As on September 2022, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central dominates the global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software market with a share of over 87 percent. With the significant sway of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central over the industry, businesses from across all verticals look forward to the latest news for the platform at the Directions 4 Partners events. The event serves as a platform for Microsoft to announce its latest updates, innovations, and strategies for its business solutions. Among these solutions, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central takes center stage, and Direction 2023 brought along the latest announcements and news for Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates and their other related business solution products.
Table of Contents
If you are using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central to manage your ERP operations and want to seamlessly integrate them under a single platform to automate and streamline your business processes, then employ APPSeCONNECT’s pre-configured Dynamics 365 Business Central connectors to automate business processes efficiently and amplify your growth.
What is the Wave 1 Release for Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Updates?
The Wave 1 release of Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates aims to bring along enhanced capabilities to improve the management of multiple companies with significant improvements for intercompany functionalities. The updates will also streamline the customer onboarding process through seamless customer experiences that are bolstered by valuable accurate and insightful content curated directly by both Microsoft and their trusted partners, thereby reducing the onboarding time significantly.
Furthermore, the new features will introduce features and automations to allow organizations to effortlessly stay compliant with various government regulations and focus their resources more on managing and growing their business. Developers are also not being left behind with this update, as it introduces Visual Studio Code AL Explorer, which will offer developers to seamlessly collaborate on development through GitHub and adds self-service capabilities for administrators who manage apps and environments.
The Wave 1 Release for Dynamics 365 Business Central in 2023 marks an exciting milestone in the industry of ERP applications and by leveraging the power of new features, enterprises can unlock new levels of efficiency and success for organizations.
Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Updates and Key Highlights from Directions 2023
Directions Asia 2023 and Directions North America 2023, both delivered many significant updates, news, and roadmaps for their products, with a strong focus on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. These events unveiled pivotal highlights that are crucial for businesses to take note of. Among the noteworthy highlights were the exciting updates and advancements planned for Dynamics 365 Business Central in 2023. Additionally, attendees were presented with a glimpse into the future roadmap of Microsoft’s business applications tailored specifically for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Some of the key highlights and takeaways from the event are as follows:
Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Updates and Roadmaps
Mike Morton, VP of Engineering, along with his team, demonstrated and highlighted the notable additions to Dynamics 365 Business Central after its recent wave 1 release. The 2023 release wave 1 brought significant enhancements to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, particularly in optimizing the customer onboarding experience to significantly reduce the time required to onboard new customers. This is achieved through seamless onboarding experiences, supported by high-quality content provided by Microsoft and its trusted partners. The goal is to provide customers with a smooth and efficient transition into the Dynamics 365 Business Central ecosystem, enabling them to start utilizing the full benefits of the platform quickly. The new onboarding framework with partner-specific trials was showcased that aims to simplify the process of getting started with the platform, particularly for partners.
Additionally, the demonstrations also covered the core Finance and Supply Chain functionality updates, and the enhancements made to client capabilities to improve productivity. Significant investments are made in the financial area of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, focusing on enhancing intercompany capabilities and introducing the option for general ledger settlement. These improvements aim to streamline financial operations, enabling seamless collaboration between multiple entities within the system. Additionally, Business Central is expanding its global reach by providing all countries with the ability to export SAF-T audit files, ensuring compliance with local regulations, and offering support for non-deductible VAT.
Finally, the inventory and warehouse management features also received significant improvements, to provide users with more efficient control over their operations. Microsoft continues to prioritize the enhancement of inventory features within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Efforts have been made to improve the set-up process and demo data, providing users with a more streamlined experience. Simplifying the configuration of inventory features has been a key focus, allowing users to easily customize and adapt the system to their specific needs. In addition, Microsoft has made significant advancements in data migration, ensuring a smoother transition for users when transferring their data to Business Central. Notably, the Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates are expanding its warehouse and item tracking capabilities, enabling businesses to effectively manage and monitor their inventory throughout the supply chain.
Greater Efficiency and Flexibility with Modern Action Bar
The Wave 2 release from 2022 brought in optimization for the most prominent 180 pages for Dynamics 365 Business Central. With the 2023 Wave 1 release of Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates, the Action bar is provided by default to users, and actions can be organized into groups for easier use and improved efficiency. The updated Modern Action Bar will also offer improved flexibility in operations by allowing users to effortlessly move and order promoted actions and groups even for subpages. Lastly, the Modern Action Bar will offer New Home groups for actions and remove scenarios for duplicate actions.
