Microsoft's Azure Mobile Engagement SaaS Platform Receives New Functionality

Microsoft has released the latest version of its Azure Mobile Engagement service which offers a SaaS-delivered, data-driven user engagement platform that enables real-time fine-grain user segmentation, app user analytics, and contextually-aware smart push notifications and in-app messaging across connected devices. Azure Mobile Engagement has SDKs available for Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows Universal Apps, Windows Phone Apps and Apache Cordova.

The biggest news for in the latest platform release is support for Windows 10 Universal Apps. Here is a rundown of the new updates:

Support for Windows 10 Universal Apps: Now available is a new Windows Universal SDK with support for Windows 10 Universal Apps. Previously the platform supported Windows 8/8.1 apps running on Windows 10, but now developers can integrate Azure Mobile Engagement in a new Windows 10 Universal App. 

Power BI dashboard: There is now a Power BI Content Pack to connect a Power BI dashboard to a Mobile Engagement backend to produce charts and visuals.

New Troubleshooting feature: To help developers integrate Azure Mobile Engagement there are new features and documentation around troubleshooting.

Deprecating pre-GA SDKs: In the new GA version of the SDKs, Microsoft has optimized its communication protocol and plans to deprecate the pre-GA, preview SDK versions on February 1st, 2016.

With the Azure Mobile Engagement platform developers can maximize app monetization, usage, and retention by:

- Collecting real-time app analytics highlighting app users’ behavior

- Measuring and acting on analytics using single dashboard

- Creating dynamic segments based on collected data

- Creating marketing campaigns/push notifications targeting specific segments

- Sending  personalized out-of-app notifications, polls and in-app notifications with rich HTML

- Integrating and automating with CRM/CMS/IT systems using open platform APIs