Business Central 2021 wave 2 (BC19) new features: Data archive extension (Data Archive List page)

Hi, Readers.
Dynamics 365 Business Central 2021 release wave 2 (BC19) is generally available now. Learn more: https://yzhums.com/18526/

I will continue to test and share some new features that I hope will be helpful.
Data archive extension and archiving entries before deleting in Date Compress batch jobs:

Business value:
Over time, your business will accumulate a substantial amount of data, and as an administrator, it’s a good idea to have a strategy for compressing and archiving data. Having lots of data can slow things down and, additionally, large amounts of data can lead to increased storage costs. By archiving the entries before compressing, you can keep a record of the historical data.

Feature details:

An application administrator must regularly deal with the amount of data stored in a Business Central database. This can be done by deleting or compressing some of the historical documents and data.
When using date compression functionality, related entries are consolidated into a single entry, and the originals are deleted. However, there might be value in keeping that data, so rather than deleting it, you can archive it for later use. To manage this archiving, we are delivering a Data Archive extension so you can archive the data and explore it afterward using Microsoft Excel or as a CSV file.
The extension is preinstalled and available on the Extension Management page, so you don’t need to do anything to get started. The extension is also available on Microsoft AppSource in case you want to reinstall it.

Some of the information below is extracted from Dynamics 365 Business Central Launch Event 2021 release wave 2.

About three months ago, we discussed Data cleanup tasks page (Data Administration page) starting from BC18.2.

Now the Data Archive extension is preinstalled and available on the Extension Management page.

In this post, I would like to test archiving feature. There are currently two main usages.

1. Archiving entries before deleting in Date Compress batch jobs
Let’s return to the Data Administration page, Microsoft has added Archive Deleted Entries to all Compression Entries batch jobs.

For example, (the default value is True)
Date Compress General Ledger:

Date Compress VAT Entries:

Date Compress Customer Ledger:

Let’s try to compress General Ledger Entries.

Choose Yes.

Working on it…

Then enter Data Archive List in Tell me, and then choose the related link.

You can find a new record has been created automatically.

Choose Related -> Save as Excel or Save as CSV, you can export the data.

Test Video:

2. Recording the data you are currently deleting. (I like this feature)
On the Data Archive List page, you can choose Create new archive to open the New Data Archive page.

The New Data Archive page allows you to do a recording of all subsequent deletions in this session.

Test Video:

More information from Microsoft:

ALAppExtensions/Apps/W1/DataArchive at main · microsoft/ALAppExtensions · GitHub

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Hope this will help.

Thanks for reading.

ZHU