Microsoft just reviled the list of enhancements that are coming in the next release of Business Central, known as 2023 Wave 2. As usual, I will go through the list and give you my comments on the different areas. Check out the video:
In this video, Erik walks through the full list of planned features for Business Central 2023 Wave 2 (version 23), covering everything from Power Platform improvements and application enhancements to developer tools, performance optimizations, and AI-powered capabilities. He shares his opinions on what’s exciting, what’s overdue, and what might cause some head-scratching along the way.
Understanding the Wave Release Model
Before diving into the feature list, Erik clarifies an important point that trips people up every six months: this is a wave, not a single release. Version 23 arriving in 2023 is a fun coincidence, but it doesn’t mean everything on this list ships on October 1st. The wave spans from October 2023 through March 2024. In practice, most features land in October and November, with the remaining items trickling in through December. By early 2024, you’re just getting “the white foam on the beach” — the last few drops before the next wave hits on April 1st.
For on-premises customers, this means version 23.0 is not a complete version. Some features may be in preview or not present at all. It’s an inherent consequence of rapid release cycles and cloud-first development.
Power Platform Integration
The first section covers Power Platform improvements:
- Business events in the Business Central connector for Power Automate — Already available in public preview on version 22, moving to general availability in version 23.
- Modification limits for triggering flows in bulk updates — The limit increases from 100 to 1,000 rows. Erik notes that Microsoft’s approach to fixed operational limits still feels wrong: a tenant with 5 users has the same limits as one with 500 users. He argues these limits should scale based on users, companies, environments, or some combination thereof.
- Enable specific virtual tables when connecting to Dataverse — giving you control over which tables are available rather than exposing everything.
- Better Power BI embedded viewing — Until now, you could only see the first page at a fixed size. The embedded viewer is getting a significant upgrade.
Application Enhancements — The “App Love” Release
Erik has been vocal in previous videos about the Business Central application needing more love, and version 23 appears to deliver. This is a substantial list of functional improvements:
Warehouse and Inventory
- Availability overview for warehouse quantities — Access real-time information about item availability from source documents, production orders, assembly orders, or jobs, respecting factors like dedicated bins, log bins, and reservations.
- Configurable handling levels for warehouse operations — Move away from the one-size-fits-all approach. You can now select what constitutes a warehouse operation versus a simple inventory operation, enabling hybrid models.
- Usability improvements for warehouse, inventory, and tracking — Including automatic warehouse employee creation during testing and the ability to use directed pick and put-away suggestions in basic warehouse configurations.
Cross-Environment Intercompany Transactions
Erik is particularly enthusiastic about this one — intercompany transactions across Business Central environments. The background: there’s a 300-company limit per environment (which Erik considers reasonable given database upgrade complexity). However, the previous answer of “just use multiple environments” was inadequate because application features didn’t support cross-environment operations.
Erik mentions that in his Toolbox app, he built a “change environment” function that can read data from different environments, but that was never part of standard AL. Now Microsoft is delivering cross-environment multi-company setup, finance consolidation, and intercompany journal approvals natively.
“I can’t wait to see how they pull this off. Two thumbs up for that one.”
Sales and Production Order Workflow
Suggest the next step for sales and production orders — Erik initially expected AI-powered suggestions but found something arguably more practical: a reservation worksheet that helps allocate incoming goods, with status indicators on documents showing what action to take next (e.g., “you can ship this sales order” or “you can start work on this job”). This hints at a more process-oriented approach to core Business Central functionality.
Other Application Improvements
- Edit in Excel expanded to journal pages, warehouse worksheets, and more.
- Timesheet enhancements — Copy from previous week, multi-approval support.
- Sync document and posting dates — Option to force document date and posting date to match.
- General ledger allocation — Define allocation keys based on fixed amounts, variable amounts, or statistical accounts to distribute costs and revenue. Erik suspects this may be similar to functionality GP already had.
- Shopify integration — More logging for troubleshooting.
Copilot and AI Innovation
- Bank account reconciliation with Copilot — AI-powered transaction matching with generated explanations for why certain transactions couldn’t be matched. This sounds more like machine learning and pattern matching on your data than a ChatGPT-style feature. Listed as public preview in October with no defined GA date.
- Marketing text suggestions with Copilot — Moving from public preview to general availability (already known from the previous wave).
Country and Regional
Business Central is expanding to 150+ countries, but Erik offers an important clarification: “available in a country” doesn’t mean a full localization exists. It means if your Azure tenant is registered in that country, you can purchase Business Central. The actual localization might be the W1 version, a partner-provided localization app from AppSource, or in some cases a Microsoft-provided localization. Don’t assume it’s a fully customized version for every country.
One notable addition: regional settings and language per report instead of globally. This is particularly useful in multi-language scenarios — for example, in Canada where some provinces require French-language documents, even when the logged-in user is an English speaker.
Development
The development list is short this time, but contains some noteworthy items:
Open Visual Studio Code from Web Client
From the web client, you can click to get a VS Code project with pre-configured dependencies, a matching launch.json, downloaded symbols, and access to source code symbols if available. Erik promises a dedicated video when this ships.
