2024 Release Wave 2 Highlights: Dynamics 365 Business Central

AI Continues to Make Life Easier for Users, Developers and System Admins

As customers of Dynamics 365 Business Central know so very well, a key benefit of using Microsoft cloud applications is the roll-out of new features that takes place throughout the year. Following up on the spring update, Microsoft has announced the 2024 release wave 2 plan for Dynamics 365 Business Central.

The plan covers new functionality Microsoft will deliver for Business Central between October 2024 and March 2025. Expect to see a steady stream of enhancements that help end-users, developers, and system administrators alike.

For End-Users: AI Continues to Accelerate Workflows

Echoing the spring release update, the updates from the fall release of Business Central emphasize Microsoft’s commitment to Copilot. The embedded tool optimizes Business Central processes so your staff can complete tasks faster, performing day-to-day work with the assistance of cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

Here are some of the specific Business Central functions AI will streamline:

• Enabling installments on sales documents.
• Improving inventory, service, and project management when handling multiple companies.
• Supporting multiple VAT identification numbers to facilitate taxes on international business.
• Adding more capabilities for sending e-documents.
• Expanding the integration with Dynamics 365 Field Service to cover service orders.

Microsoft will also add 70+ Power BI reports. This includes reporting on sustainability efforts, such as tracking greenhouse gas emissions. In the reporting realm, users can also tap into Copilot’s intuitive tools to leverage and manipulate data without needing help from data scientists.

For example, users can create sales orders directly from the Copilot chat function. They can also create product information faster, using Copilot to generate variants, units of measure, and other product information while also accessing third-party research content.

The Microsoft reporting strategy revolves around building universal BI and analytics within Business Central. This includes seamlessly integrating in-context, rich, and immersive content from first and third parties and providing self-service reporting capabilities to effortlessly leverage data.

For Developers: Improved Productivity

Developers can improve their productivity with GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio Code, and AppSource. Driven by AI, Microsoft will add new code refactoring capabilities, easier functional and performance testing, and ISV and custom code with AL GO for GitHub. Microsoft has also enabled developers to enrich application metadata with more details.

To further help application language developers increase their productivity, Microsoft has introduced namespace support to make it easier to structure apps, create object names, and avoid identifier clashes. As apps mature and need to be refactored, developers can also move ownership of tables and their data between extensions. Additionally, they can protect internal data by hiding specific variable data so that other parties can’t access it during debugging.

Other new handy improvements for developers include the ability to open a production or sandbox environment to investigate objects across installed extensions, view code for owned extensions, and perform troubleshooting—all without having to set up Visual Studio Code manually. Similarly, Microsoft has improved profiling so it’s easier to find database-related performance issues.

For data analysis, developers have more control in creating reports. This includes turning off analysis mode on pages and specifying how to embed content from Power BI.

For System Administrators: Expanded Control Over Regulatory Tasks

From the system administrator perspective, the new release of Business Central leverages AI to automate more regulatory tasks. For instance, a set of additional self-service features manage access to environments at a more granular level. Administrators can also audit admin operations using the Microsoft 365 Audit Log, which provides options for reinforcing data privacy by providing customer-managed encryption keys and Azure Lockbox.

Microsoft is also providing more tools to manage environments, apps, and data migrations:

•   Granular roles to give more control over the access delegated to administrators.
•  Improved processes for minor update releases.
• Ability to link Business Central and Power Platform to set up integrations consistently.
• Flexibility to apply Power Platform environment settings to Business Central.
• Option to cancel cloud migration replication runs.

The expanded integration between Business Central and Power Platform improves efficiency with templates that automate repetitive workflows. Power Platform also gives administrators more ways to use data with Copilot capabilities for cloud flows to create connected workflows where users can use natural language expressions.

As Microsoft technology automates many processes, it also ensures that features comply with government regulations. If regulations require you to create vouchers that serve as proof of transactions and a detailed audit trail, for example, you can automate the process. Business Central can also automatically generate and attach the vouchers to general ledger entries to assure compliance without extra manual steps.

The retention policy features let you specify how long to store vouchers before you clean them up, giving you more control over the amount of data you store. In addition, the e-documents module supports processes for sales and purchase invoicing, and it’s easy to extend by building country-specific apps for e-invoicing.

Navigating All the Enhancements

With Microsoft constantly rolling out new features, it can be a challenge to know which ones can most help your business. To navigate all the 2024 Release Wave 2 enhancements, Velosio is here to help.

We are among the largest and most recognized Microsoft Dynamics partners, with thousands of active customers. Many years as a recognized leader in ERP, CRM, cloud productivity, and business intelligence solutions have repeatedly landed us in the top 1% of Microsoft Dynamics Partners worldwide.

We will be glad to advise you on when each Business Central enhancement will be available, which enhancements make sense for your environment, and how to sync them with the Business Central functions you already rely on. Contact us today to learn more.