Service Status that puts a Work Order into the System Status of Completed (Completed). If none of the bookings are in higher priority statuses and at least one is in the Completed status, the Work Order will be in the System Status of Completed. 

4. Lowest Priority: The Field Service Status of Cancelled does not drive the Work Order into any System Status. Bookings in this state are effectively ignored as if they don’t exist from a Work Order System Status perspective. 

By understanding and managing the relationship between Booking Status and Work Order System Status, organizations can effectively coordinate their field service resources and ensure that work orders are updated accurately and efficiently. This knowledge allows for better decision-making, improved workflows, and ultimately a higher level of service for customers. Embrace the power of Dynamics 365 Field Service’s flexible status functionality and take your organization’s work order and booking management to new heights. 

Use Case 1: Single Booking Work Order 

Contoso Services, a field service company, receives a work order to repair a customer’s air conditioning unit.  

• When the work order is initially created, it has a System Status of Unscheduled.  
• Once a technician is booked to the work order, their Booking is created with a Booking Status of “Proposed Time” which maps to the Field Service Status of Scheduled. Consequently, the work order automatically moves to the System Status of Scheduled. 

• As the technician begins traveling to the job site, the booking is updated to the Booking Status of “En Route” which maps to the Field Service Status of Traveling. This update causes the work order to move to the System Status of In Progress.  
• As the technician moves the booking into the Booking Status of “Onsite” which maps to the Field Service Status of In Progress, the Work Order’s System Status doesn’t change, staying in In Progress.  
• Of note, while this doesn’t have an impact on the Work Order’s System Status, if updated to this status from the mobile device, it does automatically update the Booking’s “Actual Arrival Time” and the Work Order’s “First Arrived On” values. 
• Eventually, the technician completes the repair, and the booking is updated to the Booking Status of “Work Completed” which maps to the Field Service Status of Completed. This change results in the work order moving to the System Status of Completed. 
• This will also update the Booking’s “End Time” and the Work Orders “Completed On” values. 

Use Case 2: Multiple Booking Work Order 

If a customer requests a two-stage service from Contoso Services, which requires different technicians for each stage. The work order now has two separate bookings.  

• Initially, both bookings are in the Booking Status of “Confirmed with Customer” which maps to the Field Service Status of Scheduled, and the work order is in the System Status of Scheduled. 
• When the first technician starts traveling, their booking’s status updates to “En Route” which is mapped to the Field Service Status of Traveling, so the work order’s System Status changes to In Progress.  
• After the first technician completes their work, their booking status is changed to “Work Completed.” 

•  However, the second booking is still in the “Confirmed with Customer” booking status which maps to the Field Service Status of Scheduled, so the work order reverts back to the System Status of Scheduled, as Scheduled has a higher priority than Completed so the remaining Scheduled booking is what will be expressed on the Work Order. 
• Once the second technician starts traveling to the job site, their booking status changes to Traveling, and the work order updates to the System Status of In Progress.  
• When the second technician finishes their work, their booking status is updated to Work Completed. Now, since both bookings are set to a booking status that has the Field Service Status of Completed, the work order moves to the System Status of Completed. 

Conclusion 

Understanding and leveraging the power of status functionality in Dynamics 365 Field Service, including System Status and Substatus on Work Orders and Booking Status and Field Service Status on Bookings, is crucial for organizations looking to optimize their field service processes. By understanding how they work and customizing these statuses to suit their specific needs, organizations can streamline their workflows, increase efficiency, and ultimately deliver better service to their customers.  

Start harnessing the power of Dynamics 365 Field Service’s adaptable status functionality today to unlock your organization’s full potential in managing work orders and bookings.

Read previous blogs from this series.

Part 1 – Work Order Status Concepts: System Status and Substatus
Part 2 – Booking Status Concepts: Booking Status and Field Service Status

The post Status-Driven Success: Managing Your Work Order Lifecycle through Statuses – Part 3   appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Live in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Introduction

Barcodes and shipping labels are essential components in the supply chain landscape. They play a vital role in ensuring accurate inventory management, product tracking, and streamlining processes. Shipping labels are particularly important for navigating shipments complex global supply chains while maintaining end-to-end traceability. QR codes have also become a valuable tool for companies to engage customers and track their products worldwide.

With the 10.0.34 release, Supply Chain Management (SCM) has become even more robust, offering seamless integrations with third-party labelling solutions out-of-the-box.

Microsoft has partnered with Seagull Scientific BarTender and Loftware NiceLabel to enhance core Dynamics 365 SCM labeling capabilities and alleviate common pain points faced by many organizations. 

This enhancement further strengthens the capabilities of SCM in managing barcodes and shipping labels effectively.

This feature enables direct interaction between Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and third-party solutions by providing a framework for communicating via HTTP APIs, without requiring the Document Routing Agent (DRA).

What capabilities does this unlock? 

Integrating third-party labelling solutions is important for several reasons:

• Label design: It provides user-friendly interfaces for designing custom labels, allowing businesses to create labels that meet their specific requirements and comply with industry standards. It includes possibilities to design labels with barcode or QR codes.

• Printer compatibility: These labelling solutions support a wide range of printers, enabling businesses to print labels on various devices without compatibility issues. This flexibility ensures that labels can be printed efficiently and accurately, regardless of the printer being used.

• Automation: It offers automation capabilities, allowing businesses to streamline their labelling processes and reduce manual intervention. By integrating with Dynamics 365 SCM, businesses can automate label printing based on specific triggers or events within the SCM system.

• Centralized management: It provides centralized management tools that enable businesses to control and monitor their entire labelling process from a single location. Integration with Dynamics 365 SCM ensures that businesses can manage their supply chain and labelling operations cohesively.

• RFID technology support: It support RFID encoding for various RFID tag types and frequencies, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of RFID systems as well as management of RFID-enabled labels for enhanced tracking and data management

In conclusion, Microsoft Dynamics 365 SCM now provides a quick and simple method for linking Dynamics 365 SCM to many of the most popular enterprise labeling platforms. With Microsoft Dynamics 365 SCM’s seamless integration and flexible configuration options, implementation is a pain-free and rapid. It allows for a a seamless flow of communication and transactions to optimize your printing workflow.

Learn more

Print labels using an external service – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

Print labels using the Loftware NiceLabel label service solution – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

Print labels using the Seagull Scientific BarTender label service solution – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

Not yet a Supply Chain Management customer? Take a guided tour.

The post Printing Labels Using External Service with Dynamics 365 – Warehouse Management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Over the past few months, the world has been captivated by generative AI and applications like the new chat experience in Bing, which can generate original text responses from a simple prompt written in natural language. With the introduction of generative AI across Microsoft business applicationsincluding Microsoft Dynamics 365, Viva Sales, and Power Platforminteractions with AI across business roles and processes will become second nature. With Copilot, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform introduce a new way to generate ideas and content drafts, and methods to access and organize information across the business.

Before your business starts using Copilot capabilities in Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, you may have questions about how it works, how it keeps your business data secure, and other important considerations. The answers to common questions below should help your organization get started.

What’s the difference between ChatGPT and Copilot?

ChatGPT is a general-purpose large language model (LLM) trained by OpenAI on a massive dataset of text, designed to engage in human-like conversations and answer a wide range of questions on various topics. Copilot also uses an LLM; however, the enterprise-ready AI technology is prompted and optimized for your business processes, your business data, and your security and privacy requirements. For Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform users, Copilot suggests optional actions and content recommendations in context with the task at hand. A few ways Copilot for natural language generation is unique:

• The AI-generated responses are uniquely contextual and relevant to the task at hand informed by your business datawhether responding to an email from within Dynamics 365, deploying a low-code application that automates a specific manual process, or creating a targeted list of customer segments from your customer relationship management (CRM) system.
• Copilot uses both an LLM, like GPT, and your organization’s business data to produce more accurate, relevant, and personalized results. In short, your business data stays within your tenancy and is used to improve context only for your scenario, and the LLM itself does not learn from your usage. More on how the system works is below.
• Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Copilot is designed from the ground up on a foundation of enterprise-grade security, compliance, and privacy.

Read on for more details about these topics. 

How does Copilot in Dynamics 365 and Power Platform work?

With Copilot, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform harness the power of foundation models coupled with proprietary Microsoft technologies applied to your business data:

• Search (using Bing and Microsoft Azure Cognitive Search): Brings domain-specific context to a Copilot prompt, enabling a response to integrate information from content like manuals, documents, or other data within the organization’s tenant. Currently, Microsoft Power Virtual Agent and Dynamics 365 Customer Service use this retrieval-augmented generation approach as pre-processing to calling an LLM.
• Microsoft applications like Dynamics 365, Viva Sales, and Microsoft Power Platform and the business data stored in Microsoft Dataverse.
• Microsoft Graph: Microsoft Graph API brings additional context from customer signals into the prompt, such as information from emails, chats, documents, meetings, and more.

