What to expect from the latest Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Update: 21.3 online 2022 release wave 2

Would you like to know what has changed in Business Central v21.3 release wave 2? Below you’ll find an overview and relevant links to what has been done on hotfixes and regulatory features in this update.

These updates bring new features and improvements to Business Central, ensuring that the extension remains the business reporting extension of choice for our precious Business Central users- a.k.a, you. 😉

Here, you’ll find all the details about the improvements and enhancements that the latest updates have brought to in Business Central v21.3 release wave 2.

Let’s get started!

Who is this article for?

If you are:

1. A new BC customer, you will automatically get the latest builds of Business Central (21.3). 

2. An existing partner/customer, you will receive an email notification as soon as your environment has been upgraded.

Prerequisites:

• You must have Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2022 Release Wave 2 installed to apply this hotfix.

Major Good to know changes

1. Reverse payment reconciliation journal entries

With Business Central v21.3 release wave 2. Firstly, you can reverse payment reconciliation journals that were used to also post a bank reconciliation. With 21.4, we will enable reversal of regular payment reconciliation journals.

The Payment Reconciliation Journal page identifies payments (either incoming or outgoing), that have been recorded as transactions on your online bank account or on a payment service.

You’re able to:

1. Apply the payments to related open customer, vendor, and bank account ledger entries.

2. Fill in the journal by importing a bank statement as a bank feed or file or by manually entering transactions that you make through your payment service.

3. You set up the number series in the Bank Account page in the Posting FastTab. (This feature was added in BC 21.2 version)

In addition, you’re able to reverse payment reconciliation journals that were used to also post a bank reconciliation with BC 21.3, i.e: Undo the bank statement, unapply, and reverse the entries created by this journal.

Tip: If Reversed is successful, the “Reverse” button will be grayed out as above. To unapply and reverse payments you must do it manually. It’s as easy as 1,2,3!

2. Shopify connector becomes extensible: Stock calculation

Are you a shopify user? Shopify Connector has been non-extensible, but Microsoft’s changing that by offering a few points of extensibility. They are opening for extensibility for specific scenarios, based on feedback from our partners and customers starting with Stock calculation.

For more details, please follow this repository on GitHub. Note that even though extensibility is limited, you can submit improvements directly.

3. Power Apps and Power Automate support for media/image and document attachments

Business Central connector (online only) for Power Platform and Azure Logic Apps has been enhanced with new capabilities and actions to allow makers to access rich data from Business Central.

Note that the updated connector is rolling out to all Azure regions now and is backward compatible with latest Business Central online versions (including version 21.3 discussed here), but in order to take advantage of these new capabilities in Power Automate flows the user needs to create a new flow using the new action discussed here.

The new capability of the connector allows for easy access to document attachments, for instance:

• An original order request linked as a PDF to a sales order)

• Related record media (e.g: images linked to items)

• Other data linked to business documents.

This allows Power Automate flows or Power Apps to provide strong support in special situations where rich external data is entered into Business Central. This could take the form of:

• An app allowing service workers to take photos of inventory and upload to Business Central. 

• Or an automated flow that creates a sales order from an attachment received as an email, which is processed and linked as a PDF document to the Business Central order entry.

4. You can still watch the Business Central Launch Event recordings

Business Central has 15+ What’s New sessions and recorded Q&As available throughout January 2023. Users can still go to aka.ms/BCLE to sign up. 

2 new sessions have been published for the following topics since November: Embed Business Central in Teams tabs and Access Business Central with your Microsoft 365 license.

5. AL-Go for GitHub version 2.2

Version 2.2 of AL-Go for GitHub has been released with improved multi-project support and a few fixes in the Pull Request workflow. See what has been added and changed in the v2.2 column in [aka.ms/AlGoRoadmap].

Important: Take action before March 1 to retain your delegated admin access to your customers

Microsoft Partner Center introduced Granular Delegated Administration Privileges (GDAP) as replacement for Delegated Administration Privileges (DAP) to enable partner-customer relationships that are time-bound and have more granular access rights.

FYI: The timeline to migrate your existing DAP relationships to GDAP has been moved to March 1, 2023. If no action is taken by 1st March 2023, you will lose access to your customers’ Business Central environments. You can refer to the Partner Center announcement here.

6. Business Central newsletter for partners

Microsoft is rolling out quarterly newsletters for Business Central partners. Each newsletter contains a summary of relevant information related to Business Central. Click here to find out more!

Why you should care

Microsoft is committed to delivering predictable updates to the service. Updates are continuous, touchless updates that provide new features and functionality. They eliminate the need to do expensive upgrades every few years. Administrators can set a maintenance window for each environment that determines when Microsoft is allowed to update that environment. 

For more information, see Managing Updates in the Business Central Admin Center. Microsoft then schedules updates of the business functionality to be applied during these maintenance windows.

Microsoft is committed to extensive testing done on various test topologies, and a compatibility checker also runs tests to ensure backward compatibility (Microsoft Documentation 2022).

Microsoft recommends that you contact your Microsoft Dynamics Partner (like us at Aristou) before you install hotfixes or updates. It is important to verify that your environment is compatible with the hotfixes or updates that will be installed. 

A hotfix or update may cause interoperability issues with customizations and third-party products that work together with your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central solution.

Do you still have burning questions about the latest update to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central? If so, we are here to help. Contact us today at support@aristou.com.sg or call us at +65 69746863 if you are interested in having a long term IT support help desk for Business Central and our other solutions.