Business Central updates: handling releases without surprises

With Business Central online, the big upgrade project every five or six years is gone. Microsoft updates the service continuously and you get new functionality without reinstalling anything. That’s a huge advantage, but only if updates are managed. Otherwise, on a Monday morning someone finds that a page has changed, an extension has stopped working or a report comes out with a different layout.

Here’s how the cycle works and how to organise around it.

The release calendar

Business Central online follows a predictable rhythm:

• Two major updates a year, in April and October. These are the release waves: they bring new features, enhancements and platform changes.
• Monthly minor updates in every other month. They contain fixes, critical improvements and regulatory updates, and occasionally some new functionality.
• Critical fixes, rolled out as soon as they’re ready and verified.

Each major update has an update period of several months within which the environment has to move to the new version. After that period ends there’s a grace period, followed by an enforced phase in which extensions that block the update might be uninstalled automatically (their data stays in the environment and can be recovered by installing a compatible version). In short: you can’t postpone indefinitely, and it’s wise not to leave it until the last minute.

What you can control from the admin center

From the Business Central administration center, the administrator, whether internal or a partner, has a few practical levers:

• Update window: for each environment you set the hours during which Microsoft may update it. The default window is overnight, and a window must be at least six hours long. If the update doesn’t finish within the window it’s cancelled, the environment returns to the previous version and the update is rescheduled.
• Date and target version: you can move the update to a different date, but always within the permitted update period, and choose the target version, including a planned version that hasn’t been released yet.
• Notification recipients: you decide who receives emails when a new version is available or an update is scheduled. Make sure these emails don’t end up in spam and that they reach someone who actually reads them.

A practical rule: don’t leave everything to automatic scheduling. Choose a date when a potential problem won’t hold up month-end invoicing or an important shipment.

Try it first: sandboxes and preview environments

The most useful period is the month before a major release, that is March and September. During this time you can create a preview sandbox environment on the new version from the admin center, or update an existing sandbox to that version. It’s the moment to:

• explore what’s new and work out which changes affect your processes;
• check that per-tenant extensions (PTEs) and installed apps still work;
• prepare material for training users.

Bear in mind that preview environments are deleted a few weeks after the official release, so export anything you need beforehand.

Once the new version is available for your environment, the most realistic test is to copy production to a sandbox and update that. That way you try the new version with your own data, setup and extensions.

Release plans and notifications

Microsoft publishes Dynamics 365 release plans in advance, listing the features planned for each release wave, along with “What’s new” documentation for released versions. Reading them isn’t a theoretical exercise: it’s how you find out whether something you handle today with a customisation is coming to the standard product, or whether a page you use every day is about to change.

Some new features are optional for a while and can be switched on early from the Feature Management page, so you can try them calmly in a sandbox before they become mandatory.

Per-tenant extensions and AppSource apps

Customisations are the most sensitive area. Before each major update, Microsoft checks per-tenant extensions for compatibility with the next version and, if it finds problems, emails the notification recipients. Those emails should be read and passed straight on to whoever maintains the code.

• Per-tenant extensions: the developer needs to compile and test them against the new version and, where necessary, upload a compatible version scheduled for the next major update.
• AppSource apps: updates are the app publisher’s responsibility, but it’s worth confirming they’re ready for the new version, especially for critical apps such as those for e-invoicing or banking.

Pre-update checklist

• Key processes tested in a sandbox: sales, purchasing, inventory, period close, tax compliance. Have the people who use them every day test them, not just IT.
• Extensions compiled and tested against the new version, with a compatible version ready.
• Integrations: e-commerce, banking, e-invoicing, Power Automate, Power BI, connectors to other systems.
• Custom reports and layouts: invoices, delivery notes, orders, financial reports.
• Communication to users: what’s changing in the interface, which new features to use, who to ask if in doubt.
• Update date and window chosen deliberately and communicated.

After the update

The day after, spend an hour on a quick check: users can sign in, a few test documents post correctly, the main reports print, integrations have run and the job queue shows no errors. Collect feedback in one place for a few days, so you can tell a real problem from a changed habit.

The partner’s role

A partner can look after the whole cycle for you: reading the release plans and telling you what matters to you, scheduling updates in the admin center, updating and testing extensions, coordinating sandbox testing and training users on what’s new. The goal is for updates to become routine work, not an emergency.

To find out more, read Microsoft’s pages on update cycles and on managing updates in the admin center.

Let’s talk

If you’d like to set up a clear update process for your Business Central, or you have an extension you’re worried about ahead of the next release, get in touch.