Introduction LS Central has its own unique way of preventing Items from being sold which is different from the standard “Blocked” option field we get on the Item Card. It also comes with detailed and refined permissions which can fit most business needs. All of this is done using another related table known as “Item Status.” Pre-requisites: Business Central OnCloud/OnPrem LS Central v16 References: Item Status (lsretail.com) How to Block Items From Sale at the POS (navisiontech.com) Configuration Open the Item Card for the Item you want to block.  Open the “Item Status” for that Item.  Click on the “Status Code” and Click on “Select from full list.”  Create a new record with code “BLOCKED” and enable all the fields. Here, you can see all the detailed controls available.  Conclusion: Thus, we saw how we can Block Items on POS in LS Central and other finer controls available at our disposal in LS Central.

Introduction Have you ever faced the error: “Report ___ does not have a layout of type None.” Here’s how you can resolve it. Pre-requisites Business Central OnCloud/OnPrem References https://community.dynamics.com/business/b/think-about-it/posts/how-do-i-fix-error-report-x-does-not-have-a-layout-of-type-none Configuration With the earlier versions of Business Central, you were allowed to run a report without specifying a layout, even if it was not a processing only report. However with the recent version of Business Central it is mandatory to specify both the “DefaultLayout” and the path to the layout via the “RDLCLayout” or “WordLayout” or “ExcelLayout” properties. Once these properties are the defined the error is resolved. Furthermore you can also resolve this error by using the report rendering section which has been made available since runtime 9.0. However be sure to define the “DefaultRenderingLayout” property for the report to specify which of the layouts defined should be considered as default. Conclusion: Thus we saw how we can resolve the error: “Report ___ does not have a layout of type None.” Happy Coding!

Introduction We’ve all faced situations where we’ve had an operation take a long while which made the User wonder whether the system is stuck with something or is still processing. We can use simple dialogs which can enhance the User experience by showing User the progress of the operation. Some Business Central operations have out of the box dialogs which indicate progress like Posting documents or entries, Running reports with large data sets. Pre-requisites Business Central OnCloud/OnPrem References Dialog Data Type – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Dialog.Open(Text [, var Any,…]) Method – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Configuration While using the Dialog for creating windows, there are 3 procedures that we are going to be using. Open – It creates the window which we will be displaying the messages in. Update – It updates the content of the window based on the values that we pass in it. Close – It closes the window. We can create a simple Progress Window using the below piece of code. And this is the result for it. Please note that because there were two # in the Label, system has broken them into two separate lines. To avoid creating multiple lines within a single dialog box, we can use the StrSubstNo procedure which compresses the number of updates that we call to 1. We can now see that the content is visible in a single line. In Business Central 14 or previous versions of Business Central (which used windows client) it was possible to show the progress indicator in percentages using native APIs, however this functionality is not supported in Web Client. However we can still simulate it using text and creating our own basic procedure which converts the values to a String which will be used to indicate the progress. Conclusion: Thus we saw how we can use Dialogs to enhance User Experience and allow Users to visualize the processing of some long running task.

Introduction VS Code has recently introduced a new feature using which multiple people can access the same workspace in VS Code and modify files at the same time. This is huge applications in teaching, code reviews as well as prototyping. You can edit modify separate files at the same time in the same folder. Pre-requisites VS Code References Use Microsoft Live Share to collaborate with Visual Studio Code Configuration Install the Live-Share extension in VS Code.  Click on the “Live Share” button at the bottom left.  Sign in using your Github or Microsoft Account.  You can see the session details in the “Live Share” tab along with previously connected.  Click on the “Invite Participants” to get the link what can be used to share the session.  Now, you can collaborate with different Users and modify the same or different files together.  Conclusion Thus we saw how, we can use Live Share for collaborating while developing or reviewing in VS Code. Special thanks to Vaishnavi Joshi for her help in this blog!

Introduction LS Central Scheduler Jobs are used for automatic background processing. These jobs use the NAS Service under the hood. We are going to see how to configure the NAS Service for LS Central. References https://help.lscentral.lsretail.com/Content/LS-Insight/Setup/LS-Central-In-Cloud-LS-Insight-In-Azure/3-Machine-Or-VM.htm Pre-requisites LS Central v16.4 – OnPrem Data Director Configuration Create a new Server Instance and name it appropriately.  Ensure that the account for this new Server Instance is set to User and the User has Administrator privileges.  In the General tab, update the “Service Default Company” and “Service Default Time Zone.” In the NAS Services tab, set the following fields: Run NAS Services with Admin Rights: True Startup Argument: NASID,TYPEFILTER=,LOG=1,REPEAT=1 Startup Codeunit: 99001468 Startup Method: LSRSCHEDULER Restart the Server Instance. Open the Scheduler Setup in LS Central and set the “Enable NAS Scheduler” to true.  Refresh the page. Conclusion: Thus we saw how to configure NAS Services in LS Central. Happy Coding!

