Microsoft started the new year by presenting its plans for the development of its business solutions. The first Release Wave in 2025 – because that’s what we’re talking about – seems promising for Dynamics 365 Business Central. In the so-called release planner, you can see that Microsoft has placed a strong emphasis on features related to artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce aspects and sustainability management. However, it is worth remembering that the waves of updates announced every six months do not only concern around the ERP system. They also include other products from the Dynamics 365 family, such as Sales, Customer Service, Field Service and Power Platform, i.e. Power Apps or Power Automate. Additionally, the Redmond Giant also distinguishes Role-based Copilot offerings: Copilot for Sales, for Service or for Finance. In this blog post, we present selected news that Microsoft has announced for the period from April to September 2025. We emphasize – this is a preview, plans for specific features may be changed by Microsoft, which has already happened in the past.
Sales Order Agent in Business Central
As part of the first wave of updates in 2025, Microsoft plans to introduce a new feature, first out-of-the-box agent called Sales Order Agent. This is an AI assistant that aims to automate the process of capturing sales orders from email messages. Sales Order Agent will be able to independently analyze incoming emails from customers and, based on them, create sales orders. Artificial intelligence identifies key information, such as the ordered product, quantity, customer data or delivery address, and then automatically fills in the appropriate fields in the order. What’s more, the agent can also verify product availability and suggest alternatives in the event of stock shortages. There is no doubt that this innovation will significantly improve the work of sales departments, reducing the time spent on manual creation of sales orders, and will allow employees to focus on more strategic tasks, such as building relationships with customers or developing sales. However, excessive enthusiasm should be cooled and it should be noted that Sales Order Agent will initially be available only in the United States.
Sales channels in Shopify Connector
Microsoft continues to improve integration between Dynamics 365 Business Central and Shopify. In the upcoming release, it introduces the ability to choose a sales channel. This feature allows for more detailed control over sales processes in the e-commerce environment. In other words, it is clearly visible which sales channel is the leading one in our company and which generates the least revenue. The user can select and activate available channels from the list, and if he does not do so, the Shopify connector will take the default value ("Online store"). It should be remembered that the feature will only apply to products that have not yet been published.
More fields and columns on varoius pages in Dynamics 365 Business Central
Another new feature is that one is "minor" in nature, but which is very pleasing. We are talking about the possibility of adding more fields and columns to various pages in the ERP system. It seems obvious but in many cases there was no possibility of inserting an additional field in which additional information could be entered. For example:
- "Name 2" field, which can be added to pages for all sales, service, projects, purchase drafts, and posted and archived documents,
- "Description 2" field can be added to simulated, planned, firm planned, released and finished production orders,
- "Work Description" field, which will be visible by default in the Sales Quote Archive and the Sales Order Archive pages.
Manage document attachments in manufacturing
The next change resulted from the need to add various types of documents to manufacturing-related processes. Microsoft announced that it would introduce such a feature in April 2025. Thanks to this, documents related to aspects of the manufacturing process, such as inspection reports or technical drawings, can be added in many pages in the ERP system. The option itself is nothing more than the well-known FactBox window available in places such as:
- Production BOM,
- Simulated Production Orders,
- Planned Production Orders,
- Firm Planned Production Orders,
- Released Production Orders,
- Completed Production Orders,
- Production Order List.
Project ESG Reporting app integration with Business Central
Another new feature, which is expected to be available from April 2025, is the integration of Business Central with the ESG reporting application. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting directive (CSRD) significantly increases the number of companies in the EU required to report sustainability data. Therefore, Microsoft decided to adapt the Sustainability module available in Business Central and integrate it with an app called "Project ESG Reporting". Thanks to this, companies are able to manage non-transactional data outside the ERP system. Additionally, the feature eliminates the need to re-enter the same data in several IT solutions. Once the data is collected in Dynamics 365 Business Central, it will be possible to transfer it to the Project ESG Reporting app, where you can adjust it and generate a regulatory-compliat file for submission.
Automatic follow-ups in Dynamics 365 Sales
In the case of the CRM system – Dynamics 365 Sales – several changes have also been planned as part of the upcoming wave of updates. One of them is the sales qualification agent responsible for automating activities with leads, which will be introduced in April as a public preview. Its task is to support selles in their daily duties. The agent will be able to send automatic follow-ups to potential customers, their content will be created based on the history of interactions, and in the event of the recipient’s absence, it will adjust the sending schedule to their availability. It sounds really promising, but let’s withhold the final assessment until the tests, which will be possible to conduct in April.
Process maps for multi-flow automations in Power Automate
Finally, it is worth mentioning the new features in the services included in Power Platform. The ability to generate a process map for multi-flow automations sounds really interesting. For now, Microsoft has not published any screen how this feature is going to look like but let’s keep our fingers crossed that it will appear in this wave of updates. Returning to the feature itself – the map will allow you to visualize end-to-end process dependencies of individual flows, which should shorten the time of solving potential problems and simplify navigation through automation logs and connections.
See how the announced changes and new features that will arrive to the ERP Dynamics 365 Business Central system and other cloud solutions integrated with it – Dynamics 365 Sales, Copilot, Power Apps – can help you in your daily work – fill out the form below and arrange a free consultation with our expert!
