Deprecation in Dynamics 365 in 2020
For our Online customers these deprecation elements in Dynamics 365 will be available in April / October 2020. For our on premise and hosted clients, some of these deprecations will be realised in upgrades / later releases. Get ready for the deprecations in Dynamics 365 this year and learn more about what it will mean for your instance.
Legacy Web Client
The Dynamics 365 web client is being deprecated on 1st October 2020. This means that all Dynamics 365 users will have to move to the Unified Interface by this time. The functionality to make the Unified Interface the only client available is available now but the default is to keep the default app / web client available, but this can be changed in the system settings by clicking “show legacy Dynamics 365 – custom app” equals Yes.
This will make sure that all users start to transfer to the Unified Interface as the web client will not be available if the above option is set to No. On 1st October 2020 the Unified Interface will be the only client available.
You should make sure that users start researching and using the Unified Interface so customizations on the interface can start as soon as possible. It is essential this commences as for Online customers the transition will happen on 1.10.20 regardless. There are two blogs on the Caltech website called Unified Interface and Migration to the Unified Interface which will help in understanding about the interface and what needs to be thought about when moving transitioning.
Action: Review the Unified Interface now.
Rules feature in canvas apps
The rules feature in canvas apps for PowerApps has been deprecated, the deprecation was effective on 14th October 2019. Microsoft has deprecated the rules after researching that few people used the functionality. See the link to the Microsoft page about the rules to explain which feature of PowerApps has been deprecated.
Task Flows
Tasks flows are being deprecated when the Web Client is being deprecated on 1st October 2020. The tasks flows are business process flows for the mobile client. They allow creation of a separate business process flow for mobile. See link here from Microsoft about the Task Flows.
Task flows are being replaced by the Unified Interface’s Business process flow immersive experience. The business process flow will be its own, unique experience meaning that a separate business process flow through tasks flows is no longer required.
Process Dialogs
Process dialogs are being deprecated on 1st October 2020. Process Dialogs are the step-by-step process that users complete to direct them through a process. This is being deprecated as business process flows can be used instead of process dialogs.
Process-related attributes
The Process ID, Stage ID and Traversed Path attributes on entities are deprecated. This is as there were a few problems with these attributes as they didn’t fully show the correct stage that the business process flow was on. This has been deprecated as when a business process flow is created, it creates an entity. This creates a record for when that business process flow is used on a record, this includes the stage that flow is on and be deactivated from that record Like Account, Contact etc.
Voice of the Customer
Voice of the customer has been scheduled to be deprecated completely on 1st July 2020 for Dynamics 365 Online customers. Until July 2020 users will still be able to create and send surveys using voice of the customer. This will still allow you to collect the feedback from the customers as well. The voice of the customer will be replaced by Microsoft Forms Pro.
Dynamics 365 for Blackberry
On 3rd December 2018 the Dynamics 365 app for Blackberry is deprecated and on 31st October 2019 the App will be removed from the App store meaning that no users will be able to use it. Microsoft will carry on providing security updates and updates to the blackberry app until 31st October 2019 but after that no new updates will be provided for the app and support will be discontinued.
The suggestion is to move to the Dynamics 365 for phones App, this will then allow blackberry phone users to carry on using the dynamics 365 app. As the Mobile Application Management for Blackberry is no longer available.
Service Scheduling
Service scheduling is deprecated and will be fully removed in a future update. There will be a new scheduling experience called Universal Resource Scheduling that will be a new unique and efficient way to schedule resources. See the information here from Microsoft that explains the differences between the service scheduling and the new Universal Resource Scheduling.
Parature knowledgebase
Using the Parature knowledge solution is deprecated. This means that when the knowledge based is turned on for entities they can’t be linked with Parature.
Contracts, Contract Line Items and Contract Templates
Contracts, Contract Lines and Templates are planning to be deprecated in a future major release from Dynamics 365. Microsoft have not confirmed when or which release will remove the contract entities. Entitlements has replaced Contracts in Dynamics 365 however this is more in-depth than contracts and therefore for some customers they may wish to use a bespoke entity instead of the entitlements when transitioning.
Action: All customers using contracts plan to move the data into either entitlements or a custom entity. Your account manager can help.
Standard SLAs
The standard Service Level Agreements are being deprecated. This will be removed in a future update. The standard SLA’s are being replaced by enhanced SLAs. See link to the Microsoft page about enhanced service level agreements and how they work.
Mail Merge
Mail merge templates have now been deprecated; this also includes the Word add in. The resolution for this is to use Word and Excel templates.
Blog written by Tom Hau 2019 Updated by David Taylor May 2020.
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