Feature callouts opt out and opt in…

It has been almost two years since Hylke Britstra and I wrote together about feature notifications in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O. In case new features are introduced, users can receive a notification with information about new features introduced in a specific version. In this post, I will talk about when and in what environment these notifications are helpful and how to disable them in production environments if you have the requirement to do so.

Feature callouts

When new releases are shipped, for several interesting new features, users might get an additional balloon with an announcement for a new feature that can be supported with an additional link for learning more about the feature. You can ignore these callouts, but then the next time, they will appear again.

Once you have made yourself aware of the announcement, you can click on Got it, where it will remember your action, and it will not show up again. Be aware, there might be a second callout on the same control that can pop up next time you open a page.

Opt out?

Where these notifications might be helpful, I hear complaints and questions. Why do all users get these notifications? In case users have already evaluated new features in a sandbox, can we get rid of these callouts in a production environment?

Yes, it is possible to disable all feature callouts. Before explaining how, I would like to give my opinion about the notifications. When Microsoft releases preview versions, it is possible to explore all features and perform some initial testing before the version is made generally available. In addition, when planning to deploy a new release, proper testing and validation are required. In a preview or UAT environment, it will be the ideal moment to not only do regression testing, but also check for new features and see if they can be beneficial for your organization. The feature callouts are then welcome, in my opinion. You are then validating the latest release with a select number of users, not all.

If the callouts are enabled and understood by the key users, the notifications can be disabled in a production environment. To disable them, go to System administration > Setup > Client performance options. This option is available to users having the System admininstrator or the Information technology manager role assigned.

On the dialog form that opens, you can disable the option Feature callouts enabled and then click OK to save the changes. After this action, no user will receive the feature notifications. There is no option to disable the feature callouts for individual users.

There is more…

In case you copy a database via Lifecycle Services or a complete environment via Power Platform Admin Center to a sandbox environment, it will also copy the settings for the feature callouts. If you want the users to get notifications about new features, you must review the setting as shared above and enable the callouts again.

You can also reset the previous callout settings per individual user or all users. Navigate to System administration > Setup > Personalization and select the tab page User settings or System settings. This page is available to users with the role System administrator, Information technology manager, or Saved views administrator.

On both of above mentioned tab pages, there is an action available to reset the feature callouts. I would recommend using this action only in a sandbox environment on request and not in production. In case some features were ignored and users want to reevaluate the callouts, this reset option comes in handy.

Disabling feature callouts in a production environment is, in my opinion, recommended as it will prevent users from a lot of clicks to mark them as read. I would also recommend the callouts to be enabled in a sandbox environment when evaluating or testing a new release.

I do hope you liked this post and will add value for you in your daily work as a professional. If you have related questions or feedback, don’t hesitate to use the Comment feature below.


That’s all for now. Till next time!