You'll enjoy this information if you're convinced of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central's (BC) advantages as a top-tier business management tool. There are numerous improvements in Microsoft's Dynamics 365 Business Central Release 2023 Wave 2 to expand on what you already appreciate and what supports you in boosting your productivity and earnings.

Small- and medium-sized businesses already have the freedom and resources Business Central provides to manage their finances, supply chains, production, shipping, projects, and other areas. It is easy to set up and configure, and simplicity is the driving force behind advances in product creation, design, usability, and execution.

Wave 2 of the Business Central Release Plan for 2023: What do you stand to gain?

• Microsoft strengthened its commitment to Copilot with this version. Customers may optimize their workflows and complete tasks more quickly with the help of Copilot's coaching services. There will be additional advancements in the developer-friendly Copilot in Visual Studio Code and the AL experience.
• Consolidating financial data and creating cross-company partnerships are now more straightforward for several companies operating in distinct Business Central contexts.
• It now takes less time to onboard new customers. It's easier to understand why some errors occur, and the messages give instructions on resolving the issue so you can continue working. Microsoft helps firms concentrate on their core businesses while complying with multiple governmental requirements by automating regulatory activities. 
• Usability is always a top focus, and with this version, helpful keyboard shortcuts for working with lines in documents boost efficiency. Additionally, you may rapidly access editable fields without going down.
• The Business Central web client's productivity-focused design enables consultants and developers to easily access the Visual Studio Code editor or a debugger linked to the source code in the GitHub repository.

Business Central Release Wave 2 includes the following updates:

Quick adaptation with Microsoft Power Platform: Workflows in Business Central now require less setup time. With the use of templates, you may automate more processes and boost productivity right away. The Business Central Power Automate connector can also consume business events.

Application: Thanks to intercompany and consolidation functions, you may leverage multi-company capabilities more broadly. To help manage inventory and warehouse operations more successfully, Business Central's supply chain capabilities have undergone several optimizations and improvements. These include a more precise warehouse setup for production and jobs, an improved picking process, fulfillment suggestions, and SKU management.

Country and regional: Microsoft has improved the service's accessibility internationally. You can now find Business Central from over 130 countries and territories.

Development: A complete switch to Visual Studio Code, where Microsoft keeps spending money on initiatives that boost developers' productivity. There are techniques for testing dependent extensions without manual intervention by ensuring that AL GO can manage these tests for clients, VARs, and independent software suppliers (ISVs) who maintain dependencies.

Governance and management: To help administrators handle granular administrative rights, Business Central provides a wealth of additional self-service choices.

Regulations: New audit formats improve digital reporting and compatibility with regional rules.

Onboarding: Field tooltips, such as "Learn More," provide more beneficial linkages to material that explains values that are too complex for a quick paragraph to cover.

Productivity with Microsoft 365: The efficiency of collaborative business operations in Microsoft Teams has increased thanks to the ability to unfold a card without downloading the Business Central Teams app.

Data analysis and reporting improvements include the Analysis mode and an overview that lets you look at all Business Central reports.

Platform and service: These fundamental elements remain crucial, focusing on performance, stability, resource governance, security, and compliance.

Where Microsoft is focusing its Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central investments

User interactions

Business Central offers various user interfaces to access data from any place or device at any time. It includes many powerful and straightforward capabilities, whether you need to enter data fast, casually edit records, or analyze relational data.

Development

The groundwork is laid to make it easier and more effective for AL developers to add namespace support to the platform and application. Developers can also hide individual variable data to secure internal data and prevent unauthorized access while debugging.

The analysis and reporting of data are more in the hands of developers. You may decide how to use content from Power BI, for instance, and you can turn off Analysis mode on pages.

Support for CSP channel-based ISV app transactions now enters the private preview stage. The possibility for ISVs to do direct business through AppSource using credit card payments also enters the general availability stage. 

Application

This edition's new supply chain capabilities will improve the efficiency, adaptability, and accuracy of managing items in your warehouse. You can get complete availability information for inventory levels, locations, processing stages, and other factors affecting available amounts. 

Additionally, you can independently determine the proper amount of warehouse handling for external, internal, and inbound flows. 

Some new features include intercompany transactions, financial data consolidations, approval workflows, and automatic general ledger allocations. You can merge financial data for businesses from several Business Central settings without maintaining files. 

Regional and National

Partners' localization efforts facilitate expansion into other regions. Relevant localization apps are created by Microsoft partners and published to AppSource. With built-in language options, Business Central is accessible to serve clients in numerous countries and areas worldwide. 

Data analysis and reporting

Obtain insightful data on how your company is operating owing to report discoverability. With more tools for Analysis mode, you can execute embedded data analysis on the fly, and the Power BI experience has improved reports. 

You'll be more productive if you don't have to open another app to find the data you need.

Governance and administration

Administrators of Business Central now have new tools for controlling environments, apps, and data migrations. The goal is for administrators to be independent, able to serve their client's needs, and able to handle a variety of administrative circumstances.

Two crucial areas for faster adaptation with Power Platform

• How users and decision-makers view Power Automate approval workflows, including the expanded connector's actions, the addition of assistance for external business events, and more templates for Teams-based automated flows.
• The Power BI embed experience provides end users exploring the BI features in Business Central with more control tools and partners who provide in-context dashboards and reports.

Additionally, based on partner input, dynamic possibilities exist for linking Power Platform with Business Central online.

AI Copilot and Innovation

Until recently, only a few SMBs could afford to invest in AI as a commodity. Companies are now embracing AI to eliminate tedious tasks from their jobs.

Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot, experts can complete routine activities using cutting-edge AI. Without becoming a data scientist, you can equip your staff with Copilot in Business Central to accomplish more tasks with less effort.

Platform and service

Thanks to this version, users should see fewer interruptions, which makes Business Central feel faster overall and significantly speeds up some scenarios and web services. By putting a strong emphasis on performance, stability, resource governance, security, and compliance, Microsoft continues to invest in the service's foundations. 

Users now experience fewer session interruptions and more dependable interactive user sign-ins, which enhances the overall user experience. Through an optimized language (AL) runtime, users will notice less database locking and an increase in the performance impact of table expansions.

Microsoft 365 Business Central is your pass to increased productivity and higher performance

When you combine business and productivity apps, people and teams operate more effectively. 

Business Central seamlessly integrates with top-tier Microsoft 365 applications and services (Outlook, Excel, Word, OneDrive, and Teams) to bring data into the workflow, giving you up-to-the-minute visibility into your business operations and helping you compete more effectively.

Are you leveraging all the power of MS Business Central?

Liberty Grove can help you use all the tools in the Microsoft suite to help you improve your organization's productivity, efficiency, and profitability.

Contact Liberty Grove for a complimentary consultation on how its experts can help you identify what you need to optimize your market position.

About the author

Liberty Grove Software is an established Microsoft Partner that focuses on providing customers with sales, service, and support for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central/NAV solutions and training and upgrades.

Over more than 25 years, Liberty Grove has assisted hundreds of customers with businesses ranging from small to mid-sized to Microsoft Partners in implementing, training, customization, and upgrading Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions.

The organization is one of only a few companies worldwide that Microsoft recognizes as qualified to provide Business Central/NAV Upgrade Service Centers.