Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
In this post you can find what is new and planned for the platform update 10.0.18.
If your D365 F&O includes the Commerce modules, please remember that there are some dependencies between the versioning of the two products.
For more information about the Dynamics 365 Commerce component versioning requirements please visit this link.
Platform Update 10.0.18 specifications
Build number: 7.0.5968
Release Plan: Dynamics 365 2021 wave 1 (April 2021 – September 2021)
Preview release: 05.03.2021
General availability (self-update): 16.04.2021
General availability (auto-update): 30.04.2021
More information at the link here.
Cross Features are the capabilities and features benefiting all Finance and Operations apps.
Features generally available from April 2021
- Allow admins to select default document types
– For more information, see Configure document management.
- Automatic retry settings for batch jobs
- Updates to the global address book
– For more information, see Address books FAQ.
Authentication for Finance and Operations apps upgraded to OWIN OpenID Connect
To comply with the current standards, the Finance and Operations apps authentication protocol is updated from Ws-Fed to OWIN OpenID Connect (OIDC)
It allows to easily integrate and onboard external partners to run their applications with Finance and Operations apps.
What is OWIN?
“OWIN defines a standard interface between .NET web servers and web applications. The goal of the OWIN interface is to decouple server and application, encourage the development of simple modules for .NET web development, and, by being an open standard, stimulate the open source ecosystem of .NET web development tools.” (OWIN – Open Web Interface for .NET)
If you want to learn more, please click here.
Allow configuration of the publish batch size for the Excel add-in
This feature provides flexibility when the users publish changes to data records using the Excel add-in: the updates are split into batches according to a system-wide limit managed by the System Administrators.
When creating Excel workbook templates, the authors can also set a default maximum publish batch size.
For more information, please see:
Allow configuration of the publish batch size for the Excel add-in
View and update entity data with Excel
Create Open in Excel experiences
Automatic retry settings for batch jobs
In a cloud application, there is a chance of connection loss to the database which causes the termination of the batch jobs.
With the release 10.0.18, a new flag has been introduced which sets the retry property on batch jobs and runs them again in case of connection loss.
Features generally available from April 2021
· Cash flow forecasting – project integration
· Configurable business documents – additional barcode type support
· Configurable business documents – preview support for print management
· Invoicing – enhanced invoice date control
· Invoicing – extending chronological invoice and voucher numbers
· Invoicing – references to original invoices in credit notes
· Regulatory Configuration Service expanded regional coverage to Europe
· Restrict ability to edit accounting distribution on vendor invoices
· Tax – enhanced global withholding tax
· Tax – using packing slip date as tax calculation date
Invoicing – enhanced invoice date control
The feature provides the possibility of additional control of invoice dates before posting to tighten internal audit procedures.
Additionally, this feature helps prevent manual mistakes during invoices registration, and correct any mistakes, if made.
It will be possible to block or permit unallowed invoices to be entered, or to enter the invoices anyway when a special reason is defined.
Invoicing – extending chronological invoice and voucher numbers
In many countries (such Italy and Spain), it is a legal requirement that the invoice number sequence follows the chronological order. Example: if yesterday the last posted invoice was the INV010, today we cannot post the Invoice INV009, but the sequence number must be higher.
This feature allows to meet the legal requirements regarding documents numbers chronology in more countries and regions. This feature also adds more flexibility in numbers sequence configuration for additional modules.
You can configure period-effective number sequence groups for available document references and link them to specific number sequences. Then, a proper number sequence group will be automatically identified when creating related documents depending on documents dates.
Invoicing – references to original invoices in credit notes
This feature expands the possibility of invoice crediting for all the localisations.
Features generally available from April 2021
Asset Management
Apply rules for grouping work orders while running a maintenance plan
Bill customers for maintenance work
Plan maintenance based on accumulated asset counter values
Inventory and logistics
Packing vs. storage dimensions
Schedule warehouse work creation
Set default financial dimensions for inventory standard cost revaluation vouchers
Warehouse execution with scale units in the cloud
Warehouse Management mobile application
Saved views for inventory and logistics
Enterprise-scale inventory performance improvements and archiving
Inventory Visibility Add-in for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
Manufacturing
Asset Management capabilities in the production floor execution interface
Override the default reservation principle for materials in production
Saved views for production control
Planning
Coverage time fence support for Planning Optimization
Purchase requisition support for Planning Optimization
Saved views for planned orders
Forecast submodel support for Planning Optimization
Product information management
Enable change management on existing products
Over time, the inventory transactions table (InventTrans) will continue to grow and consume more database space. Therefore, queries that are made against the table will gradually become slower. With the Inventory transactions archive feature the inventory transaction data will be archived to help improve system performance.
Please note: Once enabled, the feature Inventory transactions archive cannot be turned off.
Inventory transactions can be archived only during periods where the following conditions are met:
- The ledger period must be closed (outbound inventory transactions must have an issue status of Sold, and inbound inventory transactions must have a receipt status of Purchased).
- Inventory closing must be run on or after the to-period date of the archive.
- The period must be at least one year before the from-period date of the archive.
- There must not be any existing inventory recalculations.
