I recently had a conversation with a client about a customization … That turned out to be something you could do with personalizations. So what can you actually do with personalization? Check out the video:
Have you ever had a user complain about having to click twice to perform an action they do hundreds of times a day? That’s exactly the conversation that inspired this video from Erik, where he walks through the full range of personalization options in Business Central — many of which you might not even know exist. From rearranging fields and actions to controlling quick entry behavior, freezing columns, and reordering views, this video is a comprehensive tour of what’s possible without writing a single line of code.
The Inspiration: Promoting a Menu Action
The story starts with a customer who was frustrated by a two-click workflow. Every day, they had to open the Posting menu on a Sales Order and then select Post and Send. They wanted it as a top-level action they could click directly.
The solution? Personalization. By entering personalization mode, you can drag actions from dropdown menus up to the main action bar. In this case, Erik demonstrates dragging Post and Send from the posting menu up to the top-level toolbar. Once done, it becomes the default action — accessible with a single click.
This small change might sound trivial, but for a user who performs this action dozens or hundreds of times a day, it’s a genuine time saver.
A Complete Tour of Personalization Options
That conversation got Erik thinking: how many personalization features does Business Central actually offer? Let’s walk through them all.
1. Moving Fields and Actions
The most well-known personalization feature is the ability to move fields around on a page. Simply enter personalization mode, point at a field, and drag it to a new location. The same applies to actions — you can rearrange menu items and toolbar buttons to match your workflow.
Remember: once you open personalization mode, you can navigate to other pages and personalize multiple screens in a single session. You can also apply personalizations at the profile level, so every user assigned to that profile inherits them.
2. Hiding Fields
If there’s a field you never use — like Address 2 — you can simply hide it. Right-click the field (or use the personalization controls) and select Hide. The field disappears from your view without affecting anyone else’s experience.
3. Show When Collapsed
FastTabs in Business Central can be collapsed to save screen space. With personalization, you can control which fields appear in the collapsed summary. For example, you can set the Address field to Show when collapsed, so it’s visible even when the Address FastTab is minimized. This is great for surfacing key information at a glance.
4. Quick Entry Control
Quick Entry determines the order in which fields receive focus when you press Enter (as opposed to Tab). By default, the cursor jumps between fields marked for quick entry. Through personalization, you can include or exclude fields from this sequence. For example:
- Include the Address field in quick entry if you frequently need to fill it in
- Exclude the Contact field if you never manually enter it
This is a subtle but powerful way to speed up data entry workflows.
5. Locking Fields (Read Only)
You can make a field read-only through personalization by selecting Lock editing. This is useful as a personal guardrail — if you know you should never be typing in a particular field, locking it prevents accidental edits. Think of it as a “stop typing in that field” reminder for yourself.
6. Adding Fields
Not all available fields are visible on a page by default. Using the + Field option, you can browse a list of available fields and add them to the page. There are two approaches:
- Drag and drop the field directly to where you want it
- Click the information icon (the “i” with a dash) to see where Microsoft intended the field to appear, then click Show to add it there — you can always move it afterward
The available fields fall into two categories:
- Recommended fields — fields that a developer added to the page but set as non-visible by default
- Additional table fields — fields that were never explicitly added to the page (availability depends on your environment’s configuration)
Important note: if a field’s visibility is controlled by code (for example, shown or hidden based on a condition), it won’t appear in the personalization field list. You cannot override code-driven visibility with personalization.
7. Show More / Show Always
Some FastTabs have a Show more / Show less toggle. Through personalization, you can control which fields appear in the default (collapsed) view versus the expanded view. For instance, if you rarely need the Due Date field, you can move it into the Show more section so it only appears when explicitly expanded. This helps keep the default view clean and focused on the fields you use most.
8. Clearing Personalizations
If you want to start fresh, you can clear your personalizations. Business Central gives you granular control over what to reset:
- Clear only menu/action personalizations
- Clear only field personalizations
- Clear everything at once
9. Freeze Columns on List Pages
On list pages, you can control how many columns are frozen (locked on the left side so they don’t scroll horizontally). By default, the No. column is typically frozen. Through personalization, you can set the freeze point to a different column — for example, freezing through the Name column. All columns from the left up to and including your chosen column will remain visible as you scroll horizontally.
10. Reordering and Hiding Views
List pages often have multiple saved views (like “Ready to Ship,” “Open Orders,” etc.). You can reorder and hide these views through the filter pane. Open the filter pane, look for the customization option, and from there you can:
- Drag views to change their order (e.g., make “Ready to Ship” the first view)
- Hide views you don’t need
11. Tree View Expand/Collapse State (Bonus)
For pages with a tree layout — like the BOM Level page — Business Central is supposed to remember your expand/collapse preference. Microsoft’s documentation says to use the Expand All or Collapse All button in the upper-left corner of the list, and the system should remember that setting. As Erik discovered during the demo, this one can be a bit finicky in practice — it may simply remember your last state rather than being a traditional personalization setting.
Summary
Here’s a quick reference of all the personalization capabilities in Business Central:
- Move fields — Rearrange fields on any page
- Move actions — Promote menu items to the top-level toolbar
- Hide fields — Remove fields you don’t use
- Show when collapsed — Control what appears in FastTab summaries
- Quick entry — Include or exclude fields from Enter-key navigation
- Lock editing — Make fields read-only for yourself
- Add fields — Surface hidden or additional fields on a page
- Show more/Show always — Control default vs. expanded field visibility
- Clear personalizations — Reset selectively or completely
- Freeze columns — Lock columns on list pages
- Reorder/hide views — Customize the view tabs on list pages
- Tree expand/collapse — Remember tree view state on hierarchical pages
The key takeaway is that personalization in Business Central goes far beyond just showing and hiding fields. From promoting frequently-used actions to a single click, to fine-tuning data entry flow with quick entry, to freezing columns and reordering views — these are powerful tools that can make a real difference in daily productivity. The best part? Users can do all of this themselves without any developer involvement.
