Exciting New Features for Dynamics 365 Solutions in the 2026 Wave 1 Release
The 2026 Wave 1 release across Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management highlights Microsoft’s continued investment in AI-driven experiences, automation, and operational efficiency.
From Copilot-powered agents to advanced warehouse intelligence and smarter CRM workflows, this release is packed with innovations designed to help organizations move faster, work smarter, and scale with confidence. Explore the new features included in the 2026 Wave 1 release in this blog or watch the video below.
Note: Before we break down the most important features across each Dynamics 365 application, it’s important to know that all these features are at various stages and have multiple release dates. Not all these features will be ready in the spring.
Dynamics 365 Business Central - Wave 1 Highlights
The 2026 Wave 1 release for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central delivers meaningful innovation across AI, usability, finance, and supply chain processes. What stands out in this release is a continued investment in Copilot and agent-driven automation, paired with practical enhancements that address long-standing customer requests.
Copilot & AI Agent Enhancements
Microsoft continues to expand AI capabilities inside Business Central with a stronger focus on agent visibility, control, and extensibility.
- Design AI Agents Inside Business Central
- Users can now create custom agents directly within the application, allowing you to create AI agents that fit your unique business needs.
- While currently requiring some manual development effort, this opens the door to tailored automation scenarios triggered by business events.
- Improved Email Processing with Payables Agent Categorization
- The Payables Agent now automatically categorize processed emails, which is especially valuable for shared inboxes. For example, “sales@companyname.com”.
- This makes it much easier for you and your team to manage and filter communications, so they end up with the right person.
- Dedicated Task Pane for Agent Activity
- This new page gives you a centralized view that allows users to monitor what agents are doing, providing transparency into automated processes.
- Review Agent Content Directly on Pages
- Users can now see how agents interact with individual records, providing record-level agent visibility.
- This improves trust and understanding of AI-driven actions.
- Avatars on List Pages to Show “Created By” and “Modified By” Visibility for Agents
- The driver for this feature was showing whether an agent created or modified a record.
- This was a common request from users to Microsoft, as it reduces ambiguity and improves auditability.
- The Avatars are a graphical enhancement to the user interface (UI) that gives you visibility on list pages.
- Stop All Active Tasks for a Selected Agent
- Users can halt all agent activity at once instead of stopping tasks individually, adding critical control over automation.
- Before this, users would have to go through each tasks and stop them individually.
- Additional AI Resources with Copilot Extensions
- Developers can extend and/or create Copilot capabilities across the platform that automate a variety of needs.
- This encourages custom AI scenarios beyond out-of-the-box features.
Integration & AI Interoperability
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) Integration (Preview)
- Enables agents to interact with Business Central data and processes more effectively, even if you use Copilot Studio to build the agent.
- This simplifies cross-system automation and data access and ensures that updates to agents are reflected across various systems.
Financial & Reporting Enhancements
- Scheduled Financial Reports
- Automate report generation and distribution without customization to eliminate costly and manual reporting cycles.
- You can also run reports for all values of a dimension or run multiple reports to get a single PDF with the results.
- Multi-Dimension Reporting
- Run reports across all dimension values (e.g., departments).
- Improves scalability for financial analysis.
- Subscription Billing Power BI App
- New analytics app enhances visibility into subscription revenue, which addresses gaps in native reporting.
- This is similar to other Power BI apps in areas like Finance, Sales, Purchasing, Inventory, Manufacturing, Service, etc.
- Control the lifecycle of report layouts
- As you are creating new report layouts, you can put them in “pre-deployment” or “deployment” phases.
- This allows you to control the management of changes to reports.
- Employee Expense Reports (New Capability)
- Built-in expense tracking is now available.
- This feature is a popular request and has been a long time coming, especially for project-based organizations.
- Self-Billed Purchase Invoices
- If you have a buyer with whom you work based on contractual usage, you might not invoice them the same way you would a regular buyer.
- This feature allows you to create internal-facing only invoices so you can track those financial transactions in a way that is consistent with your other Accounts Payable processes.
- Modernizing Inventory Reports
- If you are familiar with analysis views, Microsoft has added some additional enhancements around inventory.
- Control the lifecycle of report layouts
- As you are creating new report layouts, you can put them in “pre-deployment” or “deployment” phases.
- This allows you to control the management of changes to reports.
Core ERP Functionality Improvements
- Expanded Approval Workflows
- Microsoft is improving governance across operations by expanding Approvals to:
- Item journals
- Requisitions
- Planning worksheets
- Microsoft is improving governance across operations by expanding Approvals to:
- Updated Outlook Integration
- If you can use the integration between Business Central and Outlook, it’s time to implement it. It’s free and allows you to use Business Central in Outlook.
- Microsoft is making some key enhancements to this area in stability and usability.
Supply Chain & Operations Enhancements
- Drop Shipment Process Improvements
- You can create purchase orders directly from sales orders for drop shipments.
- Similarly, you can reverse purchase invoices for drop shipments independently of the related sales invoice.
- This and several other enhancements in this area decouple sales and purchase invoicing and provide you with more flexibility and efficiency by reducing manual steps.
- Manufacturing Enhancements
- Improved usability updates in manufacturing include:
- Production output with serial number tracking
- Location code when posting capacity and overhead
- Create a purchase quote from a contract
- Control warnings for non-certified production BOMs and routings
- Filter on receipt and shipment lines
- Match purchase invoices to multiple orders and receipt lines
- Send posted sales shipments and return receipts by email
- Improved usability updates in manufacturing include:
- Subcontracting Improvements
- Enhanced functionality for managing outsourced production reduces complexity in manufacturing workflows.
- Many organizations that rely on subcontractors are often taken by surprise. This enhancement simplifies that process.
- Enhanced functionality for managing outsourced production reduces complexity in manufacturing workflows.
- Quality Management Module (Now Available)
- Native quality management capabilities are available like built-in inspection and control processes.
- Note: If you already use Business Central, you will need to download this from the App store to implement it. All new BC deployments will have it built-in automatically.
- It is free to add and easy to download.
E-Commerce & Tax Enhancements
- Shopify Integration Updates
- Continued improvements for e-commerce connectivity to support growing omnichannel strategies.
- If you are thinking of using Shopify – or are already using it – it’s important to now that Microsoft continues to make investments in this area.
- Excise Tax Calculation Enhancements
- Supports taxes based on the weight or volume of a product (e.g., plastic or sugar).
- This expands your ability to stay compliant with your company’s tax rules.
The 2026 Wave 1 release for Business Central balances innovation with practicality. While Copilot and AI agents continue to evolve, Microsoft is also addressing real-world operational challenges, making this one of the more well-rounded updates in recent memory.
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement - Wave 1 Highlights
The 2026 Wave 1 release for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement continues Microsoft’s push toward AI-first CRM experiences. Across Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and Customer Insights, the focus is clear: empower users with intelligent agents, automation, and deeper insights.
Let’s explore the key features.
AI-Powered Sales Enhancements
- Enhanced Sales Research Agent
- Conducts multi-source research across Sales data, Fabric, external data sources, and local files like Excel or PDFs.
- You can also view the reasoning behind research outcomes and drill into the findings so you can interact with them directly.
- This helps sellers prepare with deeper insights faster and builds trust in AI-driven recommendations.
- Form Fill Assistant
- Extracts data from documents (e.g., business cards, PDFs) and automatically populates Sales fields, reducing time-consuming administrative work.
- This AI-driven feature allows salespeople to focus on sales instead of manual tasks.
- Copilot Data Visualization
- Combine list views with real-time visual insights like graphs, bar charts, and many more designs.
- This will enhance decision-making directly within workflows through real-time and up-to-date insights.
- Smart Grid (Natural Language Filtering)
- Find, filter, and sort CRM data using plain language.
- Instead of exporting and importing data and then plugging the relevant information into a tool, you can simply ask Copilot to do that for you.
Lead & Opportunity Intelligence for Sellers
- Next Best Action Recommendations
- AI suggests optimal actions for leads and opportunities and allows you to prioritize leads that are most likely to be successful.
