Month: February 2024

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1.

The 3rd of the new functionality in the Development section is remove friction when working with external app dependencies.

For resellers who develop per-tenant extensions for customers, or for publishers who create AppSource apps, it isn’t uncommon for them to build on the work by other publishers, and thereby take a dependency on these. However, in order to develop or test, they need access to the AppSource apps they depend on.

Today, this involves a tedious manual process where resellers and publishers with dependencies must contact publishers owning the applications they depend on and ask for symbols to develop against or runtime packages to test with. This is not only required once, but continuously as new versions of the Business Central first-party applications and the publishers’ applications versions emerge, making the whole process tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone.

In this version Microsoft plan to unblock developing and compiling against external applications in containers and test in online sandboxes.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Apr 2024
General Availability: Apr 2024

Feature Details

In this release Microsoft plan to allow resellers and publishers to download symbols for AppSource applications to use these to develop against on-premises and in containers. In addition, Microsoft also plan to provide GitHub actions to make it easy to provision online sandboxes with the required applications installed to run tests on.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1.

The 2nd of the new functionality in the Development section is debug the system application.

Have you missed being able to debug into the System application? Many have, and with the recent introduction of the SecureText data type, Microsoft will enable debugging of the System application, benefiting both development and troubleshooting of applications, as well as Open Source contributions to the System application itself.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Apr 2024
General Availability: Apr 2024

Feature Details

With this, you’ll be able to step into the System application code base when debugging to understand code flow and inspect variables, unless these are protected by the new SecureText type.

Having access to debug the System application helps both during development and troubleshooting of AppSource and customer-specific applications, as well as with contributing to the System application itself via https://github.com/microsoft/ALAppExtensions.

I’ve been doing some work implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with a client recently and, while they were doing some UAT, they came across an “issue” whereby some fully invoiced purchase orders were remaining in the open purchase orders list.

The client was a little confused that only some of the POs were remaining open while others were being archived. The reason is that there is two different processes for invoicing purchase orders and one of these processes automatically moves the PO to the archive and the other leaves them open.

The first, which automatically archives the PO, is when the invoice is created directly from the Purchase Order page.

The second, where the PO remains open, is when an invoice is created in the Purchase Invoice. When invoices are created this way, the PO remains open and a function needs to be run to do the archiving.

This function will, depending on the archiving options, either delete or move the purchase order to the archive. This function is the Delete Invoiced Purchase Orders one:

You can choose to filter the POs which will be deleted and either schedule it to run to at a later date and time, perhaps out of normal working hours, or immediately.

If all PO invoicing is done on a 1-2-1 basis from the Purchase Order page this routine doesn’t need to be run, but if any invoicing is done on the Purchase Invoice page then the delete function will need to be run periodically. This is something which would often be part of the month end process..

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1.

The 1st of the new functionality in the Development section is handle multiple file uploads and file drop zones.

The ability for AL developers to handle multiple file uploads and designate different page parts as file drop zones in Business Central provides greater flexibility and usability. This enhancement benefits developers working on applications or customizations that require multifile upload functionality and adds value to organizations by improving productivity and the user experience.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Mar 2024
General Availability: Apr 2024

Feature Details

Developers can handle multiple file uploads and designate different page parts as file drop zones.

This improvement empowers AL developers to create more flexible and user-friendly interfaces within Business Central. Designating specific page parts as file drop zones lets people upload multiple files at the same time, which improves efficiency.

This feature is particularly valuable for developers working on applications or customizations that require users to upload multiple files simultaneously. By allowing users to drag and drop files onto designated page parts, developers can streamline the file upload process and simplify data entry.

Continue reading “New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1: Handle Multiple File Uploads and File Drop Zones”

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1.

The 3rd of the new functionality in the Country and regional section is install UK localization as an app.

The new and upgraded localized version for the United Kingdom is delivered as an extension.

By removing country-based customizations in the base app, delocalization can help organizations save time and money during implementation. This can be especially beneficial for organizations that operate in multiple countries or regions with different regulatory requirements because they can easily build PTEs and connect those environments. Delocalization can also help organizations get ISV solutions without limitations.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: –
General Availability: Aug 2024

Feature Details

The localized version for the UK is now delivered as a set of extensions on top of the W1 base app. The solution offers a data upgrade, making it easy to move from the previous localization to the new extension. This release is a step toward full delocalization so that ISVs can release their apps to a broader market.

My Opinion

This sounds, on the surface, like it might be a positive, but also that there could be a lot of extra overhead and complexity. I worry about the phrase “set of extensions”.

I had a moment during a client training session recently where I was showing them through the payment journal for doing a purchase ledger payment run and ran into a problem with the process whereby all of the lines were getting the same document number assigned. Obviously this is bad, as each vendor payment requires a unique document number.

It took me a couple of minutes to realise that when I’d talked them through the Suggest Vendor Payments function, I had missed the last field. This field is New Doc. No.per Line and needs to be toggled on for each payment line to receive a unique document number:

I don’t know why this is an option is off by default on a new system, as you will always want every line to have a unique number, but at least it will be remembered for future payments runs which are processed. Once the option was toggled on and the suggest function complete, all of the payment lines had a unique number and the payment run could be completed.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1.

The 2nd of the new functionality in the Country and regional section is enable additional countries and regions.

Additional countries will be enabled to leverage the benefits of Business Central’s cloud-based business management software solution.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Jun 2024
General Availability: Jul 2024

Feature Details

Microsoft are expanding Business Central to more countries and regions through partner-led localizations. 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 170-plus countries and regions worldwide.

My Opinion

On the surface this sounds goo,d but the times I’ve worked with a client wanting localisations and we’ve looked for extensions, we’ve found two main issues.

The partner who provided the localisation doesn’t respond to messages or the localisation is in the marketplace, but only available to clients who have support with the partner who created the localisation.

Are these going to be any different?