[Updated] Microsoft is updating all customers to the April 2019 release of Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Continuing towards our goal of having all customers on the latest available version of Dynamics 365, we will soon be updating all customers running prior versions of Dynamics 365 for Marketing to the April 2019 release.

When will I be updated?

Microsoft will begin updating Marketing installations on June 15th, 2019. We will schedule your update after this date, but if you prefer, you can update manually at any time. Your tenant Administrator(s) will receive email notifications at 10 and then 3 calendar days prior to the update of your instances.

Can I test before I am updated?

Our updates go through stringent testing prior to rolling out. Of course, you can always explore the new features before updating. If you don’t have a sandbox where you can install and explore these features, you can purchase an additional Marketing instance or set up a free Dynamics 365 for Marketing trial.

Will Microsoft test before I am updated?

Prior to your update, we may create a support instance containing a minimal copy of your existing instance. This support instance will be located in the same regional data center as your current instance. It will be visible on your tenant and accessible both by your administrators and by our engineers. Support instances are completely isolated from your other instances and will have no impact on your business. The support instance database won’t count towards your storage limit. Prior to updating your existing instance, we will run the update on this support instance. If we encounter any issues while updating the support instance, we will address them before we update your existing instance. We will delete the support instance as soon as we finish our update testing. Although your administrators will be able to delete the support instance at any time, we kindly request that you instruct them not to do so.

How will this update impact me?

The update won’t result in any downtime, and you’re welcome to continue using your Marketing instance during the update. Although we expect no degradation to service performance or availability, this maintenance is planned outside of your region’s normal business hours to help minimize any potential impact to your organization. If you have users who access the system outside of normal business hours, they may see short, intermittent impact.

What happens after the update?

When the update completes, your instances will be running the April 2019 release of Dynamics 365 for Marketing. However, we release incremental updates each month or so, and these are not applied automatically. To make sure you’re always running the latest features and improvements, we recommend that you keep an eye on the Dynamics 365 blog for update announcements and manually apply incremental updates to your Dynamics 365 for Marketing instances as soon as they become available. We may run a similar update process after the next major release, which is currently scheduled for October 2019.

Resources to help prepare for the update