Across Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Viva Sales, we’ve introduced, and will continue delivering, a cascade of AI capabilities to help businesses and individuals achieve more. Earlier this month, we announced Dynamics 365 Copilot, which uses OpenAI’s GPT capabilities to provide AI-powered assistance across business functions. For instance, a smart news insights capability for Microsoft Supply Chain Platform alerts warehouse and logistics professionals to external events, such as weather or geo-political activities, that might trigger a disruptionand then proactively helps them plan their mitigation with Copilot-powered content. 

GPT-4 will bring more powerful capabilities to Microsoft business applications

The Azure OpenAI service uses large-scale, generative models to unlock new reasoning and comprehension capabilities across our business applications. Our unique and strong collaboration with OpenAI creates a “better together” experience for our customers. We’ve taken OpenAI models and built features on top of them, experimenting with multiple available models, including text-davinci-002 and text-davinci-003, ChatGPT, and GPT-4, the newest and most capable model in the GPT series.

These examples provide insight into how GPT-4 will create new possibilities to bring customers additional business value and where it may be better suited to address certain scenarios. We incorporate various models from OpenAI and Microsoft depending on the product and scenario. Some more complex tasks may be suited for one model, while others could be powered just as welland perhaps more quicklywith a different model.

Here’s an example of an experiment using Power Virtual Agents conversation booster in a fictional customer scenario to help the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) answer this question from their users: What are the documentation requirements for deductions?

In contrast with text-davinci-002 and text-davinci-003, which mostly provide references, ChatGPT and GPT-4 provide more explanatory information along with links to their sources.

In Dynamics 365 Marketing, content ideas uses AI to generate marketing copy. In the following experiment, we asked for newsletter content around three key points:

• Thank you for choosing to receive email from CONTOSO
• Experience these valuable benefits: exclusive offers, sales alerts and new product launch info
• Enjoy $10 off your next online purchase, enter code SPRING2022 at checkout

Then we performed internal testing to evaluate the results from the four models.

As with the IRS example, GPT-4 provides the most detailed response, including a bullet list of benefits. It even added an encouragement not to miss the opportunity, implicitly understanding that a coupon code should have a time component.

Prompt engineering and model tuning

Through our access to OpenAI models, we had the opportunity to engineer context-specific prompts for each scenario we tested. Consider the following example, in which we supplied various levels of context as input for the question, Do you know how to deploy a model on Azure ML?.

Without context, known as “zero shot,” the response from GPT-4 is random, not knowing which scenario is intended. The response with some context is more targeted. The most comprehensive context, which included retrieval augmented generation (RAG) from the desired sources, resulted in the most targeted response.

Along with engineering more context-rich prompts, we went under the hood to tune some models with training samples from domain-specific languages. For instance, the Power Automate “describe it to design it” capability shipped in October 2022 uses a model trained with samples that better represent the cloud flow language. For details, see our blog post explaining how we build fine-tuned models.

Our experimentation, tuning of input and models, and collaboration with OpenAI enable us to quickly develop and deliver the best AI-powered capabilities to our business users. And we’re doing it in a way that helps mitigate harm and provides our customers with provenance-checked results by implementing our Responsible AI practices.

Next steps

Not yet a Dynamics 365 customer?  Take a tour and get a free trial!

Learn more about the latest AI breakthroughs with Dynamics 365 Copilot and Microsoft Power Platform.

The post How we can use GPT-4 to continually improve AI models in Dynamics 365 and Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Our customers run Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations applications globally and must meet multiple tax compliance and other regulatory and local business practice requirements (we call them localizations). These requirements are complex and change frequently, especially in many countries within Latin America (LATAM).

As a part of our continuous commitment to customers and partners and following our strategy of expanding the out-of-the-box country coverage, in 2023 release wave 1, we will ship localizations for seven additional LATAM countries: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay.

Microsoft localizations for these new countries were built in collaboration with Finnie, S.A., an affiliate of Artware SRL based on their LATAM localization solution. To better align with other Microsoft out-of-the-box localizations, this third party localization solution was redesigned utilizing the rich capabilities of Globalization Studio tools and services and integrated into  Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and Dynamics 365 Project Operations applications.

This expansion helps LATAM and global partners to focus more on delivering extra value to customers by extending these out-of-the-box localizations from Microsoft to meet more specific vertical or other customer requirements which might be different in each country. Our flexible, easy-to-use Globalization Studio tools and services make localization easier to extend and maintain for Microsoft partners and customers.

