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 User experiences section is Mark fields as read-only when customizing UI.
Business Central offers a powerful suite of user interface (UI) customization tools that empowers customers to quickly optimize the experience for individual users, for each role, or for the entire organization. Customers often ask their supporting partner to simplify how data is presented on a page, to improve readability and optimize data entry. Now, customers can self-serve by making fields non-editable directly in the UI, adding to the existing UI simplification capabilities such as hiding or moving fields on the page.
Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Sep 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023
Feature Details
Business Central now includes the following:
- Make fields non-editable: When customizing the UI, use the context menu to specify that a field should be read-only. You can always undo your customization later. Setting the editable state of a field is not a security feature and should only be used to optimize pages for readability and efficient data entry. This enhancement does not allow making fields editable if the application developer has specified that a field should be read-only.
- Choose the scope of your change: Personalize your own workspace or roll out the change safely for one or more roles (profiles) starting with a sandbox or directly in production.
Try it out
To experience making fields read-only, sign in to Business Central and follow this example (or similar):
- Navigate to the Profiles (Roles) list and choose Customize Pages for your current profile.
- When the new tab loads, navigate to the Item card or another page of your choice.
- For any editable field, bring up the field customization menu and choose Lock editing.
My Opinion
This is a very welcome enhancement which, due to its simplicity, I am surprised wasn’t already in Business Central. It’s been quite a common request from clients when showing them how to personalise pages by adding, moving or removing fields, to also set them to disabled. Unfortunately, so far we’ve had to say it can’t be done; fortunately, with this enhancement we can now show them how to make fields read-only.
New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2
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