Prepare demonstration environments of Business Central
As a Business Central reselling partner, you might want to have an environment that you can show prospects as part of pre-sales demonstrations. Depending on your requirements, you have several different options that are described in this article.
Learn more about Business Central trials and subscriptions in Business Central trials and subscriptions.
Microsoft 365 demo plus Business Central
For repeatable demos that showcase Business Central together with Microsoft apps and services in an independent Azure organization (tenant) that you fully control, get a Microsoft 365 demo account at https://aka.ms/CDX. You have access to the Customer Digital Experiences site if you're enrolled with the Microsoft Partner Center. Learn more in Become a partner.
Such Microsoft demo accounts give you environments that you can use for demos and training without the risk of introducing changes to an existing production environment, for example. Learn more about demo accounts at Offer your customers trials of Microsoft products in the Partner Center documentation.
Get a demo environment based on Microsoft 365 content packs
Sign in to aka.ms/cdx using your partner account.
Select the My Environments tab, and then, under My tenants, select the Create Tenant button.
As the type, select Quick Tenant.
As the period, select 90 days. You can't select 1 year.
Your account in CDX has access to a limited quota of tenants that can last three months (90 days) or a full year. Learn more at CDX FAQ.
As the location, choose the region that is closest to your location.
This setting determines the location in which the tenant is deployed, but you can add Business Central environments to it for any country/region afterwards.
Choose one of the available content packs and then select the Create Tenant button.
Content packs offer different bundles of Microsoft software free trials. Each content pack typically results in a dedicated demonstration organization in Azure and multiple demonstration users, including preconfigured Microsoft 365 or Dynamics 365 applications. You can choose any of the content packs that match your prospects' industry or interests, and then add Business Central to the tenant afterwards.
If you're uncertain which content pack is a fit for you, we recommend one of the following packs:
- Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement currently includes Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Platform, and the Dynamics 365 apps that Business Central typically integrates with.
- Microsoft 365 Enterprise Demo Content currently includes demonstration data that simulates an organization that is using Microsoft 365.
These content packs give you a dedicated demonstration organization in Azure that includes multiple demo users with Microsoft 365 licenses.
Note
When demand for a specific content pack is high, the Create Tenant button isn't activated, and you must choose a different content pack.
When the tenant is created, a page appears with details of tenant. Keep the page open because you need administrator email and password in the next step.
Sign up for a Business Central trial by completing the following steps:
- In a dedicated browser window, visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-365/products/business-central
- Select the Try for free
- Follow the online instructions to fill in the information required to sign up to Business Central. For the email, use the new administrator account email that you got as part of your demo account in the previous step.
Tip
We recommend that you use profiles in the Microsoft Edge browser rather than InPrivate or Incognito browser mode. Learn more at Microsoft Edge.
By now, you have a dedicated demonstration organization in Azure that includes multiple demo users with Microsoft 365 licenses, and a Business Central environment.
The initial Business Central demo environment comes with two companies:
- The CRONUS demonstration company
- An empty company with the name My Company, but it might have a different display name for demo purposes
You can keep using the demonstration company until the tenant expires, if you use it a couple of times per week. However, if you start the trial experience or switch to the empty My Company, that experience will expire after 30 days. If the trial expires, you can extend the trial, create a new environment, or return to the CRONUS demonstration company. Learn more at Dynamics 365 Business Central Trials and Subscriptions in the business functionality content for Business Central.
You can now enable the Premium user experience in the new company's Company Information page, populate the company with any data that is required for their evaluation scenarios, and present the environment to the prospect.
Important
Environments that are based on Microsoft 365 demo accounts are intended for demonstration and training purposes. If a prospect uses such an environment to help run their business, then they risk losing their company data when the demo environment or the Microsoft 365 demo account expires. If a prospect wants to use Business Central to help run their business, they should sign up for a trial using their own email account. Learn more at Dynamics 365 Business Central Trials and Subscriptions in the business functionality content for Business Central.
For example, if you sign up for a trial with a Microsoft 365 demo account at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-365/products/business-central, you can keep that environment for up to a year. However, if you switch to the actual trial experience in Business Central, that experience will expire after 30 days. At that point, you can extend the trial. Learn more at extend the trial. You can also return to the CRONUS demonstration experience, which is still available until your Microsoft 365 demo account expires.
Customize the demo environment
Since 2022 release wave 1, you can add the Contoso Coffee Demo Data app to your demo company to showcase advanced supply chain functionality. Learn more here. 2022 release wave 2 adds connectivity apps that you can learn more about here.
Because you're signed in as the administrator of the demonstration tenant, you can access the Microsoft 365 administration center. The following list illustrates the types of work that your demo account can do:
Subscribe to more apps and services that might be relevant to your demos
Configure apps and services by accessing their administration centers
Modify or add user accounts, and assign licenses
Set up the organizational profile to reflect your prospect's business and brand
Your administrator account also gives you access to the Business Central administration center, where you can make further customizations, such as:
Create extra environments within the available quota, depending on your needs.
