Jul 27, 2018
There is no need to panic...yet. Procrastinators can freely ignore
this post, for now. But if you are one of those people who hates
scrambling at the last minute, then maybe this will interest you.
Waves
Microsoft likes to call the significant updates for Dynamics 365
"Waves". They have also announced that there will be two major
Waves each year, with minor "ripples" ongoing. The thing about
"waves", as you may recall from your last beach trip, is that you
cannot stop them. Nor can you slow them, or divert them. If you are
in the Dynamics 365 ocean, you cannot avoid them either. Make no
mistake, the shit is going to hit your fan. There is also a strong
will to get to a single version of Dynamics 365 in the market as
soon as possible. This is a good thing for everyone, but "control"
will be ceded to Microsoft. The concept of "Optional" is being
deprecated. Of course you always have the option to go somewhere
else, but Microsoft is actually one of the last players to get
here, so you won't find any more "control" elsewhere either. The
best way to not get knocked down by a huge wave... is to ride it.
Waves Stack Up
Big waves that hit the beach did not pop up 50 feet offshore, they
actually started miles away. While you are riding the current wave
in, the next big wave is already in motion, and they each build on
the previous wave. Some small thing in one wave, becomes more
significant in the next wave, and critical in the next wave. Good
surfers pay attention to the small things in every wave...because
they know.
A Small Thing
It seems like several waves ago that a small thing called "App
Designer" quietly made its way onshore. The idea of creating an
"App" out of Dynamics 365, and actually "limiting" its power,
seemed contrary to how practitioners and users have worked with the
product. It also seemed contradictory to the messaging from
Microsoft about #freightrains of innovation. Why on earth would we
want to "hide" any of it? For us, it was a Godsend, we built a
business out of "hiding" stuff, with our previous version
of
RapidStart CRM, but
many were left scratching their heads.
Photocells
If you have ever looked down at a big city from somewhere high
around dusk, you can see a few lights start to come on early, as it
grows darker you see more, and once it is completely dark, you can
see quite a few... but not all. Many of us involved with Dynamics
365 have our own Photocells; for some of us the light comes on
early, for others a little later, and sadly, for too many, the
light does not come on at all. Not long ago, you were free to sit
in the dark and no one would bother you. But now, you will get hit
by a huge wave... in the dark... and probably drown. So while many
of us are enjoying a moonlit evening on the beach sipping Piña
Coladas watching people drown, I thought I would ruin the
entertainment, and toss a small life ring out. I can handle the
boos from the crowd.
A Life Ring
That App Designer thing I mentioned, has had a few more waves roll
onto it to augment and clarify its true purpose. What we may have
first thought was just a tool for creating granular, role-specific
"versions" of Dynamics 365 for subsets of users, has morphed into
one of the most critical concepts for Dynamics 365 Customer
Engagement. It is also something you will not be able to ignore.
A Simple Tick
For those of you with your lights on, who have been using App
Designer for some time now to create these role-specific apps, you
may have noticed an option on the App Properties Tab. For "Client",
you have the choice of "Web" or "Unified Interface". This snuck in
on one of those waves. From now on, we will call it the "Future
Button". If you have already built apps with the App Designer,
ticking this option will transport you to the future of Dynamics
365. But, don't tick it yet. First let's take a peek at this
future.
Unification of an Interface
If you have been listening, Microsoft has been ramping up the
conversation about what they are calling the "Unified Interface",
aka "Unified Client Interface", "UCI", "New UI" and "The other
thing that is not the Web UI". While it may feel like this came out
of nowhere, it has been steadily building with each wave. The
Unified Interface is the UI of the future, and we have actually had
it for a while now, behind the curtain. Back in
this November post I wrote
"For many of you who have seen,
or started to deploy, Dynamics 365 V9. You may have noticed that
the UI looks a little different. This would be the "Web UI". This
is not the New UI, this is a bridge UI. Currently the New UI, is in
the background, with this interim UI taking front stage. In the
next release, these positions will change and the New UI will be
front and center, with the interim UI in the background. By V10,
the interim UI will be gone." Well the time has come for one
of those predictions, as of now, new Dynamics 365 Customer
Engagement deployments will utilize the Unified Interface by
default. You can still opt for the now ancient WebUI, but why would
you? Okay, there are a few reasons.
Cart meet Horse
Sooooo, the Unified Interface is not quite feature complete. There
are some parts missing from the box. Are they critical? That
depends on where you are coming from. If you have been using
Dynamics 365 for a while, and already transitioned to V9 and got
the new, now old, WebUI, you may have some challenges moving to the
Unified Interface today, because of those missing parts. So if it
is missing parts, why is it now the default UI for new customers?
Because they won't know what they're missing. The good news is that
there is another wave, already on the way here, it hits in October,
and brings onshore most of the missing parts.
Where's that damn Life Ring?
So you build things for the Unified Interface, primarily in the App
Designer. While still an option, Unified Interface soon will not
be. How soon? I would guess, as soon as most customers have moved
to the Unified Interface. When will that be? An excellent question,
for which there is no answer yet. But you can be sure that the
pressure will be ramping up. You might want to get ahead of it. If
you are looking for more technical information to make this move, I
highly recommend my fellow MVP
Jukka's blog, he has way more
patience writing the technical stuff than I do. I regularly punt
the hard questions to Jukka... keeps my hands clean.