Improved User Experience with Drag and Drop Files
The latest Drag and Drop Files feature introduced with the Wave 1 release of Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates aims to improve the user experience for enterprises for capturing documents or other files as part of the system of records. One of the latest features introduced helps improve the user experience by enhancing the file upload dialog in Business Central with a clear drop area where users can drag and drop a single file. The feature additionally offers the flexibility to users to both choose between dragging a file or using the more traditional file picker for uploading documents. Improvements were also made to make the development process effortless by offering enhancements only for the file upload dialog box, removing the need to introduce any new controls that AL developers can work with to create custom file drop areas on the page. Lastly, no changes were made to the file handling contract, ensuring that no matter how a file gets uploaded, the same validation, size, and format constraints remain applied, including allowing only one file at a time to be uploaded and processed by the AL code.
Streamlined Development with Visual Studio Code
The Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 update also prioritizes delivering a more user-friendly and efficient development environment by completely shifting to Visual Studio Code and the introducing of Visual Studio Code AL Explorer. Significant efforts have been made with Visual Studio Code Visual Designers, enabling consultants to easily create custom extensions tailored to individual customers. Additionally, developers can benefit from enhanced compiler resource management and improved code analyzer performance. As part of ongoing enhancements, the permissions system is being modernized to simplify the process of defining and maintaining permissions, ensuring greater clarity and ease of understanding for developers. On the other hand, the Visual Studio Code AL Explorer will offer seamless collaboration on development through GitHub while adding self-service capabilities for administrators that manage apps and environments.
Latest Dynamics 365 Sales Features
Microsoft has made substantial investments in Dynamics 365 Sales, focusing on empowering sellers to be more productive and collaborative. Renato Leite, Microsoft Principal Product Manager, highlighted the latest updates to enable sales teams across organizations to access value-based insights that aid in closing deals effectively through an end-to-end solution, with synergies between Dynamics 365 Sales and Business Central. To streamline the effort to capture the new lead opportunities, partners with the latest updates can now leverage the Dynamics 365 Sales Attach SKU for Business Central, which will be available, starting May 20, 2023. The new feature of SKU integration ensures seamless collaboration between the two systems, enabling a comprehensive view of customer data and enhancing overall sales performance.
Microsoft Power Platform Highlights and Low Code for SMBs
The wide range of features and functionalities offered by the Microsoft Power Platform, including automating processes with Power Automate, building innovative apps with Power Apps, creating new web pages with Power Pages, and more were also presented by Richard Riley, General Manager of Product Marketing for Power Platform. The Microsoft Power Platform is a set of low-code tools offered by Microsoft for building apps, workflows, AI (Artificial Intelligence) bots, and data analytics. Furthermore, Richard Riley also emphasized the significance of low code for SMB partners and how customers are increasingly streamlining different processes through low code solutions offered by the Microsoft Power Platform. With the Microsoft Power Platform enabling businesses to leverage their existing resources and empowering citizen developers to create custom solutions without extensive coding expertise, Microsoft partners are now also extending the value of Dynamics 365 solutions.
Infusing AI with Dynamics 365 Copilot
One of the most exciting announcements at Directions 2023 was the introduction of Azure OpenAI and how Dynamics 365 Copilot adds value to a wide spectrum of Microsoft applications and platforms, beginning with Dynamics 365 Business Central, Dynamics 365 Sales, and Power Platform. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot is a groundbreaking AI solution that offers assistance across various business functions, including sales, service, marketing, and supply chain. Powered by Azure OpenAI, Dynamics 365 Copilot is the world’s first copilot natively built into both CRM and ERP applications that brings next-generation artificial intelligence to every line of business while ensuring end-user control.
Additionally, having a system to seamlessly transfer data by integrating CRM and ERP applications can further improve business productivity and efficiency.
Updates to Microsoft Cloud Partner Program
To further empower Microsoft partners and enhance their ability to manage Dynamics 365 and Power Platform licenses, Microsoft has implemented significant updates to the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. These updates include threshold adjustments for SMB and Enterprise paths, a new Business Central developer certification, and specialized tracks for finance, supply chain, sales, and service.
Furthermore, the Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Cloud Embed Program has been updated to facilitate partners building solutions on the Microsoft platform. The newly implemented offers diverse options for managing updates to (ISV) applications and will introduce the capability to manage per-tenant extensions through the admin center, in addition to ISV apps. To optimize resource allocation, sandbox environments that remain idle for 45 consecutive days will also automatically expire, allowing for the capacity to create new environments.
These enhancements ensure a seamless end-to-end experience for partners, enabling them to deliver innovative solutions and drive customer success. Lastly, an announcement was made regarding the Microsoft Learn Career Connect program, for the recruitment, training, and coaching of new Business Central consultants.
Greater Productivity with Microsoft 365
Integrating business applications with productivity applications such as Microsoft Teams integrations with other lines of business applications. The Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates bring additional seamless integration functionalities for Dynamics 365 Business Central with other best-in-class Microsoft 365 apps and services such as Outlook, Excel, Word, OneDrive, and Teams to bring data into the flow of work. The existing functionalities already offer a wide range of functionalities, and the latest updates will offer broader product engagement and access to data across the organization. The features added with the 2023 Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 1 release will focus on enhanced adaptive cards in Teams with an optimized thumbnail view, improved permission experience, and a new settings page for configuring security control for Teams Cards.
