We are kicking off the new release of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1 with an exclusive webinar and demo of the upgraded functionality. Hosted by Dave Wiser and Kris Ruyeras, our Tigunians cover several functional and technical topics coming to Business Central customers in the spring release, including:
- Report Extensions
- Teaching Tips and Tours
- 1D Barcodes
- Universal Print Extensions
- BC18 Entitlements with Your Extensions (Only applies to online version)
- Building Integrations with API Pages
- CRM Integration
- Microsoft Teams Integration
- Enhanced Admin Center
- Bill.com Integration
- Faster Web Client Loading
- Browser Restrictions (Internet Explorer and Edge Legacy)
- New Storage Limits (SaaS Clients Only)
- Navigation
- BOM and Routing on SKU Cards
- Return to Options After Printing
The new improvements will lead to better reporting, improved system performance, enhanced productivity for developers, faster onboarding, and seamless integration with Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform. To give you the full experience, Dave and Kris don’t just speak to these new features and benefits—they show you exactly how they work by providing a hands-on demo of each update.
You can jump right into the top functionality upgrades you can expect to see in Business Central Wave 1 2021 here:
Tigunia’s Top 5 Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1 Highlights
We hope you have time to watch the webinar, but if not, here’s a quick summary of what we think are some of the biggest changes and additions you can expect to see in the spring release.
- Report Extensions for Easier Report Writing
You can now add to existing reports in Business Central. These changes include adding columns, fields, data items, trigger implementations, request pages, and other layouts. An example Kris uses in the webinar is adding a country/region code to an existing Customer—Top 10 List report. It’s important to note that if you require a complete layout change to a report, you will need to start from scratch.Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1 also includes other new features to customize your reports, including adding 1D barcodes. You can easily add common barcode symbology, which Kris demonstrates in the video.
- Guided Experience for Faster Onboarding and Seamless Service
In Business Central Wave 1, you can now take advantage of “Teaching Tips and Tours.” This is a useful new function that you can add to your existing processes and workflows for additional user guidance. By adding tips and tours to your custom Business Central solution, your users (and new hires) will be able to easily navigate the system and the steps you need to get through a workflow. Not every page has a Teaching Tips section currently, but you can easily follow the instructions in the video to add it wherever you need. - Better Integration with Microsoft 365
There have been some significant changes made to Microsoft 365 in the latest release. The first notable change is Business Central’s ability to integrate with Dynamics CRM or Microsoft 365 Customer Engagement/Sales. An admin can now automatically synchronize item availability to ensure visibility of inventory availability. Although the integration is more straightforward now, you are required to set up a Dataverse. Please note that there are storage limitations to factor in.The second area of improvement is the changes made to the Business Central app for Teams. It has been updated to include a messaging extension that allows a user to look up contact records sourced in the database without switching applications. Contacts can include prospects, vendors, customers, or other business relationships.
Finally, Microsoft has added new support for Universal Print, a Microsoft 365 service that modernizes print management. This new native extension enables cloud printing, so you can easily send documents and reports to any of the printers defined in your Universal Print management page.
- Admin Center Enhancements
Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1 includes more features specifically meant to simplify and improve the way administrators manage licensing and permissions. One feature that piqued our interest was the ability to restore your environments up to the last 30 days without the need for a partner or global admin. A Business Central permission is now available where you assign user access to the admin center and accomplish this restoration. Keep in mind that you can’t restore a sandbox to a production environment or into a deleted environment. - Performance, Usability, and Printing Improvements
In the new release, there have been many changes made to improve the performance and usability of Business Central. The Web Client, in particular, is exponentially faster than previously, and Microsoft has made significant progress in making sure the screens on the Web Client are presented much quicker.For those who have worked with Dynamics NAV or Business Central in the past, you know that “Navigate” appears on every screen. In the 2021 Wave 1 release, the button is significantly reduced. It still exists, but it has been replaced by “Actions.” For example, when you go to a posted sales invoice, you can still click “Navigate” to a customer, but if you need to navigate to the different entries, you go to “Action” and “Find Entries.” This change makes it easier and less confusing to navigate change.Here are some other usability improvements:
- When you exited a report in the past, the report would close out, and you’d have to go back and start again. In the new release, it now reverts to the options screen to allow for any changes to be made.
- An installable client tile at the start button to simplify how you access Business Central.
- Feature management describes some additional features that Microsoft has added to the product. These haven’t officially been released, but they will eventually be included in the base platform. You have the option to review and manually add them as you wish.
- New bank reconciliation wizard to help import bank statements.
Although we have a warning about using this feature, we will mention that the Business Central Wave 1 release includes the ability to update dimensions. If you’ve ever posted a transaction and realized the dimensions you posted were wrong, this feature will allow you to make dimension corrections. Microsoft has added this feature to change the dimensions for posted GL transactions. This will be helpful if you’re using account schedules or other reporting for correcting the GL without making additional transactions. The one caveat is that it only affects the General Ledger entry.
To learn more about these features, please feel free to review Microsoft’s Business Central 2021 Wave 1 release plan here.
Book a Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 Wave 1 Tour
At Tigunia, we’re here to make sure you are getting the most out your Dynamics 365 Business Central system! If you would like a personal tour of the spring release for optimization and training purposes, feel free to contact our team today.
