Dynamics 365 October 2018 Update

The Dynamics 365 October 2018 release brings a whole set of great additions. The update includes new features and enhancements for Dynamics 365, Flow, Power BI, PowerApps and Common Data Service

Here are some of our favourite changes that are coming..

All Users Will Be On The Same Version

Microsoft have moved to a continuous deployment cycle, therefore all Dynamics 365 Online users will now be on the same version so this update will need to be scheduled. Going forwards new features will be released to all clients and off by default for clients upgrading.

Dependant Option Sets

Hooray, dependant option sets are coming! This will mean less coding required and the following new features will be available

The child option set value will be cleared and locked if the parent option set does not have a value.
The child option set is unlocked when a parents value is selected.
When a value is changed in the parent option set and the value in the child option set no longer applies, then the value in the child option set is cleared.
A parent list can have any number of children.

Basic addition, but really useful for so many scenarios. Well done Microsoft, we have wanted this for a while.

Advanced Find 'Not In' / 'Does Not Contain'

This is technically not in the October release, but so many people are unaware it is now available so wanted to mention.

Dynamics 365 v9.0 now supports “Not In” or “Does Not Have” type of queries as an OOTB feature in Advanced Find. This means we can now use advanced find to do queries like show me all Accounts that we have not got any phone calls recorded against. This has been a real issue for common reporting requirements and previously required a custom solution.

Relevance Search

Relevance Search is here!

This will need to be enabled as it is off by default. This is now available to improve the accuracy and context of searches which include notes and attachments.

Relevance Search delivers fast and comprehensive results across multiple entities in a single list, sorted by relevance. It uses a dedicated search service powered by Azure to boost Dynamics 365 search performance.

Relevance Search brings the following enhancements:

Improves performance with external indexing and Azure Search technology.
Finds matches to any word in the search term in any field in the entity. Matches can include inflectional words like stream, streaming, or streamed.
Returns results from all searchable entities in a single list sorted by relevance, based on factors like number of words matched or their proximity to each other in the text.
Highlights matches in the result list.

If you haven't already it is definitely worth enabling this feature. Check out out our article How to Setup Dynamics 365 Relevant Search

Unified Interface

Unified Interface was introduced in Dynamics 365 version 9.0 with an aim to provide users a better user experience with a consistent, accessible and uniform user interface across all devices.

The upcoming Unified Client Interface updates, will allow users to add controls to the UI for bulk edits, advanced finds, merge records, share records, and running on-demand workflows, which will help users improve performance and usability, some of the gaps that existed in the original release.

For all new instances of Dynamics 365 this will be the default going forwards but can be changed to the the legacy Web interface. It is worth noting that the Unified Interface is the future for the product so as long as all of the features you require are in place, we would recommend leaving this option enabled for all new instances of MS Dynamics.