The online and on-premise versions of MS Dynamics CRM 2016 along with other updates got launched in January 2016. To be more precise, MS Dynamics CRM 2016, Dynamics CRM online 2016 update, Dynamics CRM Marketing 2016 update, and MS Social Engagement 2016 are now available for the users.

This release includes several new and updated features. The new version is integrated with Cortana sales suite which enables users to perform sales activities easily and effectively. These features help you handle different business scenarios. In this piece, we will walk you through the new and the cool features of MS Dynamics 2016:

One click Document generation:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 allows users to create word and excel documents. Though this functionality was existent in the previous versions, now it is possible to generate the documents with a single click.

To see the available templates in CRM 2016 navigate to Settings-> Business-> Templates-> Document Templates. A set of predefined excel and word documents templates are listed under the Available Templates view as shown below:

OneDrive for Business:

Now you can utilize the OneDrive for Business in CRM feature that allows you to store and manage your private documents in OneDrive. These documents are accessible to the CRM. In order to access these documents the system administrator should enable OneDrive for Business in CRM.

You need the following to use OneDrive for Business feature:

• SharePoint Integration with Dynamics CRM [at least one team site should be there]
• Setup permission in root for all who use team site
• For On-premise SharePoint, enable search service to access the shared documents from users [in online SharePoint it will be enabled by default]

Dynamics CRM App for Outlook:

This light weight App helps you track incoming and outgoing emails easily. This is compatible across different mobile devices and browsers. This release allows sales persons to stay productive by getting the contextual information right into their inbox from Dynamics CRM. Microsoft Dynamics CRM App for Outlook enables you to track emails, add contacts from mails, and create new records and so on.

Dynamics Marketing:

MS Dynamics CRM 2016 has introduced a set of interesting marketing features. Two new features added to CRM 2016:

SMS Marketing

This feature helps the marketing team ‘go mobile’. Now it is possible to create short message service [SMS], that is, text messages campaigns in Marketing. Dynamics Marketing will support inbound and outbound SMS marketing in the selected areas.

Email Marketing

This is the core marketing pillar of Dynamics CRM. In CRM 2016, the email editor is modified with easy-to-use functionalities. The new version includes the capabilities to see the generated HTML in emails interactively.

Knowledge Management:

Allows creation of various Knowledge Base (KB) articles based on customer feedback. It is also possible to add videos and images to the KB articles. In the new version of Dynamics CRM, two roles are introduced for the people working on the knowledge articles:

• Knowledge author: One who writes knowledge articles
• Knowledge manager: One who manages articles written by knowledge authors

Some of the key features of MS Dynamics 2016 Knowledge Management are:-

• Rich content authoring: The rich text editor simplifies content authoring. It is possible to paste data from other sources like word documents.
• Embedded images and videos: This feature allows users to add images and videos to KB articles. This helps in describing and understanding the things better.
• Versioning: Now it is possible to make different versions of KB articles. For every KB article there will be a major version and a minor version. With this feature, you can publish a version and can work on another version simultaneously.
• Translation: Allows you to translate a KB article to 164 languages and also maintains a link to these translated articles.
• Knowledge Management Dashboards: Interactive dashboards are introduced for knowledge managers and authors which give ideas about knowledge authoring stages.
• Schedule publish/expiry: Now it is possible to schedule publishing or expiry of knowledge articles.
• Knowledge Management context search: Supports you to do a context based search within Knowledge Management articles.
• Life cycle and review business process flows: Business process flows are enabled with processes like authoring, review, approval, expiry and these can be extended through customization.

Unified Service Desk:

The Unified Service Desk is at the heart of delivering advanced enterprise services by providing service organizations with the unique ability to deliver a single agent desktop with access to back-end systems and third party applications. This release enhances the installation experience by enabling upgrades/patches to be delivered through Windows Update / System Center, and distributing custom control DLLs through CRM Server configuration.

The MS Dynamics CRM 2016 comes with a robust version of Unified Service Desk [USD]. The USD configuration page is now quite easier to manage and provides a more elaborate view of the configuration details. It is also possible to clone the configurations. Thus, instead of creating a configuration from scratch, you can change the existing configuration according to your needs. In addition to this, you can upload a new application configuration to MS Dynamics USD settings. With all these functionalities Microsoft also includes some additional features which dramatically changed the usability of the CRM.

Social Listening and Social Analytics:

The new version of MS Dynamics CRM provides different ways to stay connected to various social networking sites. The social listening and social analytics feature in Dynamics CRM 2016 allows the users to search boards, forums on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and custom sources via RSS, including internal non-public sources, like Yammer.

It assists the sales teams in understanding the various social features of a lead. The Microsoft Social Engagement will automatically detect potential leads and cases which improves the sales performance and provides an opportunity to convert social interaction to suitable business needs.

Which new feature in MS Dynamics 2016 did you like the most? Leave your comments below.

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