What's Changing?
Web client, classic UI, legacy web client: for years, the interface for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement applications. Well, it's going away.
Legacy web client
What's Affected?
The changes apply to:
- Customer Engagement online
- Legacy web client users of first-party Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement apps
- Dynamics 365 for Sales
- Dynamics 365 for Customer Services
- Along with any common data service model-driven apps not already built using the Unified Interface.
Your transition to the Unified Interface may coincide with a move from your own equipment on-premise to the cloud and onto Microsoft's continuous release approach with v9.1+. So, if you're moving from on-premise v8.2 there are many other solution code areas to review and upgrade too. More if you are using the mobile client with on-premise v8.2 or earlier.
What do I need to do?
"Microsoft's goal is to make Unified Interface the primary & only client infrastructure, all product roadmap investment is only there."
It is widely expected that soon Microsoft will announce the retirement of the legacy web client, then discontinue around a year later in Q3 2020.
Application owners and administrators should be making plans to move to the Unified Interface in the coming 6 months. Whichever your move approach, a big-bang move of your main application or an incremental introduction of new apps on the Unified Interface alongside your main legacy web client, you should be using the Unified Interface entirely in 14 months' time.
Now is a good opportunity to revamp your user experience!
"Legacy web client does not get updated with bug fixes"
Unified Interface
Why is the Unified Interface Better?
Moving to the Unified Interface shouldn't be seen as a burden. There are many reasons we have seen why it is better than the legacy web client.
It's modern, the web pages flow and respond to different sizes and devices - in fact, it's the same interface on web browsers, mobile devices, embedded within Outlook - so it's just so much fresher and now consistent across devices which aid end-user adoption.
It performs better too on modern browsers, much better. That's so important and allows for much more graphically rich and interactive web forms. The Unified Interface brings modern components which engage end-users: graphical controls, interactive widgets from the PowerApps Component Framework and Microsoft's own re-thought layout and command buttons.
And with the model-driven app concept, it's a great way to build apps-for-purposes instead of one huge app used by everybody. Yes, the back-end is the same but end users can be more engaged with tailored apps for them.
This genuinely is a time to re-think how you want end-users to engage with the apps.
Guides
Microsoft's excellent guide explains what you should consider when planning the transition. Ask Hitachi Solutions how it should be done with your own deployment of Dynamics 365.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/model-driven-apps/unified-interface-playbook
Why Hitachi Solutions?
Recognising the direction of travel 2 years' ago, Hitachi Solutions advised a large client to embrace the Unified Interface to offer consistency of usage in both mobile and browser scenarios. We worked closely with Microsoft to help build out and stabilise the Unified Interface and the client went live with the new interface in Feb 2019. It is one of the largest deployments of the Unified Interface in EMEA.
Since then it has been a central consideration of any solution we devise: to implement using the Unified Interface only.
Reach out to Hitachi Solutions to hear about our experiences of moving other clients, what to look out for, the possibilities to make a better user experience with rich new components and layouts and how we could help with the move and your preparations for the deprecation of the legacy web client.
Rob Dawson has worked with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and complementary platforms for the last 11 years. As a solution architect in the Hitachi Solutions Europe practice, Rob recommends the best solutions for our clients, in the CE and power platform technologies. He has a passion for good user experience and the big contribution that has to adoption. Rob specialises in complex data integrations using Azure, SQL server and now Microsoft Flow technologies.
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