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What’s New and Planned in the Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Release Wave 2

Microsoft is putting out several exciting updates in the Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Release Wave 2.

Here are some highlights from the recent announcement, which Microsoft plans to release between October 2023 and March 2024.

Adapt faster with Power Platform

Microsoft has released several updates to strengthen the integration between Dynamics 365 Business Central and Power Platform. The key updates include:

Change Modification Limits for Triggering Flows and Bulk Updates

Microsoft has changed the limit from 100 to 1,000 for rows in the way Power Automate flows and Dataverse virtual tables get triggered when multiple rows are changed in a short period of time. This resolves the issue where the limit may have caused your Power Automate flows to stop reacting to certain rapid changes in data.

Support Business Events in the Business Central Connector for Power Automate

This new feature allows users and makers to hook flows to specific business events raised by Business Central or partners who added business event codes to their apps.

Microsoft added a Business Central connector trigger called When a business event occurs (preview), which contains these characteristics:

• It immediately reacts to any business event raised in a selected environment.
• It reacts to events in a specific named company or in any company in that environment.
• It provides the creator with more context to build the flow logic upon
• It reacts to multiple events at once, letting Power Automate deal with concurrency.

Enable Specific Virtual Tables When You Connect to Dataverse

With this update, you can now enable virtual tables in the Set up Dataverse Connected assisted setup guide on the Setup Virtual Tables step.

Additionally, you can use the Dataverse Available Virtual Tables page to select multiple virtual tables, making them visible in the PowerApps maker portal. You can also enable virtual tables from the Dataverse Connection Setup, Virtual Tables, Available Virtual Tables pages in Business Central.

Get Control Over How to View Power BI-Embedded Content

Having quick and easy access to data analysis is vital. This release gives you the flexibility and modern content visualization of Power BI directly in your Business Central environment. Before, the Power BI part on role centers was limited, with a fixed size that only displayed the first page of a multipage Power BI report.

Now, Microsoft is adding more capabilities to the Power BI embedded experience in Business Central such as:

• Control over pages in reports
• Stretch the view to the full page
• Control the zoom level of reports more easily
• Show scorecards

Consolidated Power Automate Flow Creation from Business Central Templates

This feature in Business Central provides advanced users with a single entry point to create flows based on templates. New actions have been added to enable flow creation in the following categories:

• Defining an approval request workflow if the page supports it.
• Creating an automated background flow. Prior to this addition, such automations were only possible in Power Automate, and there were no Business Central templates supporting them.
• Creating a manual or instant flow. While this capability existed before, several new templates have been added to expand its functionality.

Simplified Power Automate Approval Flow Experience

In the 2023 Wave 1 release, Microsoft created several new templates and a simplified approval process in Power Automate. In this release, they added further improvements such as:

• Automating the set of the environment and company in approval templates so users don’t have to choose it every time
• Adding the requestor to the request approval – Additionally, the Approval step now includes “Requested by” to indicate the requestor
• Allowing you to handle the "cancel approval request" decision on Power Automate.
• The ability to post an optional adaptive card to a chosen Teams channel (or user) with information that a given document was approved.

Application Updates

Add More Columns to Pages for Better Insight

This update empowers you to harness personalization by letting you tailor what information is on what pages by dragging fields or columns from a list onto a page.

Availability Overview Helps You Calculate Quantities in Your Warehouse

You can now access real-time information about the availability of items in your warehouse from source documents such as sales orders, production orders, assembly orders, jobs, and more. You can get even more specific by tracking additional factors that might affect availability like dedicated or locked bins and reserved or pending shipments. You can review all of this in Business Central with the picking log.

Configure How to Handle Different Warehouse Operations

Upgrades to how you can define warehouse handling are designed to make things easier for you. You can now define warehouse handling on the location card based on the following new fields:

• Production Consumption
• Production Output
• Assembly consumption
• Job consumption

Edit in Excel On Item Journals and Warehouse Worksheets

You can now use the Edit in Excel action on item journals and warehouse worksheets to change records in Excel. You can then publish the changes back to Business Central easily. You can enable the latest data from Business Central.

If your organization has configured OneDrive for system features, the Excel workbook opens in your browser by using Excel for the web. If you aren't using OneDrive for system features, the workbook downloads to your device. From there, you can open it using either the Excel desktop app or Excel online, depending on what you have.

