Key upgrades in Business Central 2021 release wave 2

Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 release wave 2 focuses on improving the Business Central user experience with other Microsoft products including Power BI, Excel, Dataverse and Teams. Users of the Business Central web client will notice performance optimizations that improve page load speeds, more efficient resource usage on client devices, and more. In the second of two waves of new features for the year, administrators will save time when setting up new users and deploying integrations. A majority of the new features are available for public preview in September, and general availability follows in October.

For a list of features released in 2021 wave 1, read our recap here.

Below is an overview of the best updates in Business Central 2021 release wave 2 from our team of Dynamics 365 experts.

Business Central 2021 release wave 2 takes user feedback into account and makes changes in the most requested areas for improvement. Key application functionality changes and new features include:

• Ability to add additional columns through personalization on various pages
• Ability to add non-inventory items on requisition and planning worksheets
• Set a default line type on sales and purchase documents
• Group general ledger and VAT entries in posting preview
• New flexibility with address information data entry
• Added control over currency rate adjustments
• New ability to use multiple units of measure when synchronizing items and resources to Dynamics 365 Sales

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In July, Microsoft announced that Teams users will gain access to view and edit Dynamics 365 data in Teams at no extra cost and without the need for Dynamics 365 licenses. With this announcement came a new way to share data. In the Business Central web client, users can type a message, choose recipients, groups, or channels, and send their message in Teams with a link to the Business Central record. This will help users save time from reduced app switching and boost collaboration with coworkers on Teams.

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One of the most popular tools to use with Business Central is Excel, and Microsoft is continuously upgrading the experience using the two in conjunction. Users can now export lists to Excel that are embedded in a part on a page. For example, you can export Sales Lines on a Sales Order directly to Excel. You can also now export report data to Excel from the report request page. The Edit in Excel feature is incredibly popular in Business Central as it is a fast way to enter data. Users can now use the Edit in Excel feature on recurring general journals and intercompany journals. Lastly, administrators can save time by configuring Business Central and Microsoft 365 to use Centralized Deployment to deploy the Excel add-in for users or groups of users.

Business Central 2021 release wave 2 includes an improved integration with Microsoft Dataverse. Users can now couple records between Business Central and Dataverse in bulk, and experience a more efficient synchronization of multiple records between the two systems.

When integrating Dataverse data, there might be data you don’t want to transfer into Business Central because it could impact other processes or calculations. Bulk coupling speeds up the process of coupling multiple records and allows you to define rules to control how the couplings are or aren’t made.

Data exchanged between Dataverse and Business Central are synchronized on a set schedule, but you might need to sync data on an ad hoc basis. This new feature makes ad hoc syncing more efficient by ensuring batches are processed in smaller sizes. When selecting multiple records to sync, Business Central creates a single job per batch of records, making it easier for users to stay below the limits for queue entries and reduces the load on the task scheduler who runs the background jobs.

Previously Power BI introduced named and shared workspaces, but in Business Central, you were only able to use the default workspace and the ones provided by Business Central. With this wave of features, you can now embed reports from any of your personal or shared Power BI workspaces into Business Central. When selecting which Power BI reports to show, you can see the list of workspaces you have access to and the reports available in the workspace. If you have a report in a shared team or organization-wide workspace, it can now also be embedded in Business Central.

Wave 2 of updates deliver a set of administrative and governance capabilities to help admin and IT users set up, secure, manage, govern, and monitor customer environments in Business Central including:

• Automatic installation and update of dependencies when updating apps in the Business Central admin center
• Manage access to environments using Azure Active Directory groups
• Handle schedule tasks after point-in-time restore
• Copying environments of different types
• Operations log enhancements
• Restarting environments

For existing users, our teams of experts are ready to answer any questions about new features in Business Central 2021 release wave 2. Contact us today for support.

Are you ready to implement Business Central today? From configuration and data migration to training and user adoption, Rand Group will be with your organization every step of the way to ensure a smooth implementation of Business Central that is tailored to your users and processes. Learn more about implementation and get your business on the all-in-one cloud-based solution today.