This post is part of a series on the new functionality available in Wave 2 of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024. There are two release waves for Business Central each year, with functionality being released over the six months of the wave.

In this series of posts, I am going to take a look at what is new with Business Central in this release wave. My understanding is the announced new functionality will become available in the six months of the wave, so not all of it will be available immediately. When posting about some new functionality, I’ll try to indicate where something will be available in October or later. Microsoft do reserve the right to withdraw announced functionality before release; when this happens, I’ll try to publish an article on the removed functionality and update the original article I published.

This series index, below (assuming you’re reading this on azurecurve | Ramblings of an IT Professional), will automatically update as each post in the series goes live, so make sure you bookmark this post so you can see keep up-to-date with this series.

Continue reading “New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2: Series Index”

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 12th of the new functionality in the Governance and administration section is Migrate record links and notes with cloud migration tooling.

Business users often attach links and notes to records in Business Central to add context and extra information. For businesses transitioning from on-premises to cloud environments, this feature ensures that these links and notes on records are included in the cloud migration without the need for the external tooling. The feature saves valuable time and reduces the risks of error with manual data transfer..

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

Feature Details

Previously, the record links and notes were not automatically migrated to the online tenant as part of the cloud migration process. Instead, you had to use manual means to move the data. Now, the cloud migration setup and replication tooling will automatically migrate the links and notes on records for you with minimal work on your part.

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 11th 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 the 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 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: Jul 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.

Initially, this feature launches as a PR on the Business Central BCApps repo on GitHub, which allows partners to review and try out the tool with their own Copilot features and provide feedback.

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 10th of the new functionality in the Copilot and AI innovation section is Simplify collections with Copilot for Finance and Business Central.

Improve your cash flow and lower the cost of collecting payments for unpaid invoices by empowering your collections team with easy access to relevant and timely data about customers with outstanding payments, without having to do expensive task-switching between applications.

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

Feature Details

A healthy cash flow is key to business operations, and in a perfect world, all customers pay their invoices on time. When they don’t, the cost compounds in delayed payments combined with the costly effort of collecting payments. This release helps you claim payments faster by increasíng the effectiveness and productivity of your collections team to drive down the cost of collections while improving your cash flow.

Business Central supports native integration with Copilot for Finance. This integration lets you access and work with real-time financial data from Business Central directly within Copilot for Finance in Outlook. The direct access to financial data helps you make informed decisions and act quickly, without wasting time switching between Outlook and Business Central to look up key information about the customer. This integration supports your collections team with relevant and timely information to support constructive dialogs with the customers.

Copilot for Finance provides AI-powered assistance while working in Microsoft 365 applications, eliminating the need to juggle tasks, making financial processes more streamlined and automated.

Key features of the integration

• Copilot assistance with drafting dunning letter emails and other correspondence with customers who have outstanding balances. This helps your collections team draft personalized emails for every customer.
• Real-time access in Outlook to customer aging data from Business Central, contextual to the company of the current email, which is key to understanding the customer’s payment patterns.
• Access in Outlook to unpaid invoices from Business Central, contextual to the company of the current email. It’s easy to attach the invoice to the email draft, and providing the document makes the process more convenient for your customer convenience and can speed up payment.
• Access in Outlook to contact information from Business Central, related to the company of the current email.
• Set a Promised to Pay date on a posted invoice in Business Central directly from Outlook. The date adds transparency so that other stakeholders know that payment of the invoice is underway and agreed with the customer.

All of this makes your collections more efficient because people don’t have to switch between Outlook and Business Central while they’re in a dialog with customers over email.

The integration is easy to set up and use, and is designed to help you save time and improve your financial management processes. With Copilot for Finance and Business Central working together, you can free up time for your finance and collections teams.

For more information about the Copilot for Finance integration to Business Central, including regional and language availability, see the Copilot for Finance release plan here.

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 35th of the new functionality in the Application section is install Field Service Integration with Business Central from AppSource.

The Field Service Integration application published on AppSource is designed to improve the integration experience, reduce the complexity of the setup, and prepare for future scalability and flexibility. It also aims to minimize disruption for existing users while paving the way for broader adoption.

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

Feature Details

To avoid disrupting existing integrations to Sales for customers who aren’t using Field Service integration, you can now install and enable Field Service Integration as an application from AppSource. Although it introduces additional steps for setting up Field Service integration, the process is documented and the Set up integration to Dynamics 365 Sales assisted setup guide, which is currently a prerequisite part for integrating with Field Service, now contains an optional step to install the Field Service Integration application from AppSource.

Continue reading “New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 1: Install Field Service Integration with Business Central from AppSource”

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 34th of the new functionality in the Application section is enable sustainability features for integrations with APIs.

You can use sustainability features in Business Central with third-party software. For example, you might use data about your greenhouse gas emissions in Business Central to enrich data in another application.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview:  Jun 1, 2024
General Availability: Jul 2024

Feature Details

Sustainability pages will have APIs enabled, so in the future you can use Business Central data with other applications—for example, so that you can use sustainability features for collaboration with Power Automate or Power Apps, or for reporting in Power BI.

APIs will be enabled for the following pages:

• Sustainability Account
• Sust. Account Category
• Sust. Account Subcategory
• Sustainability Journal Line
• Sustainability Entry

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 33rd of the new functionality in the Application section is manage subscription billing and revenue and expense recognition.

Businesses are finding ways to create recurring revenue streams by selling goods and services on a subscription basis. This release lets you manage subscription contracts in Business Central. The new subscription module lets you spend more time selling and less time organizing and invoicing contracts.

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

Feature Details

Companies across sectors have increased their adoption of digitalization and are revamping their products and services to accommodate subscription-based business models.

You can now support many different types of subscription scenarios in Business Central. There’s a simple set of processes that let you manage portfolios of the items and services that you bill on a recurring schedule. For example, hardware maintenance, IT support, cleaning services, and so on. You combine the sale of services and items in mixed subscription contracts that hold information about the items, services, and billing schedule.

Templates simplify the process of creating subscription contracts by standardizing the parameters and schedules for recurring billing. You can manage current pricing and plan for future price updates. On the accounting side, posting accruals to balance sheet accounts is automated, and revenue or expense are assigned to the correct periods in the income statement.

The new module comes with:

• Contracts for which you do recurring billing for items and services.
• Billing schedules with flexible parameters that cater to typical use cases for recurring billing.
• Usage-based billing.
• Automated billing.
• Deferral integration.
• Revenue recognition based on billing schedules.
• Contract updates (parameters and prices).
• Standard reports for contracts, customers, billing schedules, recognized revenue, future billing dates and amounts, and so on. Most reports are available as Power BI reports.