With this release, we are extending the out-of-the-box support to 51 countries/regions and 67 languages. Together with partner localization solutions and our no-code/low-code Globalization Studio tools and services, this expansion makes it easier for our customers to run their businesses globally (currently our customers use Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations applications in over 200 countries/regions).

LATAM Country Localization Overview

The new LATAM localizations have over a hundred new features covering key globalization areas in Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and Dynamics 365 Project Operations, including:

• tax determination and calculation,
• electronic invoicing and invoicing processes,
• tax audit and reporting,
• banking and payments,
• business documents,
• and other areas (like fixed assets localization, etc.)

Our solution also contains cross-LATAM features which have common functionalities for the new countries in LATAM. These common features include tax setup and master data, invoice processing from various sources (sales orders, purchase orders, projects, etc.), common tax reports, and check and payment processing among other features. These cross-LATAM features reduce duplication, so only country-specific features, like electronic invoice formats, reports and business document layouts belong to a given country localization.

A sneak peek on localization for Chile

The first country localization released is Chile. We made it available in Public Preview in version 10.0.33 (the “May” release).

As for any localization, localization-specific fields, and functionality work on a LE (Legal Entity) basis, so to enable the Chilean localization you need to choose Chile as Primary address for your LE. As any new functionality in Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, the new localizations for LATAM are under Feature management, so you will need to enable “(Preview) LATAM globalization expansion” feature to see it.  

After you have completed the setup, you will see LATAM and Chile-specific user interface elements in your LE. For example, a LATAM tab is displayed on the Sales Order form in the associated screenshot. Within the LATAM tab, region-specific fields for processing the invoice have been added.

The feature populates all required data to produce an Electronic Invoice for Chile and generate required tax reports.

Timeline

We are releasing the localizations for the Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay as Public Previews first. Later, based on customer and partner feedback, we will make them generally available. You can find more details on the timeline and the list of features in the 2023 release wave 1 plan.

Call for action

We value your feedback please take part in Public Previews as the new LATAM localizations become available per our release plan! And stay tuned we are planning a Tech Talk to cover these localizations in more detail and more!

The post Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations extends out-of-the-box country coverage in Latin America appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We are thrilled to announce the public preview release of the Asset Management mobile app for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. The app is available for all commonly used mobile platforms, devices, and form factors.

The app enables maintenance workers to review their assigned jobs, mark tasks as complete, enter notes, and log the time and materials consumed. Other staff can use the app to quickly file maintenance requests by scanning a barcode, entering notes, and submitting photos.

The Asset Management mobile app in action

Jody, a production manager at Contoso Inc., is preparing a presentation and notices that the monitor cable in the meeting room is broken. She immediately launches the Asset Management mobile app so she can report this incident. She scans the bar code on the monitor to identify it in the system. Then she fills out the required information, marks the issue as high severity, and takes some photos to document the damage. Finally, she selects Submit to file the report.

Roger, the maintenance supervisor, is working in Supply Chain Management and receives a notification about Jody’s maintenance request. He notices that it is high severity, so he immediately creates a work order from the request and assigns it to Peter, who is the maintenance worker responsible for that office.

Peter has just finished his previous assignment, so he opens the job list on his mobile app to see what his next job should be. Jody’s request appears right at the top of the list because it’s marked as high severity. When Peter selects the job, he can see the details, including Jody’s description and the pictures she took of the broken cable. Peter opens the job check list and goes through each step, marking them complete as he works. When the job is done, he logs the time it took and the materials he used. The monitor is now ready for use for Jody’s presentation.

Architecture and licensing

The Asset Management mobile app is built as a Canvas app in PowerApps, and doesn’t require any additional licenses to use. The app leverages the security roles already established in Supply Chain Management to grant the appropriate users access to the maintenance request and/or job management functions as needed.

System requirements

To run the Asset Management mobile app, you must be running Supply Chain Management version 10.0.32 or higher. The app is available for all commonly used mobile platforms, devices, and form factors.

More information

For more information about how to deploy and use the app, see Asset Management mobile app overview on Microsoft Docs.

Not yet a Supply Chain Management customer?

 Take a guided tour. to see what Supply Chain Management can do for you today.

