What's new in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability March 2024
Important
Some or all of this functionality is available as part of a preview release. The content and the functionality are subject to change.
The March 2024 release of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability includes the following updates.
Microsoft Sustainability Manager
This table shows the March 2024 updates for Microsoft Sustainability Manager.
Important
Updates for Sustainability Manager start releasing at the first of the month with a staggered rollout to different countries/regions. Some updates aren't available until later in the month. Occasionally, we might have to delay an update to a future release.
| Feature | Description of update |
|---|---|
| ESG value chain solution | General availability. |
| Cloud for Sustainability energy data model (preview) | New Cloud for Sustainability data model for produced, purchased, and consumed energy. |
| Trace activity data for emission records (preview) | This feature provides a transparent and reliable link between activities imported in Sustainability Manager and their corresponding carbon emissions. This feature also helps you to accurately track and report the carbon footprint of operations, processes, and activities, providing accountability and effective carbon reduction strategies. |
| Power Query template import | You can import and use Power Query templates in Sustainability Manager. |
| One date across water, waste, and circularity categories | To streamline reporting and analysis in Sustainability Manager, a new field establishes a common date across carbon categories. This field derives from the following dates: existing transactions start and end dates, diversion start and end dates, measurement date, collection date, water quality test date, and waste quality test date. It allows querying and alignment for Power BI reporting, preparation reports, scorecards, goals, and other components. This standardized date field enhances data consistency and allows more efficient analysis across all relevant categories within the system. |
| Calculations | Ensure that upgrades don't overwrite Standard unit groups and don't bring back deleted calculation models, calculation profiles, and factor libraries. |
| Deprecation of Value chain partner field | The Value chain partner is deprecated and migrated to the Account field. This migration is for all categories outside of the scope 3 categories 10, 11, 14, and 15 (preview), which are released with the Account field. Recommended action: If you added any customizations on the Value chain partner entity, you might need to migrate them to the Account entity. |
Fixes
This section lists fixes included in March releases of Sustainability Manager.
To check the release version in your environment, select Settings, and then select About.
| Release | Problem description | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| 2.17.0.372 | The default behavior for data approval management (preview) when not turned on is to set the approval status for newly created records to Approved. When turned on, it sets the approval status for created records to Pending. Records with a Pending status aren't included in processes such as calculations. The February release introduced a bug where all created records were set to null, whether data approval management was turned on or off. None of these records are included in calculations if data approval management (preview) is turned on, whether now or in the future. |
The March 202403.1 release includes a fix to restore the original behavior. However, any records created between the February and March releases still have a null approval status. If you turn on data approval management (preview), the records you created aren't included in calculations until you manually approve them. Recommended action: For any records created between the February and March releases, set them to either Approved or Pending, as appropriate. We recommend taking this action even if data approval management (preview) isn't on in your environment, in case you want to turn it on in the future. |
| 2.17.0.372 | For calculations run since December 2023, calculation profiles only consider records that have a non-null value in the Leased Asset Category column. This column is deprecated and isn't visible by default in forms and views. As a result, calculations for scope 3 category 8 upstream leased assets and category 13 downstream leased assets without a Leased Asset Category (deprecated) report zero emissions. | In the March 202403.1 release, newly run scope 3 category 8 and 13 calculations correctly pull in all activity data for calculations and goals. Recommended action: If you ran scope 3 category 8 and 13 data from December until the March release, you should rerun those calculations. |
| 2.17.0.399 | This issue with the new reporting date field only affects customers who manually updated to release version 2.17.0.372. We caught this issue before automatic updates began, and the new field isn't included in automatic updates for the March release. With the new reporting date field, records that should have had valid reporting dates ended up with null values in the derived reporting date field. In addition, it was possible to add data to closed reporting periods. These two issues could lead to inaccuracies in reporting and potential compliance issues. |
This fix corrects the data migration to populate the derived reporting date field for existing records. This fix also validates the reporting date against open reporting periods before allowing record creation. Recommended action: If you manually installed version 2.17.0.372, install the most recent version. |
Related information
- What's new in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability overview
- What's new and planned for Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability 2023 wave 2
