As explained here on docs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/administration/tenant-admin-center#notification-recipients 

The Business Central administration center provides a portal for administrators to perform administrative tasks for a Business Central tenant. And as a partner, you can access the center from the Partner Dashboard in the Microsoft Partner Center.

Now, I have a Business Central tenant here: https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/e57bff73-f9b4-49b5-aea5-xxx, which I created as a trial, here: https://trials.dynamics.com/Dynamics365/Signup/BusinessCentral

That means I don’t have a partner, and I’m not a partner myself. So basically I don’t have access to the Partner Dashboard in the Microsoft Partner Center, so I can’t manage my tenant?

WRONG

Did you know that you can use the Business Central Administration Center by simply adding the word: /ADMIN at the end of your tenant URL?

So for example, my tenant URL is: https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/.

Let’s put /ADMIN behind it:

  • https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/admin
  • and see what happens:

So this means I now can:

  • See my current and next version no
  • Create a new sandbox environment with production data
  • Set the upgrade window
  • Schedule an upgrade date
  • Setup Tenant Notifications
  • Access Environment Telemetry

More documentation is available here:

 

 

 

14 Thoughts on “How Do I: Access and Use The Business Central Administration Center?

  1. Steven on April 24, 2019 at 09:04 said:

    Hello,

    Thank you for this post.

    I tried last week to create a sandbox with the previous version of D365BC but this sandbox is automatically upgrade to the release version of april 2019.

    Microsoft blocks the creation of a sandbox based on the 13.XX.XXXX version ?
    Do you know more about that ?

    thank you.

    • Hi Steven,

      This is what it says in the documentation:

      //*************************************************************************
      Selecting a version for a new sandbox environment
      (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/administration/tenant-admin-center-environments)

      If, when creating a new sandbox environment, the environment is not a copy of an existing environment, you have the option to select the application version for the new environment. The version list will show the latest Production version, which is the version used for new production environments.

      The version list may also have one or more Preview versions. Preview versions are early release candidates of upcoming releases of Business Central that are made available specifically for sandbox environments. This allows for reviewing new functionality, validating extension compatibility, and other general testing of the upcoming release.

      When a sandbox environment is created on a Preview version, the environment will automatically be upgraded to new Preview versions when they become available. However, the environment will not be upgraded to the Production version. Once a sandbox environment is on a Preview version, it must stay on a Preview version until it is deleted. The environment may also be deleted if an upgrade between Preview versions fails. It is recommended that Preview versions be used only for temporary testing of an upcoming release.
      //*************************************************************************

      But, if you need to create a sandbox of a certain version, you can also pull and run a docker image. On Freddy’s blog you will find many examples of how you can do that. And more info on version numbers is also available here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/freddyk/2018/12/05/business-central-build-numbers/

      Best regards,
      Steven

  2. Steven on April 24, 2019 at 09:44 said:

    Hi,

    thank you.
    I forgot one parameter : i created a sandbox based on a production environment. So i can’t select the version.

  3. Steven on April 24, 2019 at 10:04 said:

    Any ideas to create a sandbox based on current version from the admin center ?

    • What do you mean exactly?

      • Steven on April 24, 2019 at 11:09 said:

        I want to create a sandbox based on a copy of the production which will be based on the same version.

        When I create this kind on a sandbox, it will be automatically upgraded.
        I want to keep the current version.

        • If it’s a sandbox with copy of prod data, you can’t choose a version, and it , as I understand it, it will be automatically upgraded too.

          However, via a support ticket, you can request a bacpac (kind of a SQL backup) of your database, and restore that on a local (On Prem or Docker) environment.

          • Steven on April 24, 2019 at 15:01 said:

            ok thank you.
            But how can i request a bacpac ? from the office admin portal ?
            And after may i use it through the Intelligent Cloud functionality ?

          • As I said, you can request a bacpac file via an official support ticket, not via the admin portal.

          • This is the latest information I could find:

            For upgrading a sandbox with production company data to the preview version, we were unfortunately unable to complete engineering for that scenario for the April major release. You can create a new sandbox on the preview version, but you won’t yet have the option to upgrade an existing sandbox to the preview version. And when creating a sandbox as a copy of production, the version must be the same as the version of the production environment. So you can create a new sandbox without production data in the preview version, and load all your extensions on it to ensure they are compatible and do any reviews of new functionality, but it won’t be a complete test of the upgrade.

            If you want to do a complete upgrade test in a sandbox prior to the production upgrade, you can create a sandbox as a copy of production, and schedule it to upgrade to the production 14.0 version prior to your production environment being upgraded. That pushes out your timeline a little since you’d have to wait until the May 1st upgrade date for the sandbox to be upgraded to the production 14.0 version.

            We’re working hard to make this a better experience for the October release.

            Regarding the question on when scheduling is available, we currently only allow you to schedule an upgrade for major releases (April and October). That’s when you will see the email saying that scheduling is available. We’re looking at the possibility of allowing scheduling for the monthly minor updates, as well. It’s in our backlog of work, but we don’t yet have a timeline for when that would be available.

  4. Marton Nagy on April 24, 2019 at 10:42 said:

    Hi Steven,

    How can I find my tenant ID? All I got is “https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/” as the URL.

    Cheers,
    Marton

  5. Peik Bech-Andersen on November 23, 2019 at 16:07 said:

    Hi Steven,

    You can actually access the admin directly from the help and support menu.
    If you are logged in as Global Admin you get an extra menu item when clicking Help.

    The tenant id is all the way down the button of the help page.

    /Peik

    • Hi Peik,

      Yes you are correct, at the time of writing that was’nt the case, but this option was indeed added 🙂
      You can also create an export of your database bacpac file now.

      Greetings,
      Steven

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