Expansion of Item References and Improved Processes for Inventory

The Item Reference No. field is now available on the following tables and pages:

• table 83 "Item Journal Line"
• page 40 "Item Journal"
• page 392 "Phys. Inventory Journal"
• page 393 "Item Reclass. Journal"
• page 286 "Recurring Item Jnl."
• page 5803 "Revaluation Journal"
• page 99000773 "Capacity Journal"
• page 99000846 "Consumption Journal"
• page 99000823 "Output Journal"
• page 99000778 "Recurring Capacity Journal"
• page 99000850 "Recurring Consumption Journal"
• page 99000827 "Recurring Output Journal"
• table 5878 "Phys. Invt. Record Line"
• page 5882 "Phys. Invt. Recording Lines"
• page 5881 "Phys. Invt. Recording Subform"
• table 5876 "Phys. Invt. Order Line"
• page 5877 "Physical Inventory Order Subf."
• Improved processes in warehousing and inventory

Improved Processes in Warehousing and Inventory

Improvements to warehousing and inventory include:

• Create warehouse employees during testing and presale.
• Create item journal lines based on the actual contents in a bin.
• All fields on the item template are considered when you convert a catalog item.

Suggest the Next Steps for Sales and Production Orders

Through the Business Central reservation worksheet, you can reserve and allocate incoming goods to ensure quantities are available for your sales and production orders. Based on the quantities you have reserved, Business Central will display a status so you can quickly determine the next steps.

Sync Document and Posting Dates for Sales and Purchases

The Sales and Receivables Setup and Purchases and Payables Setup pages now help you comply with accounting standards and ensure accurate financial calculations. They do this through the Document Date and Posting Date fields.

Use Advanced Pick and Put-Away Features in Basic Warehouse Configurations

You now have the capability for basic warehouse configurations like put away and pick. Before, these were advanced configurations only available if you configured the location. Now, Business Central will suggest the most appropriate bin for items at any given time.

General Ledger Enhancements

There are a few key updates to how you can use your general ledger, including:

• Use different general ledger accounts for payables and receivables – Allows you to post transactions to a different general ledger than the one specified on the customer or vendor group.
• Allow Multiple Posting Groups – Users can change default customer or vendor posting groups by switching a toggle on the appropriate pages.
• Specify Posting Groups to Allow Alternative Groups – You can specify the posting groups to allow substitutes by choosing Alternate Groups, which can replace the default customer or vendor posting group specified for a customer or vendor.
• Customized Allocation Keys to Automate Distribution – Allocation keys can trigger automatic general ledger entry postings and allocations across different accounts and dimensions. You can customize and define your allocation keys based on certain criteria.

Get More Productive While Entering Time Sheets

You can now use the Copy From action on the Time Sheet page to duplicate lines from old time sheets. This streamlines Time Sheet creation for repeat jobs.

Users can also send notifications to approvers when a timesheet is ready. In turn, approvers can do the same when they approve or reject the time sheet. Approvers can also approve or reject multiple time sheets at one time. This increases the flow of communication.

Copilot and AI innovation

Integrating Microsoft Copilot with your Dynamics 365 Business Central environment provides you with some exciting new features:

• Complete bank account reconciliation – AI capabilities help you improve accounting automation and reduce human oversight on data input
• Marketing text suggestions – Includes various improvements to address customer feedback in multiple languages, marketing text on Price, List reports, and improvements to content moderation.

Governance and Administration

Some governance and administration updates include:

• Granular administration as Dynamics 365 Business Central Administrator
• Enhanced information about effective permissions
• Improved update release processes

Legislation

Legislation updates include:

• Using drop shipments for triangular Intrastat trade
• E-documents as core global solutions
• The ability to report payment times
• Digital vouchers

Increase Productivity with Microsoft 365

Enhancements to Excel Add-In

This release wave includes the following enhancements to the Business Central add-in for Excel:

• Dimensions are included on more pages when using the Edit in Excel feature.
• Increased accuracy of filters when they're transferred from Business Central to Excel.
• Improved reliability and performance of data refresh and publishing through the latest OData V4 technology.
• The add-in now supports on-premises deployments that have a dedicated server instance specifically for OData feeds.

