Month: August 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 fourth of the new functionality in the Development section is use the built-in rich text editor to enter data.

Rich text editing capabilities improve the user experience by providing an intuitive and easy-to-use way to create and edit content in Business Central.

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

Feature Details

Until now, you could only use rich text editing capabilities, such as the font and style formatting, in email scenarios. Now, Microsoft are bringing the power of their built-in rich text editor to all media fields in Business Central. Developers can also customize rich text capabilities for their extensions and applications.

At first iteration Microsoft will support multi-line text but not in full screen mode and have a rich content toolbar intended for multimedia scenarios that may include tables, pictures, and more.

This can increase productivity and efficiency by reducing the time and effort required to perform tasks. Additionally, the rich text editor can help to ensure consistency and accuracy in the formatting and presentation of information, which enhances the overall quality and professionalism of the content you enter in Business Central.

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.

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 first of the new functionality in the Development section is open Visual Studio Code from web client to investigate or troubleshoot extensions.

Recreating a locally installed Visual Studio Code workspace to investigate or troubleshoot a customer environment includes creating workspaces, projects, and launch configurations, and downloading symbols, all of which require knowledge as well as time to go through it.

To simplify and speed up this process, a new option to open a local Visual Studio Code instance for a given extension and environment will be added to the web client.

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

Feature Details

As a developer or consultant, you can open a new Visual Studio Code session from within the web client for a specific customer production or sandbox environment. Different contexts will be supported—for example, for a page, page field, or extension from within the Page Inspector or from the Help and Support page. Depending on the context, Visual Studio Code will either open to allow inspecting objects and source, or to attach and debug the current web client session.

In this scenario, the following will happen:

• A new Visual Studio Code session begins.
• Projects for the chosen extensions will be created.
• Matching launch configuration will be created (depending on production or sandbox, but deployment is only possible on a sandbox).
• If invoked from a context to view extensions, symbols will be downloaded and the AL Explorer will open to easily allow browsing objects.
• If invoked to view source or attach and debug, the user will end in a debug AL (.dal) source file.
• In both cases, access to source will be gated by the resource exposure profile settings for each extension.

My Opinion

Happy for a developer to tell me otherwise, but this sounds like it could be a useful enhancement.

This post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Inventory and Warehouse Management), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

In a previous article, I covered basic inventory with bins and why you might use bins to keep track of where stock is within a warehouse. Whereas locations can be used without locations being mandatory (although I don’t recommend it), bins must be made mandatory before bins can be used.

If you try to process stock into a bin at a site where bins are not mandatory then you will receive an error:

Bins are enabled per location, meaning you can operate bins in some warehouses and not others. For some of the clients I have worked with, this would be useful as they may track stock in bins at the warehouse location, but not at branch or other locations (I’ve worked with more than one client who held stock in vans which were all created as a site).

Continue reading “In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Inventory and Warehouse Management), how do I… Enable Processing of Inventory Using Bins”

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 tenth of the new functionality in the Country and regional section is supporting more countries and regions.

More countries and regions are added to bring Business Central to approximately 150 countries and regions.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Nov 2023
General Availability: Dec 2023

Feature Details

Microsoft are expanding Business Central to more countries and regions through partner-led localization. Their partners create the relevant localization apps and publish them to AppSource. In combination with the built-in language offerings, Microsoft are making Business Central online available to serve customers in 150-plus countries and regions worldwide. In this release, Microsoft plan to expand to the following countries and regions:

• American Samoa
• Anguilla
• Aruba
• Brunei
• Chad
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Curacao
• Dominica
• Grenada
• Guam
• Guinea
• Guyana
• Haiti
• Micronesia
• New Caledonia
• Palau
• Papua New Guinea
• Samoa
• Seychelles
• Suriname
• Vanuatu

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 ninth of the new functionality in the Country and regional section is e-invoicing with NemHandel in Denmark.

Danish companies can use e-invoicing with the NemHandel as required by the new Danish Bookkeeping Act.

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

Feature Details

As the new Danish Bookkeeping Act requires an embedded feature for e-invoicing that’s connected with the NemHandel service, a new e-invoicing app has been created on top of Microsoft’s new global e-invoicing core app. This new app enables all features that are required by Danish authorities.

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 eighth of the new functionality in the Country and regional section is registration and notification functionality for Denmark.

Danish companies can notify new users and register them in the Nemhandelsregisteret as required by the new Danish Bookkeeping Act.

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

Feature Details

A mandatory requirement from the new Danish Bookkeeping Act is to register Dynamics 365 Business Central users in Nemhandelsregisteret and to notify them if they are currently not registered there, while providing registration instructions. These features are enabled for the Danish localization of Business Central.

This post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Inventory and Warehouse Management), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

In the last couple of article, in this series, I took a look at basic inventory and the Shelf No. field which can be used to record, on an information only basis, where items are stored. As stated, the shelf no is notational only and is used when there is no requirement for control or management of where items are in a warehouse or stock room.

This configuration is used only by organisations with very simple stock requirements; for anyone who processes a lot of stock or holds a lot of items for varying lengths of time then a notational shelf number will not be sufficient. Fortunately, Business Central has functionality for the management of items in bins, which are smaller locations within the warehouse location.

Bins allow for precise inventory tracking and management; items can be linked with one or more specific bins, with one set as the default and can be configured of a certain size or weight bearing capacity. With bins, users can know the exact location of items within the warehouse location, allowing for easy picking.

With more advanced warehousing enabled for a site, bin information is used for directed put-away and picking which helps streamline processes and improve efficiency.