For context, here’s what a basic AL extension project looks like today:
// Welcome to your new AL extension.
// Remember that object names and IDs should be unique across all extensions.
// AL snippets start with t*, like tpageext - give them a try and happy coding!
namespace DefaultPublisher.WhatsNewinBC25;
using Microsoft.Sales.Customer;
pageextension 50100 CustomerListExt extends "Customer List"
{
trigger OnOpenPage();
begin
end;
}
And the corresponding app.json configuration:
{
"id": "27b30fa5-54ff-41af-9ef5-bcd41dfc5377",
"name": "WhatsNewinBC25",
"publisher": "Default Publisher",
"version": "1.0.0.0",
"dependencies": [],
"platform": "1.0.0.0",
"application": "25.0.0.0",
"idRanges": [
{
"from": 50100,
"to": 50149
}
],
"resourceExposurePolicy": {
"allowDebugging": true,
"allowDownloadingSource": true,
"includeSourceInSymbolFile": true
},
"runtime": "14.1",
"features": [
"NoImplicitWith"
]
}
The new feature would essentially auto-generate this scaffolding for you directly from the web client, pre-configured to connect to the environment you’re investigating.
Turn Off Data Analysis Mode on Pages
The analysis mode introduced in version 22 is, in Erik’s opinion, the single greatest addition to that release. He’s seen users who were “basically clueless, in a good way” build their own reports and extract exactly the data they need. Now administrators can disable analysis mode on specific pages or for specific users where it doesn’t make sense.
Turn Off Indexes as a Partner
AL developers can view index cost and usage frequency, then disable infrequently used or expensive-to-maintain indexes. Erik has mixed feelings:
“What if you turn off a lot of indexes because they’re not in use, and then you install an AppSource app that needs those indexes? Do we get metadata on our app saying it really needs these indexes?”
Performance
Table Extension Data Model Optimization
This is the item that has speculation running wild. Currently, if four extensions extend the Customer table, you end up with five tables joined together at runtime. The release notes mention “optimizing the data model for table extensions.” Does this mean merging everything back into one table with metadata tracking which fields came from which extension? Or is it something more modest like smarter view generation?
Erik notes that for cloud-only customers, the implementation details don’t matter much — just make it faster. But for on-premises customers who rely on direct SQL access, views, and joins against the current table structure, a fundamental change could break existing integrations.
Modern Data Types
Updates to Boolean and Blob storage using modern SQL Server data types. Less exciting, but contributes to overall performance.
Locking Behavior Changes
Changing the default locking behavior in AL from serializable read to read committed — This is a significant change that could reduce database locks but may require developers to add explicit LockTable calls in scenarios where serializable reads were previously assumed (e.g., getting the next number in a sequence).
Specific Performance Improvements
- Faster country-specific long-running reports (like the Aged Accounts Receivable report, which Erik describes as somewhere between genius and madness)
- Faster serial number assignment and reservation entry posting
- Pages load faster in the client
- Renumbering general journal entries optimized
Governance and Administration
- Granular administrator rights — Currently, admin center access is all-or-nothing.
- Improved update release processes — Better handling of update windows.
- Cancel cloud migration replication runs — If you accidentally start a verification run that takes hours, you can now kill it.
- E-documents core — A global solution for continuous transaction control, real-time invoice reporting, and validation by tax authorities.
- Large company payment reporting — Some countries require companies above a certain size to report payment timing data to agencies like Experian.
User Experience
Add Table Fields to Pages Without Code
Administrators, department owners, and partner consultants can add existing table fields to pages without developing code extensions. Erik notes this is functionality his Simple Object Designer has offered for some time, and welcomes Microsoft to the club — while cautioning that many table fields should never be exposed to end users as they could break the system.
Other UX Improvements
- Data search from anywhere — The Tell Me search now links directly to the company data search function.
- Better browser tab identification — Distinguish between multiple Business Central tabs for different companies.
- Peek at summarized data from editable fields — The hover-to-preview functionality that existed on list pages now works on card pages too.
- Search in the mobile app — Finally! No more creating a super role center just to access everything you need on mobile.
- Inline validation error actions — The error action patterns introduced in version 22 are now being used by Microsoft in their own code.
- Shareable analysis tabs — You can now share links to your analysis view tabs with coworkers, solving the problem of great ad-hoc reports being trapped on one user’s screen.
- Power BI reports on AppSource — Microsoft is building Power BI reports packaged as apps available directly on AppSource for finance, sales, and inventory reporting.
Summary
Business Central 2023 Wave 2 is shaping up to be a strong release, particularly for application functionality. The cross-environment intercompany transactions are a game-changer for companies with complex legal entity structures. The potential table extension data model optimization could be transformative for performance. And the continued investment in analysis mode, Power BI integration, and quality-of-life improvements shows Microsoft is listening to user feedback.
From a developer perspective, the list is thin but intriguing — the VS Code integration from the web client, index management capabilities, and the read committed locking change will all warrant close attention. As always with wave releases, expect this list to evolve between now and the final delivery, and don’t be surprised if some items shift or new ones appear.