- Improves conversion rates and prioritization.
- Sales Close Agent
- Helps accelerate deal closure by identifying key actions to keep opportunities moving forward.
- It keeps deal insights current with signal-based triggers.
- Sales Agent Opportunities and Account Summaries
- These AI-generated summaries provide your team with quick context and help sellers stay informed without manual review.
- Sales Research Agent from the View of Sales Management
- This enhancement will give management sales operations insights and allow them to plan sales portfolios through:
- Intent signals – Pipeline, activities, stage (CRM)
- Reality signals – Budgets, targets, billing (OneLake)
- Context signals – Organizational changes, strategic priorities, macro events (web and internal)
- This enhancement will give management sales operations insights and allow them to plan sales portfolios through:
- Improved Email Template Selection
- Faster access to relevant templates within workflows that enhance seller productivity. For example, if you are dealing with a frustrated customer, the system will have templates designed to address their concerns.
- Similar to Business Central, Outlook integrates directly with Sales, meaning your team can send these emails right from the Sales environment.
- Embedded Dialer (Softphone Experience)
- Native calling functionality within the Sales Hub reduces context switching and improves efficiency.
- Instead of using a different app or your mobile to make calls, you can do it directly from Sales, equipped with a list of relevant contacts.
- Bulk Email & Campaign Improvements
- Streamlined quick campaign execution.
- Better outreach capabilities without full marketing automation.
Customer Service Innovations
- Customer Sentiment Analysis
- Copilot helps track sentiment across cases and communications, giving you a clear window into the next steps you need to take with a customer to either improve or maintain the relationship.
- Case Management Agents
- AI-driven agents assist with case handling and workflows, which improves consistency and efficiency.
- Quality Evaluation Agents
- Control evaluation volume with sampling to automate call and interaction reviews.
- This ensures you provide scalable quality assurance based on customer feedback.
- Compliance & Script Enforcement
- You can define critical questions in evaluation criteria to ensure that requirements around compliance, safety, or mandatory disclosures are followed.
- This reduces risk in regulated industries.
- Supervisor Experience Enhancements
- New features include screen recording controls for administrators and the ability to generate AI-driven dynamics forecasts with intelligent method selection.
- This optimizes staffing, reduces costs, and maintains consistent customer service levels.
Workforce Optimization & Forecasting for Field Service
- Boosting technician productivity
- You can now add notes with simplified mobile note-taking controls, disable clickthrough on lookup values in forms, and improve Android form loads by at least 25%.
- You can also enhance Field Service Booking Status control, replacing missed taps with larger touch targets, and a drawer-based selector.
- This helps you optimize workforce planning, reduce costs, and predict call volumes and staffing needs.
- Optimized Resource Scheduling for Dispatchers
- With Wave 1 2026, dispatchers will now find it easier to:
- Move multiple bookings at once by a set offset
- Move multiple bookings at once to a new resource
- Optimize multiple resources with the Scheduling Operations agent
- View full-screen map mode on the Schedule board
- Streamlined Work Order Management
- You can approve field time entries using project rules.
- For example, a field service technician can now leverage the Project Operations workflows while working in the field. This bridges the gap between the work agents do and the financial outcomes of that work.
- This reduces manual reconciliation efforts and makes sure field work is consistently reflected across cost, revenue, and the billing process.
- Project Task Updates
- You can now create work orders directly from project tasks within the system, billing only what matters and giving project teams clearer visibility.
- You can also show project task context for field scheduling, including:
- Project-driven time windows
- Project task dependencies on work orders
- Advisory schedule warnings.
- AI-Powered Service Forecasting
- Predicts call volumes and staffing needs and can notify your organization when certain products (often with certain clients) are coming up on service dates.
- This reduces the manual effort of tracking service or warranty dates, optimizing workforce planning and reducing costs.
- Supervisor Controls & Monitoring
- Enhanced oversight tools for service supervisors gives them greater control and improves operational visibility.
- Improves operational visibility.
- With Wave 1 2026, dispatchers will now find it easier to:
Smarter Marketing with D365 Customer Insights-Journeys
- Boost Engagement with Copilot-Powered Conversational Text Messages
- Enable seamless integration with D365 Contact Center proactive engagement
- Use existing text message’s contact point for consent, audience configurations, and quiet times
- Design your journey to include conversational text messages and react to message outcomes
- View detailed engagement metrics
- Access all text conversations and engagement interaction data in storage
- Build custom reports using Microsoft Fabric
- Automatically Update Emails with Latest Content
- This is done through dynamic content blocks.
- When you update a content block, all the emails using the blog will be updated.
- A good example of this is a legal disclaimer or “unsubscribe” section at the bottom of an email template
- Boost Customer Confidence with Branded Content Links
- Automatically generated URLs look unprofessional, suspicious, and receive lower click rates. Now you can set up vanity links to increase trust and clicks.
- Message expiration dates to keep communications relevant
- This allows you to change your email content based on various deadlines or changes you might need to implement. For example, if you are hosting a paid event and have an early-bird pricing deadline, you can set the early-bird message to expire on the deadline and then switch to another type of communication.
D365 Customer Engagement in 2026 Wave 1 is all about working smarter, not harder. With AI embedded into every stage of the customer journey—from lead generation to service delivery—organizations can drive better outcomes with less manual effort. If you need assistance optimizing your D365 CE environment let us know!
Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management - Wave 1 Highlights
The 2026 Wave 1 release for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management introduces powerful enhancements across warehouse operations, pricing, and AI-driven supply chain optimization.
This release continues to push toward intelligent, data-driven operations.
Demand and Supply Planning Optimizations
- Price-Demand Correlation Analysis
- New feature that links pricing changes directly to customer demand forecasts, improving market responsiveness.
- Generative AI Demand Insights
- AI-driven insights highlight anomalies and trends within your data, reducing manual analysis for planners.
- Improved Forecast Stability
- Planning optimization reduces re-planning churn by protecting downstream processes from upstream challenges.
Capable-to-Promise (CTP) Date Protection for Reliable Commitments
- CTP Date Protection Feature
- New feature that protects confirmed CTP dates from being overwritten during planning optimization runs.
- Improved Planning and Customer Trust
- Separates planning recommendations from customer commitments to enhance confidence and reduce manual overrides.
- Benefits for Organizations
- Reduces exception handling, simplifies governance, and strengthens trust across planning and execution systems.
Warehouse Management Innovations
- Spatial Location Intelligence
- Map warehouse layouts (bins, shelves, pallets).
- Enables optimized picking routes and inventory placement.
- AI-Driven Item Placement Recommendations
- Suggests optimal storage locations based on movement and demand.
- Reduces travel time and improves efficiency.
- Cluster Picking Enhancements
- Improved serial and batch tracking during picking.
- Increases accuracy and traceability.
Warehouse Efficiency & Integration
- Archive Load Data
- Manage historical warehouse data more efficiently.
- Improves system performance and data management.
- External Labor Management Integration
- Connect warehouse operations with external workforce systems.
- Enhances labor planning and execution.
- Advanced Shipment Notifications (ASN) Support
- Streamline transfer order receiving processes.
- Improves inbound logistics efficiency.
Supply Chain Intelligence
- Dynamic Item Placement Optimization
- Uses AI to continuously improve warehouse layouts.
- Aligns inventory positioning with real-world demand patterns.
- Reduced Picking Time
- Intelligent routing minimizes travel across the warehouse.
- Drives faster fulfillment cycles.
Pricing & Integration Enhancements
- New Pricing Calculation API
- External systems can leverage native pricing logic.
- Eliminates the need to duplicate pricing engines.
- Real-Time Price Integration
- Send requests from external systems (e.g., CRM) to calculate prices.
- Ensures consistency across platforms.
The Finance and Supply Chain updates in 2026 Wave 1 focus heavily on operational intelligence and efficiency. With AI-driven warehouse optimization and improved system integrations, organizations can reduce costs while improving throughput.
Stoneridge Software is a trusted partner for Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management. From implementation to optimization, we help organizations unlock real value from their ERP investments.
Want to Learn More About Optimizing for Wave 1 Features?
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