April ’19 release notes for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform now available
Today, we published the April ’19 release notes, a compilation of hundreds of new features for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform that will be released between April and September 2019. The new features and enhancements in this release demonstrate our continued investment in capabilities to power digital transformation, from AI-infused intelligence to breakthrough customer experiences.
The April ’19 release signifies a key milestone for Dynamics 365. It’s the first major update where all our customers across Dynamics 365 will be on the latest version and on a consistent update schedule. It’s also a template of how major updates will be done going forward in April and October every year. Here are the key dates for the April ’19 release.
Dynamics 365
The April ’19 release includes hundreds of new enhancements and capabilities across Dynamics 365 applications including Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Portals, Field Service, Project Service Automation, Finance and Operations, Talent, Retail, and Business Central. We’re also adding a new set of mixed reality experiences using Microsoft Layout and Microsoft Remote Assist.
The April ’19 release delivers continued investments in artificial intelligence capabilities that leverage the power of Microsoft AI research, tools, data, and the Power Platform to help organizations transform customer service, sales, and marketing functions. AI for Sales provides actionable insights to drive personalized engagement and proactive decision-making. Market Insights enables business users to gather actionable insights based on what consumers say, seek, and feel about their brands and products. And Customer Service Insights optimizes your customer service experience through AI enhanced analysis.
Power Platform
New Power Platform capabilities combine Power BI, PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, and the Common Data Service into an unmatched palette of tools to extend, customize, and integrate Dynamics 365 and Office 365 into your environment. The April ’19 release provides major improvements to enable business analysts and makers to build higher-quality reports, apps, and workflows more easily, while still supporting more advanced enterprise and administrator requirements.
Data integration
Data integration provides built-in connectivity to the Power Platform and more, with data across hundreds of business systems, enabling rich and intelligent experiences. The Common Data Model provides semantic consistency for canonical business entities across Dynamics 365 and Common Data Service, increasing value and saving time for application developers, ISV partners, and integrators.
Preview of the April ’19 release
Starting February 1, 2019, we will enable a preview of some of the April 2019 update features for you to validate in a non-production environment before the features are deployed in production. Previews provide you with an opportunity to validate the update before it’s applied to your production environment and experience the new features in advance so you can roll them out confidently to your users. We have published a set of FAQs on how to enable and validate previews. You can find additional details and how-tos in the following articles for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement applications and Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations.
We’ve done this work to help you—our partners, customers, and users—drive the digital transformation of your business on your terms. We look forward to engaging with you as you put these new services and capabilities to work and are eager to hear your feedback as you dig into the April ’19 release. Please share your feedback in the community forum for Dynamics 365 or Power Platform.
