Month: August 2024

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 4th of the new functionality in the Development section is use the ‘this’ keyword for codeunit self reference.

A new ‘this’ keyword is introduced as known from other languages. The keyword supports passing the current object as arguments to methods, which until now has only been possible with less optimal workarounds. In addition, the use of the this keyword improves readability for bigger methods where it can be difficult to see if a variable is global or local scope..

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

Feature Details

Microsoft have added support for the this keyword for self-reference on all objects, as known from other programming languages.

The main benefits of using the this keyword are that it

• Allows codeunits to pass a reference to this (which is itself) as an argument to another method.
• Improves readability by signaling that a referenced symbol is a member on the object itself.

A new CodeCop rule AA0248 is added and enabled by default with severity ‘hidden’. ‘Hidden’ means that it shows up as three dots in the editor, but not as a diagnostics in the Problem view in Visual Studio Code, or in pipelines. There’s also a workspace-wide CodeFixer to update existing code to use the this keyword.

The System Application is converted to use this for referencing methods and globals in the same object.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 3rd of the new functionality in the Development section is pull extension source from GitHub when opening Visual Studio Code from the web client.

A year ago, you got the power to open a Visual Studio Code project from within the web client. This removed all the hassle of creating projects so you could launch configurations and download symbols yourself. This is a great tool for exploring functionality and troubleshooting, whether it’s in sandboxes or production, and it empowers support, consultants, and developers. However, what if access to extension code is blocked by IP resource exposure protection, but the source is in your GitHub repo? Or maybe you want to proceed with authoring your own code, such as hotfixing one of your apps or pulling the latest source version for changes or development? In 2024 release wave 2, this feature will make that possible.

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

Feature Details

In this release, Microsoft are building on the recent “Explore in Visual Studio Code” feature by using the source and build metadata in the manifest of an extension to offer pulling source from the related GitHub repository and from a specific build. This allows navigating code for the extensions that you have source access to and allows you to hotfix a given build or sync to get the latest changes for investigation or development.

From the Extension Management list page, you now have a new Open Source in VS Code option in the context menu for an extension.

If you invoke that, Visual Studio Code will open and ask you whether to clone or open the GitHub repo for the extension. It will use the repo metadata that was included in the extension when it was built.

You can read more about the source and build metadata in the app.json file here:

• Track source and build metadata on extensions
• JSON files

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This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 2nd of the new functionality in the Development section is use the ternary operator when coding in the AL language.

The ternary operator ? : known from other programming languages streamlines conditional operations in code, enhances readability and reduces verbosity. It’s particularly useful for simple conditions, promoting code clarity and intent-focused programming. By allowing variable initialization within the same line, it ensures proper assignment and minimizes code length. With this release, AL now also supports the ternary operator.

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

Feature Details

The ternary operator ? : can now be used to assign one of two values to a variable, depending on the condition of an expression.

Here’s an example of using if-then-else as until now and the new ternary operator.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 1st of the new functionality in the Development section is set up easier in-client performance profiling with rules.

Three releases ago Microsoft launched the in-client profiler, a very powerful tool for investigating performance issues across extensions. Since then, profiling has become essential to identify application performance problems for customers, partners, and support, and it’s the main performance troubleshooting tool for partners.

However, due to its current nature of being an interactive capture, acquiring a performance profile requires well-defined repro steps and collaboration across stakeholders.

To make it easier and faster for customers, consultants, pro developers, partners and Microsoft support to capture a profile, and thereby lower manual collaboration and time-to-mitigate, this release will add the additional support for capturing performance profiles automatically and noninteractively in the background, based on well-defined rules triggering capture. Captured profile details can then be analyzed afterwards.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Oct 2024
General Availability: Oct 2024

Feature Details

In addition to the existing interactive way of capturing a performance profile – by starting the profile, performing repro steps in the client, stopping the profiler and then analyzing the results – a new rule-based scheduling mode for capturing profiles in the background is added.

With this, a customer admin, consultant, support person or developer can set up a specific scheduled rule, for example, to profile as a given user and session type for a given duration. Once the rule is defined and enabled, the server will trigger a profile each time the rule is met. At the end of the duration, profiling will stop, and the results can be inspected to see if there are any performance issues, including intermittent or long running ones.

To create a new profile rule schedule, open the Performance Profiler Schedules page. This lists the defined schedules, and the additional schedule details. From here, you can create a new schedule.

Continue reading “New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2: Set Up Easier In-Client Performance Profiling with Rules”

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 3rd of the new functionality in the Country and regional section is enable additional countries and regions.

Business Central is available in more countries and regions, so more businesses around the world can leverage the benefits of its cloud-based business management features.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: –
General Availability: Feb 2025

Feature Details

Microsoft are’re expanding the availability of Business Central to include more countries and regions through partner-led localizations. Microsoft 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 more than 180 countries and regions worldwide.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 2nd of the new functionality in the Country and regional section is start using E-Documents framework localized for Germany.

This feature introduces electronic documents for receipts and invoices, which significantly enhances business efficiency by streamlining administrative processes and reducing operational costs. This feature minimizes manual data entry errors and accelerates transaction processing, allowing quicker and more accurate financial computation and tracking. Additionally, it reduces the need for physical storage space and paper usage, contributing to environment sustainability. The real-time access to electronic documents improves transparency and facilitates better decision-making, ultimately leading to increased productivity and customer satisfaction.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Oct 2024
General Availability: Nov 2024

Feature Details

Users can use E-Documents framework localized for Germany, so users can work with Peppol BIS3 or XRechnung electronic invoices formats.

They can choose to use one of existing Peppol service providers as communication channel via access points or exchange documents by uploading it manually or via e-mail.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 1st of the new functionality in the Country and regional section is start using integration with IRS for 1099 submissions.

This feature introduces the IRS 1099 tax forms in the latest release for taxpayers and businesses. This feature integrates with the IRS and doesn’t print 1099 Tax Forms on preprinted original IRS 1099 Tax Forms. Instead, Business Central submits 1099 Tax Forms through integration with the IRS and sends Copy B to vendors as Copy Substitutions printed on plain paper. This feature can guide you on setting up and reporting to the IRS.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Oct 2024
General Availability: Nov 2024

Feature Details

User can report IRS 1099 forms directly to the IRS using API integration with IRS using IRIS platform. This integration functionality will be based on new 1099 feature that was delivered in 2024 release wave 1.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 9th of the new functionality in the Copilot and AI innovation section is automate tests for your Copilot extensions with the Business Central Test Toolkit.

As Microsoft’s partner community brings generative AI capabilities to market and matures their offerings, partners need new engineering tools and practices to help them succeed in the AI era. Data-driven test automation is vital to ensure AI systems are accurate against diverse inputs, preserve the trust and safety of Microsoft’s customers and their data, and are resilient to changes in AI model versions. The developer tools for Copilot in Business Central are an end-to-end toolkit covering development, deployment, administration, feedback loops, and now test automation.

Enabled for: Users by admins, makers, or analysts
Public Preview: Dec 2024
General Availability: Dec 2024

Feature Details

With this feature, you can:

• Author tests for your prompt dialogs using a familiar framework in AL and Visual Studio Code.
• Organize your test datasets based on purpose and prompt variations.
• Implement automated verification depending on your feature use case.
• Run tests as fully automated or semi-automated.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 8th of the new functionality in the Copilot and AI innovation section is create sales lines easily with Copilot.

The introduction of Copilot in Business Central adds a significant enhancement to the sales document processes. It expedites the creation of sales documents and minimizes time spent on repetitive tasks and lookups. Copilot assistance drives operational efficiency in creating and managing sales documents and contributes to potential revenue growth by getting sales documents into the hands of customers faster. Copilot is the AI-powered assistant for work that boosts creativity and improves productivity for Business Central users.

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

Feature Details

Microsoft continue to improve Copilot in Business Central by adding new capabilities and polishing existing ones.

In addition to the Find product and Find document by reference skills, Copilot can combine them. It can first find documents, and then search for products on document lines. This combination can be particularly useful for companies that often work with blanket orders. The Find document by reference skill now includes sales blanket order as source documents.

Also, it also now supports units of measure. Copilot can try to use the unit of measure you specify in your prompt, but if that isn’t found it falls back to the sales unit of measure for the item.

Attachments are a longer journey that starts with CSV file. Copilot analyzes the structure of an attached file to identify things like field and row separators, date and decimal formats, columns, and headers. It suggests field mappings to fill in product and quantity fields.