Copilot requests an input prompt from a business user in an app, like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales or Microsoft Power Apps. Copilot then preprocesses the prompt through an approach called grounding, which improves the specificity of the prompt, so you get answers that are relevant and actionable to your specific task. It does this, in part, by making a call to Microsoft Graph and Dataverse and accessing the enterprise data that you consent and grant permissions to use for the retrieval of your business content and context. We also scope the grounding to documents and data which are visible to the authenticated user through role-based access controls. For instance, an intranet question about benefits would only return an answer based on documents relevant to the employee’s role.

This retrieval of information is referred to as retrieval-augmented generation and allows Copilot to provide exactly the right type of information as input to an LLM, combining this user data with other inputs such as information retrieved from knowledge base articles to improve the prompt. Copilot takes the response from the LLM and post-processes it. This post-processing includes additional grounding calls to Microsoft Graph, responsible AI checks, security, compliance and privacy reviews, and command generation.

Finally, Copilot returns a recommended response to the user, and commands back to the apps where a human-in-the-loop can review and assess. Copilot iteratively processes and orchestrates these sophisticated services to produce results that are relevant to your business, accurate, and secure.

How does Copilot use your proprietary business data? Is it used to train AI models?

Copilot unlocks business value by connecting LLMs to your business datain a secure, compliant, privacy-preserving way.

Copilot has real-time access to both your content and context in Microsoft Graph and Dataverse. This means it generates answers anchored in your business contentyour documents, emails, calendar, chats, meetings, contacts, and other business dataand combines them with your working contextthe meeting you’re in now, the email exchanges you’ve had on a topic, the chat conversations you had last weekto deliver accurate, relevant, contextual responses.

We, however, do not use customers’ data to train LLMs. We believe the customers’ data is their data, aligned to Microsoft’s data privacy policy. AI-powered LLMs are trained on a large but limited corpus of databut prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph and Microsoft services are not used to train Dynamics 365 Copilot and Power Platform Copilot capabilities for use by other customers. Furthermore, the foundation models are not improved through your usage. This means your data is accessible only by authorized users within your organization unless you explicitly consent to other access or use.

Are Copilot responses always factual?

Responses produced with generative AI are not guaranteed to be 100 percent factual. While we continue to improve responses to fact-based inquiries, people should still use their judgement when reviewing outputs. Our copilots leave you in the driver’s seat, while providing useful drafts and summaries to help you achieve more.

Our teams are working to address issues such as misinformation and disinformation, content blocking, data safety and preventing the promotion of harmful or discriminatory content in line with our AI principles.

We also provide guidance within the user experience to reinforce the responsible use of AI-generated content and actions. To help guide users on how to use Copilot, as well as properly use suggested actions and content, we provide:  

Instructive guidance and prompts. When using Copilot, informational elements instruct users how to responsibly use suggested content and actions, including prompts, to review and edit responses as needed prior to usage, as well as to manually check facts, data, and text for accuracy.

Cited sources. Copilot cites public sources when applicable so you’re able to see links to the web content it references.

How does Copilot protect sensitive business information and data?

Microsoft is uniquely positioned to deliver enterprise-ready AI. Powered by Azure OpenAI Service, Copilot features built-in responsible AI and enterprise-grade Azure security.

Built on Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to security, compliance, and privacy. Copilot is integrated into Microsoft services like Dynamics 365, Viva Sales, Microsoft Power Platform, and Microsoft 365, and automatically inherits all your company’s valuable security, compliance, and privacy policies and processes. Two-factor authentication, compliance boundaries, privacy protections, and more make Copilot the AI solution you can trust.

Architected to protect tenant, group, and individual data. We know data leakage is a concern for customers. LLMs are not further trained on, or learn from, your tenant data or your prompts. Within your tenant, our time-tested permissions model provides safeguards and enterprise-grade security as seen in our Azure offerings. And on an individual level, Copilot presents only data you can access using the same technology that we’ve been using for years to secure customer data.

Designed to learn new skills. Copilot’s foundation skills are a game changer for productivity and business processes. The capabilities allow you to create, summarize, analyze, collaborate, and automate using your specific business content and context. But it doesn’t stop there. Copilot recommends actions for the user (for example, “create a time and expense application to enable employees to submit their time and expense reports”). And Copilot is designed to learn new skills. For example, with Viva Sales, Copilot can learn how to connect to CRM systems of record to pull customer datalike interaction and order historiesinto communications. As Copilot learns about new domains and processes, it will be able to perform even more sophisticated tasks and queries.

