Is it a dropdown? Yes, Is it a button? Yes, It’s a SplitButton!

We have gotten something as rare as a new UI control in Business Central 2022 Wave 2 – The SplitButton adds new capabilities to action bar, check out this video:

https://youtu.be/8oywBxtXacw

In this video, Erik walks through one of the exciting UI features introduced in Business Central 2022 Wave 2 (version 21): the Split Button. This hybrid control combines a button and a dropdown into a single action bar element, giving users a default action they can click directly while also providing access to related actions via a dropdown. Erik demonstrates how to set it up in AL code using the modern action bar and the ShowAs property.

What Is the Split Button?

The Split Button is a hybrid control that’s part of the modern action bar in Business Central. It acts as both a button and a dropdown simultaneously — clicking the main part of the control triggers a default action, while clicking the dropdown arrow reveals additional related actions.

Before diving in, it’s important to note that the modern action bar must be enabled. You’ll need to go into Feature Management and activate the Modern Action Bar for your users. Without this, none of these capabilities will be available.

Setting Up Promoted Actions

The modern action bar introduced a new way to promote actions using the promoted area and actionref elements. Let’s start with a simple customer list page that has three actions: Fancy, Post, and Reverse.

First, we define our actions and then promote them into the action bar:

actions
{
    area(Processing)
    {
        action(Fancy)
        {
            Caption = 'Fancy';
            ApplicationArea = All;

            trigger OnAction()
            begin
                Message('Fancy');
            end;
        }
        action(Post)
        {
            Caption = 'Post';
            ApplicationArea = All;

            trigger OnAction()
            begin
                Message('Post');
            end;
        }
        action(Reverse)
        {
            Caption = 'Reverse';
            ApplicationArea = All;

            trigger OnAction()
            begin
                Message('Reverse');
            end;
        }
    }
    area(Promoted)
    {
        actionref(P1; Fancy)
        {
        }
        actionref(P2; Post)
        {
        }
        actionref(P3; Reverse)
        {
        }
    }
}

With this setup, all three actions appear directly in the action bar as individual promoted buttons — both in the list view and the edit view, each with the promoted lightning icon.

Grouping Actions into a Dropdown

Next, we can organize these promoted actions into a group. By wrapping the action references inside a group within the Promoted area, we create a dropdown:

area(Promoted)
{
    group(ToDo)
    {
        Caption = 'To Do';

        actionref(P1; Fancy)
        {
        }
        actionref(P2; Post)
        {
        }
        actionref(P3; Reverse)
        {
        }
    }
}

This creates a dropdown called “To Do” containing all three actions. This is convenient for organizing related actions under a custom label.

Turning It into a Split Button

Here’s where the magic happens. The group has a property called ShowAs with two options:

  • Standard — the default behavior, which renders a normal dropdown
  • SplitButton — the new hybrid control

The only change needed is adding ShowAs = SplitButton; to the group:

area(Promoted)
{
    group(ToDo)
    {
        Caption = 'To Do';
        ShowAs = SplitButton;

        actionref(P1; Fancy)
        {
        }
        actionref(P2; Post)
        {
        }
        actionref(P3; Reverse)
        {
        }
    }
}

With this single property change, the “To Do” group now renders as a split button in the action bar. The first action in the group (Fancy) becomes the default button that users can click directly. At the same time, clicking the dropdown arrow reveals all three actions — Fancy, Post, and Reverse.

User Personalization

One of the coolest aspects of the Split Button is that users can personalize which action appears as the default. Through the Personalize feature in Business Central, a user can rearrange the actions within the split button. For example, if a user always posts rather than using the “Fancy” action, they can drag Post to the top position, making it the directly accessible default action.

This means developers set a sensible default, but individual users can tailor the experience to match their workflow — a true two-in-one control.

Summary

The Split Button is a small but powerful addition to the Business Central modern action bar. To recap:

  1. Enable the Modern Action Bar via Feature Management.
  2. Define your actions in the Processing area as usual.
  3. Promote them using actionref inside the Promoted area.
  4. Group them and set ShowAs = SplitButton; on the group.
  5. Users can personalize which action appears as the default.

It’s a clean way to surface the most common action while keeping related actions just one click away — all with minimal code changes.

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