Reporting and Data Analysis

The 2023 Wave 2 Release for Dynamics 365 Business Central provides you with some incredible updates in reporting and data analysis. These enhancements include:

Analyze, Group, and Pivot Data on Queries Using Multiple Tabs

This feature was part of the 2023 Release Wave 1 but is taken a step further to make it possible to analyze data from any query the same way you can on a list page.

The ability to analyze data directly on queries expands the range of data analysis that you can do without having to switch applications. The data is analyzed in real-time and respects the data security that has been set up for the users.

Discover Report and Data Analysis Content Easily

Your end users can now use navigational search (Tell Me) or the new report explorer page to minimize effort in finding reports and data analysis content.

Service and Platform

Data Loads Faster in the Server

In previous releases, when a developer extended a table, the fields from the table extension were stored in a separate table called a companion table in the database.

In this release, Microsoft has changed the data model for table extensions so that added fields from all extensions to a table are now stored in the same companion table. This means the server will never need to do more than a single join of the base table to its companion table. extensions to base tables.

Faster Application Scenarios

This release includes optimizations for the following scenarios in the Business Central base application:

• Running country-specific (long-running) reports.
• Renumbering General Journal entries.
• Validating the Sales Order Subform field for Tax Group Code.
• Generating report 120 Aged Accounts Receivable for larger datasets.
• Assigning serial numbers and posting reservation entries and item tracking lines.
• Assembly-to-order processes.

Pages Load Faster in Client

In this release, Microsoft optimizes two essential areas of the Business Central client:

• Opening a new tab.
• Rendering the navigation bar and action bar on all pages.

Performance Gain by Reducing Locks in the Database

In this release, Microsoft optimized this very central part of the data stack in the Business Central server by allowing you to change the default locking behavior in AL from SerializedRead to ReadCommitted.

User Experience Enhancements

Add Existing Table Fields to Optimize Your Pages

As a Business Central user, you know you already have a great set of tools to hide, show, or move various UI elements. With this update, you can now unlock table fields so users can easily add them to their pages without having to develop a code extension.

Search For Data Anywhere in Business Central

Updates to this feature mean you can search from the Tell Me dialog by using the Alt+Q shortcut key combination from anywhere in Business Central.

Customized Field Editability from UI

You can now take advantage of the following updates:

• Make fields non-editable or read-only
• Make fields editable
• Users can personalize their own workspace

Scan Barcodes With Business Central Mobile App for iOS and Android

Users can now scan barcodes using their device’s camera or a dedicated barcode scanner. There are other scenarios you can create yourself where you can use the barcode scanner.

Tell Me Experience in Mobile App

Users can now access the popular Tell Me experience from their mobile devices through the Business Central App. It also provides access to your built-in data search and functions the same as it would on a desktop.

Distinguish Between Browser Tabs When Multitasking

Within Business Central, you now have access to a simple naming convention for browser tabs and windows that includes:

• Context
• Readability
• Current
• Multicompany

Share Readable Deep Links to Pages and Records

Your Business Central environment comes equipped with a simple and consistent naming convention for deep links when you copy a URL from your browser or use the Copy link action and paste it into a rich text editor. It includes Context, Readability, and Multicompany.

Use Actions to Navigate or Fix Errors from the Inline Validation Dialog

Validating your data reduces inconsistencies and gives you a strong base of data to fall back on in a variety of business scenarios. In a previous release wave, we introduced actions on error messages that provide you with fixes to errors or have BC fix it for you. Microsoft has taken it a step further by putting those same capabilities into validation dialogs.

Access Worksheet Pages from Mobile Phones

Users now have special, simplified access to “worksheet” pages from their mobile phones. In the past, users could only access those on tablets or desktops.

This feature requires Business Central version 23.1 or later and applies to Android phones and iPhones.

Manage User Expectations with the Selection of Context-Based Actions

Microsoft has streamlined user actions on pages so while you’re working, only relevant actions to what you are currently working on are available, saving you the effort of having to sift through all of your actions.

Want to Learn more about the 2023 Release Wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Please get in touch with us! Stoneridge Software has a team of Dynamics 365 Business Central experts ready to walk you through these new features.

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