Automatic update policy for Dynamics 365 Marketing
Starting in May 2020, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing will enable system-driven, automatic updates for all our customers. We are implementing this policy to bring a consistent, predictable update process to everyone, and to reduce the amount of planning and testing time organizations have to spend to roll out updates to their instances.
The policy aligns with other Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications, including Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, which already push minor updates to organizations automatically. These organizations have found that automatic updates reduce risk, improve system supportability, and make the update motion smoother and more predictable.
Automatic updates start in May 2020
- We will begin automatic updates in May 2020, corresponding with the amended 2020 release wave 1 deployment schedule.
- We will gradually implement the new policy for instances eligible for automatic upgrade, so organizations may not see any immediate impact to their eligible instances.
- Organizations can still manually update using the Marketing Setup Wizard if there is an update that has not yet been applied.
Scope and timing of automatic updates
- We will release new updates for Dynamics 365 Marketing approximately once a month with occasional hotfixes being released more frequently. The monthly updates will include patches to resolve issues and may include minor functional, reliability, and performance improvements.
- For major updates, Dynamics 365 Marketing will follow the approach employed by other Dynamics 365 applications. Updates will undergo testing to ensure successful upgrades while also safeguarding that no breaking changes are shipped.
- We will deliver two major updates per year, in April and October, for Dynamics 365 Marketing. These updates will offer new capabilities and functionality. Major new capabilities will be enabled in a preview prior to the delivery period so that you can validate major updates in a sandbox environment.
- Automatic updates will be completed during periods of low traffic for the hosting geographical region with minimal service disruption.
Check out the following links for some background on automatic updates across the Dynamics 365 product line:
