Exciting Features in the Dynamics 365 Business Central 2025 Wave 1 Release
Microsoft's 2025 Wave 1 release for Dynamics 365 Business Central introduces enhancements designed to streamline operations, enhance user experience, and empower businesses to make more informed decisions.
This release focuses on improving productivity, expanding capabilities, and integrating advanced technologies to meet the evolving needs of modern enterprises.
Key Enhancements in the 2025 Wave 1 Release
Microsoft continues to invest heavily in Copilot and automation features, boosting efficiency and automation within your operations. Let’s look at some new features and functionalities in the Wave 1 release for Business Central that will continue to make work easier.
AI and Automation
Automation is a key focus of the Wave 1 update, with several new features powered by Copilot, including:
- Sales Order Agent: This feature reads customer emails and can automatically draft replies. It can also clarify requirements, generate quotes, and orders, and even map details like Purchase Order (PO) numbers and requested delivery dates. This saves you valuable time in streamlining communication with customers.
- AI-Driven Suggestions: This feature will improve tracking and reporting for inventory and sales through enhanced options to forecast sales and reduce stockouts and overstocking. These suggestions can also help with cash flow predictions.
- Enhanced Workflows: Copilot will automate routine tasks like PO matching and more. Automation helps reduce manual workloads, freeing your team to focus on more important tasks.
- Summarize with Copilot: AI is useful in summarizing large records like an order or an invoice, giving you quick insights into these records. You can also ask Copilot for additional insights.
Reporting and Analytics
- Request metadata in Word layouts: Make modifications to reports easier by getting information about data objects like tables and fields. This allows you to create a more dynamic report template without relying completely on developers. This could include formatting customer-facing documents like orders and invoices or creating custom reports to use internally.
- New out-of-the-box reporting templates: This gives you better control over layouts and drill-downs through an enhanced integration with Microsoft Excel.
- More Power BI Dashboards: New Power BI dashboards improve access to actionable insights and visual analytics. There are also new KPIs and scenarios specifically for manufacturing.
Integrations with Other Microsoft Tools
- Tighter Integration with Microsoft Teams: An improved workflow between Teams and Business Central will enhance connection and collaboration with your customers and coworkers in real-time. This allows your team to work efficiently while reducing app-switching.
- Enhanced Power Automate Integration: New automation allows you to create workflows that trigger when an email is received, check for specific keywords, and use Copilot to automate tasks.
- Improved Connections with Microsoft 365 Apps: There are several key ways Microsoft is improving Business Central's connections to Microsoft 365 apps like Excel, SharePoint, Word, Outlook, and more.
New Financial Management Updates
On the financial management side, an exciting new feature lets you check total purchase amounts on documents. This ensures they are accurately entered and matched to the external invoice. This reduces errors in the Accounts Payable process. You can find this new feature in the purchases and payable setup.
Subscription Billing Module Enhancements
You can now access demo data to run modeling and practice scenarios to improve how you use this module. Here are some other key improvements in this area:
- You can now create subscription contracts to use as templates
- Unit costs are now supported by subscriptions and billing proposals
- Rebilling is now supported when quantity changes after you invoice your customer
These improvements provide greater flexibility and control over subscription management.
Project and Service Management
You can assemble a project bill of materials (BOM) specific to a project and the materials consumed on a job. In the project and service management space, we can also:
- Receive project items with receipts or putaway
- Create one invoice for multiple projects
- Avoid document number errors when posting service shipments
- Create a single invoice for multiple service shipments
Production Scheduling and Order Handling
Key Wave 1 enhancements in this area include:
- Reschedule production orders within safety lead time: This lets you adjust while preserving operational buffers.
- Cancel production orders with consumption: This lets your team respond to changes without extra manual steps.
- Reopen finished production orders: You can now make corrections and updates after completing a production order.
- Over-picking for production orders on the fly: Users can manage material shortages or changes quickly and concisely.
Supply Chain Management Enhancements
While the 2025 Wave 1 release for Business Central has a ton of new features to enhance your supply chain operations, we have picked six that stand out for us:
- Greater accuracy in manufacturing costing by including non-inventory items in the cost of produced items.
- New Doc Attachment FactBox in multiple places in manufacturing for things like drawings or inspection reports.
- Omit warehouse pick for manual flushing methods
- Print multiple orders created from a planning worksheet
- Change production order statutes in bulk
- Select and add multiple items to production BOMs or components
More Control of Production Output and Warehousing
Continue streamlining your warehousing processes with these new features:
- Reschedule Production Orders within a safety lead time
- Allow multiple people to post inventory at the same time
- Edit in Excel on output consumption, and item journals + Standard Cost Worksheet
Enhanced Application Features
The application layer receives significant updates aimed at improving core functionalities:
- Improved Manufacturing Costing: Updates to manufacturing costing processes enable more accurate cost tracking and analysis, aiding in better financial planning and decision-making.
User Experience Improvements
User experience is a focal point in this release, with several enhancements aimed at improving usability:
- Adjustable FactBox Pane Width: Users can now adjust the width of the FactBox pane, allowing for a more customized and comfortable viewing experience.
- Streamlined web interface: Less clicking, less switching between tabs, and less resizing your panes.
- Offline mode improvements: You can work within BC even when you don’t have an Internet connection.
- Enhanced Report Layout Validation: Administrators can validate report layouts for errors more effectively to ensure accuracy and reliability in reporting.
- Enhanced mobile app interface: This enables faster access to key data and lets you review or preview PDFs on your phone.
- More personalization options: Including new columns and fields you can add to personalize your experience.
- Simplified workflows for common business processes
Sustainability and Compliance
In response to growing environmental concerns, Business Central introduces features to support sustainability efforts:
- Scope 3 Value Chain Tracking: The system now includes embedded processes for calculating carbon dioxide equivalents for finished goods, aiding in reporting indirect emissions across the value chain.
How You Can Prepare for the 2025 Wave 1 Release
To take full advantage of the new features and improvements in Business Central, it's recommended to:
- Review the Full Release Plan: Familiarize yourself with all the new features and enhancements included in the 2025 Wave 1 release.
- Test in a Sandbox Environment: Before deploying to your live environment, test the new features in a sandbox to ensure compatibility and understand their impact on your operations.
- Train Your Team: Ensure your staff is trained in the new features and understands how to utilize them effectively.
- Engage with Partners: Work with your Microsoft partners to plan and implement the updates, ensuring a smooth transition and optimal use of the new capabilities.
Talk to Stoneridge to Learn More About New Features in Business Central!
The Dynamics 365 Business Central 2025 Wave 1 release brings a wealth of new features and enhancements designed to improve efficiency, provide deeper insights, and support sustainable practices. By embracing these updates, businesses can position themselves for greater success in an increasingly competitive and environmentally conscious marketplace.
Talk to our team of experts to start using – or preparing for – these features today!
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