My Top 10 Favorite Business Central New Features in the 2021 Release Wave 2 Update

Twice a year Christmas arrives early for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central in the form of Release Wave updates. These Release Wave updates bring all sorts of new features, functionality, and software localizations. This year the Business Central 2021 Release Wave 1 brought improvements for delegated administrators, Microsoft Teams integrations, cloud printing, and much more. I'm happy to report that the Business Central 2021 Release Wave 2 enhances most of these capabilities and adds more features! So, let's dive in and explore a little bit.

Here are my top 10 favorite Business Central new features.

Number 1: Add additional columns through personalization in various pages to gain more insight

This Business Central new feature adds more fields and columns to certain pages allowing you to personalize what data you can see. I like this feature because businesses may be similar but no two businesses are the same. Each business needs specific information to function at the highest level.

Number 2: List of trusted partner apps

It's no surprise given the amount of Business Central apps on Microsoft AppSource that partners are unable to be familiar with all of them. This can cause some issues because apps installed by customers directly from AppSource may cause continuity issues with other apps and setups and ultimately interfere with the way you do business. This Business Central new feature allows the partner to preload a list of apps that they approve for the customer to safely install.

I like 98% of this Business Central new feature except that I believe this will limit customers exposure to different apps and they might miss out on that diamond in the rough.

Number 3: Rounding for base unit of measure

Admittedly, I'm not a Business Central power user so I was shocked to find out that the rounding for base unit of measure feature was missing in previous versions. For example, let's say I'm receiving a box that contains 6 45lb weight plates but when I open the box only 5 of the 6 are good. My quantity received becomes 5/6 pieces. In the past this was converted to receipt of 4.99998 pieces but with these Business Central new features, if specified, the quantity will automatically round to 5.

Number 4: Enhancements to the Outlook add-in

I'm all for integrations and being able to do more in the app that you are in is a win in my book. In fact, I'm in such favor of integrations that I hope one day Microsoft Teams becomes the go-to for everything like email, Business Central, collaboration, etc.

Number 5: Share a record link to Microsoft Teams

Here's another Business Central Teams integration I like because it's going to save time and make you more productive. You no longer will have to copy the web link, open up Microsoft Teams, paste the link, and begin a conversation. Now you'll be able to choose either a Teams person, group, or channel, and send a message with the link to the Business Central record all from within Business Central.

Number 6: Profiling AL performance with Snapshot Debugger

I'll most likely never be a developer so all of these Business Central new features for developers will never see screen time on my computer. That being said, I'm assuming that anyway to diagnose speed related issues more quickly is a major win for all developers...and customers.

Number 7: Manage access to environments using Azure Active Directory Groups

We live in a digital world that requires the utmost attention put toward cybersecurity issues. One of the best ways to improve your security is by setting permissions that allow your employees only access to certain aspects of your business. That's why this Business Central new feature that helps you to set users to see only the environments they have access to and to only allow the users in the associated group to be imported into the environment is definitely a game changer for organizations with multiple environments.

Number 8: Copying environments of different types

With monthly updates, bi-annual updates, and different apps being able to be added to Business Central, testing configurations are an absolute must to keeping your business running smoothly. You can now aide in this testing by being able to copy more of your environments. With this release you'll be able to copy Production to Production, Sandbox to Sandbox, and Sandbox to Production.

Number 9: Show reports from named and shared Power BI workspaces in Business Central

The more insight you have into your data the better.

Number 10: Protect the Business Central Server against excessive background sessions for an environment

A necessary change to help Business Central's web client run without error and with predictable speed.