Importance of Integration for the Latest Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Updates
With the greater variety and range of features coming packed with the latest Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates, the platform also becomes more complex in nature to manage and operate. While many processes are getting streamlined within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 ecosystem with the latest updates, most enterprises do not solely depend on a single application to manage their discrete workflows. Modern businesses deploy a suite of best-of-breed applications for each of their operations and thus, require integration to achieve a comprehensive and automated ecosystem of applications where data flows bidirectionally between them seamlessly and in real-time. However, implementing an in-depth end-to-end integration for a complex suite of business applications from scratch is highly time and resource-consuming for most businesses.
Therefore, enterprises need a robust business process automation (BPA) and integration platform like APPSeCONNECT, that can seamlessly deploy all the necessary integrations right out of the box. APPSeCONNECT offers a wide range of pre-built API-based integration packages that facilitate seamless integration between various business applications, including ERP, CRM, eCommerce platforms, and more. Its robust integration capabilities ensure smooth data synchronization, real-time updates, and bi-directional communication between systems. With its robust integration capabilities, the platform enables the automation of all key business workflows, reducing manual tasks and enhancing productivity. By automating processes such as order fulfillment, inventory management, and customer data synchronization, organizations can streamline operations, improve efficiency, and deliver a superior customer experience.
Thus, by combining the power of integration and automation with the latest Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates, organizations can unlock the full potential of their business applications and achieve seamless connectivity across their systems, driving faster scalable growth and success.
Top Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Integrations by APPSeCONNECT
Deploying an end-to-end integration between a company’s implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central application and other lines of business applications is essential but a significant time and resource-intensive process. Thus, identifying and implementing the essential Dynamics 365 Business Central integrations is key to business success. The top ready-to-use integrations packages for business applications that every business should consider for their Dynamics 365 Business Central application should include:
Dynamics 365 Business Central and Salesforce Integration
When it comes to customer relationship management applications, Salesforce is one of the undisputed leaders in the industry. Salesforce offers the most comprehensive set of features and tools to enterprises to track, manage, and deliver the most effective customer experiences. The pre-configured integration package for Dynamics 365 Business Central and Salesforce enables seamless synchronization of all new and existing customer details to automate online B2B sales workflows.
Dynamics 365 Business Central and BigCommerce Integration
BigCommerce is one of the most widely used eCommerce platforms that offers businesses a robust suite of features to effortlessly set up, manage and conduct business through online and mobile stores. Through the integration package of Dynamics 365 Business Central and BigCommerce, businesses can unlock the capability to seamlessly manage their business workflows for sales, inventory, customer services, and order fulfillment.
Dynamics 365 Business Central and Magento Integration
Magento (now Adobe Commerce) is an open-source eCommerce platform that offers enterprises a flexible and feature-rich eCommerce solution to effortlessly design, manage and deploy a feature-rich webstore. The platform offers a range of tools and features that allow businesses to create customized online stores tailored to their specific needs. With the Dynamics 365 Business Central and Magento integration, enterprises can achieve end-to-end instantaneous two-way data synchronization for all business-critical products, inventory, and order data.
Dynamics 365 Business Central and Amazon Seller Central Integration
For online marketplaces, there is no bigger recognizable name in the industry than Amazon. With Amazon Seller Central, vendors get access to one of the largest global marketplaces to reach a wider audience and sell their products. With a ready-to-use integration for Dynamics 365 Business Central and Amazon Seller Central, enterprises will be able to streamline their order management, logistics, and inventory data updates to achieve faster scalable business growth.
By combining the power of ready-to-use integration and automation with the latest Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 updates, organizations can unlock the full potential of their business applications and achieve seamless connectivity across their systems, driving faster scalable growth and success.
Embracing Innovations with the Future of Dynamics 365 Business Central
Both Directions Asia 2023 and Direction North America 2023 unveiled an exciting array of updates and innovations for Dynamics 365 Business Central, solidifying its position as a leading business solution for organizations worldwide. As the Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 update introduces a new era of efficiency, scalability, and innovation, businesses are poised to thrive and achieve excellence in their operations. By embracing these updates and leveraging the power of Dynamics 365 Business Central, organizations can drive growth, enhance productivity, and stay ahead in today’s dynamic business landscape.
If you are using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central to manage your ERP operations and want to seamlessly integrate them under a single platform to automate and streamline your business processes, then employ APPSeCONNECT’s pre-configured Dynamics 365 Business Central connectors to automate business processes efficiently and amplify your growth.
