I attended Microsoft’s Business Application Summit and was able to catch several great sessions. But one that hit home the most for me was a session on the new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Unified Interface, which covered what’s already here and what else is coming with this new functionality. This is exciting stuff, so I wanted to take the time to share.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Unified Interface terms and concepts
- Unified Interface on Mobile
- Full sitemap on Mobile
- Responsive UI
- Semantic Zoom
- Interactive Dashboards for any entity
- Reference Panel
- Timeline Control
- Record set navigation
- Visualization
- Accessibility
- Removed Limits: 75 fields, 10 sub grids, and tabs
Semantic Zoom
Semantic Zoom is the Form experience that allows you to jump directly to any tab, any section while in the mobile experience. This display only shows when the screen size is small enough and provides a “blueprint of the entire form” in a list type format.
The items labeled in blue are the tab labels, and the items listed in gray are the section labels.
Reference Panel
One reference panel in any form. Embed subgrids, web resources, quick view forms can be in a reference panel. The reference panel is a great way to get work done without clicking away from the screen you are on.
Timeline Control
The timeline view helps you collaborate with your team by tracking customer communication in a record on a single page in an easy to read view. You can see everything from posts and voice attachments to emails and notes. It provides a quick way to see the entire communication thread.
You can also see how the activities are sorted by default and that is adjustable in the configuration of the timeline on each form.
Record set navigation
This feature allows you to view recent and bookmarked records, as well as other entities while you have a current form open. It will render the list view you were in before opening the current record.
Visualization
This functionality provides more options with respect to how you see and work with your data. The first example below is a list-type view and the second example is more chart-based.
Functionality not available on the Unified Interface pre-October ’18
- Advanced Find
- Bulk edit
- Merge records
- Record sharing
- All options under Set Personal Options
- Chart drill down
- Learning Path
- Creating personal dashboards and charts
- Creating personal views
- Charts as visualization for sub-grids on forms
- Activities roll-up view
- Creating an email template with slugs
- Creating duplicate detection jobs
- Composite address control
- Run workflow
- Filtering on read-only grids
- Run report (SSRS)
- Letter, Fax, Recurring Appointments
- Campaign management – campaigns, campaign activities, and quick campaign
- Goal management
- Marketing list
- Position entity
- Global notifications
- Admin experiences
- Editable grids on phones
Read-only entities on Unified Interface
There are certain entities that are currently read-only on Unified Interface. Users will not be able to make changes to these entity records within a Unified Interface app. Expect them to be editable in future releases. The following are entities that are currently read-only in Unified Interface:
- Email Signature
- Entitlement
- Knowledge Article Views
- Knowledge Base Record
- Queue
- SharePoint Document
- SharePoint Site
- SLA
- SLA KPI Instance
- System User
- Team
- Template
Note – Some of these entities are being deprecated. Click here for a comprehensive list of deprecated entities.
By Jessica Smith, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Application Consultant, Dyn365Pros, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner, San Diego, Southern California
