What's new in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Release Wave 1

Let’s look at some of our favourite new features of the latest release. Note that delivery timelines may change, and projected functionality may not be released (see the Microsoft policy). 

Let’s start with the hot topic… 

Microsoft Copilot and AI innovation 

This wave of Dynamics 365 Business Central expands on the previous Microsoft copilot features that have been released over the last six months:

• Integrate Copilot in Power Automate with D365 BC, so that you can start creating automation flows based on natural language. When such flows are opened in Power Automate for further refinement, you can take advantage of the Copilot experience in Power Automate. 
• Copilot refines how you manage e-documents in the purchase process, particularly with respect to purchase orders. The e-documents framework lets you specify the type of purchase document to create for each vendor when you receive e-invoices from them. 
• Copilot can suggest and assist with creating sales lines on sales documents like Sales Quote, Sales Order, and Sales Invoice based on structured input or natural language. 
• Copilot-generated analysis tabs help reduce the time it takes to identify trends and anomalies in your business data by enabling you to express your analysis as a simple sentence describing how you want to structure your data analysis, such as “show me vendors by location sorted by amount of purchases.” 
• The bank account reconciliation feature has been enhanced with AI-powered transaction matching and AI-powered G/L account suggestions. 
• Copilot can help create item-related information based on similar items, utilising related data such as variants, units of measure, substitutes, and dimensions. 
• Copilot can now explain and guide users to learning about Business Central concepts and how to accomplish tasks, based on Business Central’s extensive online documentation. 

Sustainability 

Microsoft are introducing a new feature focused on sustainability reporting. This functionality lets you record and report on a wide spectrum of sustainability information, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative aspects, and forward-looking and retrospective data. You can also leverage the feature to actively reduce emissions, making it a valuable tool for small and midsized organisations seeking to comprehensively report on sustainability initiatives.

Learn more about the sustainability management feature in Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Projects 

This release wave is the first where we see the historical Jobs system renamed to Projects, and Microsoft have spent considerable time updating the application to reflect the name change. In addition, there are multiple new features in the Projects area: 

• The introduction of archiving capabilities for projects, similar to the functionality you might already be familiar with from the sales and purchase areas. 
• Default location and bin are automatically assigned when creating project tasks, project planning lines, and project journal lines. 
• Copy time sheets from previous periods to save you time and effort by reducing the need to manually enter data. 
• Specify the bill-to and sell-to customer on each project task line. Having that information on each task lets you automatically generate invoices for the correct customers. 
• Assemble to project helps you improve inventory management by assembling to order only when it’s required and enable other ways to customise projects. 
• The project invoicing process can be simplified by sending one invoice for multiple projects for the same customer, which reduces manual effort and improves accuracy. 

General Application 

• The UK localisation App is coming around August 2024. This means that all the features added to Business Central to support the UK market will be removed from the base application and provided as an installable application instead. 
• Integration to the Power Platform is improved with the ability to use virtual tables to expose more Business Central data in Dataverse. Virtual tables can be used when you synchronise data between Business Central, Dataverse, and other Dynamics 365 apps to enhance the value of your Dynamics 365 investment. Virtual tables erase boundaries between Dynamics 365 apps and make your data accessible to users in their preferred app. 
• Drag and drop functionality to attach multiple files to Business Central records makes it easier to manage files. 
• End users can now discover report and data analysis content, including queries, reports, and Power BI pages, by using navigational search (Tell Me) or the new report explorer page. This feature minimises the effort it takes to find report and data analysis content, making it more accessible and user-friendly. 

To learn more about what’s new and planned for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, visit the main Microsoft Website.

Find out more about how BCN can help streamline your ERP operations with custom and out-of-the-box application development services built on Microsoft 365 Business Central.