A first look at Business Central Wave 2 updates – Part 2

Last month (July 2023) Microsoft released their plans for updates to all Dynamics 365 applications, including Business Central, coming from October 2023 as part of the 2023 release Wave 2 update. In our recent blog we took a look at the new or updated application features coming to Business Central later this year. In this one, we look at updates coming including: integration with the Power Platform, improved AI capabilities, improved user experience, productivity, reporting and analysis, as well as governance.

We will be holding a webinar in October highlighting the upcoming Business Central and Bevica features we think will be the most useful to our customers.

Adapt faster with the Power Platform

In this update, Microsoft are bringing embedded Power Apps to Business Central to tap into the main Power app connectors. Specific new features include:

• Change modification limits for triggering flows and bulk updates – With this update, users will be able to process large datasets in Power Automate or trigger automation when multiple rows have been updated.
• Support business events in Business Central connector for Power Automate – Building flows that react to specific business events in Business Central (version 22.2 and later) is now possible with this update.
• Enable specific virtual tables when you connect to Dataverse – This update enables the use of virtual tables and thus makes more data available between Business Central and the Dataverse. This will enrich integrations without additional customisations.
• Get control over how to view Power BI embedded content – In this release, Microsoft is adding more capabilities to the Power BI embedded experience in Business Central. Exact details on what this entails are still to be confirmed.

Copilot and AI innovation

The 2023 Wave 2 update expands on Microsoft’s first Copilot capabilities introduced earlier this year. These include:

• Complete bank account reconciliation faster with Copilot – The bank account reconciliation feature in Business Central has been enhanced with AI–powered transaction matching that further improves automation and AI–generated explanations for how remaining transactions could be matched.
• Get marketing text suggestions with Copilot – Business Central’s first Copilot feature, marketing text suggestions, moves from public preview to being generally available.

Improved user experiences

The 2023 release Wave 2 also brings improvements to how Business Central users will be able to enter, update and fix mistakes in their data.

Specific improvements include:

• Add existing table fields to optimise your pages – This improvement, which was originally meant to be in the Wave 1 update, allows users to add existing table fields to any Business Central page without the need for specialist code development.
• Get to data search from anywhere in Business Central – Business Central will now allow you to search across all the data that is relevant for your role, not just business transactions.
• Distinguish browser tabs when multitasking – Many users open Business Central in multiple browser tabs or windows to allow them to compare data or deal with new tasks as they appear. In this Wave, Business Central has introduced a scheme of browser tab names helps to distinguish one open window from the next, making it easier to switch.
• Share readable deep links to pages and records – In this update, Business Central introduces a simple and consistent naming convention so that pasting a link to any Business Central page or record results in a readable hyperlink that clearly indicates context, but hides the full URL.
• Manage user expectations with selection context–based actions – With this improvement, only the actions that are relevant to the Business Central page you are working on will be available to you.
• Peek at summarised data from editable fields – Until now, the peek control was available only in lists and non–editable forms. Users can now use the peek control to access summarised information about related records on every page.
• Search for pages and data in the mobile app – With this update, the Tell Me feature will be enabled in the mobile app and users can access any page they have permission to open.
• Use actions to navigate or fix errors from inline validation dialog – When there’s an error, Business Central shows a small validation dialog to inform the user. With this update, Microsoft have added actions on validation dialogs that take the user to the problem so they can fix it, or have Business Central fix it for them when possible.

Productive with Microsoft 365

In this Wave, Microsoft focuses on enhancements to the Excel add–in. These include:

• Dimensions being 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 publish 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

Building on the reporting improvements in Wave 1, this Wave 2 update brings an improved reporting and dashboard system that makes it easier to find and run the reports that a user needs.

• Analyse, group and pivot data on queries using multiple tabs – This improvement builds on the analysis mode on list pages (introduced in the 2023 Wave 1 update). With this, you can open multiple tabs (for different tasks or views on the data) and then analyse the data directly from that tab.
• Discover report and data analysis content easily – End users can now discover report and data analysis content, including queries, reports, and Power BI pages, by using navigational search (Tell Me) or the new report explorer page.
• Get Power BI reports for reporting and data analysis on finance, sales and inventory – With this update, end users can now get Power BI reports for reporting and data analysis on the finance, sales and inventory areas of Business Central.

Governance

Microsoft is adding new tools and improving existing tools for administrators to manage environments, apps and data migrations. These include:

• Assign more granular administration rights – A new Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) role, the Dynamics 365 Business Central Administrator, gives customers more granular control over their delegated administrators’ access rights.
• Improved data release processes – During 2023 release Wave 2, Microsoft is improving their update release processes. Customers who don’t manually schedule their environment updates can expect updates to start quickly after the start of the environment update window.

In this blog we have concentrated on those updates that will directly improve the user experience of Business Central. In addition, there are improvements to Development, Legislation, Onboarding and Service and Platform.

TVision is here to help

If you want to know more about Microsoft Business Central and how TVision could help you, please feel free to contact us to arrange a demo to see how it could be the perfect ERP to help you overcome your business challenges.

If you are already a TVision customer and want to know how and when these Business Central 2023 Wave 2 updates will affect your business, contact us.