For example, you can create a Business Central environment for a specific country/region, or create a dedicated sandbox that you then apply your solution to, such as by deploying your app straight from Visual Studio Code.
Learn more in Managing Environments.
Specify the update window and date for your environments, so that planned updates don't interfere with your demos. Learn more in Set the update window for each environment
Add your own email address to the list of notification recipients, so that you're informed of upgrades to your Business Central environments or any issues that might affect your planned demos. Learn more in Manage Tenant-Specific Notifications
Try out new functionality in preview environments that are available about two months before a major update. For more information, see Prepare for major updates with preview environments.
With your administrator account, you can install apps from AppSource, and you can set up integrations between Business Central and other services. For example, you can add the Business Central app for Microsoft Teams, and you can run the Set up your Business Inbox in Outlook assisted setup guide on behalf of the organization as described in the Use Business Central as your Business Inbox in Outlook article. You can also add Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Sales, Power Automate, Power Apps, and many more.
Some content packs provide more demonstration data for non-administrator accounts, such as example channels and conversations in Microsoft Teams that can reduce the time needed to customize the experience for a demo. You can sign in with the demo user account for the non-administrator experience.
Use profiles in Microsoft Edge
If you demo in the new Microsoft Edge browser, you can easily switch between different browser profiles. That way, you don't have to use private mode for browsing, and you can let Microsoft Edge save passwords and sites to any of your browser profiles, including a Microsoft 365 demo account. Business Central also performs well in the Microsoft Edge for even better demos. You can also switch the page layout to Focused to minimize demo distraction. Learn more at Microsoft Edge documentation.
Tip
We recommend that you connect to a low-latency network for a faster response time during demos, and that you always plug in your laptop if you are about to demo anything. Performance impact may vary depending on your device and choice of browser, but being plugged in generally helps overall snappiness.
Pre-sales performance evaluation
If you want to provide a prospect with an online environment where you want to demonstrate the performance and reliability of Business Central online in addition to demonstrating functionality, you must take a few extra steps.
To demonstrate the functionality of the default version of Business Central, without focusing on performance, you can use your own trial experience based on a Microsoft 365 demo account. We recommend that you show the full functionality of the default version by switching the tenant to the 30 day trial and the associated My Company. You can then enable the Premium user experience in the new My Company's Company Information page, populate the new company with the data required for their evaluation scenarios, and present the environment to the prospect.
To demonstrate the functionality of the service, with a focus on performance, you can take the same step as outlined is previous section. Except you also sign up the prospect for the Business Central Premium Trial offer, which is available through your CSP access in the Partner Center. After sign-up, wait 24 hours and then run your performance evaluation. Learn more in Preparing Test Environments of Dynamics 365 Business Central.
That 30 day trial is as close to an actual production environment performance as you can get. You only have those 29 days to run your tests and convince the prospect. But if you prepared everything in advance, you should have time enough.
If the prospect is convinced and decides to buy Business Central, you can then either let them keep the environment that they're currently using, or create a new production environment for them. If the tenant is yours rather than the prospect's, then a new tenant is provided to them.
Learn more about performance and Business Central in Performance Overview.
Add a Business Central trial to your prospect's organization
Any organization in the supported markets can sign up for a free trial from the https://dynamics.microsoft.com/business-central/ page. Learn how to sign up at Sign up for a free Dynamics 365 Business Central trial.
Note
To explore the full capabilities in Business Central, change the user experience to Premium in the Company Information page. Learn more at Change Which Features are Displayed in the business functionality content.
This type of environment can be useful if you want to demonstrate the general user interface, for example, or talk about how they can add capabilities with apps from AppSource.
Important
Specifically for businesses who want to convert a 30-day trial company into their actual production company, the first user who signs into Business Central after the license was applied to their tenant must be a user with this license assigned. This way, the 30-day trial ends, and any trial-related notifications disappear so that users can use Business Central to do work.
If an administrator is the first person to sign in after the license was applied to the tenant and to users, then the trial will continue until it expires.
If a prospect signed up for a free trial, and they use Business Central to help run their business, then they must decide whether to subscribe within the first 60 days. If they extend their trial once, and they're still not sure, they must contact a partner.
However, in many cases, you'll probably prefer to show prospects more tailored experiences with your own trial as described in the Microsoft 365 demo plus Business Central section.
Note
If a Business Central viral trial is left unused for 45 days, Microsoft considers the trial as expired, and the Business Central is deleted.
If the trial is converted to a paid subscription before the trial expires, the countdown to 45 days of non-usage does not apply.
