Preview of Wave 1 2021 Release of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
The new features planned for the Wave 1 2021 Release of Dynamics 365 Business Central are focused on helping the end-user more productive. The release really focuses on requests from end users for functionality that should be core to the solution. Additionally, integration across the Microsoft platform remains at the forefront, with even more collaborative features between D365, Teams, Excel, and Outlook. Also, functionality for administrators and developers continues to be strengthened in the solution.
Administration
Improve the reliability of the database export operation for larger databases with more companies
- This will be a big differentiator between Business Central and other SaaS products. Within BC you’ll have additional export options so you can really get your hands around the data.
Improvements for the Delegated Administrators
- In prior versions, you needed to be an administrator to get to the admin portal. Now with delegated admin, you can give access to users without needing to make them a permanent admin.
Application
The assisted setup helps move the task of adjusting item costs to the background:
- Schedule tasks off the job queue to run in the background so you’re not tying up your machine to run those processes. This is being added more and more to Business Central.
Automatic creation of lot and serial number information cards:
- This feature extends functionality to those lot and serial cards. This will be helpful to enhance the system for those who use lot serial tracking – especially to those who use Yaveon.
Bank reconciliation improvements:
- Bank rec has been improved to make it easier to see how the automatic application rules have been applied. Also, the bank rec report is now available for posted bank reconciliations/bank statements.
Bin codes in jobs:
- This is the biggest improvement we’ve seen in job functionality in years. This enhancement speeds up order handling so warehouse workers can find items more easily. When a user creates a job planning line or a job journal line and specifies the item number and location code, the default bin is automatically suggested. The page shows the default bin, fixed bins, and bins that are temporarily used to store items.
Define lot sizes for various stages of production:
- This allows you to define your lot sizes.
Dimension corrections (for G/L Entries):
- This is a huge update for the system. You can now edit the GL dimension assigned to a GL entree on the ledger directly. Currently, you’d have to do a Gen Journal Entry for the value vs the being able to simply adjust the entry. With this enhancement, you can go to the entry and adjust the dimension to simply reclassify the impact against the ledger entry.
Inventory documents – the new capability to adjust your inventory:
- Another long-time coming capability, you can use inventory documents to reprint an item journal after you post it.
More control over settings for Default Dimensions:
- You can soon define a more specific set of dimensions to be assigned to the entry so you can limit posting against a specific account to only allow PROD-LINE dimensions and for costing accounts to require only specific departments and dimensions. This has been a feature that ISVs have addressed but now it’s available out of the box, giving your accounting team greater control over prerequisites for recoding transactions that much include dimension value attributes.
Better with Microsoft 365
Lookup Business Central contacts from within Microsoft Teams:
- Access business contacts directly from Teams so you can make calls or schedule meetings. This isn’t a huge new feature but is laying the groundwork for more capabilities coming in this area in the future.
Enablement of Word merge in Business Central:
- Directly connect BC to Word through mail merge functionality
Support cloud printing using Microsoft Universal Print:
- If you’ve had issues printing from BC, this should help remedy that issue and make printing easier.
Country and Regional Support
Support for Greece, India, Romania, Turkey, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Kenya, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia.
The more widely available the software platform is, the more users it will have. In turn, that benefits all businesses using Business Central as there will be more development and resources directed toward a widely used, growing product.
Power Platform
Virtual tables for Microsoft Dataverse:
- More objects that are natively available through tables
Synchronize item availability from Business Central to Dynamics 365 Sales:
- Shares information related to item availability and quantities available from Business Central to Sales
Modern Clients and Dev Tools
Report API allows passing the layout needed for report execution
Reports run in the background
Client performance improvements:
- In the fall release, Microsoft changed the way the pages load to render the parts as they load on the page. This enhancement includes more of those loading capabilities for the role centers.
Usability enhancements for the Business Central web client:
- Investment in how the menus and the buttons work in web client. You no longer will lose the headers when scrolling.
Enable cloud printing on the mobile app (phone and tablet) and from the Microsoft Teams app
Users can change the assigned printer before printing a report
Partners can add keys (indexes) to base tables and table extension tables:
- This is a big improvement to the system that allows partners to deal with performance issues due to data distributions that are different than the demo company.
Use one-dimensional barcodes in reports (Business Central online):
- Another big feature for the release allows the native creation of barcodes within BC. This means you will be able to use out-of-box barcoding for items. This will allow you to implement barcoding internally and help improve sku/lot/sn tracking and reduce human error.
Report extensibility:
- This is a major change. You can now create a report extension like you can a table or report extension. This is great for being able to add new fields to a dataset or new layouts.
Additional dimensions in Item Tracking as foundation for vertical solutions
- Additional out-of-the-box features to help with advanced lot serial tracking.
Onboarding
Microsoft continues to add new ways to get users up and running within the system easier and faster. This release includes:
- Getting started checklists for guided and faster initial setup
- Improved company setup experience
- In-app contextual help improvements
- Improve the experience of getting started with Power BI
While this list is long, there are even more features coming in the 2021 Wave 1 Release of Business Central. You can read the full list and get information on all of the updates here.
The majority of these features will be available for preview starting in March 2021 and will be available for the public in April. Check the features list for specific dates for each feature.
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