Technically "to " means "to express disapproval of (something)". In the software world, it means something that is “usable but regarded as obsolete and best avoided, typically because it has been superseded.”
According to Microsoft deprecated means “we intend to remove the feature or capability from a future major release of Dynamics 365.” However, the feature or capability will continue to work and is fully supported until it is officially removed.
It is important for all Dynamics 365 users to be aware of which features are on the chopping block so that they can determine if it will impact their business and decide on the best strategy before their next upgrade.
, Microsoft discusses 13 deprecated features that apply to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement as of version 9. Customer Engagement refers to the applications that make up the CRM portion of Dynamics 365: Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and Project Service Automation applications.
Deprecated Features:
- Service scheduling in Dynamics 365 for Customer Service
- Dialogs
- Parature knowledgebase as the Dynamics 365 knowledge management solution
- Project Service Finder app
- Contracts, Contract Line Items, and Contract Templates entities
- Standard SLAs in Dynamics 365 for Customer Service
- Relationship Roles
- Mail Merge
- Announcements
- Ready-to-use business processes available through Add Ready to Use Business Processes setting
- Some client APIs
- EntityMetadata.IsInteractionCentricEnabled property
- Silverlight (XAP) web resource
When the Crowe CRM team looked at this list, we spotted a few we felt would be most likely to impact our Dynamics CRM and Dynamics 365 clients during their next upgrades and would require additional planning.
- Service Contracts - plan to migrate Contracts to Entitlements.
- Relationships - plan to migrate Relationships to Connections.
- Outlook Client – plan to migrate to new Outlook App including meeting the server side requirements.*
- Mail merge - change document templates.
- Service scheduling – move to Field Service.
But it’s not all bad news. Microsoft is continually adding new functionality. Two new features that our team is excited about are:
- Advanced find: Advanced find now has the option to build a NOT IN query. For example, users can query for all cases that do not have a related task.
- MultiSelect option set: Users who customize forms can now add multi-select fields to forms, quick view and quick create forms and read-only and editable grids.
These new features may sound simple, but they will be huge time savers for some organizations.
Next Steps
When features are removed, it is usually because there is now a better way to accomplish the same result. Microsoft gives recommendations for the functionally set to replace anything that is being deprecated. Working with a knowledgeable Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner, such as Crowe Horwath, means this planning will be done before your next upgrade.
If you are interested in discussing an upgrade plan for Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Microsoft Dynamics CRM) .
Check out our offer on AppSource “” if you are interested in moving to the Dynamics 365 cloud.
By Ryan Plourde, Crowe Horwath, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Gold Partner
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*Note: As of January 2018 Microsoft has decided NOT to remove Dynamics 365 for Outlook from future releases. .
