Customer, Partner Needs Will Influence Microsoft Dynamics GP Release Cadence in 2017 and Beyond

The Microsoft Dynamics GP team will continue on its two release per year cadence through 2016. But, the GP team has advised, customer, VAR, and ISV feedback could potentially change that plan in the future.

For now, the two release per year cadence continues to offer some real benefits, says Microsoft product manager Pam Misialek, who spoke with MSDynamicsWorld.com. In the case of the new Dynamics GP 2016 and the upcoming GP 2016 R2, the R&D team's agile development practices allowed them to release new "big rocks" like the web client, OData service, and Power BI capabilities, and then to plan improvements that would be introduced in the next few months.

"The web client, OData, and Power BI are going to be improved and are still in play," Misialek says, meaning they will continue to be key areas of development in the next release, even as smaller features are updated and introduced.

Many GP customers still cannot or do not want to stay current with annual or semi-annual product updates. But upgrading Dynamics GP is less challenging than other types of ERP upgrades, says Misialek. Still, she acknowledges the rapid release cadence can make some people hesitant.

"We're doing things to make it easier," she says, including taking measures like minimizing table changes, and trying to improve transparency on the choices for new and enhanced features by forecasting the focus on big rocks while promoting Microsoft Connect as the central point of input for smaller feature requests.