Business Central 2020 Release Wave 2 Overview

Continuous improvements

With Business Central, Microsoft delivers a comprehensive business application that they have targeted at small and medium-sized businesses, but in reality can be used by any business, regardless of size. With the upcoming update of Business Central, 2020 release wave 2, which will be launched in October 2020, Microsoft strives to optimize the solution so that it to an even greater extent delivers world-class service that meets the new requirements and expectations set from a rapid expanding customer base.

This includes improved performance, optimized file storage management, geographic expansion along with support for group VAT (when a group of related companies, together sign up to submit a VAT return and thus simplify the process), new functionality based on what the users of the solution most has requested as well as enhanced integration with Microsoft Teams.

Seamless service service

To ensure that quality of service keeps pace with the ever-increasing influx of new users, Microsoft points out that three areas in particular are important to continually improve. These three areas, which will also be improved with the upcoming October update, are performance, reliability and supportability. The already strongly positioned accessibility must also be maintained, and with Business Central 17 even better support for the size of pages is added. Microsoft has made a significant and consistent investment in service security in Business Central. The result of this investment in security will be incorporated in 2020 Release Wave 2. An important part of Microsoft's business model for Business Central, are the partners. The upcoming upgrade enables additional telemetry (machine-to-machine) visibility for partners through Azure Insights and provides conflict management enhancements for synchronization with the Common Data Service.

Productivity improvements

With the new upgrade, Microsoft continues their ambition to create a solution with a world-class level of productivity. Once again, modern clients have been improved towards creating efficient and smooth workflows and user-requested functionality has been implemented, which includes returning to the request page after a report view and having the option to change the assigned printer before a report is printed.

Improved integration to the Microsoft Power Platform applications

With 2020 Release Wave 2, Microsoft is further investing in improving the integration to applications in the Power Platform, such as Power BI. This applies to existing integration connections as well as activation of new virtual devices.

Efficient and up-to-date developer tools

Microsoft has already switched to Visual Studio Code, but will with the upcoming update continue to invest in a number of areas aimed at optimizing the efficiency and productivity for the developers.

Improved integration with Office 365

With the upcoming update, it will be possible to integrate Business Central with Microsoft Teams. The integration helps to improve collaboration and the access to business data from the Teams channels enables users to make decisions faster.

Geographical extension

Business Central is already the most used business application in the world and with 2020 Release Wave 2, the foundation stone is being laid for the future inclusion of even more countries and regions. Specifically, with the upcoming October upgrade, Microsoft also plans to include Brazil, Ireland and Lithuania.

Customer-requested improvements

Microsoft has a strong focus on involving users in the ongoing development of Business Central. Therefore, the developers of the solution continue to respond to the most requested customer improvement suggestions. The correspondence between developers and users results in new functionality that comes directly from the product idea portal as well as improvements to the most popular feedback areas, such as administration, setup and use of e-mail.