Introduction: While using Business Central Web Services or APIs, we often use POSTMAN for testing the request and the responses. Today we’ll see how we can automate this testing to a certain extent using the inbuilt features of POSTMAN. We can have testing logic that runs before every request, after every request or logic that tests on particular request. In the below demonstration, we’ll write automated test to check for GET, PUT, POST and DELETE operations for a single record on a custom API. Postman itself provides a bunch of standard procedures or boiler plate code which we can modify as per our requirements. As this uses Javascript we can also use additional JS features here. Pre-requisites: Postman Business Central OnCloud or OnPremise References: Writing tests | Postman Learning Center Announcing Postman for the Web, Now in Open Beta | Postman Blog Configuration: Post Request – So first we are going to be creating a record in the Customer Table with the following fields. One of the common things to be testing with Custom APIs is to verify whether the request is being created successfully (1) and what we are sending and what is being stored in the record are the same(2). As we are using Javascript, the response is stored in the jsonData variable and we can access any of the fields of the response as a property on the jsonData variable.  As the rest of our automated tests are doing to be performed on this same record, we need to store the Identifier for this record inside some variable which exists outside the scope of this request, here we are using a variable with the Collection scope. If you want to use the same variable outside of this collection, you can also define Global variables.  GET Request – In a simple GET request, the only thing we are concerned with here, is whether the request is executed successfully or not. For this we are simply going to be checking the Status Code. PUT Request – In a PUT request, we are going to be modifying the record that we previously created, here I’m going to update the name of the record. A common test-case for PUT requests would be to ensure that (a) the request is completed successfully and (b) what is being sent in the request is what is updated on the record and is available in the response. DELETE Request – In a simple DELETE request, the only thing we are concerned with is whether the requested is executed successfully and here we will be simply checking the Status Code returned. Once all the Automated Tests are written, you can either execute them from the Collection Level or from a folder level. Here we will be executing our tests from the folder level.  We can also define the Run Order for the requests.  Once the Tests have run, we can get a summary of the results as well as detailed version of the results.  Conclusion: Thus we saw how to use Automated Testing in POSTMAN to reduce re-work and increase efficiency while testing. A bonus tip – you can now use POSTMAN Web Version to create requests instead of download the POSTMAN app and the entire blog above was written using the Web App of POSTMAN. Do note that not everything that can be done on the Windows App can be done on the Web App. Happy Coding!

Introduction: POS Search Buffer is used to display the Items in the main POS Search Drop Down. The configuration for automatically updating the POS Search Buffer is located in the POS Functionality Profile, but it is limited in nature, only 2 options exist on the POS Functionality Profile, one which defines whether the buffer should be updated automatically and the other defines the frequency in which it should be updated. We’ve faced some issues with this process running automatically such the Buffer not being updated as such we had to look for a work-around using Scheduled Jobs. Pre-requisites: LS Central Business Central OnPrem or OnCloud References: How to: Control When to Update Search Index and POS Buffer (lsretail.com) Configuration: Create a new scheduled job with an appropriate name and description. In the Object Setup, define the “Object Type” as Codeunit and “Object ID” as 10000749, set the “Code” field as INDEX. Also ensure that the “Uses Scheduler Job Record” is set to true. In the Schedule Details configure the frequency in which you want to run the job. In the below screenshot the job is defined to run Every 10 seconds from 27-01-2022 starting from 10:14:00. Click on Run Now to test whether the job is working as expected. Conclusion: Thus we saw how we can use Scheduled Jobs to update the POS Search Buffer in the event that the standard automatic updating of POS Search Buffer isn’t working as expected. Happy Coding! Extra: The reason we set the “Code” to INDEX and “Uses Scheduler Job Record” is set to true is because in the Source Code of the Codeunit that we are trying to run we can see that the TableNo is defined as Scheduler Job Header which is a reference to the “Uses Scheduler Job Record” field and we can see that it uses the “Code” field to compare which action is to be performed. For instance if instead of INDEX we set it to UPDATE then the processing of the POS Search Buffer would happen based on Actions instead of all the records being re-index as happens when we set the “Code” to “INDEX”, we can also see that we can specify which table we want to Index by setting the table name in the “Text” field. 

