This article guides you to frequently asked questions about Business Central. We also have more focused FAQs as show in the following list:
- Visit FAQ about developing in AL for questions and answers related to developing extensions in AL.
- Visit FAQ on managing and submitting your business central offer in Partner Center.
- Visit FAQ about library and dependency apps to learn about differences between library and dependency apps.
- Visit FAQ about updating your app to get answers to questions on tenants, versioning, and compatibility.
- Visit FAQ about testing your app to learn about testing before submitting an app.
- Visit FAQ about update lifecycle for AppSource apps for questions and answers related to the validation process.
- Visit FAQ about migrating to the cloud from on-premises solutions to learn about what is supported.
- Visit FAQ about the windows client to learn about support for the Business Central Windows client.
- Visit FAQ about signing up and using for questions about signing up for and using Business Central in the business functionality content for.
If you work with processes in Business Central, the following list provides answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:
- Visit Copy paste FAQ for tips on copying and pasting.
- Visit Tell Me FAQ for guidance on using search.
- Visit List views FAQ to find answers on list views.
- Visit Searching and filtering FAQ to learn about setting filters on data.
The following sections provides some of our top-most frequently asked questions for developer and admin experiences.
Is Business Central available in my country/region?
Business Central is available in a limited number of markets, but new countries/regions are added through Microsoft-led localization or through partner-led localization on a quarterly basis. For more information, see Countries and Translations Supported.
How often is Business Central updated?
Business Central online is governed by Microsoft's Modern Lifecycle Policy. This means continuous service updates and a major update every six months. For more information, see Dynamics 365 Business Central Service Compliance and Dynamics 365 release schedule and early access.
You can get an overview of new and upcoming changes in the Dynamics 365 release plans.
What are the service level agreements?
Business Central online is governed under the Modern Lifecycle Policy. The service level agreement terms are described in the document that you can download from the Service Level Agreements for Microsoft Online Services section on the Licensing terms
page.For more information, see Service Compliance.
For information about lifecycle support for Business Central on-premises, see Software Lifecycle Policy and Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premises Updates.
How often are production databases backed up?
Databases are protected by automatic backups that are kept for 28 days. The backup includes data from any production and sandbox environments that the database contains. Administrators of a Business Central tenant can't directly access or manage these backups because they're managed automatically by Microsoft. But admins can restore their environments to a specific point in time in the past using the Business Central admin center. For more information, see Restoring an environment and Automated backups - Azure SQL Database.
Can I request a copy of the backup of my production database?
No, but from the Business Central administration center, you can export the database for Business Central online environments as .bacpac files to an Azure storage container. For more information, see Exporting Databases.
Can I get training in Business Central?
Yes, you can. Find free eLearning content on the Microsoft Learn site. As a partner, you also have access to the Dynamics Learning Portal, where you can find older eLearning courses for Business Central. For more information, see the Microsoft Dynamics 365 training page.
How do I help my customer configure their environment?
You can find guidance for setting up Business Central in the application content. For more information, see Setting Up Business Central. Also, starting with 2021 release wave 1, you can customize the onboarding experience. For more information, see Onboarding experiences in Business Central.
You can also find relevant content on the Microsoft Learn site.
For more information, see Preparing Demonstration Environments.
How can I troubleshoot my customers' online tenants?
You can use the Help and Support page in your customers' tenants to find technical information, and they can use that page to contact you. You can also create a sandbox environment and use Visual Studio Code to debug that. For more information, see Managing Technical Support.
How does Microsoft handle database sizes?
For Business Central online, there's a limit to how much database storage capacity we allow each tenant to use for their environments (databases).
By default, Business Central customers can use up to 80 GB plus an allowance per licensed Essentials or Premium user of database storage capacity. This storage capacity is shared, meaning that the sum of capacity usage across all environments in a tenant must not exceed the limit. If a tenant exceeds this limit, Microsoft restricts administrative actions that create additional environments. Exceeding the storage limit will not interrupt transaction processing within the existing environments.
Some businesses have unique scenarios that may require additional storage. For those organizations that need more space, there's an option to purchase extra database capacity.
For more information, see Managing capacity.
Why doesn't the Outlook add-in work for my users?
The Outlook add-in is designed to function as a business inbox in Outlook, based on the standard Business Central online. If you're using a different type of deployment, such as a solution that is part of the Embed App program, then you must set up an Azure Key Vault and specify secrets for TEMPORARYDOCUMENTSTORAGEACCOUNT and TEMPORARYDOCUMENTSTORAGEKEY. For more information, see Using Key Vault Secrets in Business Central Extensions.
Is the Windows client supported?
The first releases of Business Central on premises included an installed client derived from Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Since 2019 release wave 2, this legacy component, referred to as "the Windows client", hasn't been available for Business Central. For more information, see FAQ About the Windows Client and Business Central.
What's going on with the Help?
If you have a background with Dynamics NAV, you'll find that in-product Help is different in Business Central. For more information, see User Assistance Model.
Where can I find partner-only assets and links?
If you were familiar with PartnerSource, then the new Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner Portal site is different. But it hosts many useful links and other assets that can help you ramp up on what's going on with Business Central. The site requires that you sign in with a partner account. Some assets are marked as confidential and can't be shared with clients.
Which IP addresses or ranges does my environment's API use?
When you exchange data through the API, you might have to safe list the IP addresses. IP adresses used by Business Central services are represented by the Dynamics365BusinessCentral service tag. For more information, see Use Azure security service tags.
See also
FAQ for developing in AL Features not implemented in on-premises deployments of Dynamics 365 Business Central Software Lifecycle Policy and Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises updates Dynamics 365 Business Central compliance FAQ for Dynamics 365 update policies Dynamics 365 resources Welcome to Dynamics 365 Business Central