Small changes that you can miss in version 17

The new version is released – I think that is not big news to you if you follow any of the blogs, twitters, Microsoft Docs, etc. If you are a developer (but not only!) you should for sure read Waldo’s article https://www.waldo.be/2020/10/08/microsoft-dynamics-365-business-central-2020-release-wave-2-is-released/ and also watch Erik’s video (for me was great fun to watch how he deals with finding new things in the AL language) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGnsBcZx1AA.

But there is a bunch of new stuff in the application which is not hard to miss. Let me introduce some of them to you.

AppSource in Business Central

One of the things which I noticed today is that AppSource is shown in Business Central. Now the user does not need to go leave Business Central to see the marketplace – just use tell me and find Extension Marketplace. I really like it. Technically there is a page in System App responsible for showing the website inside Business Central (https://github.com/microsoft/ALAppExtensions/blob/master/Modules/System/Extension%20Management/src/ExtensionMarketplace.Page.al)

Much fewer Role Centers

In version 17 you will find much fewer Role Centers. Is it bad? No. For sure those Role Centers which you will find are more user-oriented and that is great! Now it is easier to find the proper Role Center.

Pages are positioned to center 

Notice that now pages are positioned in the center of the screen. Try to run any report or lookup page. In version 16 the pages were at the top of the page. Check the below screens from version 16 and then 17.

Captions on Cues and other places

A small change you can also notice I captions, for example on cues that are placed in the role centers. In version 16 all were written in capital letters. That’s is not good for users – our brain recognizes the shape of the letters so capital letters are less recognized. Now you can see that it has been changed.

Compere it on the below screens. First version 16.

And now version 17.

Note that this change is not only on the cues. You can see it in many places like fact boxes, page headers, etc.

Show as menu

If you will go to Feature Management, you will be able to find the new Feature Update: Action bar in dialogs. It is even possible to try it before you will switch it on for all users. I liked it from the first look. It allows in the lookup lists to “hide” the actions and show them when clicking three dots. It looks really clean.

Navigate is replaced with Related

In the past, there was a group on the pages called Navigate. Now the name is changed, and the same group is named Related. So consultants, please be aware!

No. field before cues

I was surprised that I even noticed this one but… I think it is a good idea to add it if you have cues for the record – like vendor or customer.

Is that all?

No! I found few more very interesting things… also for developers so stay tuned. Hopefully will be able to describe them shortly