Business Central Wave 2 New Features

Major focus of Business Central Wave 2

This Release is focused mostly on performance, reliability, supportability and security.

Modern Client

The RTC or Windows Client is finally gone forever. Users can now access Business Central in the browser, Windows Desktop app, mobile apps on Android or iOS, or in Outlook. The modern client is all about speed and productivity features.

Modern Developer Tools

The 2019 release wave 2 is the first version that does not have the classic Development Environment (also known as C/SIDE). The Modern developer experience based on Visual Studio Code with Azure DevOps, and an AL Language that supports an extension-based approach to customization.

In this October release, you will find two Microsoft’s extensions:

• Base Application: This extension contains all the Microsoft’s Business Logic as well the ERP entities. The old C/AL code have been completely converted into this AL Extension.

• System Application: This extension is the interface to the Business Central platform and cloud ecosystem and it contains all the system-related entities and functions.

As these two Apps are now available as an extension, the C/SIDE is discontinued for Business Central going forward.

Now, whenever you create any new extensions for the Wave 2, it should be dependent on these two Microsoft’s Extensions. The dependencies will automatically added to the app.json file when you create the new AL Project on the Wave2 Release.

In earlier versions, these dependencies were blank and whenever any Extensions being developed uses reference of any other Extensions then we add dependencies. If the Extensions you are building, is dependent on any other extensions apart from these 2 Extensions then you need to add more dependencies.

Some New Enhancements

• Use the Copy Document function on blocked lines

When using the Copy Document function to create new documents based on existing documents, you are now notified if any items or resources on the source document lines are blocked. The blocked document lines are excluded from the new document. The notification shows an overview of all document lines that are blocked in the source document.

• Ability to download a database export file

In the Business Central Administration Centre, tenant administrators can create and download a database export for each environment for that tenant.

• Multiple Production Environments

For each tenant, administrators can create multiple production environments. This will include the option for environments to be on different country-specific or region-specific versions of Business Central.

• Support for technical upgrades

Starting with the 2019 release wave 2 update, you can use the PowerShell cmdlet InvokeNAVApplicationDatabaseConversion to move a database from version 14 to the latest version in what is known as a technical upgrade. Moving forward, we continue to support this type of upgrade using the same Windows PowerShell cmdlet.

• Add links to your navigation menu

Microsoft has introduced a new and simple way to quickly reach your favorite content and business tasks. Using the new bookmark icon, you can able to add a link to any page in the Navigation Menu of your Role Center. The bookmark icon is shown in the top right corner of the page and also in the Tell Me window where you can efficiently bookmark multiple pages.

Any page that is discoverable in the Tell Me window can be bookmarked. When you’re satisfied with your bookmarks, start personalizing the navigation menu to reorder your bookmarks or group them by similarity.

Although, there is so much new to tell but it will become pretty overwhelming if I will publish everything into this Blog. Please subscribe to my Blog to checkout what other features added into the Wave2.

Thanks for Reading.