This post gives an overview of several exciting features that are new and enhanced included in the General Availability of Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations version 10.0.40 across the different modules that our customers can already take advantage of.

• Preview of release: April 2024
• General availability of release (self-update): May 2024
• General availability of release (auto-update): June 2024

New features included in this release

• Extend Copilot with client plugins – Preview (Enabled by default)

Developers can extend Copilot in finance and operations apps by creating client actions that are based on application logic and invoked in natural language from the Copilot chat panel.

Client plugins, or client actions, are Microsoft Copilot plugins that invoke client code and are available for users in the context of client experiences for finance and operations apps. Developers can define plugins that convert the functionality, operations, and business logic of the X++ code base into actions that users can invoke and communicate with in natural language through the Copilot interface. For example, through client plugins, Copilot in finance and operations apps can be extended to let users enter natural language prompts in Copilot to perform application actions, fill in form values, or ask questions that require calculations and business logic from the application. More details here.

• Extend Copilot with record context (On by default)

The context of the record that the user is currently viewing in the application is available in Copilot and can be used to create contextual plugins.

Copilot in finance and operations apps lets you create contextual AI experiences that are embedded in the flow of the business process of an application. It's important that the Copilot sidecar chat understands the context that the user is working in.

More details here.

• Suggested questions within Copilot (On by default)

Suggested questions within Copilot is an AI technology that's used in the Copilot side car experience, which provides conversational Copilot experiences in finance and operations apps.

Suggested questions within Copilot generates and displays up to three questions that you can choose from to ask Copilot to keep the conversation going. Each question is generated based on the existing conversation so far and represents something that Copilot thinks you're likely to want to ask next. The feature is powered by Dynamics 365 Copilot and helps guide you to additional information in the context of the current conversation. More details here.

• Improve performance and efficiency of Sales invoice entities (Managed via Feature management workspace)

To improve the performance and efficiency of our sales invoice entities, we eliminated inefficient views and computed columns. The new entities no longer rely on inefficient views but instead fetch all columns directly from the data sources. Therefore, data retrieval is faster.

• Extend the length of vendor invoice numbers (Off by default)

This feature extends the invoice number from 20 characters to 50 characters in the vendor invoice and invoice journal. Create a Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services ticket to enable the underlying flight for this feature.

• Export attachments in Document management (On by default)

This feature exports files and metadata that are attached to records of tables in finance and operations apps. For more information, see Configure document management.

• Bank account lifecycle management (Managed via Feature management workspace)

This feature enables approval workflows for bank account activation, modification, and deactivation. It provides a bank account change history for auditing purposes. A protected field list is available to control the bank account fields that trigger the modification approval workflow.

• Customer and vendor netting (Managed via Feature management workspace)

This feature enables netting capability between open customer balances and open vendor balances. Customer and vendor payment journals are no longer created to settle open vendor and customer transactions. Instead, netting journals are created. This feature is generally available in Dynamics 365 Finance version 10.0.40.

• Credit and collections workspace (Managed via Feature management workspace)

The Collections coordinator workspace centralizes essential collection information for the collections agent (coordinator). Therefore, it streamlines customer communication and decision-making. By offering an overview of customer accounts, activities, and balances, the workspace facilitates efficient collections management.

For a complete list of what’s new or changed in the latest release of a finance and operations app (Supply Chain Management, Finance, Human Resources and Commerce) and Platform updates, click here.

The bug fixes that are included as part of this release can be seen in LCS by clicking the following KB article here.

Applying the latest release is key for several reasons such as:

1. Access to new features and enhancements
2. Security and compliance
3. Performance improvements
4. Integration and compatibility
5. Product lifecycle
6. Operational continuity

Do not hesitate to get in touch with our team of experts if you want to learn more about the 10.0.40 release.