Summary

As the Modern “New Look” for model-driven apps becomes mandatory in the 2026 Release Wave 1, customers are experiencing email template rendering and formatting differences that directly impact customer-facing communications.

Organizations need a supported transition safeguard—such as a compatibility option, controlled deferral, or guaranteed email rendering—to protect production email quality during mandatory rollouts.

Problem Statement

Our organization is experiencing formatting and rendering issues with email templates when using the CRM New Look in Dynamics 365 Sales. The same email templates display correctly in the classic experience but show visual inconsistencies when composed or sent using the New Look, affecting fonts, layouts, borders, and overall presentation.

At the same time, Microsoft has announced that with the 2026 Release Wave 1, the New Look will be mandatory and cannot be switched off. For Australia-based production environments, this rollout is scheduled within a fixed deployment window in April 2026, leaving limited time for remediation and validation.

Because email templates are business-critical and customer-facing, any unintended formatting changes introduce operational risk, reputational impact, and user resistance to adoption.

Business Impact

• Customer communication risk:
• Outgoing customer emails may appear unprofessional or inconsistent, impacting trust and brand perception.
• Operational disruption:
• Administrators and support teams must urgently re-test and update templates close to deployment weekends, increasing production risk.
• Reduced adoption confidence:
• Mandatory UI changes that negatively affect core business outputs (email) create resistance to the modern experience.

Current Behavior

• Email templates render differently when used under the New Look compared to the classic experience.
• Formatting issues only surface during email composition or after sending, not always during template editing.
• The New Look is enforced as part of a mandatory platform update and cannot be opted out of.
• Customers cannot reliably prevent the New Look from being enabled in production environments, even when business impact is identified.

Expected / Desired Behavior

Organizations should be able to transition to the New Look without risking customer-facing email quality. Specifically:

• Email templates should render consistently (true WYSIWYG) across:
• Template editor
• Email compose
• Delivered email to recipients
• Admins should have access to a supported compatibility option that preserves classic email rendering while templates are updated.
• Admins should have a short, supported deferral mechanism for production environments when business-critical regressions are identified.

Feature Request

— Classic Email Rendering Compatibility Mode (Recommended)

Introduce an environment- or app-level setting such as:

“Use classic rendering engine for email templates and outgoing emails”

This would allow organizations to maintain stable outbound email formatting while transitioning templates to the New Look.

— Controlled Transition / Deferral for Production

Provide a time-bound, supported admin option to delay enforcement of the New Look for production environments where customer-facing impacts are identified, especially during fixed regional rollout windows.

— Guaranteed Rendering for Email Templates

Ensure the New Look normalizes HTML/CSS output so that what users see while composing emails exactly matches what recipients receive, without editor-only artifacts or layout drift.