Introduction: In Business Central, we can use Task Scheduler to utilize background processing to ensure that Users do not have to wait for completion of long operations. Task Scheduler provides us an easy to use and monitor way to offload tasks from the main thread. It creates separate sessions for processing and it allows creating multiple sessions which can be used to run tasks in parallel. It also allows us to define the company in which the processing will happening which is useful when we have to perform operations across all available companies, for example initialization of certain fields or creation of certain records on extension installation. Pre-requisites: Business Central OnCloud or OnPremise References: TaskScheduler Data Type – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Task Scheduler – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Configuration: The following procedures are available for the Task Scheduler data type: CanCreateTask() – Checks whether it is possible to create a new task in this session. CreateTask() – Creates a new task with the specified codeunit, we also specify which Codeunit to run if the main codeunit fails, whether the starts of this task would be Ready when it is created, the company this task will be running under and the time after which this task is to be run. TaskExists() – Checks whether the specified Task exists or not. SetTaskReady() – Sets the specified task status to Ready, a Task can only begin processing if it is in Ready state. CancelTask() – Sets the specified Task’s status to Cancel. A Task can only be set to cancel if it is in pending state. A task that is in progress cannot be cancelled. In case the main Codeunit hits an exception then there are two cases: The exception is retriable :- Business Central will re-try the main codeunit a specific number of times with a specific time interval, if it is unable to complete then the task is failed. The exception is not retriable :- The task fails and the session is deleted. Further if there is a failure codeunit defined then Business Central will run the Failure codeunit instead of failing the task and similarly if the Failure Codeunit hits an exception that is it unable to handle then there are same two cases: The exception is retriable :- Business Central will re-try the main codeunit a specific number of times with a specific time interval, if it is unable to complete then the task is failed. The exception is not retriable :- The task fails and the session is deleted. I have created an action which creates a simple task for all the companies available to the User. After that action is called, we can see that there are four separate sessions created with the same codeunit for different companies. The below is the screenshot of the page – Scheduled Tasks Conclusion: Thus we saw how to create and use Scheduled Tasks in Business Central for background processing. Business Central OnPremise requires some configuration before Task Scheduler can be used you can refer to the below link for the same.Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Server Configuration – Business Central | Microsoft Docs

Introduction: Business Central provides us with Web Services which we can use for CRUD operations on specific tables. However it also provides us with different methods of accessing specific records for CRUD operations. Pre-requisites: Business Central On-Premise or OnCloud. References: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/developer/properties/devenv-odatakeyfields-property Usage: In Business Central, if we do not specify the ODataKeyFields as a property on the Page that we’ll be using as Web Service, then by default we have to use the Primary Key. However if we specify the “ODataKeyFields” in the page, we can use the field we have specified as the key for pulling the record in Web Services. While there are no limitations on which field can be used as key field, keep in mind that Business Central fetches the first record matching that field. For instance if you use the “Buy-from Vendor No.” as the ODataKeyField, then the Web Service will fetch the first matching record sorted by the Primary Key. Standard Business Central APIs use the “SystemId” field as the ODataKey field. You can also use multiple Keys in ODataKeyFields and use them for fetching records. Conclusion: Thus, we saw how we can use ODataKeyFields property for fetching records and performing CRUD operations. As a side note, you can also use multiple keys in ODataKeyFields.

Introduction: Business Central provides us an easy method of modifying our data from within Excel using Web Services commonly found in the Edit in Excel action. This can be seen in the commonly used List Pages for example Payment Terms. However this functionality can be missing for certain pages or you might want to have additional logic or filtering before executing this. For this I’ll be demonstrating how to add the “Edit in Excel” action in Business Central pages. References: Viewing and Editing in Excel From Business Central – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Using Filter Expressions in OData URIs – Dynamics NAV | Microsoft Docs Configuration: In the above piece of code, I’ve added the “Edit in Excel” action onto the Blanket Sales Order SubForm to allow for easily adding lines using Excel. Firstly, we define the filters that we will be using on the page that we will be passing in the “EditWorksheetInExcel” procedure of the “OdataUtility” codeunit. Note that these filters are defined as Odata expressions as the “Edit in Excel” functionality uses Excel behind the scenes. In the next lines, we see that we pass the Page Caption, the page ID and the filters to be set on the page. Under the hood, the procedure creates a Published Web Service using the provided Page ID and uses that for the data manipulation. We had to prepend the additional “00000” as the procedure has been hardcoded to use “COPYSTR(“00000″ + {PageID}, 5)” meaning it starts reading after the 5th character. Conclusion: Thus we saw how to configure Edit in Excel for pages that do not have built in Excel functionality. Also note that Microsoft is expanding the Excel functionality to List Parts from Business Central v19 Wave 2, you can read more about it here.