Month: November 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 sixth of the new functionality in the Governance and Administration section is Delete data from uninstalled extensions as an admin.

Before this change, when administrators uninstalled an extension but didn’t delete its data, they had to raise a support case or reinstall the extension to do so. Administrators can now easily delete data for an extension after they uninstall it, which saves time and effort.

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

Feature Details

The Extension Management page gives administrators access to the extensions that are installed on their tenant. However, the page doesn’t list extensions that were uninstalled before their data was deleted. This situation might mean that the tenant is storing unneeded data from old extensions. It can also result in reduced performance because the data model for table extensions loads data from uninstalled extensions. Administrators can quickly delete old data to avoid these potential problems.

To address these issues, Microsoft have introduced the Delete Orphaned Extension Data page. To delete data, on the Delete Orphaned Extension Data page, select the extensions, and then choose Delete Data.

My Opinion

This is a nice addition to housekeeping on the database. There may be times when you want to remove an extension but retain the data for a while. This enhancement means you can do this and then remove the data when it is no longer required, without needing to reinstall the extension to do so.

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 Governance and Administration section is Include or exclude tables from cloud migration.

Explicitly including or excluding certain tables from cloud migration runs will make it easier to specify what data you want to migrate to the cloud.

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

Feature Details

Some customers need the flexibility to migrate only specific data to the cloud, based on their unique requirements. Microsoft now make it possible to specify whether any table is included or excluded as part of the cloud migration—as long as the table is accessible by AL code and not marked as internal or on-premises only.

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 twenty-eighth of the new functionality in the Development section is Define multi-worksheet datasets for Excel reports.

AL developers can now define AL report datasets so that when running with Excel layouts, multiple top-level data items are stored in their own worksheets in Excel. This makes data models such as parent-child easier to model in Excel, and enables them to use powerful modeling tools such as PowerPivot in Excel.

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

Feature Details

Prior to this release, developers who wanted to create an Excel report on a data model with multiple top-level data items, such as a parent-child relationship, had to do a lot of extra modeling in Excel to separate the two before they could use that data in the Excel layout.

With this release, the developer can set a new ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets property to True. The AL runtime will generate an Excel worksheet for each data item and place its data there.

Multiple sheets will be named #DataItemName, where DataItemName is the dataitem name in the report design. Adding new empty Excel layouts to the report uses the property value to determine the sheet structure.

Continue reading “New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2: Define multi-worksheet datasets for Excel reports”

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 twenty-seventh of the new functionality in the Development section is Extend general ledger posting aggregations.

Regulations in different countries and industries, and customer business practices, might require a change to how general ledger entries are aggregated during posting.

Enabled for: Users by admins, makers, or analysts
Public Preview: –
General Availability: Nov 2023

Feature Details

The Invoice Posting Buffer table has been at the center of localizations and partner customizations when changes to G/L posting are needed, or when G/L entries must be aggregated in a different way when they’re posted to the general ledger. The previous design was not extensible because the primary key in that table cannot be changed without introducing a breaking change across partner solutions and localizations. There are significant differences in this table across localizations—in particular for APAC, BE, ES, IT, NA, and RU, which has made it difficult to extract localizations to extensions.

This refactoring makes the posting process for sales, purchase, and service transactions extensible. Partners can also change the way the posting algorithm aggregates G/L entries—for example, by specific document lines, posting groups, or any tax setup that is required by local legislation. Partners can replace customizations by using the interface for G/L invoice posting, resolve legacy issues for the Invoice Posting Buffer table, and use their own implementation of G/L invoice posting.

Microsoft have removed the dependencies from the Invoice Posting Buffer table in the base application and build an invoice posting component with an interface and an extensible enum for the implementation setup.

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 twenty-sixth of the new functionality in the Development section is AppSource ISV publishers can preview their AppSource apps with select customers.

Allow AppSource ISV publishers to test and collect early feedback on the new version of their app by organizing a private preview with a select group of their customers.

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

Feature Details

When uploading an app to AppSource, publishers will be able to keep the app in preview mode. This will provide publishers with a link to the preview app that includes a custom “flight code,” which can be sent to selected customers. Customers who opt in to the preview can then install and test that app in their environments and provide feedback to the ISV.

As a publisher, you can choose the flight code, or have one generated automatically.

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.

The processing of receiving and putting away stock is the same using receipts and put-aways as just doing a warehouse receipt up to the point of posting the receipt; as part of the posting process, a put-away activity is created:

Continue reading “In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Inventory and Warehouse Management), how do I… Post a Receipt From a Warehouse Receipt Document and Post Put-away From a Warehouse Put-away Document”

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 twenty-fifth of the new functionality in the Development section is Sell Business Central apps through AppSource.

For years, AppSource publishers and customers have been waiting for the ability to transact Business Central apps via the AppSource marketplace. Due to the lack of such support, publishers have had to build their own custom sales and licensing support, adding unnecessary work and maintenance. Some publishers have even delayed entry to AppSource due to this gap.

Customers haven’t been able to see pricing options for apps directly in AppSource. Instead, they had to rely on external publisher price lists and contact the publisher directly or via a reseller. Since each publisher would have their own licensing and billing process, this added additional overhead for the customer or reseller.

Microsoft are excited to announce that with the 2023 release wave 2, transacting Business Central apps through AppSource will go live after having gone through both private and public previews. Initially, credit card payment or direct billing is supported along with per-user monthly or yearly subscription licensing managed through the Microsoft admin center.

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

Feature Details

To enable transactability for an AppSource app, publishers opt in to selling through Microsoft on their existing offer in Partner Center.

Continue reading “New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2: Sell Business Central Apps Through AppSource”

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 twenty-fourth of the new functionality in the Development section is Get syntax highlighting for AL in Azure DevOps.

Syntax highlighting really improves readability of source, including AL. Until now, Microsoft have had highlighting inside of the AL Language extension editor in Visual Studio Code and in GitHub, but not in Azure DevOps, which is used by a lot of partners. There, all AL code is just shown as plain text. This is inefficient because all pull request reviews and all other code investigations are a lot slower to do without.

To address the many votes for this, and increase developer productivity, Microsoft are adding support for AL syntax highlighting in DevOps, in large thanks to an effort by Microsoft’s German partner GOB, which created the majority of the initial syntax coverage.

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

Feature Details

Syntax highlighting for AL in Azure DevOps is enabled by installing the following free extension in Azure DevOps:

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 twenty-third of the new functionality in the Development section is Add teaching tooltips on queries and report request pages.

Teaching tips are used to increase the user’s chance of success with the query or report. Using a teaching tip also facilitates an easy transition for the user to navigate to the help pane, if more help is needed.

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

Feature Details

The primary purpose of a teaching tip is to increase the user’s chance of success with the query or report. Therefore, the title and description of the teaching tip should answer the following hypothetical user questions:

• AboutTitle: What is this query/report about?
• AboutText: What can I do with this query/report?

Both of these properties (or their equivalent multilanguage versions) must be defined on the query or request page for the teaching tip to appear.

With teaching tips, you can help explain logic that is relevant to the query/report, therefore allowing users to get on with a analytics task right away without blocking them. After users dismiss a teaching tip, they can choose or hover over the query/report title in the page. This action will reopen the teaching tip.