Business Central 2024 wave 2 (BC25.3): Configuration packages for setup and evaluation data has been deprecated (The method of creating demo/sample data has changed)

Dynamics 365 Business Central

Hi, Readers.
Business Central 2024 wave 2 CU03 (BC25.3) cloud has been released this morning, new customers will all be deployed on 25.3. More details: Cumulative Update Summary for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (January, 2025)

In this post, I will share an important update point.
Changes in Business Central 2024 release wave 2: Configuration packages for setup and evaluation data:

Weā€™ve changed the way we prepare databases for new evaluation and production companies. Instead of using configuration packages to add demo and setup data, you now use the Contoso Coffee demo data app. We shipped the Contoso Coffee demo data app in an earlier release to cover gaps in our demo and setup data, such as Manufacturing, Service, and Warehouse. Because the app is easy to use and now provides the comprehensive setup and demo data that was previously available in configuration packages, weā€™re removing the configuration packages. To do that, we had to change how the Create New Company assisted setup guide initializes new companies with data. Our changes might affect your extensions. For details about what we removed, explore the Object and Whatā€™s removed listings.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/upgrade/deprecated-features-w1?wt.mc_id=DX-MVP-5004336#configuration-packages-for-setup-and-evaluation-data

In Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS/Cloud W1 version: How to create an environment with all demo/sample data, I briefly introduced how to create all the demo data for the W1 version environment. For example,

This has changed starting with Business Central 2024 wave 2 (BC25.3). On the Configuration Packages page, Microsoft has removed the Import Predefined Packageā€¦ action.

If you want to import demo data, now you need to go to the Companies page.

Choose Create New Company.

Choose Next.

Enter a name for the compay, then select Evaluation ā€“ Contoso Sample Data. Choose Next.

Select the module should be installed when creating new company (This is the feature added in this version). Then choose Next.

Choose Next again.

Choose Finish.

Company Demo is created, but we are still setting it up. This might take some time, so take a break before you begin to use it. When it is ready, its status is Completed. Refresh the page to update the status.

In Progress

Completed

Switch to the company you just created.

You can see that the test data has been imported.

Great! This is much simpler than importing from the Configuration Package. Give it a tryšŸ˜.

PS: If you open the Contoso Demo Tool page, you can see that all the data has been installed.

END

Hope this will help.

Thanks for reading.

ZHU

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