Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Field Services Trusted Partner

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2026 Release Wave 2, also known as Business Central version 29 or BC29, is the next major release of Microsoft’s cloud ERP platform.

The BC29 public preview is available for Business Central online sandbox environments. Microsoft currently plans to make version 29.0 generally available in October 2026, although preview features and release details remain subject to change before production availability.

For Alberta organizations, BC29 is more than a routine software update. The release continues Microsoft’s investment in Copilot, AI agents, financial automation, modern data access, supply chain management, and a more productive web-client experience.

Businesses currently using Business Central should begin evaluating the release before their production update. Companies still relying on disconnected accounting, inventory, project, or service applications can also use BC29 as an opportunity to assess a modern, integrated ERP platform.

If your company is considering an ERP implementation or upgrade, explore Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central consulting from KDP Solutions to understand how finance, inventory, purchasing, projects, sales, manufacturing, and reporting can be managed within one platform.

Important: BC29 is currently release software. Features described in Microsoft’s preview documentation may change, be delayed, or have restricted functionality before general availability. Preview environments should be used for testing rather than production operations.

What Is Business Central 2026 Release Wave 2 (BC29)?

Business Central 2026 Release Wave 2 is Microsoft’s second major Business Central release wave of 2026. Version 29.0 follows Microsoft’s regular cloud release cycle and is expected to become generally available in October 2026

Business Central is designed to help small and midsized organizations manage essential business functions, including:

• Financial management
• Sales and customer transactions
• Purchasing and accounts payable
• Inventory and warehouse operations
• Manufacturing and assembly
• Project management
• Service management
• Business intelligence and reporting

For Alberta businesses, the platform can provide an integrated alternative to separate accounting, purchasing, inventory, project management, and reporting applications.

Organizations looking for local expertise can also review KDP Solutions’ Dynamics 365 Business Central Alberta services and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner Edmonton services.

What’s New in Business Central BC29?

BC29 introduces or previews improvements across Copilot and agents, financial processes, development tools, reporting, data access, and user experience.

The most strategically important changes for Alberta companies are expected to be the continued development of AI-powered work, improved payables automation, modern access to business data, and enhancements that make Business Central easier to use.

Unified Microsoft Copilot Experience

Business Central 29.0 introduces a unified Copilot chat experience that is more consistent with the broader Microsoft Copilot ecosystem.

According to Microsoft’s preview documentation, the experience is intended to help users reason over Business Central data, web results, and general knowledge through a modern conversational interface

This direction could make Business Central information more accessible to executives, finance managers, purchasing teams, and operational users who may not know exactly which page or report contains the information they need.

Potential business questions could include:

• Which customers have overdue balances?
• Which inventory items are below their reorder points?
• Which projects are exceeding their budgets?
• Which vendors have outstanding purchase orders?
• Which sales orders are approaching their shipment dates?

The exact queries and actions available will depend on the released functionality, organizational permissions, data quality, and enabled AI capabilities.

For Alberta organizations, the value is not simply having a chatbot inside the ERP. The greater opportunity is helping employees find information, analyze business activity, and complete routine work with fewer manual navigation steps.

Smarter AI Agents

Microsoft continues to expand AI agents within Business Central. Recent release directions have focused on agents that support specific business processes such as sales order entry, accounts payable, employee expenses, and other repeatable administrative tasks.

Unlike a basic assistant that only provides instructions, an agent can help execute a defined process, evaluate information, prepare transactions, or bring exceptions to a user for review.

Potential benefits include:

• Reducing repetitive data entry
• Accelerating customer order processing
• Improving vendor invoice handling
• Identifying missing or inconsistent information
• Allowing employees to focus on exceptions
• Creating more standardized business processes

AI agents are not a replacement for strong internal controls. Alberta businesses should establish approval thresholds, role-based permissions, exception handling, and human review before allowing AI-assisted processes to affect financial or operational transactions.

Companies should also evaluate AI scenarios based on measurable value. A useful starting point is to identify processes with high transaction volumes, repetitive decisions, structured documents, and significant manual effort.

Enhanced Purchase Order Matching

One of the notable BC29 preview improvements affects the Payables Agent.

Microsoft indicates that purchase-order matching is being improved by considering line amounts and expected receipt dates. The preview also aligns draft finalization with the organization’s Receipt on Invoice settings.

This can be particularly relevant for organizations that process a high volume of vendor invoices.

Examples include:

• Industrial distributors
• Equipment and parts suppliers
• Manufacturers
• Construction companies
• Oilfield service providers
• Multi-location organizations
• Project-based businesses

More effective matching may help accounts payable teams identify discrepancies between invoices, purchase orders, and expected receipts. It can also reduce the time spent manually comparing documents when the underlying purchasing and receiving processes are properly configured.

Before enabling greater automation, companies should review:

1. Purchase order accuracy
2. Item and vendor master data
3. Receiving practices
4. Invoice tolerances
5. Approval workflows
6. Tax and posting setup
7. Segregation of duties

Automating an inconsistent process can reproduce errors more quickly. Data quality and process governance should therefore be part of every AI-readiness assessment.

MCP Server and Advanced Data Queries

BC29 preview documentation includes new Model Context Protocol, or MCP, capabilities for defining, validating, and running custom data queries.

Microsoft explains that MCP applications can use these tools to query Business Central data even where an existing standard API does not address the specific requirement.

This development may create opportunities for:

• AI assistants connected to ERP information
• Operational data retrieval
• Custom reporting scenarios
• Controlled analytics
• External business applications
• Power Platform solutions
• Specialized industry workflows

For example, an Alberta distributor could potentially retrieve inventory, purchasing, sales, and fulfillment information through controlled query tools. A project-based company could make project performance information available to an approved application without creating a separate API for every question.

However, flexible data access also increases the importance of governance.

Organizations should define:

• Which applications can connect to Business Central
• Which companies and records can be queried
• Which employees can use those applications
• How credentials and connections are secured
• How sensitive financial information is protected
• How access is logged and reviewed

KDP Solutions helps Canadian organizations connect ERP and CRM processes through Microsoft technologies.

Learn more about its broader Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP and business application services.

Supply Chain and Inventory Enhancements

Supply chain and inventory functionality remains an important investment area for Business Central. Microsoft’s broader BC29 direction includes improvements in purchasing, inventory visibility, automation, and operational decision support. [activebs.com], [zentriqsoftware.com]

For Alberta distributors, manufacturers, contractors, and industrial service companies, Business Central can support processes such as:

• Inventory availability
• Replenishment planning
• Purchase recommendations
• Sales demand
• Item reservations
• Warehouse receiving
• Order fulfillment
• Assembly and manufacturing
• Lot and serial number tracking
• Transfer orders between locations

New software features alone will not correct poor planning parameters or inaccurate inventory records. Companies preparing for BC29 should examine the quality of their operational setup, including:

• Reordering policies
• Reorder points
• Safety-stock quantities
• Lead times
• Vendor-item relationships
• Units of measure
• Item tracking rules
• Location and warehouse configuration
• Planning and reservation policies

A BC29 readiness project is a good opportunity to review these settings and determine whether Business Central is producing reliable planning recommendations.

SOAP Web Services and Integration Modernization

Microsoft has been moving Business Central integrations toward modern REST APIs and OData services. Third-party release analysis indicates that BC29 is an important milestone in the retirement of legacy SOAP web services associated with Microsoft UI pages

Organizations should therefore identify whether any current integrations depend on older SOAP endpoints.

Common integration areas include:

• E-commerce platforms
• Warehouse systems
• Payroll applications
• Expense systems
• Customer portals
• Vendor portals
• Banking solutions
• Manufacturing applications
• Transportation systems
• Custom mobile applications

A technical integration inventory should document the endpoint, authentication method, data direction, frequency, owner, failure notification, and business impact of each interface.

Where modernization is required, replacement options may include:

• Standard Business Central REST APIs
• Custom API pages
• OData v4
• Power Automate
• Azure integration services
• Dataverse
• Approved third-party connectors

Organizations should not wait until their production update to discover whether a critical interface is dependent on deprecated technology.

Improved Document and Attachment Management

The Business Central web client continues to improve how users interact with documents and attachments.

BC29 preview testing indicates that image files can be previewed directly in the web client without requiring users to download the file first. Reported supported formats include JPEG, JPG, PNG, BMP, SVG, WEBP, ICO, GIF, and AVIF. Extension developers may need to add support through the appropriate file-viewing methods.

This can be useful for Alberta businesses that attach operational evidence to ERP records, including:

• Equipment photographs
• Delivery documentation
• Quality-control images
• Damage reports
• Job-site photographs
• Product images
• Service documentation
• Customer-provided attachments

For construction, engineering, manufacturing, and field-service teams, reducing unnecessary downloads can make attachments easier to review while employees remain inside their normal workflow.

Organizations managing technicians and mobile service operations can also explore Dynamics 365 Field Service for Edmonton and Alberta.

Why BC29 Matters for Alberta Businesses

Alberta businesses frequently operate across wide geographic areas, complex supply chains, project-based contracts, field-service environments, and asset-intensive industries.

BC29’s focus on automation, AI-assisted work, modern integrations, and data access can help organizations address common operational challenges such as:

• Repetitive administrative work
• Disconnected systems
• Limited financial visibility
• Delayed operational reporting
• Manual invoice processing
• Inventory shortages or overstocking
• Integration maintenance
• Inconsistent business processes

The business value will depend on how effectively the platform is configured and adopted.

Manufacturing Companies

Manufacturing organizations can use Business Central to connect:

• Demand planning
• Bills of materials
• Routings
• Production orders
• Capacity planning
• Purchasing
• Inventory consumption
• Finished goods
• Production costing
• Financial reporting

BC29 provides manufacturers with an opportunity to review whether planning parameters, item costs, capacities, production policies, and operational reporting align with current business requirements.

AI capabilities may also help employees retrieve information and reduce administrative effort, but accurate production and inventory data must remain the foundation.

Wholesale Distribution Businesses

Wholesale distributors can benefit from connected sales, purchasing, inventory, warehouse, receivables, and payables processes.

Potential improvement areas include:

• Stock availability
• Replenishment
• Vendor lead times
• Customer order commitments
• Warehouse receiving
• Pick and shipment processes
• Margin visibility
• Multi-location inventory
• Accounts receivable
• Sales and inventory reporting

BC29’s AI, purchasing, and data-query capabilities may further improve these processes when combined with disciplined master-data management and clear operational policies.

Construction and Project-Based Organizations

Construction, engineering, and professional project organizations need visibility into budgets, commitments, time, materials, billing, profitability, and project progress.

Business Central project functionality can help organizations manage:

• Project budgets
• Planning lines
• Resource usage
• Item consumption
• Purchase activity
• Project journals
• Time entry
• Customer invoicing
• Work in process
• Project profitability

During BC29 planning, project-based businesses should evaluate how estimates, baseline budgets, change orders, actual costs, progress billing, and forecasting are currently controlled.

Professional Service Firms

Professional service organizations can use Business Central to connect project delivery with financial management.

Examples include:

• Consulting firms
• Engineering companies
• IT service providers
• Business advisory firms
• Technical service organizations

Relevant capabilities include resource planning, time entry, reimbursable expenses, project billing, revenue recognition, profitability reporting, cash-flow visibility, and integration with Microsoft 365.

A BC29 review can help these firms determine which administrative activities may be streamlined through workflow automation, Copilot, or AI agents.