Directions EMEA 2018 overview

Business Central Fall 2018: MODERN (I/IV)

First thoughts after Directions EMEA 2018

As is tradition, after 3 intense days in Directions EMEA 2018, we want to provide you with the highlights that have been presented during this congress that took place in The Hague from October 29 to 31, 2018.

The October release improvements in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central are grouped into four ambitious goals:

  • MODERN: Provide the user with a modern browsing experience.
  • UNIFIED: Unify the two product lines (On-Premise and Cloud) in a single base code to ensure the homogeneity of functionality and continuity of both platforms.
  • INTELLIGENT: Introduce the great opportunities of artificial intelligence to day-to-day tasks.
  • ADAPTABLE: Adapt the tool to the needs of each client without creating high version upgrade costs.

In today’s blog post we want to focus on the first topic: “Modern”.

Dynamics 365 Business Central: MODERN

The new user interface does not just try to give a modern and sexy look to our dear old friend Navision, but tries to define an optimized browsing experience to make it easier for users to work and get their loyalty.

The web client becomes the main client. For the first time since the web client was introduced with Dynamics NAV 2013, the desktop client will lose its leading role. In fact, from 2020 the Desktop client will be discontinued. Our recommendation: If you are migrating to Business Central On-Premise, dare with the web client, do not wait for Microsoft to discontinue it! Even our oldest colleagues prefer it to the desktop client. Above all, after putting into practice the following functionalities:

  • They seek to create the best possible experience for the user, both in simplicity and usability of the tool. For example, one of the changes that most excites us, is the reintroduction of the function of F8, which copies the value of the field of the upper line and has also incorporated the function of “Copy / Paste” lines directly Business Central – Excel, without export. Hey!
  • Another functionality reintroduced for the most nostalgic of the tool is in relation to the filters. We recovered the functionality of the 2009 version in which we could filter by more than one field in a column and we kept the filters of all. In later versions, applying a second filter erased the first one. Urra!
  • To facilitate navigation in the tool, when you use the search engine, not only will it show you lists and pages, but it will now suggest actions. So that from the search engine you can directly access the action you want to perform, saving search time.
  • Finally, a peculiarity in relation to voice recognition. Like almost all mobile devices and applications, Business Central incorporates voice search. And not only that! Voice search has improved to “understand” the most difficult pronunciations. In fact, at Directions EMEA, Marko Perisic joked about the voice search of “Item charges”, which the device recognized as “I tell Charles”, but which Business Central correctly reinterpreted as “Item charges”. How about?

These are the main innovations in usability and simplicity that have caught our attention, but other important developments have also been presented in relation to UNIFIED, INTELLIGENT and ADAPTABLE that we will explain in future blog posts.

What do you think of these changes? We hope you are as excited as we are! Do not hesitate to let us know your opinion.