Packing vs. storage dimensions
The Packaging product dimensions feature allows to set up one or several types of dimensions for each product, supporting the business scenarios in which items are stored and packed in different dimensions.
Once enabled, the system adds two additional dimension sets (Packing and Nested packing).
- Storage: Storage dimensions are used along with location volumetrics to determine how many of each item can be stored in various warehouse locations.
- Packing: Packing dimensions are used during containerization and the manual packing process to determine how many of each item will fit in various container types.
- Nested packing: Nested packing dimensions are used when the packing process contains multiple levels.
Each dimension type provides a set of physical measurements (weight, width, depth, and height), and establishes the process where those physical measurement values apply.
For more information, please see: Set different dimensions for packing and storage
Already in the version 10.0.17 as a preview feature, the rebate management feature becomes generally available with the version 10.0.18.
A new module will be available to reduce the complexity and administrative burden associated with rebates and deduction programs, facilitating the creation and calculation of contracts, deals or agreements between the company and its customers and vendors.
The rebate management module tracks and maintains rebates and deductions transactions in a central location, where all relevant users can create, review, and process them effectively.
Rebates
A rebate returns a portion of a purchase price by a seller or a buyer, typically on the purchase of a specific quantity or value of goods within a specific period. These returns, unlike deductions, are done after the full invoice of the purchase amount.
Deductions
A deduction is a compensation, consideration, or fee paid for a license or privilege to use intellectual property such as a brand, copyright or patent or the usage of a natural resource like with fishing, hunting, or mining. Deductions are usually computed as a percentage of revenue or profit from realized use. The more use, the greater the deduction realized.
Royalties
Customer royalties are payments made by one party to the licensee or franchisee for the right to use the asset. Rebates, royalties, and deductions are all supported by the new rebates and deductions module.
Additional resources: Customer Rebates
The D365 Commerce features are available from the build number 10.0.793.
More information about the Platform Update 10.0.18 for Dynamics 354 Commerce can be found visiting this link.
Features generally available from April 2021
- Add a QR code or bar code to transactional and receipt emails
- Archive credit card transaction data
- B2B e-commerce
- Call server-side data actions with AJAX
- Create discounts that apply after all other periodic discounts are applied
- Configure receipt emails to use custom layouts and templates
- Download Retail SDK samples and reference packages from GitHub and NuGet
– For more information, see Download Retail SDK samples and reference packages from GitHub and NuGet - Dynamics 365 Commerce online SDK FAQ
- Dynamics 365 Commerce and Microsoft Teams integration – add organisation structure, stores, workers
- Edit partially fulfilled customer orders in POS
- Exclusive threshold discounts compete with exclusive non-threshold periodic discounts
- Highly performant and scalable customer search experience using the new cloud search infrastructure
- Improvements to the POS inventory lookup operation
- Improved POS ordering and fulfillment experiences for serialized items
- Improved user experience for pickup order processing in point of sale
- Independent deployment and installation packages for MPOS, CPOS, HWS, and CSU extensions
- Omnichannel support for incremental payment capture
- Refactored payment processing in storefront checkout
- Retrieve quantity in Sell unit of measure (UoM) from e-Commerce inventory APIs
– For more information, see Calculate inventory availability for retail channels - Shop similar looks
- Simplified Commerce SDK update and developer experience
- Synergize task management between Dynamics 365 Commerce and Microsoft Teams
Improvements to the POS inventory lookup operation
This feature will add the following enhancements to the POS inventory lookup operation:
- Ability to sort inventory data on the inventory lookup page.
The sorting capability will be based on the
displayed columns on the page.
- Ability to launch inventory lookup page from the product details page of a non-variant product.
Today, the quick access to inventory lookup
page from product details page is only available for products with variants.
Additional resources: Inventory Lookup – POS
Configure receipt emails to use custom layouts and templates
Commerce offers the possibility to e-mail the receipts, enhancing the customer engagement in contactless shopping scenarios.
This release improves this functionality with the following new email receipt capabilities:
- Ability to email common receipt types: Currently, only the standard sales receipt can be emailed. The restriction now is being removed so the customers can receive all the receipt types they typically receive during the check-out or through the journal (example: Gift Card balance).
- Associate a receipt type with a custom email template: All receipt types can now be mapped to a specific email template.
- Granular configuration of emailed receipts: Receipt types can be individually configured to be emailed. The receipt format for each receipt will offer the following options: always email, do not email, and prompt user. These options are now available for standard receipts only (always print, do not print, prompt user).
- Options for emailed gift receipts: Cashiers will have the option of selecting different products to be included in the emailed gift receipt versus the printed gift receipt.
- Better email receipt authoring: HTML can now be uploaded for email receipts without having to remove carriage returns and line feeds.
High perfomant and scalable customer search experience infrastructure
If the users cannot easily find a customer record, they might end up creating a new one: the result is the data duplication and consequently the necessity of an expensive data management and clean-up.
Therefore, it is essential for the retailers to have a fast and flexible customer search experience.
The feature provides the users the possibility to switch easily between local and cloud search, improves the performance and the relevance capabilities. The solution is scalable, i.e. it adapts itself to the business needs to perform well with a large amount of data.
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