Microsoft Cloud for Industry: 2023 release wave 2 plan

The Microsoft Cloud for Industry release plan for the 2023 release wave 2 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 2023 release wave 2 covers new features for Microsoft Cloud for Industry releasing from October 2023 through March 2024.

Download the 2023 release wave 2 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 2023 release wave 2 have been summarized in a separate release plan as well as a downloadable PDF.

The Microsoft Power Platform features coming in the 2023 release wave 2 have been summarized in a separate release plan as well as a downloadable PDF.

2023 release wave 2 overview

The 2023 release wave 2 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, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, Azure Data Manager for Agriculture and Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare In the 2023 release wave 2, we focus on making our solutions more applicable to payors, providers, and pharma. Our critical investments include:

  • Accelerate innovation building FHIR applications with low code and improve the performance of Dataverse healthcare APIs.
  • Increase patient and member engagement, including patient journey orchestration and support for generative AI.
  • Reliability improvements for hosting healthcare EHR/solutions from top ISVs. 

Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit

Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit in 2023 release Wave 2, we continue to deliver capabilities that enable nonprofits to operate in a holistic and seamless way and empower partners to extend the capabilities of Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. Every nonprofit has unique business processes, workflows, and data needs, and a robust partner ecosystem adapts Fundraising and Engagement to meet these needs. We are empowering nonprofits to make strategic decisions with configurable AI/ML and payment processing capabilities and extending the integration between Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit and the rest of the Microsoft portfolio used by nonprofit professionals.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail

Microsoft Cloud for Retail In Gallium/2023 Wave 2, our primary focus remains on executing our strategy to drive data gravity and enhance the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform for retailers. Our main objective is to assist retailers in effectively ingesting data from diverse data sources and applications into the industry data model using new and existing Microsoft and partner solutions. This process will be facilitated through the utilization of platform capabilities, enabling connectors, data governance tools, and APIs for seamless data consumption.

Collaborating closely with prioritized Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), we aim to equip retailers with comprehensive access to rich data encompassing market intelligence and Line of Business (LOB) applications. This data will serve as a valuable resource for retailers, offering insights into various critical aspects such as customer engagement, advertising strategies, inventory management, and supply chain optimization. To achieve this, we will harness the power of AI/ML, enabling retailers to gain a competitive advantage. Ultimately, our goal is to enable retailers to take proactive and actionable steps based on the valuable insights derived from these data-driven models. These actions can be seamlessly integrated into relevant Microsoft Dynamics 365 and other Microsoft applications, creating a cohesive and efficient ecosystem for retailers to thrive in the dynamic market landscape.

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: unify data intelligence, build a sustainable IT infrastructure, reduce the environmental impact of operations, and create sustainable value chains. This release reflects our commitment to expand the depth and breadth of our offering with new and enhanced features in Microsoft Sustainability Manager including supplier engagement portal, emission restatement, scope 3 categories, and facility digitization accelerator, data model enhancements for water and waste, additional emissions from our Cloud for Sustainability API, enhancements to our Environmental Credit Service as well as better together offerings with our third-party partners.

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 leverage high-quality datasets and accelerate the development of digital agriculture solutions. With 2023 release wave 2 we are providing key enhancements allowing for Azure Data Factory based ingestion of raw data and subsequent standardization across sources. Rich new analytics and AI capabilities are made available to help all stakeholders in the agriculture value chain to learn from unified data.

Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty

Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty enables governments to deploy workloads in Microsoft Cloud while helping meet their specific sovereignty, compliance, security, and policy requirements. Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty creates software boundaries in the cloud to establish the extra protection that governments require, using hardware-based confidentiality and encryption controls.

Key dates for the 2023 release wave 2

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 2023 release wave 2.

Milestone Date Description
Release plans available July 18, 2023 Learn about the new capabilities coming in the 2023 release wave 2 (October 2023 - March 2024) across Microsoft Cloud for Industry, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform.
Release plans available in additional languages August 1, 2023 The Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365 release plans are published in 11 additional languages: Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, and Swedish. Microsoft Cloud for Industry release plans are published in 4 additional languages: French, German, Dutch, and Spanish.
General availability October 1, 2023 Production deployment for the 2023 release wave 2 begins. Regional deployments will start on October 1, 2023

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 2023 release wave 2.

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