What Is A Release Wave?
It’s that time of year again – Release Wave 1 from Microsoft where we get loads of new features for our favourite software!
If you weren’t aware, twice a year, Microsoft schedules updates for its Dynamics 365 and Power Platform products, rolled out gradually to minimize disruption and keep your systems running smoothly.
Each wave is carefully phased, with specific release dates assigned to ensure system administrators can manage changes efficiently.
Early access previews allow organizations to test and adapt before updates reach general availability, giving you time to prepare and provide valuable feedback to Microsoft.
Today we’ll be guiding you through the key highlights of Release Wave 1, 2025 for Dynamics 365 Customer Service… what’s ready for testing now and what’s moving to general availability soon.
We’re here to help you make the most of these updates and keep your business running seamlessly so feel free to reach out for more info if anything catches your fancy!
Overview Of Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Dynamics 365 Customer Service is one of Microsoft’s awesome cloud-based solutions that’s utilizing generative AI across your clients service journey to better deliver a fast, personalized (and most importantly) consistent, service across multiple channels.
Advanced routing, case management, knowledge management, Copilot and embedded Microsoft Teams capabilities maximize agent productivity, whilst simplified administration and integrated analytics optimize contact centre operations.
For 2025’s release wave 1, it seems as though Microsoft has concentrated on enhancing agentic capabilities and improving productivity with Copilot for your customer service representative and supervisor experiences.
What To Expect & When
You can expect all of the below releases any time between now, right through to Sep 2025 (Release Wave 1) although some dates and details will on occasion change if you’re reading this a few months after we publish!
- Update knowledge base using Customer Knowledge Management Agent – Our first new feature actually entered public preview this month (Jan 2025 and should reach general availability April this year). D365 Customer Service’s Customer Knowledge Management Agent was created to transform untapped case and conversation data into actionable knowledge, offering your contact centre staff real-time insights. As service representatives resolve cases, this powerful tool will automatically capture and convert information, enabling them to address emerging issues within minutes rather than enduring lengthy knowledge development cycles. Beyond real-time capture, the solution also offers historical article creation, allowing you to transform past case data, such as conversations, emails and case notes, into ready-to-use knowledge articles, ensuring no insight goes to waste. Supervisors and content managers will also gain access to actionable insights, monitoring both the agent’s performance and the effectiveness of knowledge used by Copilot.
- Use Copilot-powered email template recommendations – Entering public preview in April 2025, Copilot email assist will suggest relevant email templates to your staff, reducing the need for them to search for relevant templates manually. The template suggestions will be based on email content, search context and thread intent.
- Use Copilot Studio agents for customer surveys – Whilst traditionally it may have taken quite a long time to collect and collate customer feedback, once this feature hits general availability in April, it will become a lot easier. You’ll be able to use Copilot Studio agents to automate and personalize feedback loops, unifying the process of configuring surveys across multiple channels.
- View customer sentiment indicators on email – Although this feature has no date for general availability, it goes into public preview this April and will allow agents to view and feedback customer sentiments for incoming emails, as you receive them.
- Insert Copilot prompts in email templates – Again, hitting public preview in April (it’s going to be an exciting month!), your customer service staff will be able to accelerate their email responses with intelligent template prompts built into existing email templates. With this new feature, administrators will be able to configure email prompts as part of email templates. When a customer service representative inserts an email template, Copilot will auto-populate content from the prompts, improving agent productivity and reducing manual effort.
- Automate case lifecycle tasks with Case Management Agent – This feature hits public preview in February and general availability in May. It will mean that when a live chat is accepted by a customer service representative, the Case Management Agent will automatically create a case, filling in the required information. As the chat progresses, service representatives can use the Case Management Agent to update case fields. When the conversation ends, it will then update the fields on the case automatically. Similarly, when an email gets converted to a case through automatic record creation (ARC) rules, it will automatically fill in the required information from the email. It also keeps the case up to date using information from new emails, as and when the customer sends them.
- Automatically restore sessions after a browser refresh – You’ll need to wait till April’s general availability for this feature ) although it’s been in public preview since October ’24). With it, your customer service staff will be able to refresh their browser and, instead of having to reopen their tabs one by one, all previously opened tabs and sessions will reappear.
Not sure if this will affect you or how to make sure you’ll benefit from it come April?
Perhaps after reading this you’d like more information on Dynamics 365 Customer Service (we would after reading this!).
Reach out below and we’d be happy to talk over how Release Wave 1 could benefit your organization…