[Podcast] Business Central March 2020 News, Late Payment Prediction Extension, and More!
Updated: Aug 16, 2021
A Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central podcast | S4E11 A Shot of Business Central and A Beer
Intro
On Today’s podcast we’re talking about some of the Business Central Release Wave 1 features that we tested in a Sandbox preview, some licensing changes, Microsoft's sheer dominance for analytics and business intelligence platforms, the Late Payment Prediction extension included in Business Central, and the top 10 things to know about Business Central apps.
Segment Start Times
Intro & Beer: 0min 13sec
Shot of Business Central - Updates: 7min 49sec
BC Feature Spotlight - Late Payment Prediction Extension: 29min 21sec
BC Feature App - Top 10 Things To Know About Business Central Apps: 40min 06sec
You can also listen to us at:
A Shot of Business Central and A Beer Show Notes
Segment 1 – Beer Review
Destihl Brewery in Normal Illinois
Two Destihl Restaurant and Brew Works locations: Normal, IL and Champaign, IL.
Wild Sour Series
STYLE: DRY-HOPPED SOUR ALE HOPS: WARRIOR, SUMMIT
ABV: 6.0% IBU: 12 AVAILABILITY: YEAR-ROUND RELEASE
PACKAGING: 4-PACK OF 12OZ CANS, 1/6 BBL & 1/2 BBL KEGS
INGREDIENTS: 2-row malt, caramel malt 20, carapils, rice hulls
Synchopathic is the cool harmonization of a refreshingly tart and acidic sour ale with citrusy, fruity, & floral dry-hops normally in concert with pale ales, with totally rad aromas and flavors reminiscent of grapefruit, orange, lemon, tangerine, pineapple and hints of pine, giving way to a biscuity-crackery malt back beat, low bitterness and a dry finish to bring everything in synch.
89 Rating on Beer Advocate
Paid $13.99 for a 6-pack of cans
Our Ratings: Ken = 80 and Michael = 64
What is a Gose Beer? http://sourbeerblog.com/brewing-gose/
What is sour beer?
Sour beer is the oldest type of beer in history. Nearly all beer used to be at least somewhat sour before pasteurization and sterilization was entirely understood. Sours today are tart-tasting, and made with wild bacteria and yeasts, whereas more familiar beers are made in sterile environments with specific yeast strains.
What makes a sour beer taste sour?
The brewer ferments the beer by introducing one (or a combination) of fermenting agents: a genus of yeast called Brettanomyces, and/or acid producing bacteria, and/or any type of conventional and non-conventional yeast.
When using wild yeast like Brett, some brewers will leave wort in open vats known as “coolships” to allow them to pick up wild yeast and bacteria from the environment to initiate fermentation. Brewers then move the wort into oak barrels, where it will slowly change over time, yielding some of the most complex beers in existence.
Beer Advocate Comments
BAD:
This beer ours a slightly hazy golden yellow color. The head is a half inch in height, and recedes quickly into sparse lacing. The aroma smells like mop bucket full of used water and lemon pine-sol.
GOOD:
A must try for anyone that likes sour beers.
Would be great for people would love their beer really sour.
Excellent gose and a great all around refreshing sour. I could drink this by the gallon
DESCRIPTIVE:
Taste - Stings the tongue immediately after sipping with a strong acidic sourness, stronger than a Lemon Head but not quite Atomic Warhead.
Overall - I'm completely inexperienced with sour beers, and I'm not sure if they're my thing. This beer is the opposite of a relaxing drink. I'm kinda scared every time I take a sip. But I kinda invite the roughness.
Segment 2 - A Shot of Business Central
Licensing Changes
On February 24th Microsoft announced the global roll-out of the preview environments for the Business Central 2020 Release Wave 1.
The current 40% discount for Business Central transition pricing from on-premise to the cloud has no end sight for now.
Currently Business Central cloud storage is capped at 80 GB per tenant. Starting in April you’ll be able to purchase additional storage at the price of $40 per gig per month.
Device licenses for Business Central Cloud are coming and for on-premise.
Professional Level SKUs will be available April 1, 2020 an these can be attached to both Business Central Premium and Essentials users (D365 for Sales Professional & Customer Service Professional).
Application Enhancements
Auto-insert Recurring Sales and Purchase Lines:
Bank Reconciliation Improvements
Print to Attachment
Receive More Items than Ordered
Modern Client
Entering Data More Easily (no details prior to Preview/detailed notes)
Collapse and Expand Document Lines
Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms
Segment 3 Feature Spotlight: The Late Payment Prediction Extension
What is it?
An extension that is available for free on Microsoft AppSource.
Don’t pay attention to the poor reviews on AppSource. These reviews are from people who are upset that the extension is not available in their region.
What does it do?
The extension uses a machine learning classification model that with enough data, predicts the probability of your customer paying an invoice on-time.
What is Machine Learning Classification?
Machine learning classification is a supervised learning approach in which the computer program learns from the data input give to it and then uses this learning to classify new observations.
Where is Late Payment Prediction in Business Central?
It can be found in Customer Ledger Entries (go to the customer card and click balance). Here you’ll see three additional fields: Payment Prediction, Prediction Confidence, and Prediction Confidence %. *Note: If there’s not enough data these fields will be blank.
(On the Customer Ledger Entries page’s Fact Box you’ll see a section titled Late Payment Prediction.)
It can also be found in the Sales Quotes, Sales Orders, and Sales Invoices windows by using the Predict Payment action. For example, if you are creating a new quote for a customer and you want to know what their probability of making a payment on time would be go to Actions -> Predict Payment -> and the program will evaluate the customer and offer a prediction.
How much information is needed for the Late Payment Prediction extension to work in Business Central?
I have not been able to find a specific number as to how much data is needed.
What is the benefit of this feature?
By being able to predict late payments upfront you can change your terms of payment, payment method, and/or how often you choose to remind the customer a payment is due.
What’s Missing?
When using the Predict Payment Action in a Sales Document I wish it showed the actual percentage of confidence instead of low, medium, or high.
(High means that the prediction is at least 90% sure.)
(Medium means that the prediction is between 80 and 90%.)
(Low means that the prediction is below 80%.)
Interesting Note
If you feel you are enough of a Data Scientist you can swap out Microsoft’s model for your own. See the below links for more information:
Segment 4 – The Top 10 Things to Know About Business Central Apps
The words App and Extension are sometimes used interchangeably.
An “App” is a complete solution for Business Central that has been designed for a specific purpose and typically provides functionality above and beyond what Microsoft has delivered within the standard Business Central product.
The amount of functionality included within an App varies widely.
We think of Apps as belonging to 1 of 3 categories: (Yes, you could break it down further or differently, but think of Apps as one of these types and it will help understand how they work)
Some Apps provide free trials and most of these limit your use of the App to a period of time (such as 30 days).
Most Apps ultimately require you to pay the App Developer to use the App and most Apps are priced using a subscription pricing model.
Some App Developers require that you arrange for licensing and payment directly through them, while other App Developers will work with your Business Central Partner to arrange for licensing and payment.
The source code of an App cannot be directly modified.
If you no longer want the App, you can uninstall the App from the Extension Management Page.
When a new version of Business Central is released by Microsoft, it is common that an App Developer will need to provide an updated version of the App in order for your Business Central environment to be successfully upgraded to the new release.
Closing Statement
Thanks everyone for listening, you can find the show notes and links on our website.
Please subscribe to the podcast, share it, or tell a friend about it.
