New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1: Define Regional Settings Per Report Using a Region Property

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 ninth of the new functionality in the Development section is Define regional settings per report using a region property.

Until this release, report formats for date and numerical types depended on client settings for region and couldn’t be configured on the report level. This was confusing because sometimes dates and numbers were formatted incorrectly.

Microsoft have now added the ability for the tenant admin to set formatting of date and numerical types of a report object on the tenant, and also added the ability for users to override the setting when running a report.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Apr 2023
General Availability: Apr 2023

Feature Details

In this release, Microsoft have added the ability for developers and tenant administrators to set formats for dates and numerical types on report objects on the tenant. If needed, users can change the format when they run a report.

• They’ve added a new compiler property to give AL access to the property and set a metadata default value in the object. This allows the report developer to define region settings.
• They’ve added a new per-tenant configuration using a new region field on the Report Settings table. This can override the setting from AL report metadata.
• They’ve enhanced the Advanced FastTab on the report request page to allow end users to override region setting at report runtime.

My Opinion

More flexibility on reporting dates seems like a good idea, especially with Microsoft’s penchant for US date format being used in non-US locales.