Thoughts & musings from a Microsoft Business Applications Ninja!
Finding out just how Sheryl is connected with the annual Glastonbury festival, the wonders of Direct Debit/financial payment runs, and what happens exactly when you might just be performing a backdoor system update into a database…
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Discussing how he’s constructing a mountain bike course next to his house, accessibility in apps, and PowerApps4Kids. Also diving into what happened when a client asked him to build an app that a competitor of his came up with!
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Chatting about the joys of Lego, being a Terry Pratchett uberfan, house rules, and just HOW stubborn children can actually be!
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Hanging out & talking to Carl about various interests such as how Power Platform helps with the Charity sector, his local Diving Club (don’t push him in!), and the importance of a career pivot at the right moment. Also including just how amazing the community is!
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One of the most useful features that Dynamics 365 has to offer (in my opinion) is the ‘Knowledge Base’ feature. The purpose that this serves is multi-faceted. It can act as a repository for internal information, serve as a FAQ store, or even be used to publish information externally.
The amount of knowledge held within any organisation can be quite staggering at times. Think back to when you’ve been trying to get an answer to an obscure question, and only Bob in Repairs knows about it. Trying to track down that answer can be quite time-intensive at times (you need to find out who to ask, where they are, etc). In the modern digitally-connected world, we have better forms of communications available. However even with those, we’re still challenged at times.
Enter the Knowledge Base. Here people can enter information that can then be searched on. It could be a simple one-line explanation, or an in-depth instruction as to how to do something very technical.
It’s also a really useful place to hold business processes in. This can come in really helpful when rare situations occur, so that customer service agents can refer to them to find out exactly what to do.
There’s already a massive amount of information (if you’ll pardon the pun!) out there around the Knowledge Base, so I’m not going to go into deep detail here around it.
However, what I DO want to talk about is the ability to use Knowledge Base within Omnichannel!
See, customer service agents are the ‘first line’ of support that customers will deal with. Admittedly they’re also the 2nd, 3rd etc (until it may get to a very technical/specific question). The types of queries that they may need to handle can be astonishing at time! Being able to refer to information ‘at their fingertips’ is therefore vital, & key in driving efficiency. This then in turn leads to higher customer satisfaction, with queries being resolved quickly & easily.
So with all of that said, let’s take a look to see how this is used within Omnichannel. Essentially, there’s a Knowledge Base tab that can be opened for the customer service agent to access:
This opens automatically when a new customer sessions starts, and is then available for the customer service agent to click into.
Note: The behaviour to open it automatically is driven from the Session Template that’s set up for the communication stream. If it’s not set up in here, it won’t automatically launch. See the screenshot below for how this is set up, and refer to Omnichannel & Application Tabs for more information around this:
Alternatively, the agent can launch this directly from the chat itself, by clicking the ellipse icon, and then selecting it from the menu:
This will then put the agent directly within the Knowledge Article search tab. When this opens, it’s blank! Don’t worry about this however – it’s only blank, as there haven’t been any searches carried out yet! When the user starts to search, it’ll then return results into the pane:
If the user wants to open the article in a new window, all they need to do is click the little ‘pop open’ icon on the article summary, which will then launch a new window with it in it. This can be helpful if the agent is needing to have several different articles open at once:
If your company has configured an external portal for sharing Knowledge Articles with the public, it’s also possible to send a link for a specific article to the customer. To do this, either click the arrow button on the article, to click the Send URL button on the menu bar:
Now, the general layout used for Knowledge Articles will be familiar to anyone who has used the same ability within Cases in Dynamics 365. However for people who are used to working directly within Knowledge Articles, it will look slightly different. There’s no ability to add a new article or edit an existing one, publish, etc.
The reason for this is that within Omnichannel itself, the functionality interface is being surfaced as a web resource. There’s no need to worry though, as users can open the familiar Knowledge Article interface as well directly from within Omnichannel. To do this, the customer service agent should click the ‘+’ button on the tab bar, and then select ‘Knowledge Articles’:
Voila! A new tab will open, and the traditional Knowledge Article experience will load. All of the expected functionality is present, and users are able to do anything that they may need to inside of here.
