Autor: Marcin Karpacz
Consultant, programmer, architect, and above all, enthusiast of Dynamics NAV/365 Business Central continuously since 2007. Always up to date with Business Central news and with the system documentation.
In April 2023, as part of the “2023 release wave 1” update, Microsoft will release version 22 of Dynamics 365 Business Central. New functionalities will be released successively between April and September 2023.
- A full list of planned updates is available on Microsoft Learn here.
- In addition to the above, a noteworthy source for obtaining information about the new feautres proposed by Microsoft is the video “Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event”. The recording can be seen here.
Update overview
The update will improve support for multi-party management in Business Central, including improvements to cross-company functionality. This version will improve and unify the functions of the so-called “onboarding” – help functions implemented in the system, i.e. tips, step-by-step guides, broader contextual descriptions, helping new users to orient themselves in the system, start working in it and, if necessary, refer to the documentation prepared by Microsoft and partners responsible for individual extensions. The new release will help businesses and organizations stay compliant with government regulations by providing features that automate regulatory tasks so organizations can continue to focus on their core business. Microsoft always focuses on usability, and in this version, the efficiency of working with pages such as lists and actions will be increased. Personalization will be extended by adding any field from the table. To work faster and more efficiently, you will be able to perform more bulk actions on multiple rows, and you will be able to create analytical views for some lists.
Investments to improve the efficiency of developers and consultants in this version will introduce, among others: the AL explorer function in the Visual Studio Code environment, expand the possibilities for administrators managing extensions and environments, and add the ability to debug the indicated user session.
Additionally, as part of the 2023 release wave 1 update (version 22), the following will be improved, among others: the following items:
- Global availability: Microsoft has made Business Central available in more countries and regions, which already gives more than 130 countries served by this system.
- Application: In the area of financial management, i.a. cross-company functionalities and substitutes of buyer/supplier groups will be introduced. In the supply chain area, several optimizations and improvements have been made to make inventory management processes and warehouse operations more efficient.
- Legislation: In version W1, basic export of SAF-T files (international equivalent of JPK) will be introduced, enabling export in all countries. This release also enables support for non-deductible VAT in W1, which will be adopted for national (localization) versions in upcoming CU releases.
- Reporting and data analysis: Added a new mode in list pages to allow users to analyze pivot table data directly in the app.
- Integration with Microsoft 365: Improved business process collaboration efficiency in Microsoft Teams.
- Integration with Power Platform: Setting up Power Automate-based workflows will be faster and easier, allowing employees to be more productive by bringing automation to processes. Ready-to-use templates for Power Automate flows and Power Apps will help you get started faster.
- Interface support: Usability, accessibility, performance and reliability improvements, including optimizing the new action bar on all pages, adding attachments using drag and drop, or error messages that allow you to solve the cause of the problem faster.
- Management and administration: Additional features for administrators will allow you to manage user permissions using Azure AD security groups, better manage extensions in online (SaaS) environments, and move environments between Azure AD tenants.
- Development: The AL code compiler in the new version will make better use of resources, which will improve the efficiency of compiling solutions, and automatic code analysis will be faster. Programmers will be able to define the record isolation level for read operations, which will allow to control the behavior of the system during a possible table lock in the SQL database.
- System platform: Improved stability and performance by updating the .NET library, improving the performance of OData queries and new data for telemetry.
The article was based on materials on the Microsoft Learn platform.