On the 10^th of June 2019, Microsoft announced the range of new features coming to Dynamics 365 Business Central on the 1^st October 2019. This forms part of Microsoft’s wave 2 updates.

Microsoft has announced 38 new feature updates in this wave for Dynamics 365 Business Central.

• ISV migration – Microsoft is continuing to work with Dynamics NAV ISVs to help them move their products to Dynamics 365 Business Central online. This is a key part of their strategy as a large ISV offering on AppSource is better for Dynamics 365 Business Central customers as it provides them with access to more functionality that they can pick and choose from. There are now 300+ apps available with more being added every day.
• Customer migrations – Now that Microsoft has cultivated a better ISV ecosystem, they are turning their attention to Dynamics NAV users. They are going to release an enhanced set of tools to help simplify this upgrade process using data replication tooling in Azure Data Factory with additional tables. This will make it easier for Dynamics NAV and Dynamics GP customers to take advantage of the 40% discount that is available if they upgrade before June 2021.
• Service offering – For existing users of Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft is focusing on fundamental system improvement, and working to improve reliability, supportability, performance and security.
• Modern interface – A focused investment has been driven in speed and productivity features for the browser experience for Dynamics 365 Business Central. The October ‘19 release is the first version that does not include the Dynamics NAV client connected to Business Central, which will no longer be available. Users will need to move to one of the modern experiences through the browsers, the Android/iOS mobile apps or the Windows 10 desktop application.
• The latest developer tools – Microsoft is removing the classic development environment also know as C/SIDE. Going forward developers will have to use an AL language, and this will be based on a visual studio code experience with Azure DevOps. This should make development of Dynamics 365 Business Central more consistent going forward.

All of these improvements show Microsoft’s focus on performance and ISVs. Their strategy for Business Central is to have an all in one business application to manage your entire organisation. Extending Business Central through ISVs is a core way that organisations will get all of the capability they need and over the next 12 months we expect to see this ISV ecosystem grow considerably.

Dynamics 365 Business Central users also gets access to the Power Platform and this has received a wide range of updates (Power Platform release notes) which will benefit Business Central users.

• PowerApps Portals – web portal-based applications rather than just Mobile Apps.
• AI Builder – a new feature that brings Microsoft AI to help business users automate processes and predict outcomes in Microsoft Power Automate and Power Apps.

Overall this is great news for Dynamics 365 Business Central users and those organisations considering it as a future solution. As with all Dynamics 365 updates this is a free update that will be automatically applied on the 1^st October for all users.