So in summary, this is a continuation of the empowerment of customer service agents. With the knowledge ‘at their fingertips’, they’re able to provide the best possible experience for customers. Not only that, but queries can get answered and/or resolved in less time. Customer satisfaction will (hopefully!) increase as a result of this, with everyone feeling empowered & efficient!
So here’s my question – are you currently using Knowledge Articles (it doesn’t have to be within Omnichannel)? If you are, what benefits do you see that it brings to your company? If you’re not, what could help you to adopt them? I’d love to hear – drop a comment below!
Talking to Joe about gaming, his first gaming console (ah, the memories!), switching positions, and what REALLY makes a GREAT manager (hint – it’s not what you think!)
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One of the main parts of any system is to see who’s available to handle customer service queries. This is, of course, vitally important for any company – you wouldn’t want to overload an already busy agent!
In the case of Omnichannel, the system uses something called ‘Presence’ to show this. When users are set up, they have a default presence set against them. These govern system behaviour, along with having a nice friendly icon that helps from a visual perspective. Omnichannel has the following default options available:
These are available for supervisors to see from their dashboards, so that they can see the status of all agents at a single glance.
It’s also used by the system for auto-routing conversations. For example, if the agent status is ‘Busy’, then they won’t have new conversations routed to them. Similarly, if they’re set as ‘Away’ or ‘Offline’, they also won’t get conversations sent through to them (admittedly supervisors can override this, and assign specific conversations to agents who have one of these set).
Agents are able to change their own presence by clicking on the toolbar, and selecting the one that they wish to set:
But what happens if you want to have some custom statuses? Off the top of my head, I can think of at least half a dozen clients that would want more granularity around this.
Well, thankfully we’re in luck. Omnichannel supports the option for a ‘Custom Presence’!. They do need to be set up through the Omnichannel Administration Hub. To do this, go to ‘Custom Presence’ on the left side & select it. We can see that the default system entries are there.
Before going any further, I do want to point out that we should NOT deactivate or delete the standard Presence entries. It’s possible to do, but it’s going to create MAJOR issues in your system. So please, don’t!
Right – back to things. To create a custom presence, we click the ‘New’ button on the menu bar. We get the following window:
The 4 fields shown are as follows:
Once we’ve saved the record, it’s then immediately available for agents to select! The only thing that agents need to do is refresh their browser tab. This makes a nice change from the usual ’15 minute wait’ for data to update within Omnichannel :).
So let’s go ahead and see what this then looks like. I’ve chosen a very familiar item (for most people):
When I’ve selected this new custom status, we can then see that the icon in the Ribbon Bar changes as well, to the icon for the base status that we used:
So in short, this is quite a nice little piece of functionality. Nothing too fancy or complicated to setup, but will allow companies to further segment their agents & understand what they’re up to.
Something else that we’re able to use this for is the agent ‘Default Presence’, which is set on the User record. Once we have custom presence records in place, it’s possible to select these there:
So apart from having agents segmented by Teams & Queues, we can now also use these. Some very interesting scenarios pop into mind!
So, how do you think you’d apply this in your own environment? Drop a comment below – I’d love to hear!
As many people are aware, Microsoft is changing the certification landscape somewhat. With the emergence of the Power Platform, there’s a need to test skills other than the traditional Dynamics 365 ones.
To this end, a new series (the PL-XXX) has been created. The first (main) one of these exams is the PL-100, which is the entry level exam.
You can take a look at the exam requirements & learning paths by going to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/pl-100.
Now, when I say ‘entry level’, I’m not referring to basics. This isn’t a Fundamentals exam – for that, you’ll be wanting to take a look at the PL-900 exam (which came out a while ago). To put it into perspective, the PL-200 (which is aimed to launch in September 2020) will replace the MB-200 exam!
So, the exam went live (in Beta) just over a week ago (July 17th). I’ve been waiting for this for a while, as I’ve really been wanting to see how the new exams are structured. Taking it in Beta means I’m going to have to wait (a little while) for my results to come through, but it gives me the opportunity to see the new landscape upfront.