The post Introducing New Asset Management Mobile App for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The advent of next-generation Artificial Intelligence(AI) is ushering in a new era of heightened productivity and efficiency. This is spurring novel breakthroughs in the supply chain domain. With AI’s transformative influence, the conventional ways of operations managers collaborating with suppliers, vendors, and third-party service providers are being revamped to streamline the entire process.

By collaborating with suppliers and utilizing state-of-the-art AI, Supply Chain managers can enhance supply chain performance and avert logistics disruptions triggered by diverse external factors.

We’re excited to launch Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center,  which harnesses generative AI to assist Supply Chain managers in real-time communication with suppliers regarding specific news.

Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center

Over the last few years, numerous companies have realized that their existing supply chain technologies are inadequate to cope with the current environment marked by frequent disruptions, limitations, and scarcities. By leveraging AI-powered supply chain management, businesses can gain unparalleled visibility and invaluable insights, enabling them to proactively address potential disruptions before they materialize.

Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Centerallows for proactive identification of external issues related to weather, finance, and geopolitics that could impact critical supply chain processes.

Predictive insights surface impacted orders, and Copilot helps take action on this insight with contextualized email drafts. This enables supply chain users to collaborate with impacted suppliers in real-time to quickly identify new estimated times of arrival and reroute purchase orders based on weather disruptions or geopolitical tensions.

Organizations can collaborate with their suppliers through customized and contextualized responses to fulfill high-priority customer orders via alternate distribution centers, which ultimately streamline operations and save time. By harnessing the power of generative AI and collaboration, Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center helps Supply Chain managers maintain optimal supply chain performance while also mitigating potential disruptions.

Understanding the functionality of Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center

At present, we are leveraging Copilot to streamline communication regarding supplier news. However, our plan is to expand its application to other areas of our product in the future.

Experience the capabilities of Copilot in Microsoft’s Supply Chain Center by viewing the demonstration video below

Uncovering the Technical Mechanism: How it Works

The following four-step process outlines how supplier news communication is facilitated, as shown in the accompanying diagram:

1. Relevant AI-driven news articles that may impact suppliers are presented to operations managers through Bing Search and our custom Copilot AI model.
2. Customers initiate collaboration by selecting a supplier and the message type (ex, confirm impact on orders etc.) that they wish to send via email.
3. Copilot gathers relevant contextual data and calls Azure Open AI (GPT 3.5) for internal processing.  As part of Microsoft’s commitment to Responsible AI, any generated response passes through a series of checks before being returned to a user. These checks include a series of relevance scores to ensure messages are on-topic and Content Moderation to detect any harmful, controversial, or sensitive content. Though they cannot fully replace human review, such guard rails help ensure the quality of communication via Copilot.
4. An email draft is prepared.

Next-generation AI that is ready for enterprises.

Azure OpenAI Service offers a range of privacy features, including data encryption and secure storage. It also allows users to control access to their data and provides detailed auditing and monitoring capabilities. Dynamics 365 is built on Azure OpenAI, so enterprises can rest assured that it offers the same level of data privacy and protection.

AI solutions built responsibly.

We are 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 putting those principles into practice across the company to develop and deploy AI that will have a positive impact on society.

Try Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center

Sign up for the limited preview of Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center. This preview is available for instances in North America using the English US language.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the use of generative AI in the form of Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center can significantly optimize supply chain productivity and prevent disruptions caused by external factors. The tool’s ability to proactively identify issues and provide predictive insights allows for swift action and collaboration with suppliers, leading to more efficient and cost-effective supply chain management. Furthermore, the implementation of responsible AI practices ensures the quality of communication via Copilot. Through proactive supplier collaboration, organizations can achieve greater supply chain resilience, agility, and competitive advantage. Interested parties can learn more about Copilot by viewing the demonstration video or signing up for the waitlist.

Learn More

 Read the product documentation.

Not a Microsoft Supply Chain customer yet?  Discover more and sign up for the free trial

The post Optimizing Supply Chain Performance through Collaboration using Generative AI appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Since first announcing new AI-powered experiences for Microsoft Viva Sales last month, we’ve given these capabilities a nameCopilot in Viva Salesand introduced new sales scenarios and updates.

All of this is happening in conjunction with the introduction of Dynamics 365 Copilotthe world’s-first AI copilot in both customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and finance applications enterprise resource planning (ERP). To date, tens of thousands of customers have used next-generation AI capabilities in Dynamics 365 Copilot and within Microsoft Power Platform. 

