Looking Ahead to the "Context Aware" and "Task Specific" User Experiences for Microsoft Dynamics
The RoleTailored experience, of course, has gotten much attention with the roll-outs of the latest versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, AX, GP, and CRM.
Looking ahead, says Mike Ehrenberg, the company's visionary in ERP and CRM, "our RoleTailored experience will get stronger," but Microsoft will push ahead in at least two related areas of the user experience. Writing recently on the Dynamics Community site, Ehrenberg projects that two follow-ons will be what he terms "context aware" user experience and "task specific" user experience.
He describes the "context aware" user experience as, "Recognizing that a user has entered a conference room with a wall-sized display, or knowing that it's the last week of the quarter are other aspects of context that the product could understand to immediately bring more relevant information to the user."
The "task specific" user experience might include "powerful user experiences, enabled by great data visualization, targeted to a single task - for example, the touch screen warehouse experience."
Ehrenberg also writes of future Dynamics systems having more of a "service orientation" based on "entirely new structures - outsourcing of processes, joint ventures, even the construction of almost virtual companies." And as part of architectural changes upcoming, he describes "model systems," which involve "making more and more of the system behavior modeled - and therefore expressed without writing code - allowing change to be driven directly by business analysts, simplifying deployment and future upgrades."
Finally, he describes new advances in making "BI easier and easier for users to define, capture and use in every aspect of their work through Dynamics."