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#043 BC DYNAMICS 365 BUSINESS CENTRAL 2023 WAVE 2 RELEASE (A.K.A BC23)

Microsoft announced in October the general availability of the new version of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (version 23).

All online tenants will now start receiving notifications with their scheduled update dates.

The BC23 on-premises version can be downloaded here.

Below are some of the most interesting features available with the new version of D365 Business Central.

Application Improvements

  • Consolidate financial information across environments in multicompany setups – Some organizations use Business Central in various business units, some of which operate as subsidiaries reporting to parent companies. Sometimes, these units or subsidiaries operate in separate Business Central environments due to factors like geographical differences. You can now consolidate their financial data effortlessly, eliminating the need for file handling.
  • Make intercompany transactions across Business Central environments – Managing transactions in multiple companies becomes simpler with intercompany postings, streamlining accounting for businesses operating in various Business Central tenant environments without the hassle of file management. Setting up intercompany partnerships is straightforward, even between companies in different Business Central environments. These features span across environments, encompassing sales and purchase documents, intercompany general journals, and purchase invoice cost distributions.
  • Block item variants – There may be item variants you want to remove. Business Central doesn’t permit their deletion, but you can prevent their selection in sales or purchase lines and prohibit them from being used in transactions.
  • Suggest the next step for sales and production orders – Business Central shows a status on documents, reflecting reserved inventory quantities to inform you of the next action. For instance, it signals when you can ship a sales order or commence work on various orders, preventing accidental partial shipments and production delays caused by insufficient stock.
  • Sync document and posting dates for sales and purchases – Document and posting dates may differ based on your business operations. The “Link Doc. Date to Posting Date” setting in “Sales & Receivables Setup” and “Purchases & Payables Setup” enables you to align your processes accordingly.

Technical Improvements

  • Get the AL Language Extension in prerelease versions on Visual Studio Code – It is now possible to install prerelease versions of AL Language extension in Visual Studio Code. If you choose to install a prerelease version of AL Language, compatibility issues might occur. You can always rollback to the version you had before.
  • Get inlay hints in source editor for AL method parameters and return types – With this release these hints have been added for parameter names on procedures. It is now possible to easily see the order and which arguments to fill. To be able to see the hints, the following settings must be enabled:
    • “al.inlayhints.functionReturnTypes.enabled”: true,
    • “al.inlayhints.parameterNames.enabled”: true
  • Hover over label variable to see text string value – In previous versions it was only possible to view the string value of a label variable in its definition. Now, when hovering with the mouse on the variable, VS Code will present its string value.
  • Get IntelliSense for adding variables in Visual Studio Code AL debugger console – IntelliSense is now enabled in the debugger console to quickly type and access variable values.
  • Use SecretText type to protect credentials and sensitive textual values from being revealed – BC23 introduces a new type SecretText for variables, return values or parameters, mainly to use to work with secrets such as credentials and other sensitive textual values.
  • Segment AL Code and reduce naming with namespaces – AL now supports nampespaces. Namespaces serve as a method to arrange objects and code in a structured, hierarchical fashion. They’re valuable for preventing naming clashes between diverse extensions, simplifying extension management, and clarifying relationships among various objects.
  • Open Visual Studio Code from Web Client to investigate or troubleshoot extensions – With the new release of BC23 it is possible to recreate a locally installed VS Code workspace to investigate or troubleshoot a customer environment, including creating workspaces, projects, launch files and downloading symbols with a few clicks.

See the full list of what’s new and planned for Business Central in the link below:
What’s new and planned for Dynamics 365 Business Central