Earlier this month Microsoft released their plans for updates to all Dynamics 365 applications, including Business Central, coming from October 2021 as part of the 2021 Wave 2 update. Most of these features will be available for public preview in September with general availability in October (although Microsoft do make it very clear that delivery timelines may change and some projected functionality may not be released). This blog explores the new or updated features that will most affect the user experience of Business Central.
We will be holding a webinar in October highlighting the features we think will be used most. Register here.
Application enhancements
The Business Central 2021 Wave 2 updates will deliver in some of the most requested areas for improvement, such as the finance and supply chain areas.
- Add additional columns through personalisation to various pages to gain more insights – With this update, users will be able to add fields and columns to certain pages (including Bank Accounts, Chart of Accounts and General Journals pages).
- Add non-inventory items on requisition and planning worksheets – This new feature will allow users to include both physical inventory items, such as chairs, and non-inventory items, such as services, to worksheets. As as result, businesses will have a unified procurement process.
- Couple records between Business Central and Dataverse (and apps for Dataverse) in bulk – Bulk-coupling will allow users to speed up the process of coupling multiple records, while letting them define rules to control how the couplings are made.
- Bank and payment reconciliation improvements – In this update, the Payment Reconciliation Journal has been improved with the following capabilities: separate number series, posting previews, and the ability to reverse the G/L register posted through the Payment Reconciliation Journal.
- Default line type in the sales and purchase documents – Sales and purchase documents can contain different types of lines, such as G/L Account, Item, Resource, or Fixed Asset. With this update, users will be able select the default line type that will be suggested when they create new documents.
- Delegated admin can create job queue entries and request approval by a licensed user – Within Business Central there is a delegated admin role that allows people who are not employed by the customer, typically Microsoft partners, to set up and configure business processes for the customers. The delegated admin role is not, however, a licensed user in Business Central, and often is only assigned temporarily, so there are some limitations to what they can do. With this update, delegated admins can create job queue entries and set them as ready to run. A licensed user from the customer can then start the job queue entry to complete the process that the delegated admin created.
- Improved user experience to keep posting setup and dimension issues from going wrong – This update will give users great ability to investigate issues with posting setups with the Error Messages page across the application.
- Integrate Business Central and Microsoft Dataverse with more efficient synchronization of multiple records
- Item variant code on demand forecasts – With this update, users can register anticipated demand not only with respect to locations and dates, but with item variants as well.
- List of trusted partner apps – This update will allow partners to preload a list of apps into the customer’s system to help the customer choose apps that are relevant for their business, industry, and growth.
- Locations for non-inventory items – With this update, users can track statistics for non-inventory items by location, in the same way as inventoriable items or resources. This will give them better insight into, for example, the location for which a service was purchased.
- More control over address information data entry -This update will allow users a more flexible means of entering address details.
- New automation API to create user groups
- Production BOMs and routes on stockkeeping units (SKUs) in planning scenarios – This update will increase the number of business processes that take into account the values in the Production BOM and Production Routing fields defined on SKUs.
- Remove obsolete reports 204, 205, 206, and 207
- Rounding for base unit of measure – With this update, users can specify a rounding precision for base units of measure to guide users on what to enter for a given business process, and reduce rounding issues when using alternate units of measure.
- Tour of Business Central to help users know the basics – This update expands the use of tours introduced in the 2021 Wave 1 release so they also can include teaching tips that are defined by the platform to call out system controls, such as the top navigation bar and sorting and filtering controls.
- Use multiple units of measure when synchronising items and resources to Dynamics 365 Sales
- More educational app tours for standard roles
Improved integration with Microsoft 365
In Business Central 2021 release Wave 2, Microsoft is investing in better integration with Excel. They are also further improving support for collaborative business processes in Microsoft Teams so that users can bring Business Central pages into a Teams channel.
- Enhancements to Microsoft Teams integration -These improvements include a new sign-up experience for users who are installing the app but don’t have a Business Central subscription and improved search term capabilities.
- Centralised deployment of Office add-ins
- Enhancements to the Outlook add-in – The 2021 release Wave 2 update includes various technical improvements for deploying and using Outlook add-ins.
- Enhancements to working with Microsoft Excel – This update continues to mature Excel-related features for exporting to Excel and working with the Excel add-in.
- AL API for sharing files in Microsoft 365
- Share a record link to Microsoft Teams – With this update, the Business Central web client will include a new action to share to Microsoft Teams. This action allows users to type a message, choose recipients such as team members, groups or channels, and send their message with a link to the Business Central record.
Improved User Interface (Modern Clients)
The 2021 Wave 2 update includes improvements to Business Central’s user experience, whether the user is in the office, at home or on the go.
- Performance improvements to the Business Central web client
- Unhindered data entry across rows
- Usability improvements to the Business Central web client
- Discovering reports and administration areas in Role Explorer
- Decimal separator on numeric keypad matches region setting
Improved integration with Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform
With the Business Central 2021 release Wave 2, Microsoft is improving the integration with Microsoft Dataverse. They are also enhancing the integration with Microsoft Power Platform with support for workspaces in Power BI.
In this blog we have concentrated on those updates that will directly improve the user experience of Business Central. In addition, there are also governance and administration improvements, developer enhancements and increased regional reach.
TVision is here to help
If you want to know more about Microsoft Business Central and how TVision could help you, please feel free to contact us to arrange a demo to see how it could be the perfect ERP to help you overcome your business challenges.
If you are already a TVision customer and want to know how and when these Business Central 2021 Wave 2 updates will affect your business, contact us.
