What’s new in Business Central 2024 Wave 1

With less than two months to go, it’s time to look at the “what’s coming for 2024” list. I go through the list as usual to find out what is interesting in the coming release. Check it out:

https://youtu.be/IKzkBaYBwyw

In this video, Erik walks through Microsoft’s official release plan for Business Central 2024 Wave 1 (version 24), sharing his perspective on the announced features, what excites him most, and what he suspects might be missing from the list. He also does some “poking around” in the pre-release AL compiler to uncover hints about undisclosed changes.

The Transparency Problem

Erik opens with a recurring frustration: Microsoft’s release plan process promises full transparency, yet every release includes surprises that weren’t on the list. He suspects the marketing team wants to save some announcements for big events like Directions US or the official launch event. The result is an incomplete list that undermines the supposed openness — a tension Erik finds increasingly hard to overlook.

Power Platform Integration

Field Service Integration

One of the most exciting additions for Erik is the new integration between Business Central and Dynamics 365 Field Service. Previously, these two Microsoft products had zero awareness of each other — you’d buy both and they simply wouldn’t talk. The Field Service module handles many things that Business Central’s built-in service module doesn’t, so this integration is a significant step forward. You can now manage work orders and consumption in Field Service while handling invoicing and fulfillment in Business Central.

Erik notes that his team has actually turned away Field Service customers in the past because the lack of integration made it impractical. That changes now.

Virtual Tables and Power Automate Approvals

Microsoft is exposing more Business Central data through virtual tables (likely meaning more APIs) and improving the approval workflow integration with Power Automate. The approval setup page has been updated so that approvals no longer need to be manually defined on the Power Automate side — a welcome quality-of-life improvement.

Application Improvements

Jobs Renamed to Projects

This is Erik’s champagne-worthy moment. The “Jobs” module is being renamed to “Projects” — something Erik has been advocating for years, even submitting the idea on BC Ideas. The “Job” label originated from a mistranslation dating back to the earliest English versions of Navision. Several countries already used “Project” in their localizations, but now it becomes the standard terminology.

From a technical perspective, the underlying table is still called “Job,” but the caption changes to “Project.” While that sounds minor, Erik emphasizes the enormous impact on customer conversations. No more apologizing that “yes, we do project management, but it’s called ‘Jobs’ for historical reasons.” The rename also signals that Microsoft is giving the module more attention, with new features including:

  • Improved invoicing for service and projects
  • Default location for project or project phase
  • Projects invoiceable to multiple customers
  • Assemble-to-project capabilities
  • Invoice a customer for multiple projects
  • Standard project management terminology

General Ledger Account Revaluation

Erik highlights this as a huge improvement. If you use general ledger accounts to register balance sheet items denominated in foreign currencies, you previously had to use workarounds — keeping separate bank or vendor accounts with distinct posting groups. Now you can turn on a GL account sub-ledger that holds the original currency value and any adjustments made through the exchange rate adjustment batch job.

For Canadian companies that routinely deal in both CAD and USD, this is a game-changer that eliminates a long-standing pain point.

Excel Layouts for 35 Reports

Erik has mixed feelings here. It’s good that reports are getting attention, but he sees Microsoft gradually abandoning improvements to the built-in financial reports in favor of treating them as data generators for Excel. While he understands the reasoning, he considers it “an easy way out” when many of those reports still look the same as they did 20 years ago.

Copilot and AI

Microsoft is expanding its AI capabilities in Business Central. Building on the bank reconciliation AI feature from version 23 (which was apparently only a preview), new Copilot features include:

  • Mapping e-documents to purchase order lines
  • Creating sales lines with AI assistance

Erik notes this aligns with what he and Mike Morton discussed in a previous video — the idea of asking Copilot to help create a quote for a customer.

Country and Regional Updates

UK Localization as an App

Microsoft maintains separate base apps for each localization (North America, UK, Germany, Belgium, etc.), which creates complexity when implementing base app changes across all versions. The long-term strategy is to extract localizations into separate apps that sit on top of the worldwide (W1) base app. Denmark and one or two other countries have already made this transition, and now the UK is joining them.

Erik is particularly excited about the potential for Canadian companies with UK subsidiaries. If the UK localization app could be installed alongside a Canadian environment, a company could run both localizations in the same environment — one company using Canadian settings, another using UK settings. Whether this cross-localization scenario will actually work remains to be seen.

Development

Erik finds the development section suspiciously short, which reinforces his point about the incomplete release list:

  • Multiple uploads and file drop zones: Erik notes he implemented this two years ago in his Shopify connector. He’d prefer the ability to designate any element as a drop zone rather than requiring extra clicks.
  • Debug the system application: Welcome news, especially if Microsoft completes SecretText support so developers can debug without accessing sensitive data like Microsoft’s OpenAI key.
  • Remove friction with external app dependencies: Resellers and publishers will be able to download symbols for AppSource applications for on-premises and container development. GitHub Actions will make it easier to provision online sandboxes with required apps installed for testing.

Governance and Administration

  • Link environments in Dataverse integration: You’ll be able to link Business Central environments with Dataverse environments from the Admin Center.
  • Audit operations in Microsoft Purview: A data management tool spanning all Microsoft data — it makes sense for Business Central to be part of it.
  • Customer-managed encryption keys for data at rest.
  • Customer consent for Microsoft support accessing data.
  • EU CSRD compliance: A foundation for compliance with the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

User Experience Improvements

  • Report and data analysis discovery: End users can find reports, queries, and Power BI pages through navigation search (Tell Me). Erik notes that query access in Tell Me was supposed to be in version 23 but never worked properly.
  • Smarter error handling: When TestField is called without explicit error info, Business Central will automatically generate a link to the page where the user can correct the issue — for example, linking directly to posting groups setup.
  • Share error details: Users can share error details with other users to get help, a small but valuable improvement.

Poking Around the Pre-Release Compiler

Erik demonstrates a technique he uses every release cycle: switching VS Code to the pre-release AL compiler and decompiling the DLLs to look for undocumented changes. He sets up a minimal project targeting the new runtime:

{
  "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"
  ]
}

Note the "application": "25.0.0.0" and "runtime": "14.1" targeting the upcoming version. By examining properties marked with the new version flag, Erik discovers several interesting hints:

  • ToolTip on tables: The ToolTip property appears to be available on table fields as a table-type property, suggesting you’ll be able to define tooltips at the data level rather than only on page fields.
  • Isolated Storage with SecretText: Isolated storage now supports SecretText, which solves the current problem of wanting to use SecretText while storing secrets in isolated storage.
  • Log message changes: LogInternalMessage and LogInternalError are being obsoleted in favor of LogMessage.
  • Number sequences: Something is changing with number sequences and range names, though the details aren’t clear yet.

Conclusion

Business Central 2024 Wave 1 brings a solid set of improvements, with the Jobs-to-Projects rename, GL account revaluation, Field Service integration, and Copilot expansions standing out as the most impactful changes. The development list feels thin — and Erik’s compiler spelunking suggests there are indeed features Microsoft hasn’t disclosed yet, including potentially exciting additions like tooltips on tables and SecretText support in isolated storage. Erik’s broader point remains: Microsoft’s approach of partial transparency creates an awkward middle ground that serves neither full openness nor effective marketing reveals particularly well.

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