Microsoft Cloud for Industry: 2024 release wave 1 plan

The Microsoft Cloud for Industry release plan for the 2024 release wave 1 announces the latest updates to customers as features are prepared for release. You can browse the release plan online (updated throughout the month) or download the information as a PDF file, which is updated with every publish. The plan for 2024 release wave 1 covers new features for Microsoft Cloud for Industry releasing from April 2024 through September 2024.

Download the 2024 release wave 1 PDF for Microsoft Cloud for Industry or select the option at the bottom of the table of contents.

The Dynamics 365 features coming in the 2024 release wave 1 have been summarized in a separate release plan as well as a downloadable PDF.

The Microsoft Power Platform features coming in the 2024 release wave 1 have been summarized in a separate release plan as well as a downloadable PDF.

2024 release wave 1 overview

The 2024 release wave 1 for Microsoft Cloud for Industry brings new innovations that provide you with significant capabilities to transform your business. The release contains several new features across Microsoft Cloud for Industry applications, including Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, Microsoft Cloud for Retail, Azure Data Manager for Agriculture and Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare provides capabilities to manage health data at scale and makes it easier for healthcare organizations to improve the patient experience, coordinate care, and drive operational efficiency. For the 2024 wave 1 release we will focus on adding functionality to improve clinical and operational insights, and to accelerate innovation by reducing development time and costs of FHIR applications with low-code tools. 

Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit

Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit made Community Training generally available globally on December 7th. This is an Azure-powered platform enabling organizations to build equity in skilling and deliver training to communities of any size, anywhere in the world through its mobile-optimized and customizable, white-label style platform. Community Training can be used by nonprofits and community programs to empower facilitators, train communities and volunteers, and to deliver education, health, or volunteer services in the field utilizing organizational-created content, with learner tracking and assessments, all while supporting low-bandwidth functionality for offline learning. This solution is part of Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, in our “deliver programs in time and at scale” narrative and will be available in both a nonprofit SKU and a commercial SKU for other sectors. Additionally, Microsoft released new functionality in Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, specifically an AI-powered model called Likelihood to donate built into Fundraising and Engagement. The AI model utilizes an organization’s donor information to support a nonprofit's understanding of who is most likely to give to programmatic initiatives based on an array of donor characteristics, including past donations, event interactions, and more. Utilizing the model can support the development of donor segments, helping nonprofits target interactions based on their needs and donor giving patterns currently and into the future. Finally, we will be releasing the French localized version of Fundraising and Engagement allowing for greater functionality and global use.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail

Microsoft Cloud for Retail investments for 2024 release wave 1 will light up additional capabilities for our customers but will heavily index on driving improvements to existing in-market solutions. We will invest in bringing additional improvements to our below in-market solutions

  • Store Operations Assist: investments to drive more synergy and integration with Modern Work frontline worker applications and address customer feedback and requests.
  • Smart Store Analytics: bring Smart Store Analytics on Microsoft Fabric and enhance data analysis and help users navigate through complex data, interpret patterns, and generate insights.
  • AI shopping assistant: investments to drive improved personalization for consumers.
  • Retail data solutions in Microsoft Fabric: investments for additional retail specific connectors, AI and machine learning , as well as generative AI models, flexibility with retail data model deployments and uptake of new features from Microsoft Fabric.

Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability

Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability delivers Microsoft and partner solutions across four solution plays to empower organizations in their sustainability efforts. These are - enable ESG data intelligence, deliver sustainable IT systems, improve ESG performance and unlock sustainable growth. This release reflects our commitment to expand the depth and breadth of our offering with new and enhanced features in Microsoft Sustainability Manager to meet customers sustainability requirements and enhance time to value.

Azure Data Manager for Agriculture

Azure Data Manager for Agriculture extends the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform with industry-specific data connectors and capabilities to connect farm data from disparate sources, enabling organizations to use high-quality datasets and accelerate the development of digital agriculture solutions. With the 2024 Release Wave 1, we’re providing key enhancements for analytics scenarios to align with leading industry standards. Enhanced ability for data set curation, compatibility with industry leading analytics services, more powerful geospatial scenario support and repeatable data transformation workflows all work together to provide rich new analytics and AI capabilities.

Key dates for the 2024 release wave 1

These release plans describe functionality that may not have been released yet. Delivery timelines and projected functionality may change or may not ship (go to Microsoft policy).

Here are the key dates for the 2024 release wave 1.

Milestone Date Description
Release plans available January 25, 2024 Learn about the new capabilities coming in the 2024 release wave 1 (April 2024 - September 2024) across Microsoft Cloud for Industry, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform.
Release plans available in additional languages February 19, 2024 The Microsoft Power Platform , Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Cloud for Industry release plans are published in 11 additional languages: Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, and Swedish.
General availability April 1, 2024 Production deployment for the 2024 release wave 1 begins. Regional deployments will start on April 1, 2024

Just like the previous release waves, we continue to call out how each feature will be enabled in your environment:

  • Users, automatically– These features include changes to the experience for users and are enabled automatically.
  • Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically– These features are meant to be used by administrators, makers, or business analysts and are enabled automatically.
  • Users by admins, makers, or analysts– These features must be enabled or configured by the administrators, makers, or business analysts to be available for their users.

You can get ready with confidence knowing which features will be enabled automatically.

We have done this work to help you—our partners, customers, and users—drive the digital transformation of your business on your terms. We are looking forward to engaging with you as you put these new services and capabilities to work, and we are eager to hear your feedback as you dig into the 2024 release wave 1.

Let us know your thoughts. Share your feedback in the Microsoft Power Platform community forum. We will use your feedback to make improvements.