From the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central blogs: Real-world AI; Share filters; Monitor telemetry use; Sandbox environments

In this week’s Dynamics 365 Business Central blog roundup:

• Copilot, Azure OpenAI and real-world enterprise usage
• Business Central share filters
• A BC telemetry story
• The value of sandbox environments in Business Central

Dynamics 365 Business Central: Copilot, Azure OpenAI and real-world enterprise usage

Writing on his blog, Stefano Demiliani pointed out that over the last few months Microsoft has introduced the concept of Copilot. D365BC version 23.1 introduces the Copilot developer toolkit, he noted. The toolkit is a set of AL objects that you can use to work with Azure OpenAI models. You can also use it to work with the standard Copilot user interface that you will see across the entire Dynamics 365 product stack.

However, he added that the module is currently in preview and not fully enabled on the current release, but you can start exploring the code and the new objects.

Demiliani stated that the new software development kit introduces the new PromptDialog page type that lets you integrate Copilot capabilities into your custom scenarios.

You can use the PromptDialog page type to create generative AI experiences with the Copilot look and feel, which includes signature visuals, and built-in safety controls for customers.

In his blog post, Demiliani explained how to do this and then offered information on how to move Copilot in D365BC to the real world.

Business Central share filters

Writing on his blog, Josh Anglesea asked if you've ever opened a worksheet page, such as the planning worksheet or payment journal and had leftover data. If so, he wanted to know what you do with that leftover data. Do you just delete it or do you want to know more about it first? Anglesea added that the wait time for getting the fresh data might well be a reason not to delete it immediately.

He also stated that the data might not be that old, but how exactly would you know? He noted that page inspection is too many clicks (users do count them) and not all users have access to it.

If you’re going to develop anything here is it not to have specific reports available via the job queue to update a worksheet batch, like the planning worksheet? (spoiler, that is not in standard)

He pointed out that although that’s a valid argument, once the user opens that data how can they validate that it is the latest version, therefore confirming the job ran successfully? Not only that, but how can they know exactly what filters were run?  

In his blog post, Anglesea offered a couple options to solve those problems.

A Business Central telemetry story

Writing on his blog, Waldo, a.k.a. Eric Wauters, noted that recently he had a very scary thing happen on his company's telemetry setup. He wrote that although he never would have expected it, he is glad he caught it in time. The short version, according to Wauters, is this: