Author: Yuran Shrestha
To accelerate and support various vertical and horizontal solutions for cloud version of Business Central, Microsoft has released wave 2 plan for Business Central. The 2019 release wave 2 update has now rolled out for new tenants and environments from October 1, 2019.
Following are the top ideas which are going to be released on October 2019:
1.Multiple production environments.
With this update, now it is possible to create a Business Central Production environment for business division, subsidiaries that operate in different countries or regions across the world.
2. Ability to download a database backup file
With this update, tenant administrators can create and download a database backup for each environment for that tenant and additionally, this provides the option for customers to download the file locally to import it into a local database.
3.New option to report production outage in Business Central Administration Center
When there is system down, then now partner can quickly create a support ticket in Business Central Administration Center. It will be a quicker way to resolve out any system issues with Microsoft Support for Business Central.
4.Enhancements for customer migration tool
This tool will allow a user to use Azure Data Factory to connect their on-prem SQL Server Database to a Business Central online tenant and bring their data across. This will be the easier way to migrate from on-prem to on-cloud.
Besides these enhancements, there are many more feature application updates that are planned to release from October 2019 through March 2020.
Following are the feature lists that we should learn about and get prepared.
- Application enhancements
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
| Cancel issued reminders and finance charge memos | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Carry line descriptions to general ledger entries when posting | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Write larger item cross-reference numbers | End users, automatically | October 2019 |
2. Application lifecycle management
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
| Ability to download a database backup file | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Improvements in update testing and preparation | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Multiple production environments | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| New option to report production outage in the Business Central Administration Center | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Support for performant data upgrade from C/AL tables to AL tables | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 |
3. Migrations to Business Central online
This area details our migrations to Business Central online roadmap.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
| Enhancements for customer migration tools | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 |
4. Modern clients
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
| Add links to your navigation menu | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Customize a user profile without writing code | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Enhancements to Excel integration | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Filtering option fields by multiple values | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Full keyboard shortcut support | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Multi-tasking across multiple pages | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Personalize actions and navigation on your Home page | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Powerful filtering for reports | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Resize columns with less clicks | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Saving and personalizing list views | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Speed and agility of data entry | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Switch between companies in your Business Inbox in Outlook | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Add notes and links to data | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Easy access to a capability overview | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Modern clients only for Business Central | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 |
5. Modern developer tools
For the 2019 release wave 2, Business Central retires the legacy development tool, C/SIDE, and development language, C/AL, replacing them with a modern solution based on Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, and an AL language that supports an extension-based approach to customization.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
| Access modifiers | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Attach and debug next | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Base application delivered as AL applications | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Code documentation attributes | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Database insights made available in AL | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Improved app dependency handling on build and deploy | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| More power to developers using Designer | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Translating other extensions | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 |
6. Empower ISV acceleration
We will focus on empowering ISV acceleration in developing new solutions, moving IP from the source code customization model to Business Central. The ecosystem is extremely broad, but a small concentrated set of ISVs drive the majority of the sales and usage. We will focus on enabling those core ISVs.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
| Design for extensibility | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 |
7. Service fundamentals
Laser focus on performance, reliability, supportability and security is essential to ensure that service quality remains ahead of the growth in service usage. Accessibility, already in a strong position, must be preserved.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
| Lock-free number series | End users, automatically | October 2019 | |
| New Support Request option in the Business Central Administration Center | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Page Background Tasks | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Partners can enter support contact details in the Business Central Administration Center | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Surrogate keys | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 |
Description of Enabled for column values:
- End users, automatically – These features include change(s) to the user experience for end users and are enabled automatically.
- Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically – These features are meant to be used by administrators, makers, or business analysts and are enabled automatically.
- End users by admins, makers, or analysts – These features must be enabled or configured by the administrators, makers, or business analysts to be available for their end users.
What’s Next?
If you would like to take advantage of the latest updates of Business Central within your organisation, Contact us today for a no-obligation consultation on 01296 328 689. Or email us at info@dogmagroup.co.uk.