What’s new and planned for Dynamics 365 Business Central?
Would you like to know features that are planned to release from October 2019 through March 2020, then have a look here:
Here are the key dates for the 2019 release wave 2.
Application enhancements
We will continue to enhance the application through our focus on performance in the most used areas. The Business Central Ideas site continues to be a source for application enhancements.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cancel issued reminders and finance charge memos | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Carry line descriptions to general ledger entries when posting | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Write larger item cross-reference numbers | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
Application lifecycle management
Once partners have customers live on Business Central, there is an immediate need to be able to manage the lifecycle of the customer, the solution, provide support, manage updates, testing, and so on. We will continue our investment in expanding the scope of the tools available to partners.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support for technical upgrades | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Ability to download a database backup file | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Improvements in update testing and preparation | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Multiple production environments | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| New option to report production outage in the Business Central Administration Center | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Support for performant data upgrade from C/AL tables to AL tables | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
Empower ISV acceleration
The Dynamics NAV business has been driven by strong vertical ISV solutions, surrounded by add-on solutions. For the 2019 release wave 2, our focus will be on streamlining the path for ISVs to bring their solutions—and in turn their customers—to Business Central online.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design for extensibility | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
Migrations to Business Central online
This area details our migrations to the Business Central online roadmap.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enhancements for customer migration tools | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 |
Modern clients
We accelerate our investment in speed and productivity features for the modern browser experience, achieving a major milestone in its transformation into a world-class desktop experience for new and expert users alike.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add links to your navigation menu | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Add notes and links to data | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Easy access to a capability overview | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Enhancements to Excel integration | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Full keyboard shortcut support | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| General user experience adjustments | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Longer timeout period for the server connection | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Modern clients only for Business Central | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Personalize actions and navigation on your Home page | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Powerful filtering for reports | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Resize columns with fewer clicks | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Saving and personalizing list views | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Switch between companies in your Business Inbox in Outlook | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Customize a user profile without writing code | End users, automatically | September 2019 | October 2019 |
| Filtering option fields by multiple values | End users, automatically | September 2019 | October 2019 |
| Multi-tasking across multiple pages | End users, automatically | September 2019 | October 2019 |
| Speed and agility of data entry | End users, automatically | September 2019 | October 2019 |
Modern developer tools
For the 2019 release wave 2, Business Central retires the legacy development tool, C/SIDE, and development language, C/AL, replacing them with a modern solution based on Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, and an AL language that supports an extension-based approach to customization.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code documentation attributes | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Convert tables from C/AL definitions to AL table definitions | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Database insights made available in AL | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Translating other extensions | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | October 2019 | |
| Access modifiers | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Attach and debug next | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Base application delivered as AL applications | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Improved app dependency handling on build and deploy | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| More power to developers using Designer | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
Service fundamentals
Laser focus on performance, reliability, supportability, and security is essential to ensure that service quality remains ahead of the growth in service usage. Accessibility, already in a strong position, must be preserved.
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lock-free number series | End users, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| New Support Request option in the Business Central Administration Center | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Page background tasks | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Partners can enter support contact details in the Business Central Administration Center | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
| Surrogate keys | Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically | August 2019 | October 2019 |
Description of Enabled for column values:
- End users, automatically – These features include change(s) to the user experience for end users and are enabled automatically.
- Admins, makers, or analysts, automatically – These features are meant to be used by administrators, makers, or business analysts and are enabled automatically.
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End users by admins, makers, or analysts – These features must be enabled or configured by the administrators, makers, or business analysts to be available for their end users.
More information is also available here:
- https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/bdm/2019/06/10/announcing-new-features-growing-demand-for-dynamics-365-and-power-platform/
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365-release-plan/2019wave2/dynamics365-business-central/planned-features
- Download the 2019 release wave 2 PDF (last updated June 26, 2019)