What's next on Microsoft's LinkedIn and Dynamics integration list
Microsoft delivered the first of its promised LinkedIn integrations this week when it announced general availability of the Microsoft Relationship Sales offering. (Relationship Sales is LinkedIn Sales Navigator, coupled with Dynamics 365 for Sales.)
So what's next on the delivery roadmap?
In December 2016, when Microsoft's purchase of LinkedIn received final regulatory clearance, CEO Satya Nadella provided a short list of the top priorities for integrating the two company's product lines. Integration of Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 was on that list, along with a number of other Office 365, training, Windows and other planned integrations. So far, I believe that the delivery of Relationship Sales is the only item from that list that's been delivered.
Update (July 17): Microsoft delivered a second item on its LinkedIn integration list by directly integrating LinkedIn notifications with Windows 10 Action Center in its new Windows 10 LinkedIn desktop app.
However, at the company's Inspire worldwide partner conference this week, Microsoft execs showed off a couple of coming LinkedIn-Dynamics 365 pieces.
Dynamics 365 for Talent, Microsoft's human-capital-management (HCM) offering, which will be generally available later in July, includes integration with LinkedIn Recruiter, officials said. Dyanmics 365 for Talent allows the creation of a consolidated human-resources profile that can span Office 365, Dynamics 365, and LinkedIn data.
Microsoft is also working to add the ability to monitor LinkedIn organization pages owned by a user's company and engage on posts and comments from those pages. This functionality is "in development," according to Microsoft's Dynamics 365 roadmap page. It will be added to Dynamics 365 for Sales, Dynamics 365 for Customer Service (CRM), Dynamics 365 for Field Service, and Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation.
Microsoft also is working on a Dynamics 365 Connector for LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms that will allow users to automatically sync leads captured on LinkedIn with Dynamics 365 online. This feature is in private preview now for Dynamics 365 for Marketing and Dynamics 365 for Sales -- the two missing pieces of Microsoft's Dynamics 365 Business suite for small/mid-size business users. The Dynamics 365 Business Marketing and Sales apps entered private preview this past week.
As previously promised, Microsoft began offering enterprise users as of July 1 the ability to run Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations on premises in their own datacenters.
In other Dynamics news from Inspire, Microsoft is enabling software developers to more easily build on top of Dynamics 365, Power BI, Power Apps and Microsoft Flow via a new program called ISV Cloud Embed.
Microsoft also told partners its on-premises versions of its various ERP suites would continue to be updated.
Dynamics GP 2018 will be released on December 1, 2017, as noted by MSDynamicsWorld.com. According to Microsoft execs, it's getting an updated workflow engine plus a Power BI Content Pack and Flow templates.
The next release of Dynamics NAV, codenamed "Tenerife," (which seemingly will arrive this calendar year) will add built-in Azure-based cognitive services, such as the ability to identify images, as well as an option to integrate the Office 365 Bookings app, MSDynamicsWorld said. Dynamics SL also will continue to get new updates through 2018, including Power BI Content Pack and Flow templates options.
There's one more thing: Microsoft made its new Dynamics 365 documentation site live this week.