New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1: Access Actions And Navigation Menu Efficiently With Keyboard

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1.

The third of the new functionality in the User experiences section is Access Actions And Navigation Menu Efficiently With Keyboard.

Organizations are looking to streamline their operations through AI, automation, and empowering workers with productivity tools. When time to enter data is critical, every keystroke and mouse click counts. Business Central adopts the familiar experience from Microsoft 365 applications, such as Excel and Word, to boost efficiency for keyboard users. Access keys with key tips help users quickly explore, navigate, and activate any action in the action bar, navigation menus, and other user interface (UI) elements.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Feb 2023
General Availability: Apr 2023

Feature Details

When pressing the Alt key in the Business Central web client, the following features become available:

• Key tips are revealed alongside UI elements that indicate the next keystroke.
• Sequences of keystrokes can be used to navigate the user interface and activate UI elements, without leaving your current focused element.
• Actions become reachable, regardless of whether they are assigned a specific shortcut key.
• Access keys will be available for actions in the action bar and links in the navigation menu for users who experience Business Central in English.

My Opinion

Following my move from Dynamics GP to Dynamics BC last year, I have been somewhat surprised at the amount of times I have to use the mouse; with Dynamics GP, you could always use Alt+{key} to access lookups or buttons and it was a surprise not to be able to do similar in Dynamics BC.