I booked it as soon as it was available, for Wednesday July 22nd. Nicely (as mentioned above), there were already learning paths in place, so I eagerly went through them (again) in preparation. I was feeling pretty much quite prepared, but then….
See, I had signed up to attend the Power Platform Virtual Happy Hour (PPPVHH) on the same day as I had booked the exam for. Incidentally, if you haven’t come across this before, take a look. It’s hosted every month, and has some AMAZING speakers. Clarissa Gillingham presented on the ‘Infinity Form’, and it was a joy to behold. But I’m digressing.
After the event had finished, some of us remained chatting in the virtual room. Amongst them was none other than Chris Huntingford, who we all love and adore!. I mentioned that I had to sign off soon to get ready for the exam. No sooner had I mentioned this than Chris said to me something along the lines of ‘BRO….WATCH OUT!! It’s REALLY HARD!!’.
I might mention here that I have a slight (friendly) rivalry with Chris, in seeing who can take newly released exams first. I had figured that he’d be so busy with everything going on that I’d get this one before he did. Little did I know that he had ALREADY taken it.
Here I was, about to go sit down for the exam, and he got me TOTALLY freaked out. I’m not sure how much of it he did on purpose, but I’m sure that when I get him into a corner, I’ll find out…one day!
Anyhow – I sat the exam, took most of the time available (pretty sure I hit the 2 hour mark), and found it quite good overall. One or two things that seemed to be totally random/in the wrong place, but otherwise it was fine. Definitely much better that the MB-600 (MB-600 Solution Architect Exam), and I felt much more comfortable than I did with the MB-400 (MB-400 Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Developer Exam).
It really is very cleared aimed at app developers (both model & canvas), as well as other Power Platform skills. According to the exam description:
The app maker builds solutions to simplify, automate, and transform tasks and processes for themselves and their team where they have deep expertise in the solution domain. They are skilled in key technical business analyst tasks such as data modeling, basic UX design, requirements analysis, process analysis, etc.
The app maker creates and enforces business processes, structures digital collection of information, improves efficiency of repeatable tasks, and automates business processes.
The app maker uses the maker tools of Power Platform to solve business problems. They may have experience with Visual Basic for Applications, Excel pivot tables, Teams, and other tools. They should have a basic understanding of data models, user interface, and processes. The app maker is aware of the capabilities and limitations of available tools and understands how to apply them.
The app maker is self-directed, and solution focused. They may not have formal IT training but are comfortable using technology to solve business problems with a personal growth mindset. They understand the operational need and have a vision of the desired outcome. They approach problems with phased and iterative strategies.
So, as before, it’s not permitted to share any of the exam questions. This is in the rules/acceptance for taking the exam. I’ve therefore put an overview of the sorts of questions that came up during my exam. (Note: exams are composed from question banks, so there could be many things that weren’t included in my exam, but could be included for someone else!).
That’s quite a lot of stuff, with an emphasis on canvas app functionality & solutions. It definitely is important to ensure that you’re really on top of these. Thankfully not too much mention of Power BI (at least not in my exam), and for that I’m quite grateful!
I do have to say that in one respect, I found something quite amusing. See, on the same day as I took the exam, Microsoft Ignite was taking place. One of the major announcements was the ‘rename/rebrand’ of CDS to Dateflex (Pro). I therefore kept laughing when questions would refer to CDS again & again! Obviously I’m expecting this to change in the exam (at some point?).
In summary, I think that this is a good start for the new range of exams, and look forward to the other ones in the series coming out!
Have you taken this? What was your experience like? Drop a comment below – I’d love to hear!
Talking to Gustaf about Sweden, sheep, martial arts, & how he started his CRM career by being thrown into the deep end of things!
If you’d like to come appear on the show, please sign up at http://bit.ly/2NqP5PV – I’d love to have you on it!
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Discovering the online courses that he’s creating, finding a major hole in a national website, & the importance of the right level of documentation!
If you’d like to come appear on the show, please sign up at http://bit.ly/2NqP5PV – I’d love to have you on it!
Click here to take a look at the other videos that are available to watch.