Connectivity apps
Starting in 2022 release wave 2, Business Central online environments can list one or more apps on the Connectivity Apps and Banking Apps pages. We recommend that the admin opens the Connectivity Apps page from the Extension Management page and allows the underlying extension to connect to its external service either once or always. Business Central then connects to AppSource to generate a short list of apps that are approved for that country or region. These particular apps can connect to external services, such as online banking.
If you're an ISV and want your banking app to show up in the Connectivity Apps page, reach out to us at Microsoft. We're testing the suggested apps according to business and functional requirements. The list relies on AppSource and is intended to show the best apps in that business's country or region for core connectivity scenarios. Learn more at Requirements for Connectivity Apps.
Use Contoso Coffee demo data for advanced manufacturing
The Contoso Coffee Demo Data app for Business Central includes demo data that you can add to a trial company or a sandbox environment to showcase or learn advanced manufacturing capabilities. Learn more at Introduction to Contoso Coffee Demo Data and Scenarios for Contoso Coffee Demo Data in the business functionality content.
Add Dynamics 365 Sales Professional
Once you have a Microsoft 365 demo account as described in Get a demo environment based on Microsoft 365 content packs, you can use the admin account to also sign up for a trial of Dynamics 365 Sales Professional. With the Dynamics 365 Sales Professional trial, you can demo the integration of the Sales app and Business Central.
Tip
Integration between Business Central and Sales happens through Dataverse. Learn more at Integrating with Dynamics 365 Sales in the business functionality content.
To add Dynamics 365 Sales Professional to your Microsoft 365 demo account
In a dedicated browser window, sign in as the admin account for the Microsoft demo account that you created in the Get a demo environment based on Microsoft 365 content packs section. Learn more in the Use profiles in Microsoft Edge section.
Visit Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Professional marketing page, select Try for free, and then follow the guidance in the steps to add the Sales trial to your account.
Once the trial is available, proceed to the next step.
In another browser tab, sign into Business Central at https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/?redirectedFromSignup=1.
Select the
icon, enter Dataverse Connection Setup, and then select the related link.Follow the steps in the wizard to connect to your Sales trial.
To finish setting up the connection, you must run the Sales-specific assisted setup.
Select the
icon, enter Dynamics 365 Connection Setup, and then select the related link.Follow the steps in the wizard to connect to your Sales trial.
Richer demos with the Customer Engagement content pack
In certain scenarios, you want to demo richer integration capabilities than the Sales Professional app offers. In those cases, you follow the same steps to get a Microsoft 365 as is described in the Get a demo environment based on Microsoft 365 content packs section. But you choose the more advanced Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement content pack so that you can demo integration with Power Apps, Power Automate, and the Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise, for example.
Get richer demo environments with Dataverse and the Customer Engagement content pack
Follow the steps in the Get a demo environment based on Microsoft 365 content packs section. But at step 6, choose the more advanced Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement content pack.
Complete step 7 in the procedure where you sign into Business Central with the new Microsoft 365 tenant's admin credentials.
Next, you move to the Power Platform to prepare the demo environment.
Sign into the Power Platform Admin Center with the same admin credentials.
In the list of environments, choose the trial environment, and then select the Convert to production action.
Note
The trial environment will have the Type field set to Trial (29 days). Do not convert the default environment.
After a few minutes, the trial environment is converted to a production environment, and the Type field changes to Production.
Choose the converted environment again, and then select the Convert to sandbox action.
We recommend that you convert the environment to a sandbox environment for demo purposes. In the sandbox environment, you can:
Reset the environment without any Dynamics 365 apps, which effectively gives you an empty Dataverse database to connect to using the Set up Dataverse connection assisted setup if you want to integrate Business Central just to Dataverse.
Learn more at Reset environment in the Power Platform docs, and Integrating with Microsoft Dataverse in the business functionality content for Business Central.
Reset the environment with specific Dynamics 365 apps with or without sample data to demo to various audiences. Learn more at Reset environment.
For example, when you reset the sandbox environment, you can choose to deploy Sales enterprise and demo integration between Business Central and the full capabilities of Dynamics 365 Sales. Learn more at Integrating with Dynamics 365 Sales in the business functionality content.
Demo in a sandbox environment
You can set up tailored demo environments in a sandbox environment if you already have a Business Central tenant. For example, to show two different implementations of a capability, or to illustrate an integration point.
Note
Sandboxes are limited in functionality, including performance. Learn more in Sandbox environments.
Starting in February 2022, partners can request dedicated licenses to set up more sandbox environments. Learn more in Partner sandboxes.
Related information
Preparing Test Environments of Dynamics 365 Business Central
Trials and Subscriptions
The Business Central Administration Center
Managing Environments
Administration of Business Central Online
Data and access when a trial or subscription ends
Deployment of Dynamics 365 Business Central
Offer your customers trials of Microsoft products
Performance in Business Central online