NEIL PARKHURST

A happy time for all USD fans …. Version 4.0 has just been released.

You can read all about the new version here.

And you can download it here.

So, what can we expect with this new release? The key features (in my opinion) are mentioned below;

Unified Interface

We had the ability to use the new Unified Client Interface with USD in version 3.3 but that was a preview version not recommended for production use. This version takes the major step of giving us full support for UCI. I have been working with UCI quite a bit recently and I am very excited to see if fully implemented into USD.

Prevent Accidental Closure of USD

A common problem is that agents close USD without saving their work, with this version we can enable a yes / no prompt to help encourage users to save their work. Maybe a small change but every little helps!

Unified Interface KM Control

Obviously, we already have a Knowledge management for the web client but now our knowledge articles reside in the Unified Client Interface we have a new KM control that supports the Unified Interface.

I will be implementing this new control in my solution very soon and will blog about any differences / improvements I observe.

Web Client Migration Assistant

Manually migrating your existing configuration to work with the Unified Client Interface can be a lengthy task. (I know as I have recently done it!) To aid this process Microsoft have created a migration assistant, my initial tests suggest it should speed your migration process. Although afterwards you might want to optimize some features. I plan to do a full test of the migration assistant very soon and I will obviously blog about my results. You can find the migration assist available for download here.

I hope all USD fans enjoy this new version, it is quite apparent that most of the new features are aimed at the Unified Client Interface. In my opinion this is very important as we now have a version of USD designed to work with Microsoft’s latest modern interface. An important step on USD’s roadmap.

Would I suggest you upgrade from version 3.3? For me personally the answer might rest on when you expect to adopt the Unified Client Interface. All customers using Dynamics 365 online will eventually need to migrate to UCI. If you are starting this process and use USD then version 4.0 will be a must have upgrade. If you aren’t ready for UCI then maybe you can delay …. but you should have UCI on your radar! Enjoy.