At Microsoft’s annual Inspire conference this summer, the company outlined its goals for the next update to Dynamics 365, a popular suite of cloud-based business software solutions.
Microsoft plans to release updates to the software twice a year, in April and October. This year’s “wave 2” release targets five areas for improvements: service basics, modern clients, developer tools, ISV acceleration and customer migration.
Here are a few of the most notable improvements:
- Migrating data from Dynamics GP 2018, SL 2018 or Business Central on-premise is now easier. Clients on older versions of a Dynamics product can also replicate portions of their existing data to see what it looks like in Business Central online. Dynamics NAV 2018 clients will continue to transition via an upgrade process.
- ISVs will be able to migrate their NAV-based third-party solutions to Business Central more easily or create new add-on solutions specifically for Business Central.
- The Dynamics NAV (Windows) client that connected to Business Central is no longer needed since the modern clients have increased in productivity.
- The developer tool has been replaced with a new tool.
The latest release also includes general improvements to performance, reliability, security and support. Here are several specific enhancements for current users:
- Quickly correct mistakes in close-of-period work by canceling issued reminders or finance charge memos
- Carry line descriptions to general ledger when posting
- Vendor cross-reference number can now be 50 characters instead of 20
- Add a link to any Business Central page to speed up navigation
- Improved Excel integration
- Business Central session times out after hours rather than 20 minutes
- More personalization options
- Filtering for reports
- Switch between Business Central companies while in Outlook
- Multitasking across multiple pages and companies at once
- Quickly enter repetitive data
- Administrators can download a database backup file
- Administrators will receive detailed emails with next steps when an environment update fails
- The Administration Center adds a new portal to create, manage and get updates on support requests
For a complete list of big and small improvements, check out the complete release notes:
