The Dynamics 365 for Marketing June 2019 update is now available
The June 2019 update of Dynamics 365 for Marketing is released and available for customers to install or update to starting now! This update includes several new complete features, previews of a few upcoming AI features, plus plenty of performance and stability improvements. Keep reading to learn how to get this update and which new features it includes.
This update installs version 1.35.4744.0 of the Dynamics 365 for Marketing solution.
For more information about recently released and planned new features, please see the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Release Plan. For more information about this product version, including known and recently fixed issues, see the Dynamics 365 for Marketing readme page.
How to get the update
Starting now, all new installations and trials will provide the June 2019 version. For existing installations, you must update each of your Dynamics 365 for Marketing instances manually as described in Keep Marketing up to date.
Dynamics 365 for Marketing receives regular incremental updates (released every month or so) and major updates (released about twice a year). The most recent major update was released in April 2019.
- Incremental updates (including this release) must be applied manually between major releases. Each update includes all previous updates, so you will always move up to the current version when you update manually.
- Major updates can be applied manually any time after they are released, but Microsoft will eventually apply the most recent major update for you to make sure all of our customers are running the minimum supported version. Updates applied by Microsoft provide the oldest supported major release only, which includes all previously release updates, but not subsequently released updates (even if they are already available at the time of the update).
Customize the color of any calendar item
The marketing calendar can now show a custom background color for each item you add to it. You can still have a default color for each entity shown on the calendar (such as events, sessions, or appointments), but now you can also save a color with each individual record to override the entity default. For example, you could use red as your default color for events, but override this with green for the summer event and red for the winter event.
More information: Set up record-level custom colors
Better control over leads generated from LinkedIn
Dynamics 365 for Marketing is able to use leads generated using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms to create lead records in Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement. In the June 2019 release, we added a few more options to control whether and how incoming LinkedIn leads are matched against existing leads in Customer Engagement, and whether to generate new contacts for leads created based on LinkedIn leads. You can even disable lead matching to create new Customer Engagement leads for all incoming LinkedIn leads.
More information: Configure a strategy to match incoming LinkedIn leads to existing leads
Easily generate segments based on customer journey progress and results
It was already possible to generate dynamic segments of contacts that were stopped, failed, or processed by a specific tile in a customer journey. Now you can also generate segments based on KPIs, such as to find contacts that opened or clicked a specific email message from a specific journey. All you have to do to generate the segment is select a tile from a live (or formerly live) customer journey, go to its Data panel, and then select the floppy-disk icon for the result or KPI you’d like to use as a basis for the new segment.
More information: Generate dynamic interaction segments from customer journey results
In-line editing of text-based content blocks
Content blocks let you establish blocks of common content that you can reuse in multiple emails, forms, and/or pages. You can use them to establish common headers, footers, and other blocks of content that you would like to standardize across your communications.
In the June 2019 release, you can now edit text placed using a content block directly in the email or page designer (in-line). You could already do in-line editing of image properties for content blocks that place images, but now you can also do this for text-based content blocks. A content block must be published with Protected turned off to enable in-line editing (or turn protection on to prevent in-line editing for a block).
More information: Create content blocks that you can reuse in multiple designs
Simulate payment on the event website
The event website enables people to read about and register for the events you manage using Dynamics 365 for Marketing. Most of the required functionality is provided out of the box, but to implement online payment, you must work together with a third-party payment provider and customize the event website to interact with that provider.
Now we’ve made it easy for you to enable simulated payment processing before engaging with a third-party provider, which can be useful when giving a demo of how the event website will work. However, you must always be sure to disable simulated payment processing before going live because it can introduce a security vulnerability if enabled in a production environment.
More information: Event administration
Preview: New artificial intelligence features (spam score, smart scheduler, and segment boost)
Starting this month, you’ll be able to start experimenting with a few upcoming AI-driven features that we’re now releasing as previews. They are:
- Spam score, which analyzes the content of each marketing email message and generates a score that predicts how likely it is to be flagged by content-based spam filters. By crafting messages that generate a low spam score, you should be able to improve email deliverability while also improving credibility with recipients. More information: Check the spam score of your email content
- Smart scheduler, which analyzes your email results to identify the days and times when each contact is most likely to be actively reading his or her email. It combines specific results for each contact with general results that apply to similar contacts identified by the AI. You can use this information to schedule your email deliveries manually or allow the system to schedule deliveries to match each individual recipient. A well-timed delivery can significantly increase the chance that the recipient will open and react to the message. More information: Use smart scheduler to help improve email engagement
- Segment booster, which helps you find prospects who resemble and behave like the best contacts from a current segment and automatically adds those contacts to a running customer journey. For example, if you want to get more subscribers for your newsletter, this technology can analyze your entire contact database to find people who resemble the most engaged subscribers and then automatically add them to the segment for a customer journey that sends emails that promote joining the mailing list. More information: Use segment boost to find and add promising contacts to a journey
All of the AI preview features are disabled by default. An admin must enable and configure each AI feature that you want to use on your site. Where relevant, the AI features include privacy controls that are integrated with the data-protection mechanism built into Dynamics 365 for Marketing (which also helps organizations to comply with the GDPR). More information: Enable and configure artificial intelligence features
