It’s that time of the year when you read more and more “What’s New” posts on LinkedIn, X, Bluesky and so on.
And of course I don’t want to miss that 🙂 – I always refer to the official documentation and give my opinion to the areas, which is only my personal opinion.
Copilot and AI
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat with Copilot to learn how to use installed add-on apps | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | – |
| Summarize with Copilot | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | – |
| Use Sales Order Agent to automate sales order-taking | Users by admins, makers, or analysts | Feb 2025 | Jun 2025 |
| Suggest gas emissions in sustainability journals with Copilot | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | – |
| Enhance purchase order line matching with Copilot | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | – |
What is missing in this overview is the Autofill feature for Copilot.
One of the main features is of course the “Sales Order Agent“. I already wrote a summary a few weeks ago – here
“Autofill” and “Summarize” will help you a lot when using Business Central to create data or parts of data and to understand your Business Central data. More on this in another post.
As in the last two majors, the main investment goes again to Copilot & AI capabilities. No objections from my side here.
Development
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move tables and fields with data across extensions as part of refactoring | Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically | Apr 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| Troubleshoot clients, apps, and add-ins with telemetry | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| Mock outbound HttpClient web service calls during testing | Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically | Apr 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| View build metadata in Extension Management page | Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically | Apr 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| Embed Power BI content in web client with new page type | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
What is missing here is “Calculate only visible FlowFields“
I have no idea why there is no documentation for this feature, but whatever. It’s in the preview, and next to the Continue statement, it’s the “biggest” feature in this major. We’ll see how it works with some testing.
Application
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integrate Field Service with service management | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| View item availability in Field Service work orders | Users by admins, makers, or analysts | – | Apr 2025 |
| Analyze subscription billing data with Power BI reports | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| Post foreign currency adjustments to unrealized gain and loss accounts | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
Imho – you can skip this part with this major. No big improvements.
E-Commerce / E-Documents
There is a lot going on here. Regarding e-documents, at least from our “German” side, yes you can use the module and create or import e-documents (most of the time), but no – it is not a good feature that brings good usability, so far. I really hope that Microsoft will do their homework and make this feature more usable.
Governance and Administration
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add support for MultiSubnetFailover | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| View app compatibility with future versions in admin center | Users, automatically | – | May 2025 |
| Update sandbox environments to preview versions | Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically | – | Sep 2025 |
| Automate environment management with Power Platform connector | Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically | – | Jun 2025 |
Here are some interesting things. “View app compatibility with future versions in Admin Center” – Checking compatibility directly in the Admin Center is an advantage because you now have all the information in one place. But we will have to wait and see how this feature looks and feels.
To make it easier to work with the Admin Center API, a new Power Platform connector is announced.
Sustainability Management
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Generate a CSRD preparation report | Users, automatically | – | May 2025 |
| Specify default sustainability values for various entities | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| Enable taxonomy elements for ESRS and other standards | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | Jul 2025 |
| Capture sustainability data with general journals | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| Use water and waste management with sustainability | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| Enable sustainability Scope 3 value chain for assembly and transfers | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | Oct 2025 |
| Provide carbon equivalent data for sales based on Scope 3 automation | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | Oct 2025 |
| Use ESG Reporting integrated with Business Central | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| Start value chain in purchase process for Scope 3 in sustainability | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | Oct 2025 |
| Use sustainability Scope 3 value chain in manufacturing | Users, automatically | Apr 2025 | Oct 2025 |
There is a lot going on here. Microsoft is investing a lot in this module and all the features sound really promising, also an AI capability is announced for this module. Unfortunately, I don’t have much insight into this module, so I can’t really say much – except for the fact that A LOT is going on here.
User Experience
| Feature | Enabled for | Public preview | General availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preview PDF attachments directly in web client | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
| Optimize screen estate usage on the web | Users, automatically | – | Apr 2025 |
Last but not least – a part that gets smaller and smaller.
At most “nice to have” features, but no game changers in my opinion.
I missed “Supply Chain Management” and “Reporting and Analysis“.
Not because I don’t like them, just because there’s not much going on in this release as far as I can see.
Conclusion – Top 3
Again – Copilot & AI capabilities take the stage or are still on it. The main investment is again in this part of the system. And why is that? Because it is simply great what Microsoft is doing for customers and us partners in this area.
Especially the beginning of the “Agent Era” or “Rise of the Agents” with the Sales Order Agent is for me personally the most important chapter in this release. This could be the start of something big in Business Central.
Also, extending the existing Copilot features with useful functions like Summarize and Autofill is pretty awesome and helps the user to create or work with data.
Sustainability is the third of the top 3 in this release that gets Microsoft’s attention with new, useful features and enhancements in the module.
This is my personal opinion – maybe there is a feature that I declare “not interesting” or “useless” that you think is great. If so, great – that is what this community is all about – different opinions that all have a right to exist.
Details and Sources can be found on the official Microsoft Release Notes:
New and planned features for Dynamics 365 Business Central, 2025 release wave 1 | Microsoft Learn
Do not miss the Business Central Launch Event on April 1st
https://aka.ms/bcle – Videos will be available on YouTube with Release.
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