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Business Central 18 / 2021 Release Wave 1
- Overview of Business Central 18 - 2021 Release Wave 1
- What's new and planned for Business Central 18?
Overview of Business Central 18 - 2021 Release Wave 1
Business Central is a comprehensive all-in-one business application, officially designed and optimized for small and medium-sized businesses, but which in practice can also and already is used, by larger organizations.
With Business Central 18, which will be released in April with Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1, Microsoft has focused on making it even easier and faster to get Business Central up and running and in production, whether you are a brand new or existing customer. This is done in Business Central 18 by offering improvements and functionality in the app itself, which helps users get started and up and running.
With Business Central 18 the overall performance is also improved, the usability optimized and Microsoft continues the geographical expansion of the solution. No one is perfect and human error is inevitable. To help Business Central users be productive despite this, it becomes easier in Business Central 18 to correct dimensions for e.g. the general ledger entries (G/L).
Seamless service
Regardless of the size of the individual company and which industry it belongs to, all users expect the business solution and platform on which they are to run their business to be reliable and run smoothly and impeccably. With Business Central 18, Microsoft is improving the application so that it delivers an even smoother service.
Administration improvements
With Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1, Microsoft is releasing a number of brand new features designed to both simplify and improve the way Business Central partners manage their customers, as well as the way licensing and permissions are managed. A more smooth administration is not only an advantage for us as Business Central partner, it ultimately also greatly benefits the end users.
Improvements in the core application
No one knows Business Central better than users and developers. Microsoft has therefore, as usual, listened to the end customers and developers who work with the solution on a daily basis and deliver again with Business Central 18 a number of functions and opportunities within some of the most in-demand areas for improvement, such as banking, payments etc.
Better integration with the Microsoft 365 office apps
One of the great benefits of Microsoft 365 is the seamless integration between the many office-applications and Business Central. With Business Central 18, Microsoft improve the efficiency of the collaboration processes in Microsoft Teams, and the Excel and Outlook add-ins are improved.
Expansion of regions and countries
Business Central is already the world's most widespread financial system and with Dynamics 365 2021 Release Wave 1, the general availability of Business Central is expanded to India, and also extends to Greece, Romania and Turkey.
Easier rollout
A lot has happened in the ERP world, and not least for end users, the development has become noticeable. With Business Central 18, a number of improvements are launched in the application, which means that end customers get to the productive use of Business Central even more quickly.
Improvements in the modern development tools
As most people probably know, C/SIDE has been phased out and instead Visual Studio Code, together with the new AL language, today provides a modern developer experience, and with Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1, Microsoft continue to invest in areas that improve productivity for developers.
What's new and planned for Business Central 18?
Below you will find an overview of the new features, opportunities and enhancements planned for Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1 (Business Central 18), which will be rolled out from April 2021 to September 2021. As the overview shows features that may not have been released yet, be aware that delivery timelines may change and that the expected functionality may not be released at all.
In case of general availability, the function is delivered within the specified month. The specific delivery date can be any day within that month.
Administration
Business Central 18 provides functionality designed to simplify and improve the way partners manage their customers and the way administrators manage licensing
and permits.
| Functionality | Available for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Optimized operational reliability of export for larger databases with multiple companies | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Enhancements for delegated administrators | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Reassign an environment from one Azure Active Directory organization to another (via Microsoft Support) | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
Application improvements
Microsoft has listened to users and with the new updates in Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1, features are provided in some of the most user-requested areas for application enhancements, such as banking, payments and continuous performance improvement.
| Functionality | Available for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assisted setup in Business Central helps the user move the task of adjusting item costs to the background | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Automatic creation of batch and serial number information cards | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Improvements to bank reconciliation | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Changes in synchronization between contact and customer | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Define batch sizes for different stages of each production | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Dimensional corrections for G/L items (items in the general ledger) | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Additional control over default dimension settings | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Improves the payment reconciliation record | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Simplified import of bank statements | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
Better with Microsoft 365
With Business Central 18 the many collaboration processes in Microsoft Teams is improved so that the two solutions work more efficiently together. Universal Print support is also added and the add-ins for Excel and Outlook are optimized.
| Functionality | Available for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Look up Business Central contacts inside Microsoft Teams | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Enabling Word Merge in Business Central | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Cloud printing support using Microsoft Universal Print | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
Expansion for countries and regions
The world's already most widespread business application is spreading even more. With releases in India, Greece, Romania and Turkey, Business Central is bringing Dynamics 365 2021 Release Wave 1 to even more countries.
| Functionality | Available for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land og regional ekspansion - Grækenland | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Land og regional ekspansion - Indien | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Land og regional ekspansion - Romænien | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Land og regional ekspansion - Tyrkiet | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
Microsoft Power Platform
The already close integration with the applications in the Microsoft Power Platform and the data storage and management platform Microsoft Dataverse is also improved with Business Central 2021 release wave 1.
| Functionality | Available for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual tables for Microsoft Dataverse | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | April 2021 | |
| Sync item availability from Business Central to Dynamics 365 Sales | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Enable Power BI connect to work with Business Central APIs, rather than just with web services | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
Modern clients
Business Central 18 delivers client enhancements that mean better performance, optimized usability and the ability to print.
| Functionality | Available for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Report API allows you to pass on the required layout for report execution | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | April 2021 | |
| Reports can be run in the background | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | April 2021 | |
| Improvements in client performance | Users, automatically | February 2021 | April 2021 |
| Usability improvements in the Business Central web client | Users, automatically | February 2021 | April 2021 |
|
Enable printing from the cloud on the mobile app (phone and tablet) and from the Microsoft Teams app |
Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Users can change the assigned printer before printing a report | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
Modern developer tools
Everything has now been moved to Visual Studio Code and with Business Central 18, Microsoft continues to optimize the application and thus the productivity of developers.
| Functionality | Available for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partners are given the option to add keys (indexes) to base tables and table extension tables | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | April 2021 | |
| Validation of Extensions upon upgrade | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | April 2021 | |
| Interface - outdated support | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | February 2021 | April 2021 |
| Report extension | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | February 2021 | April 2021 |
| Return post link instead of name when using lookup | Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts, automatically | February 2021 | April 2021 |
Onboarding
With Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1, functions are implemented that enable end users to get up and running with the solution even faster.
| Functionality | Available for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Get started checklists for guided and faster initial setup | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Improved experience of getting started with Power BI | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Improved user experience of company setup | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
| Improvements to contextual help in the app | Users, automatically | March 2021 | April 2021 |
Description of 'Available for' column values
Users, automatically:
These features only include changes to the user experience and are activated completely automatically.
Administrators, decision makers, marketers or analysts:
These features are intended for use by administrators, developers, marketers, or business analysts and are enabled automatically.
Users of administrators, decision makers or analysts:
These features must be enabled or configured by administrators, decision makers or business analysts in order to be available to their users.