Overview of Dynamics 365 Commerce 2020 release wave 1

Important

This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 product documentation. For the latest release plans, see Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.

Important

Some of the functionality described in this release plan has not been released. Delivery timelines may change and projected functionality may not be released (see Microsoft policy). Learn more: What's new and planned

Dynamics 365 Commerce—built on the proven Dynamics 365 Retail capabilities—delivers a comprehensive omnichannel solution that unifies back-office, in-store, call center, and e-commerce experiences to provide a delightful shopping journey for consumers across the different touchpoints. Dynamics 365 Commerce enables you to deliver better business outcomes by:

  • Building brand loyalty through personalized customer engagements.

  • Increasing revenue with improved employee productivity.

  • Optimizing operations to reduce costs.

  • Driving supply chain efficiencies.

The investments in this release further empower the different commerce personas to be highly productive in their tasks by helping them to know and serve the consumers better, make a better outreach to them, and efficiently run operations across the value chain.

With frictionless information flow and in-process insights powered by the Dynamics 365 ecosystem, retailers are better equipped than ever to truly realize the vision of digital transformation:

  • E-commerce: Empower marketers to narrate their brand story quickly and more effectively with the capability to style e-commerce web pages without the need of a developer. With the capability for bulk redirect URLs, retailers can protect their investments in search engine optimization (SEO) by redirecting legacy URLs to the Dynamics 365 Commerce URLs, while also providing a continuity for the consumer experience. Enhanced inventory visibility with the option to define inventory buffers empowers merchandisers to meet consumer expectations and optimize inventory allocation across the distribution network.

  • Modern store: By enabling the ability to perform health checks from the point of sale (POS) for connected peripheral devices and the services upon which the POS has a dependency, retailers can be certain that checkout lanes are always operational for a smooth consumer experience. Enhancing the in-store processes that are vital for every retailer, we’re making improvements around:

    • Receipt numbering.

    • Inventory visibility.

    • Emailing receipts.

    • Supporting serial number tracked products.

    • Setting up and selling warranties.

  • Know your customers: Engage with the consumer and gain insights about them as they go through their shopping journey across the channels. Use these insights to provide personalized experiences and value-added services to make them a real fan of your brand.

  • Employee productivity: Empower your employees by providing them with insights and next-best-action recommendations by providing them with a view of available, applicable, and upcoming discounts so that they can upsell and cross-sell to consumers. Help them to be organized and productive in their work through cross-channel task management and notifications, along with the capability to communicate and collaborate across their peer groups and management, which also aids them in providing delightful consumer experiences. Enhanced and new inbound and outbound operations for receiving inventory and creating and fulfilling transfer orders can also help improve employee productivity in addition to making these processes more resilient.

  • Omnichannel: With support for modern payment methods like Alipay and WeChat Pay, along with a consistent and improved payment flow across the channels, consumers can have a much more frictionless checkout experience. Also, by enabling return policies and improved return scenarios, retailers can provide a level of service to consumers that would enable them to stand apart from competition.

  • Fundamentals: With seamless and reliable connectivity loss management for the POS devices in stores, along with the efficiency and reliability improvements around data synchronization and storage, retailers can be confident their store components will operate smoothly, boosting productivity and efficiency of the store operations. Support for Azure Active Directory–based sign in and improvements on the sign-in page provide retailers with a world-class authentication system, helping them to secure their systems.

Watch release overview video.

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