Dynamics 365 Project Operations 2025 release wave 1

What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations 2025 release wave 1

Microsoft has announced the plans for the 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Project Operations. This wave brings many new features, updates, and enhancements to the user experience and functionality. In this post, we will take a closer look at what users can expect in this release and how it will impact their operations.

Use AI to automate processes with agent-led time, expense, and approvals

The 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Project Operations introduces AI-powered features to streamline time entry, expense report creation, and approval processes. By using Copilot and agentic automation, these updates will reduce administrative workloads and improve invoice accuracy. This means faster invoicing, fewer errors, and a smoother experience for project managers, consultants, and invoice administrators.

• Auto-detection of work from Outlook and Teams for time entries and expenses.
• Simplified time entry and expense report creation with AI automation.
• Less administrative tasks with fewer reminders and alerts for approvals.
• Improved invoice accuracy with policy checks and validations.
• Faster invoicing and less errors with automated processes.
• Project managers can upload documents for policy-based approval flags.

New time entry mobile app

In the D365 Project Operations 2025 release wave 1, Microsoft has released a new mobile app. This new time entry mobile app is designed to make time entry easier for project consultants on the go. With this app, users can quickly log time, track submitted entries, and view assigned tasks and projects. Built on Microsoft Power Apps, the new mobile experience will help users stay on top of their time management while traveling or working remotely.

• View daily meetings: Users can view meetings and Microsoft to-do items from Outlook, directly usable for time entries.
• Track projects and tasks: Users get access to detailed views of project duration and staffing assignments.
• Manage time entries: With options to modify, delete, or submit entries for approval, users can manage time entries.
• Use a timer: Users can choose to use a timer to record work duration, then link it to specific projects or tasks.
• Sync changes: Changes made on the mobile app are synced with the web app for seamless updates across platforms.

What-if analysis on estimates

With the 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Project Operations, users can now use what-if analysis on quotes. This feature allows teams to test different pricing scenarios and evaluate their impact on key financial KPIs such as profitability and margins. By adjusting factors like discounts, price, and cost reductions, users can get valuable insights and optimize their quotes for better financial alignment.

• Model different scenarios: Use existing quotes to see how they impact profitability and margins.
• Adjust pricing dimensions: Manipulate pricing factors like discounts, price, and cost to see changes.
• Evaluate multiple strategies: Compare different scenarios and choose the one that aligns with financial goals.
• Set specific targets: Choose targeted goals and adjust pricing to model outcomes.
• Automate calculations: Streamline the estimation process, reduce errors, and save time.

Expense management in 2025 release wave 1

The 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Project Operations brings several updates to expense management. These updates will simplify processes, improve accuracy, and increase overall efficiency in handling expenses. Below are the key updates for expense management:

• Simplify expense management with new features: The Expense Reports Re-Imagined feature has been enhanced to address functional gaps, making the expense creation and submission process more intuitive. Key updates include workflow history, mapping expenses to travel requisitions, and quick receipt matching.
• Expense delegates can create cash advance requests: The expense delegation feature has been extended to include cash advance requests. Delegates can now manage both expenses and cash advances, making the delegation process more efficient and consistent.
• Number sequences in expense management: A new user-friendly interface within the expense management module allows users to manage number sequences themselves. This reduces operational overhead and minimizes configuration issues.
• Edit per diem transaction date, exchange rate in expense management: Users can now edit transaction date and exchange rate for per-diem expenses to comply with regulations and improve expense reporting.
• Post expenses on expense report posting date: Expenses can now be posted based on posting date instead of transaction date, improving general ledger management, ensuring sequential voucher numbering, and simplifying statutory compliance.

Financial management updates

Several updates in the 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Project Operations will improve financial management capabilities, providing more flexibility and streamlining project-based financial processes. These features will improve reporting accuracy and operational efficiency across financial management. Below are the highlights:

• General journals against projects for resource/nonstocked scenarios: Users can now create general journals in Dynamics 365 Finance against resource and non-stocked projects. This allows expense-type journals to flow to Dataverse, for better project expense postings.
• More flexibility when determining financial dimension defaults: This update gives more flexibility in assigning financial dimensions for cost and revenue, eliminating manual reclassification. Users can now configure defaults based on contract, project, or profile criteria for better financial analysis.
• Financial tags for project sales orders and journals: Financial tags allow organizations to track user-defined fields on accounting entries, and to report on specific initiatives without additional financial dimensions.
• Line discounts and fees in resource-based deployments: Project managers can now configure discounts and fees at project quotation or contract level. These will be applied automatically during invoicing, for accurate financial transactions.
• Revenue recognition based on contract line value: Revenue recognition can now be calculated on contract line value rather than billing milestones. This aligns with ASC 606 and IFRS 15, for revenue recognition based on actual effort or standalone price.
• Simplify project invoice editing for better efficiency: Editing invoices is now more efficient, with fewer clicks to modify invoice line details and bulk editing. This improves invoice reviews and corrections, to maintain operational metrics.
• Use modern architecture for existing entities: This feature allows users to enable resource/non-stocked deployment types in their existing entities, to transition to modern architecture. It will improve project planning and resource management experiences in Microsoft Project for the Web and Unified Resource Management.

