Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Roadmap for 2015

I got to Microsoft Convergence this year once again and there was a session delivered by Jujhar Singh titled ‘Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Roadmap and Strategy’.  This session delivered information to customers and partners in the room to give them a steer on the roadmap for CRM.

This blog post will outline some of the content of the roadmap which came out of convergence.

Before

Let’s take a step back. We can visually see in the illustration below, CRM, Parature, Social Listening and Dynamics Marketing code releases from Convergence 2014. This roadmap was shared with us all in 2014.

The Fall 2014 wave was delivered by Microsoft. CRM ‘Vega’ became the CRM 2015 release. Known as version 7.0. If you are in the APAC region, you can sign up for a CRM 2015 instance from the new Australia Data Center. Read more here: https://yellowduckguy.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/office-365-office-365-and-crm-now-available-from-australia-data-center/

Now and Beyond

Now moving forward into the next CRM Roadmap the next releases can be illustrated below. Social Listening is now known as Social Engagement. Focus with ‘Now’ lies with the Spring Wave release with beyond aligning to the Fall Wave release.

The Spring 2015 release (v7.1) brings us the following code releases:

• Carina – Dynamics CRM (known release as CRM Online 2015 Update 1)
• Hydra – Social Engagement (formally Social Listening)
• Spica – Dynamics Marketing
• Atira – Parature

If you would like to know more about the new features in the Spring 2015 release, then head to http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/get-ready-for-the-next-release.aspx and click on the Spring 2015 tab (if is not already selected).

I also did a couple of blog posts which might be of interest:

• Microsoft Convergence 2015 – Opening Keynote (screenshots of the cool new stuff!) https://yellowduckguy.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/microsoft-convergence-2015-opening-keynote/
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 – Global Navigation UI Changes https://yellowduckguy.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2015-global-navigation-ui-changes/
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 – You can now add a Theme to your CRM https://yellowduckguy.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2015-you-can-now-add-a-theme-to-your-crm/

So what is next?

Not confirmed by Microsoft, but it is likely that On-Premises installations will have to wait for the CRM ‘ARA’ release during the Fall Wave in order to get the Carina new features and others.

The next ‘wave’ in the galatic journey is the Fall Wave, coming at the end of 2015. The codenames for this release are:

• Ara – Dynamics CRM
• Corvus – Social Engagement (formally Social Listening)
• Capella – Dynamics Marketing
• Hercules – Parature

As always Microsoft will deliver updates to these areas – this is where the investment lies.  Microsoft also announced a number of other improvements scheduled for the Fall release in 2015 of CRM. I could list them here but it is awhile away and Microsoft has the ability to change the scope.  So it’s best you wait for the Fall 2015 announcement.

Also, as a matter of clarification, the seasons Spring and Fall relate to USA. So if your reading this outside of the USA then adjust these seasons to match yours i.e. Spring 2015 Release lands in Autumn 2015 for New Zealand.

Will CRM ‘ARA’ be CRM 2016 i.e. v8.0? I’ll let you decide.

Exciting year ahead!

Greg.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Microsoft acquires Parature

Hot of the press in 2014 is the news of the acquisition of Parature by Microsoft.

Parature is the industry’s leading provider of cloud-based customer service software and is used to support more than 3,000 brands and approximately 70 million end users worldwide. Parature empowers mid-market to enterprise organizations across major industries with the ability to centralize their customer service and support efforts and to manage, resolve and respond to a high volume of service issues across a variety of communication channels, including the growing number of service-related conversations that are happening every day on social media and mobile devices.

(2014, http://www.parature.com/)

This acquisition means a whole of of functionality relating to the customer service and support will be made available via Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Self-service is the key element or focus here along with self-service support across different devices and channels.

Press release can be read here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/jan14/01-07paraturepr.aspx

So watch the space of Self-Service customer support with Paratune and CRM.

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy