Modifying Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central without trashing your upgrade

When Microsoft purchased Navision back in 2003 many of us had high hopes for what it might mean in terms of seamless integration into the Microsoft product family. It has taken nearly fifteen years, but now we can see major benefits from Microsoft's involvement. Dynamics NAV, formerly Navision, is an amazing system. It is easily customized, but upgrades could be painful - especially if you left it too long.

Business Central, Dynamics NAV's innovative cloud-based sister product, offers painless or virtually painless free upgrades. Microsoft has wisely blocked partners from modifying the core system, but instead allows for unique configuration through downloading apps from Microsoft AppSource or creating customer-specific code extensions that can easily be uploaded to create custom solutions.  All three of these layers are then combined to create one user presentation layer.

When the time comes for an upgrade, apps and code extensions are automatically unapplied, the base system is upgraded in minutes, and then current versions of the apps or code extensions are re-applied to the core system.  At a recent conference, a Microsoft representative was joking about doing an upgrade over an hour. We were somewhat dubious, but Microsoft's most recent Business Central upgrade on April 2, 2018 was done in an average of 30 seconds per customer!

Customers will be able to create some of their own extensions, which will automatically be applied behind the scenes. You never have to worry about code extensions or apps becoming obsolete because of changes in table definitions as Microsoft requires legacy fields to be carried forward when updates are created. Literally anyone can learn to upload a code extension right off the main menu of Business Central.  No more having to dive into a complex development toolkit with a different user interface. The customer can ...