Business Central 2021 wave 2 (BC19) new features: Enhancements to working with Microsoft Excel

Hi, Readers.
The preview environment for Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 release wave 2 (BC19) is available now. Learn more: https://yzhums.com/17638/

Update: Generally available: Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 release wave 2 (BC19)

I will continue to test and share some new features that I hope will be helpful.

Enhancements to working with Microsoft Excel:

Business value:
For many of our customers, Microsoft Excel remains the app of choice for quick data analysis, sharing tabular data, bulk correcting, or entering records. Business Central continues to mature Excel-related features for exporting to Excel and working with the Excel add-in, making them more easily discoverable and reachable through the new Share menu.

Let’s see some details.

A new home for Open in Excel and Edit in Excel

The 2021 release wave 2 introduces the Share icon and menu in which users will find the Open in Excel and Edit in Excel actions. This applies to list pages, such as the Items list, and also to list parts that display a full menu, such as the Lines part on a sales order.

List Page:

ListPart Page:

Worksheet page:

Downloading embedded lists to Excel (Open in Excel action)

Lists that are embedded in a part on a page can now be exported to Excel. For example, you can export Sales Lines on a Sales Order, list parts on the Role Center, or lists in the FactBox pane. Similar to full-page lists, the Open in Excel action downloads a static copy of your list as an Excel file, applying your filters and sort order just as shown on screen.

You can enable this feature ahead of time as early as Business Central 2021 release wave 1 (update 18.3). Starting in Business Central 2021 release wave 2 (update 19.0), this is enabled on all environments.

We have discussed this topic before, you can find more details in Export any list part to Excel (Open in Excel in ListPart page).

In BC19.0 Preview:

Exporting reports to Excel

From a report request page, users can export report data to Excel. The Excel file will only include the raw data, not the report layout. For more information, see the related release plan: Save report dataset to Excel from the request page.

We have discussed this topic before, you can find more details in Save report dataset to Excel from the request page (Report Inspector).

Enhancements to the Excel add-in (Edit in Excel)

Administrators can now configure Business Central and Microsoft 365 to use Centralized Deployment to deploy the Excel add-in to users or groups of users within their organization.

F e have discussed this topic before, you can find more details in Centralized Deployment of Office add-ins.

Columns are now exported using the column captions that match your current language in Business Central.

For more information, see the related release plan: Centralized Deployment of Office add-ins.

Update info from Microsoft 2021/11/11:

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Hope this will help.

Thanks for reading.

ZHU