Quotes and contract management

With the 2025 release wave 1, Dynamics 365 Project Operations brings features to simplify quote and contract management. These updates reduce manual effort and improve pricing accuracy and visibility into financials. Users can now automate price updates based on effective dates and enjoy an improved quote management experience for better financial oversight and efficiency.

• Time phasing of quote and contract lines: This feature automates price updates based on effective dates, so labor, expense, and material price changes are reflected accurately. It also provides an audit trail of all changes made, for full transparency and minimal pricing errors.
• Use the new quote experience: The unified grid interface makes adding or editing quote line details easier. By including customer schedules, margins, and budgets in the quote, users have better insights and financial visibility, simplifying quote management and accuracy.

Streamlined project management

The 2025 release wave 1 brings several updates to improve project management efficiency and usability. These features simplify contract, task, subcontract, and project copying, and better integration with external scheduling tools. With these changes, users will have a more streamlined and intuitive experience across the project lifecycle.

• Use the new project contract experience: The updated contract form simplifies creation and editing of contract lines, with features like nested grids, price overrides, and real-time billing transparency. It also provides better access to contract KPIs, gross margins, and tax visibility.
• Post project cost for procurement category upon product receipt: Cost is recorded when a product receipt is posted for procurement categories, so no need to wait for vendor invoices. This feature also calculates sales amounts automatically, for faster project invoicing.
• New user experience for copy project: The new interface combines the V3 and V4 APIs for copying projects, including team member mappings. Users can now copy projects with custom team member settings based on their needs.
• Customize task details view: Users can now create custom task forms within task grid, for a more tailored experience of managing and tracking project tasks. This flexibility helps users manage essential task attributes and custom columns efficiently.
• Subcontract info in one place for one vendor: This feature simplifies subcontract management by consolidating subcontract details across projects into one view. It makes common tasks like modifying subcontract lines, tracking usage, and monitoring billing progress easier.
• Copy externally scheduled projects: External scheduling users now have the same project copying experience as default scheduling users. This ensures consistency in project management regardless of scheduling method.
• Import MPP files into existing projects: Users can now import MPP files directly into existing projects to maintain continuity between overall project planning and offline planning done in Microsoft Project for desktop.

Modern project integration troubleshooting

Microsoft has introduced a dedicated workspace in D365 Project Operations 2025 release wave 1 to simplify integration troubleshooting. This workspace helps customers quickly identify and fix issues when data doesn’t sync correctly between Microsoft Dataverse and finance and operations architecture. Users get clear visibility into integration status, error insights, and the ability to resync data, reducing time spent digging through logs.

• Dedicated troubleshooting workspace: Quickly identifies and highlights integration errors, configuration problems, and system issues, saving significant troubleshooting time.
• Accountant dashboard: Highlights pending journal postings, integration journal lines not created, and missing records to simplify ledger reconciliation.
• Batch resync: Automated process to resync data, to keep data consistent across systems.
• Synchronization view: Clear indicators of synchronization status for documents like expense reports and vendor invoices, for better visibility and accuracy.
• Log insights: Full integration journal logs and invoice proposals without truncation, for complete visibility into integration.

Additional updates in the 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Project Operations

Dynamics 365 Project Operations also gets several other updates in the 2025 release wave 1. These include usability, workflow, and performance improvements. From time entry to approval management, these updates aim to make the user experience smoother and fewer operational hurdles.

• Increased work breakdown structure limits: Work breakdown structures are getting stronger with increased tasks per project and assignments per task. Phase one increases these limits, and future phases will further improve overall performance, to reduce common performance issues.
• Sync global address book with Project Operations: Customers can now maintain multiple invoice and delivery addresses, along with contact information, directly in Project Operations. These addresses will sync automatically with Dynamics 365 Finance, to simplify invoicing and ensure consistency across the platform.
• Use the new Calendar time entry: The web-based time entry experience is much better with the new calendar interface. Users can log and modify entries faster, see progress visually, and integrate more closely with assigned tasks and projects for better accuracy and productivity.
• Use the simplified Approvals page: Approvals are simpler with a new UI that displays entries in a calendar grid. Project managers get immediate visibility into time, material, and expense approvals, reducing the effort to manage and process these tasks.
• Time zone-agnostic fields for projects and project tasks: New fields store project and task dates without converting them to GMT, to eliminate date inconsistencies across systems. Users can integrate and manage data without date issues.

Learn more

The features, updates, and enhancements above are just a few of what’s available in the 2025 release wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Project Operations. Users can start using these today to increase productivity, streamline workflows, and improve financial and project management. But to get the most out of these new capabilities, it’s recommended to work with a trusted Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations consulting partner.

The right Dynamics 365 Project Operations partner can guide users through feature adoption, provide expert recommendations for configuration, and help users get the most ROI. By working with them, organizations can navigate complex configurations, implement best practices, and use Dynamics 365 with confidence to achieve their business goals.