Day: August 24, 2023

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2.

The third of the new functionality in the Development section is turn off indexes as a partner.

The last piece in the database performance tuning toolbox for partners is to be able to turn off existing indexes in Business Central.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Sep 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023

Feature Details

AL developers can get an overview of index cost and usage frequency. They can then turn off indexes that are infrequently used or that are too expensive to maintain. By doing this, the performance of database operations can be greatly improved.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2.

The second of the new functionality in the Development section is turn off data analysis mode on pages and queries.

When first introduced, the data analysis mode was available on all list pages. However, for some list pages, using the data analysis mode doesn’t make much sense. In addition, in this release, it’s now also possible for users to analyze data that’s defined in query objects. With query objects, as with list pages, it doesn’t always make sense to use the data analysis mode. This is especially true with existing query objects, which were typically developed for a different purpose.

Therefore, Microsoft have made it possible for tenant admins and AL developers to turn off the analysis mode on list pages and query objects that aren’t suited for analytical usage.

Enabled for: Users by admins, makers, or analysts
Public Preview: Sep 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023

Feature Details

The data analysis mode was introduced as a public preview feature in 2023 release Wave 2 as a new way of interacting with data on list pages. Instead of running reports using different options and filters, you can simply add multiple tabs that represent different tasks or views on the data. Examples could be "My customers," "Follow-up items," "Recently added vendors," "Sales statistics," or any other view you want. For some list pages such as ‘Feature Management,’ this capability doesn’t make much sense.

Therefore, Microsoft make the following possible:

• AL developers can turn off the data analysis mode using page metadata.
• Tenant admins can override the developers choice in the client (by using a list page on a system table) on the tenant level.
• Tenant admin can turn off the data analysis mode for specific users (probably done using a specific permission).

For queries to show up in the Reports & Analysis view in the role explorer and whether it’s possible for an end user to use the data analysis mode, AL developers must specify whether the query is enabled for UI.
This is done through a new property called UIEnabled which can have the value true or false. If not set by the developer, the default is false so that Microsoft don’t expose existing queries to the new report explorer.

Also, the developer can add a description in metadata on the query. When set, this information can be consumed in the client and in the Power BI connector. The description is optional to define.