5 Business Central Release Features I’m Really Excited About

Every release, there are a lot of updates. Some are “nice.” Some are “good to know." and then there are the ones that make you stop and think:

“Okay… this is REALLY useful.”

With the new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2026 release wave 1 and update 28 preview, there are a handful of features that stand out as genuinely exciting for me. Especially if you’re like me and spend your life in operations, process design, manufacturing, reporting, and practical ERP improvement. Microsoft says wave 1 features are planned to release from April 2026 through September 2026, and the 28.0 preview docs are explicitly marked prerelease / subject to change, so a few details may still evolve.

As someone who lives in manufacturing and operational process design, I am VERY excited about what’s happening around Quality and Subcontracting.

Here are the 5 things I’m most excited about right now

1) Quality Management is finally getting the kind of attention manufacturers have been waiting for

This is probably my biggest “YES” in the release.

Microsoft is introducing a Quality Management extension focused on helping organizations evaluate the quality of goods and materials. The value is better compliance, more consistent quality, and stronger reliability by embedding quality checks into receiving and production processes.

This matters. A lot. I get asked about this a lot and although they are great ISVS who could fill the void MS listened and stepped up. This is huge for my customers for sure because in real manufacturing environments, quality is not just “did the item arrive? It is:

• Did it meet spec?

• Was the supplier consistent?

• Should this lot be accepted, quarantined, reworked, or rejected?

• Are we catching issues before they become scheduling, costing, or customer problems?

For years, many BC manufacturers have had to manage this with:

• notes,

• custom fields,

• workaround processes,

• spreadsheets,

• third-party tools,

• or pure operational discipline held together with caffeine and hope.

So seeing Microsoft invest more intentionally here is a big win.

Why I’m excited:

Quality shouldn’t live as an afterthought beside purchasing, warehousing, and production but should be part of the operational flow.

If Microsoft continues down this path well, this can help organizations move from

“We inspect when there’s a problem” to “We have a repeatable quality process.”

And for manufacturers? That’s a huge maturity jump.

If you’re in MFG, this is one to watch closely.

2) Report Layout Lifecycle improvements = finally more grown-up reporting governance

From a real-world partner / customer perspective?  This is a big deal.

Anyone who has worked in Business Central for a while knows reporting is rarely just “print a document.”

It’s really about:

• version control,

• ownership,

• deployment,

• usability,

• consistency,

• and keeping Word / Excel / RDLC / layout chaos under control.

So anytime Microsoft improves the report layout lifecycle, I’m paying attention.

I’ll say this too, shoutout to Kennie Pontopiddan. If you work in this space, you already know Kennie does an absolutely killer job pushing reporting and document output forward. He is constantly improving PowerBI modern output, and how BC can work better with tools people actually use. He is really passionate and it's evident.

There’s been a ton of progress over the last few waves, and this is one of those areas where the platform is becoming more and more enterprise ready.

Why this matters:

Because report changes are often one of the most underestimated pain points in implementations.

Not because they’re flashy but because they’re everywhere.

Invoices. Pick slips. Quotes. Production docs. Service paperwork. Labels. Statements. Pack lists. Internal forms.

“Wait, why is THIS the version printing in production?”  Which version is the right one? Why is this printing weird? I need to update X or Y…It is constant but user friendly enough end users can really own this. This just makes it all easier.

When layout lifecycle gets better, the system gets more manageable and that matters to everyone.

3) The new permissions analysis API is quietly one of the smartest additions in this release

This one is maybe the least “sexy” feature on the list… and maybe one of the most useful.

People always find permissions nuanced and challenging. They want it to be correct, safe and easy to use.

Microsoft has introduced new APIs for analyzing permissions to support auditors and IT staff. That is a seriously practical improvement for governance, access review, and security analysis.

And if you’ve ever had to answer questions like:

• Who has access to what?

• Why does this person have posting rights?

• What permission sets are actually effective here?

• Where is this access coming from?

• How do I explain this cleanly to IT or audit?

then you already know why this matters.

Why I’m excited:

Because permission analysis in ERP is one of those things that becomes painfully important the second something goes wrong.

This is the kind of feature that helps move BC from:

“We think security is okay…”to“ We can actually evaluate and explain security properly.”

This is a pretty important thing in a world where more customers are growing up in terms of:

• audit readiness,

• compliance,

• segregation of duties,

• IT controls,

• and internal accountability…

So pair this with better admin tooling, better reporting and YES AI-powered assistance and analysis and you have my applause.

4) AI / Copilot / MCP configuration is getting more practical and that’s what I wanted to see

There is a lot of AI buzz right now. I don’t have all the answers and there is a lot of it I am still working to understand. Much of it is exciting. Some of it is vague. What I want to be sure of is can customers actually configure, validate, and troubleshoot AI in a usable way?

That’s why I’m excited about the direction Microsoft is taking with AI agents and MCP-related configuration.

Microsoft’s 2026 wave 1 plan also introduces designing/prototyping custom AI agents in Business Central, which reinforces that AI in BC is moving beyond “chat feature” territory and into workflow-capable assistant / agent territory.

The practical pieces called out are:

• MCP configuration

• validation of setup

• checking whether settings and tools are configured properly

• troubleshooting support

And honestly people need these tools to separate AI talk from AI adoption IMO. I am looking at speaking a little more on this at Directions North America if you are attending 😊 with the great Claude Rustom.

Directions North America 2026

Shameless little plug.

The real barrier to AI in ERP is usually not imagination but to the implementation confidence.

Teams need to know:

• What is configured?

• What is enabled?

• What is safe?

• What is actually working?

• Where is it failing?

• How do we support it without turning every AI experiment into an IT incident?

  
  

That’s why I like this direction.

5) Avatars sound small… but I think they’re sneakily awesome

This one is fun but also more useful than it sounds.

Microsoft is adding the ability to show avatars for record creators and modifiers in list pages, making it easier to see who created or last changed a record. In a world of “was it a person or an agent?” This is a nice visual way to see that. Microsoft positions this as a traceability and collaboration feature that helps users identify ownership without drilling into the record.

At first glance, this feels like one of those “cute UX” enhancements.

But I actually think it’s more important than that.

I love it because ERP systems are collaborative systems and one of the most common invisible problems in BC is “Who touched this?”

Go from “Who changed that order?”  “Who created this item?”  “Who updated this vendor?”  “Who posted this?” “Who was working on this?” to something that answers that and help you understand why visually.

It reduces friction. It improves accountability. It makes collaboration feel more human.

BC continues to become more modern, more role-based, and more collaborative, these UX details matter.

Sometimes the biggest wins are not giant architecture changes sometimes it’s just “Oh good now I can see what’s going on faster.” and I love that. That extends to other features like adding pictures to or attributes to variants, adding description fields to more places, being able to send things you could not before which are all listed in the full feature list I will add.

Honourable (Canadian spelling OF COURSE!) Mention: Subcontracting Management

Not fully here yet… but I’m VERY interested

Now for the one that has my manufacturing brain fully awake.

This is the one I’m watching very closely.

There is already subcontracting-related capability in Business Central today through subcontract work centres / routing scenarios, but what’s exciting here is the idea of a more formal Subcontracting Management app approach. Existing Microsoft Learn documentation already shows the foundation for subcontract work centres and vendor-linked routing operations.

My take right now is this is exciting BUT is  planned and not fully delivered so not something I’d promise customers tomorrow. As we know features are planned as I mentioned earlier and may arrive later than people hope so this could easily slip to v29.

But when Microsoft gets this right, it will be very valuable. Truth be told, I’d rather it arrive well than arrive fast and half-baked.

Still… for manufacturers?

This is one of the most exciting roadmap signals in the release.

Bonus: One more thing MFG people should keep an eye on

This isn’t one of my “Top 5,” but it’s worth mentioning because it ties directly into planning discipline and I just did a rant on Youtube on MRP Fails!

Missing SKU planning policy

Microsoft has also documented planning behaviour around missing SKU planning policy, which is one of those deceptively small areas that can have a very real impact on replenishment and planning behaviour. If you’ve ever had planning results that made you question your will to live, this is exactly the kind of thing worth understanding better.

And if you work in manufacturing or distribution, you already know small planning settings can create big operational consequences.

What I like about this release is that it’s not just trying to be flashy. There are more examples Microsoft shows relating to maturity across:

• Manufacturing

• Governance

• Reporting

• Collaboration

• AI enablement

  
  

If I had to summarize my current excitement in one sentence is this release feels like Microsoft is continuing to invest not only in what BC can do but in how well real businesses can actually run with it.

And as someone who spends a lot of time helping companies bridge people + process + software...I am THRILLED

For a Full Feature List Visit:

What's New or Changed in Business Central 2026 release wave 1 - Update 28.0 preview - Business Central | Microsoft Learn