Will Copilot meet requirements for regulatory compliance mandates?

Copilot is offered within the Azure ecosystem and thus our compliance follows that of Azure. In addition, Copilot adheres to our commitment to responsible AI, which is described in our documented principles and summarized below. As regulation in the AI space evolves, Microsoft will continue to adapt and respond to fulfill future regulatory requirements in this space.

Next-generation AI across Microsoft business applications

With next-generation AI, interactions with AI across business roles and processes will become second nature.

Discover more about AI

Committed to responsible AI

Microsoft is committed to creating responsible AI by design. Our work is guided by a core set of principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. We are helping our customers use our AI products responsibly, sharing our learnings, and building trust-based partnerships. For these new services, we provide our customers with information about the intended uses, capabilities, and limitations of our AI platform service, so they have the knowledge necessary to make responsible deployment choices.  

Take a look at related content

• Introducing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot, the world’s first copilot in both CRM and ERP, that brings next-generation AI to every line of business
• Power Platform is leading a new era of AI-generated low-code app development
• Copilot in Viva Sales available as thousands of customers adopt next-generation AI in Dynamics 365 Copilot and Power Platform

The post How Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform delivers enterprise-ready AI built for security and privacy appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Real-time analytics are critical for organizations that want to stay on top of their contact center operations. The ability to see what’s happening in real-time, and to focus on the metrics that matter most, enables supervisors to identify and address issues efficiently.  

We built intraday analytics to help address this requirement. Intraday analytics uses an intermediary database to aggregate metrics from Dataverse and then use it to power the reports. 

A better experience with real-time analytics 

We received feedback from you about improvements you would like to see around supervisor experiences. Subsequently, we decided to build a feature from the ground up that improves upon the intraday analytics experience.

Starting this April, we are providing Real-Time Analytics for Omnichannel reports out of the box with Dynamics 365 Customer Service. The following diagram shows a high-level architecture diagram.

As you start utilizing these reports, you will notice some key improvements.  

More frequent report refreshes 

With a refresh frequency of less than 30 seconds, supervisors can see what’s happening in their contact center as it happens. This means they can identify issues and address them immediately as compared to getting their updates with a delay of five to 15 minutes with intraday analytics. Real-time analytics make it easier for supervisors to manage their teams’ performance and respond to customer needs in a timely way. 

Improved information architecture 

Real-time analytics provide supervisors with a better, more intuitive experience. By presenting data in an accessible format, supervisors can understand what’s happening in their contact center more easily. Redundant metrics have been removed, and ambiguity with definitions of some metrics have been addressed enabling supervisors to see more detail into their contact centers and identify areas for improvement more efficiently.  

Greater focus on human agents  

Real-time analytics distinguishes the performance of agents and bots. Unlike intraday analytics, which builds metrics off both agent and bot performance, real-time analytics considers only parts of the conversation handled by agent for its KPIs. This allows supervisors to measure agent performance. For example, customer wait times will be a measure of how much time your customer had to wait to get connected to a human agent. By starting the timer at time of escalation from the bot, it makes an accurate representation of the customer experience.  

Connects directly to Dataverse 

With real-time analytics, organizations can be confident that their data visibility and privacy rules are respected. You can ensure that data is only visible to those who need to see it, without any additional effort. Because the reports connect directly to Dataverse, there’s no risk of data being outdated or inaccurate. 

Native visual customization and bookmarks  

By personalizing their real-time reports, supervisors can focus on the metrics that matter most to their organization. This helps them identify trends, diagnose problems, and make data-driven decisions. Unlike intraday analytics, real-time analytics don’t require additional Power BI licenses to make visual changes and to store bookmarks.  

Powerful supervisor actions 

With the ongoing conversation dashboard built-in with real-time analytics, supervisors can identify unassigned work, assign work to agents, and actively monitor and intervene when required from a single place. This experience allows supervisors to act on data without having to leave the page or perform additional clicks, saving them valuable time.  

With real-time analytics, Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides a powerful tool for supervisors to ensure high customer satisfaction. As hybrid work is actively disrupting the workforce and customers are seeking help across a variety of channels, now is the time to use advanced reporting. We can’t wait to hear your feedback and ideas around this! 

Learn more 

Watch a quick video introduction. 

To find out more about real-time analytics for omnichannel, read the documentation: 

• Overview of Omnichannel real-time analytics dashboards 
• Use Omnichannel for Customer Service metrics 

The post How real-time analytics improve supervisor experiences in Customer Service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.