2024 Release Wave 1 Highlights: Dynamics 365 Business Central

Copilot AI Delivers New Capabilities for End-Users and Developers

One of the key benefits of using cloud applications is the constant roll-out of new features. A prime example is Microsoft’s recent announcement of the 2024 Release Wave 1 updates for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. From April through September, you can expect to see a steady stream of enhancements that will help both your end-users and your developers.

The focus of Wave 1 is Copilot artificial intelligence. A range of enhancements will streamline business processes by enabling users to complete tasks faster through selection-aware, context-based actions.
Copilot empowers users with intuitive tools to program workflows with less effort—without needing to become data scientists.

For developers who work with GitHub, Visual Studio Code, and the AppSource marketplace, AI will make it easier to enrich application metadata in Business Central. Microsoft has also added new code refactoring capabilities, an easy path to functional and performance testing, and ISV and custom code with AL GO for GitHub.

New Capabilities in Business Central 2024 Release Wave 1

• Templates Automate More Tasks—The seamless integration between Business Central and the Microsoft Power Platform lets you leverage more templates to improve user efficiency by automating repetitive tasks. You can also leverage data using Copilot AI for cloud flows in Power Platform to create connected workflows and experiences through quick and easy natural language expressions.
• International Expansion—New multi-company management capabilities help businesses using Business Central across borders to improve experiences in inventory management, service, and project management. Microsoft also continues to expand the availability of Business Central, which is now available in more than 155 countries.
• Governance and Administration—System administrators will have more tools for managing environments, apps, and data migrations. These capabilities handle a wide variety of administrative scenarios through granular roles to give more control over the access granted to delegated administrators. Also look for improved processes for minor update releases—along with the ability to link Business Central and Power Platform environments to set up consistent integrations and apply Power Platform settings to Business Central.
• Compliance—Business Central offers updates to regulatory features based on changing requirements by automating processes to ensure features comply with regulations set by government agencies. For example, if local regulations require vouchers to prove transactions, Business Central can automatically generate and attach vouchers to general ledger entries.
• Reporting and Analysis—Universal analytics within Business Central seamlessly integrates in-context and immersive business intelligence content from first and third parties. Flexible self-service capabilities also allow users to effortlessly access and leverage data for maximum value.
• User Experiences—A broad portfolio of interfaces enables users to work in Business Central from anywhere and on any device. Interfaces include a desktop app, a browser-based web app, and mobile apps for entering data, updating entries, and analyzing relational data. The Wave 1 release also includes enhancements to boost efficiency when working with actions across selections in lists of records and when viewing summarized data so users can easily fix data entry mistakes.

Enhancements to Improve Developer Productivity

As noted above, the 2024 Release Wave 1 of Business Central features several enhancements to improve developer productivity. For AL developers, specifically, Microsoft is introducing namespace support to make it easier to structure apps, create object names, and avoid identifier clashes.

Microsoft is also adding the ability to move ownership of tables and data between extensions when refactoring apps. Additionally, developers can hide specific variable data so other parties can’t access it during debugging, which protects internal data.

For data analysis and reporting, developers have more control, such as the flexibility to turn off Analysis Mode on pages and specify how to embed content from Power BI. Plus, developers can easily open Visual Studio Code for a production or sandbox environment to investigate and understand objects across installed extensions, view code for owned extensions, and perform troubleshooting—all without setting up Visual Studio Code manually.

A Partner to Help You Navigate the Dynamics 365 Business Central Enhancements

Many SMBs have turned to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central to support their growing, diverse businesses with a modern technology platform. Business Central helps you gain overall system efficiency and enables your teams to stay connected to the data they need to meet customer demands from virtually anywhere.

To navigate all the 2024 Release Wave 1 enhancements, Velosio is here to help. We are among the largest and most recognized Microsoft Dynamics partners, with thousands of active customers. Many years as a recognized leader in ERP, CRM, cloud productivity, and business intelligence solutions have repeatedly landed us in the top 1% of Microsoft Dynamics Partners worldwide.

We will be glad to advise you on when each Business Central enhancement will be available, which enhancements make sense for your environment, and how to sync them with the Business Central functions you already rely on. Contact us today to learn more.