Today’s debut of Microsoft 365 Copilot powers even more ways to unleash creativity, unlock productivity, and uplevel skills. For sellers, the seamless integration of Copilot across Microsoft 365 and Viva Sales (as well as AI-powered capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales) is a powerful combination. It’s a new way to engage prospects and customers, all while freeing up time previously tied up in “busy work”like composing every email from scratch.

As we move into a new era for customer experience, we want to ensure that salespeople feel empowered to focus on what matters, which is deeper engagements with customers. Let’s take a closer look at some of the Copilot capabilities in Viva Sales that make this possible.

Try Viva Sales Today

Use Viva Sales to help sellers be more efficient, productive, and effective.

Get a free 30-day trial

Copilot in Viva Sales automated email replies is now generally available

With Copilot in Viva Sales, AI-generated email replies have now moved from preview into general availability, with more features and enhancements built into the generated response. Here are some of the new additions we’ve made:

• Generate replies with proposed meeting times: Sellers can now generate email replies with proposed meeting times based on their calendar availability in Outlook, making it easier to schedule customer meetings and simplifying the process for finding a time that works for everyone.

• Build upon generated replies by providing additional prompts: To make modifications to the generated reply, sellers can refine the results further by providing a new prompt that builds upon the previous suggestion. This allows sellers to more easily fine-tune their email replies according to their unique needs and preferences.

• Understand the data sources behind generated replies: Sellers can now hover over any highlighted areas of text to view the data sources behind generated replies. This provides sellers with valuable context and transparency regarding where the embedded information comes from, such as any previous meetings or sales data from the CRM.

• Improve future replies by providing feedback: Finally, a new feedback mechanism allows sellers to rate the AI-generated content with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. This helps refine and improve future replies to ensure that Viva Sales continues to adapt to the unique needs of each seller.

Meeting summarization: Quickly and easily send follow-up emails after meetings

One of the best practices for sellers is to follow up on meetings and customer interactions with a clear summary, including the relevant action items or next steps. This takes time to compile, and in the busy world of a seller, manual tasks like this can take days to get to, or are sometimes forgotten. We want to increase the buyer-seller connection by providing quick seller responsiveness, demonstrating the priority of the relationship without needing to hunt out the information to create a personalized response.

With the help of Copilot in Viva Sales, alongside the insight from the call and CRM, we can automate to help jump-start the seller into action.

We use the existing conversation intelligence technology in Viva Sales to provide sellers with meeting insights, together with CRM data and the GPT copilot technology. This creates a super-simple way for sellers to generate meaningful meeting summaries:

• Start composing an email and launch Viva Sales.
• Confirm the relevant meeting to get follow-up content.
• Receive the summary email recommendation that refers to topics you discussed and action items you both committed to, and puts all of this in a well-formed email for your review. It even includes relevant data from your CRM to enrich the reference points.
• Simply add the recommendation to your email, edit to your liking, and send.

The major difference between this experience from our intelligent meeting recaps in Microsoft Teams is how the magic happens in the seller’s inbox, connected to CRM data, in the context and tone of a customer conversation. There is no need to switch screens, and minimal email composition is required. The seller can make minor edits, all from within Outlook.

Watch the Copilot in Viva Sales demo below:

Vision for the future of Viva Sales

With a monthly release cycle, Viva Sales brings innovation to delight sellers. In addition to the above-mentioned features, we have some exciting updates due over the coming months.

Learn more about Viva Sales

Copilot in Viva Sales is a powerful AI-boosted application that can help sellers to be more efficient, productive, and effective. By providing personalized insights, automating routine tasks, and helping sellers to prioritize their efforts, the available solutions can help sellers to close more deals and grow their businesses. If you are a seller looking to take your sales game to the next level, consider giving Viva Sales a try.

If you are not yet a Viva Sales customer, check out our Viva Sales webpage where you can get a free 30-day trial.

Pricing and licensing can be found here, and note that all Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Premium licensed customers will have Viva Sales available at no additional cost.A great reason to get started today!

Want to stay in the loop? Stay connected to the latest improvements before everybody else. We welcome your feedback and ideas in the community feedback forum.

The post Copilot in Viva Sales available as thousands of customers adopt next-generation AI in Dynamics 365 Copilot and Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.