First Glance: the brand new Engagement Hub in Dynamics CRM 2016

With Dynamics CRM 2016 comes the brand new Engagement Hub. I just received a preview instance of Dynamics CRM 2016 and did some initial testing of the look and feel of the new Engagement Hub

This new online user experience (UX) design provides a modern and intuitive end user experience for customer service roles.

Dashboards and forms have been completely redesigned for this interactive service hub. Visual filtering and applied filtering in the new dashboards will help you prioritize your workloads and complete your most urgent tasks. The interactive service hub comes with a multi-stream dashboard for use by, for example, Tier 1 agents and a single-stream dashboard for use by, for example, Tier 2 agents.

The streams can show data from Views or Queues (e.g.: My Activities, My Cases, Cases from Queues I'm a member of etc.). Interactive charts provide a visual snapshot of key metrics related to the work items, and also double up as visual filters which allow agents to slice and dice the data.


  Figure 1: Tier 1 Dashboard

An additional level of filtering is available to bring focus to the relevant items.


  Figure 2: Filtering to see only cases with origin = Phone


   Figure 3: One case with origin = Phone

Please note that this means that you can set up a stream to catch eg. Cases originating from Twitter allowing your agents to stay on top of your important customer concerns (please see the blog post "Social CRM at its best - Leads or Cases in Dynamics CRM from Social Posts in Microsoft Social Engagement" for more)

Case Form

The case form design allows agents to find and act on data with reduced clicks and navigation.

It unifies customer interactions and pulls together all related information, enabling agents to be productive and view what’s most relevant at all times.

  • The Guided Business Process is further enhanced to show process stage information as a fly out.
  • The timeline (Interaction Wall) allows for rich time and record based filtering capabilities.
  • Quick actions on search result, allow you to perform every day functions with ease, such as marking a task as complete or responding to a customer’s email.
  • The Reference Panel is geared towards a highly configurable experience that allows you to always show relevant related data.

Agents have full access to the customer record and can see recent cases, eligible entitlement, and any other relevant information. With integrated Knowledge agents can deliver solutions to customers.


   Figure 4: Case form


   Figure 5: First stage in Case Resolution Process

This design pattern extends to other entities such as Account and Contact, as well as Activities.


   Figure 6: Account Form

Tier 2 Dashboard

The Engagement Hub also comes pre-loaded with a single-stream dashboard for Tier Two Agents.

It comes with a single data stream on the left which would typically show an aggregate view of the workload. The stream can show data from Views or Queues (e.g.: All Active Cases).

Like the multi-stream dashboards, single-stream dashboards also come with interactive charts that can be used to filter data.

The Tiles on the right side (shown in blue) show a count of records from a Queue or a View. Users can get a peek of the records by selecting the tile. .


   Figure 7: Tier 2 Dashboard

Brief Walkthrough

You navigate the Engagement Hub using the familiar navigation design and grids


   Figure 8: Navigation


   Figure 9: My Activities - two emails I drafted for replies to case contacts


   Figure 10: Accounts


   Figure 11: Cases (My Active)


   Figure 12: KB Articles

A new content editor and editing experience helps teams keep knowledge articles approved and up to date. The curation process is inspired by a Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) methodology.


   Figure 13: A KB Article I'm working on (in Draft; major version 1)


   Figure 14: List of My Active Articles


   Figure 15: Knowledge Manager Dashboard

I truely think the new Engagement Hub will help all Customer Service Representatives be Super Agents delivering the best possible Customer Serive for your company.