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Major updates and minor updates for Business Central online

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This article provides an overview of what you need to know about how a major or minor update for Business Central rolls out, and how the underlying service updates. It includes key dates, actions you need to take, and answers some common questions.

Business Central online is a service that consists of a Microsoft-maintained platform and business functionality. Many Microsoft partners provide extra business functionality, such as to address specific industry or localization needs. Both business functionality and service components are monitored continuously and updated as appropriate.

New capabilities roll out in release waves that consist of a major update and monthly minor updates. Most capabilities are made available in major updates, but some become available in minor updates. Critical fixes roll out as soon as possible after they pass tests and have been verified in Microsoft's protected staging environment. You can always refer to the release plan for an overview of new and upcoming functionality. And keep an eye out for the minor updates at aka.ms/bclastminorupdate.

Tip

All updates that Microsoft applies to Business Central online are also shipped with the subsequent cumulative update for Business Central on-premises. For example, see Update 18.3 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central online 2021 release wave 1 and Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premises 2021 Release Wave 1 Updates, respectively.

Microsoft is committed to delivering predictable updates to the service. Updates are continuous, touchless updates that provide new features and functionality. They eliminate the need to do expensive upgrades every few years. Administrators can set a maintenance window for each environment that determines when Microsoft is allowed to update that environment. For more information, see Managing Updates in the Business Central Admin Center. Scheduled minor and major updates, as well as unscheduled critical fixes, respect the maintenance window set on each environment.

You are in control and manage how your organization receives these updates. Microsoft applies updates to each environment based on your configuration. The only exception is how Microsoft maintains the underlying platform with invisible updates during low traffic hours, for example. For more information, see the service updates section.

The Dynamics 365 team designs and develops each new update. Any new update is first validated by the feature team, then validated in combination with the full product. During this time, extensive testing is done on various test topologies. A compatibility checker also runs tests to ensure backward compatibility.

Major updates

There are two major update cycles per year, with major releases every April and October. Major updates introduce new features, enhancements, and platform improvements. For each major update cycle, the following periods apply.

Preview period

The preview period allows for testing of the new functionality before the version is made available as update to your environment. Administrators can create a Sandbox environment from the Business Central administration center on the new version, for example to try out new functionality or test compatibility of extensions in a cloud environment. This period typically starts a month before the release of the new major version, that is, every March and September. Learn more in Preparing for major updates with preview environments.

Update period

[This section is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

Important

The update period starts when a new major version is generally available, typically the first workday of every April and every October. Once the version is generally available, any new environments are created on the new major version. The new major version is made available as update to existing environments around a week after general availability; the exact timing might differ per environment. After a new major version is made available as update on your environment, Microsoft schedules the update to take place around a week later; the exact timing might differ per environment.

The update period lasts for five calendar months, ending in early September for update periods that start in April, and in early March for update periods that start in October. Administrators can reschedule the update to any date within the update period from the Business Central administration center. Learn more in Rescheduling updates.

Scheduled update attempts that don't succeed are automatically rescheduled for seven days later, and administrators can reschedule them to any other date within the update period. Learn more in the failed updates and rescheduling section.

When a new version is available as update on the environment, Notification recipients receive an email notification and environments enabled with telemetry receive a signal with the LC0100 tag.

Grace period

[This section is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

Important

The grace period starts when the update period ends and lasts for one month. It takes place every September for the update period that starts in April and every March for the update period that starts in October. During the grace period, it isn't possible to reschedule an update to a later date; Microsoft automatically reschedules environment updates that don't succeed for seven days later. Administrators can only reschedule this new attempt to an earlier date. To ensure action is taken during the grace period to ensure the environment update succeeds, Microsoft alerts administrators in the Business Central administration center and might send in-product notifications to end-users about the upcoming enforced update period. Learn more in When Microsoft can't update apps or PTEs.

Tip

We recommend that you keep any apps and per-tenant extensions ready to update at any given time, and that you actively test compatibility. Developers can get tips and guidance in the developer docs here: Maintain AppSource Apps and Per-Tenant Extensions. Admins can install, update, and uninstall apps in the Business Central administration center as described here: Managing Apps.

Enforced update period

The enforced period starts when the grace period ends. During this period, any extensions causing the update to the next major version to fail, for example, because of compatibility issues, might be automatically uninstalled from the environment so that the update succeeds. Data belonging to these uninstalled extensions isn't deleted from the environment and can be recovered by installing a compatible extension version after the update succeeds. Learn more in When Microsoft can't update apps or PTEs.

Minor updates

[This section is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

Important

Minor updates are released every month in which there's no major update release, that is, every month except April and October. These updates contain application changes that are critical improvements to the service, including regulatory updates. Similar to major updates, minor updates are made generally available in the beginning of each calendar month. After a minor update is general available, new environments are created on the new minor version. The new minor version is made available as an update to environments on the previous version around a week after general availability; the exact timing might differ per environment. When a new minor version is made available as update on your environment, Microsoft schedules the update to take place around a week later; the exact timing might differ per environment.

With Microsoft-localized environments, administrators can opt out of monthly updates. The default behavior of environments receiving updates every month doesn’t change. However, administrators can choose to wait to implement minor updates until it suits their needs and schedule. It isn't possible to skip minor update versions; environments that aren't on the latest version when a new minor version becomes available have to update to every intermediate version before they can update to the latest version. It might take up to an hour for the next version to become as available as update on your environment upon completing an update to a version that isn't the latest generally available.

Partner-localized environments aren't part of the public preview. For these environments, minor updates are required and not skippable. As in previous release waves and similar to how major updates roll out, minor updates have a 28-day update period followed by a 3-month grace period for these environments. Once flexible update management feature is generally available, minor updates will be optional on all environments, and administrators will be able to skip versions by changing the target version for a scheduled update from the Business Central administration center.

Release plans

Get an overview of the release plans at Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans. For Business Central release plans, select a release wave under Dynamics 365, then look under SMB in the table of contents.

Schedule updates

When the update becomes available for your environment, a notification email is sent to all notification recipients registered in Business Central administration center. A notification about the update availability is also shown in the Business Central administration center itself.

Starting this day, you can use the Business Central administration center to schedule the date when you prefer the update to happen.

The following fields on the environment page can help you plan the update:

Field Description
Available Update Version Specifies the version to which you can update your environment
Update Scheduling Available Specifies whether it's possible for you to change the update date. The options are Yes or No.
Update will start on or after Specifies the default update date set by Microsoft. You can change this date to one you prefer, if Update Scheduling Available is set to Yes. If you change the date from the default, the field's caption on the environment details page changes to Scheduled Update Date.
Scheduled Update Date Specifies the update date that you've explicitly chosen to use instead of the default update date.
Update Window (UTC + offset) Specifies the hours of the day that an update can run. (UTC + offset) indicates the time zone, represented as Coordinated Universal Time plus or minus the difference in hours and minutes.
Update Rollout State Microsoft can sometimes postpone the updates for various reasons. This field provides information that can help you track the current state of the rollout. For more information about what happens in such cases, see Postponed updates

Important

If you don't set a date in the Scheduled Update Date field, Microsoft will update the environment automatically on any day between the default date (that is, the date shown in the Update will start on or after field) and the date that is shown as the last possible update date in your notification email. If you don't want your environment to be updated automatically, change the update date to one that fits you better.

When the scheduled update date arrives, the update runs automatically within the update window that you specified for this environment. All users are from this environment, and all attempts to sign in during the update are blocked with the message Service is under maintenance.

Important

The update duration differs depending on the environment. We strongly recommend scheduling the update for a date when it would be acceptable for the environment to be inaccessible until the end of its update window.

For more information, see Set the update window for each environment.

Note

When you select a current date for your update, but the update window defined for this environment has already passed, the update will start within that time window, but on the day after the one that you defined for your environment.

For example, if you're changing the Scheduled update date to the current date at 6 PM, and your update window is set to 1 AM - 7 AM, the update will not start immediately, but after 1 AM on the next day.

Delayed scheduling of updates

In some cases, even after the update is available in your area, you're still not able to set the update date (schedule environment update). This condition can happen for one of the following reasons:

  • Your environment isn't yet updated to the latest minor update of the previous version of Business Central. All environments must be updated to the last available minor update of the previous version before they can be scheduled for the next major version. You can check the version information in the Troubleshooting section of the Help and Support page in Business Central and in the Version Management section in Business Central administration center. For more information, see Version numbers in Business Central.

    Microsoft actively works on updating all environments to the latest minor update as soon as possible. In most cases, your environment will be scheduled for the major update soon. You get a chance to change the date to the one that fits you better. In the unlikely situation that your environment is updated to the last minor update close to or after the last selectable update date, you still get at least seven days to schedule the update.

  • You created a new sandbox environment as a copy of your production environment. In this case, the sandbox environment is created on the same version as the production environment it was copied from. If your newly created sandbox environment is running on the last minor update of the previous version, Microsoft schedules it for update automatically within one hour.

    You receive email notification and should see the notification in Business Central administration center when it happens. The scheduled update date for this environment is set to seven days from the current date. This scheduled date gives you enough time to change the date to one that fits you better, including the current date.

  • Your per-tenant extensions aren't compatible with the next major update.

    Before a major update, Microsoft routinely checks per-tenant extensions in all existing environments for compatibility with the next major update. If we detect compatibility issues with the upcoming version, we send email notifications that describe the detected issues to the notification recipients. We warmly encourage all admins to review these emails and take action as soon as possible.

    If you discover any such issues, apply the changes to your solution as usual using Visual Studio Code. Test the new app in a sandbox environment that runs on the new major version, either in preview or the official version. If tests complete successfully, upload the new app version into your production environment in the Extension Management page, setting the Deploy to field to Next major version. This way the compatible version of your app will be used when your environment is updated. For more information, see Deploying a Tenant Customization.

  • The AppSource apps that are installed in your environment aren't yet available for the next major version of Business Central.

    While most AppSource apps are kept up to date by the app providers, a particular app might need more time to prepare for the next major update and isn't yet available for it. In this situation, contact the app owner to understand their availability plans.

Tip

Make sure every tenant has the right contacts set up to get email notification. Learn more in Managing Tenant-Specific Notifications.

Failed updates and rescheduling

An environment might fail to update for various reasons, such as:

  • Per-tenant extension compatibility issues
  • AppSource app compatibility issues
  • Internal update issues

Any environment that fails to update will be automatically restored to the original application version so that users can connect to it again. The environment is then automatically rescheduled for a new update attempt in seven days. If you consider the issue resolved and want to try the update again, change the update date to an earlier date or the current date.

If Microsoft can't do the update on the selected date, you'll be notified by email that the environment update is rescheduled for seven days later. You can change that date in the Business Central administration center to any other allowed date, including the current date.

Postponed updates

In critical circumstances, Microsoft can decide to postpone the rollout of the updates, such as if a critical issue is discovered in the upcoming major version. While Microsoft is working on addressing the issue, the updates will be postponed. You'll receive email notification, and you'll see the notification displayed in the Business Central administration center. The Version Management section for each environment will show the update rollout state as Postponed.

If we don't know the nature of the issue and the solution in advance, we can't predict when the updates will resume again. As a result, the email and the notification in Business Central administration center won't contain the information about the expected resume date. In these extreme cases, Microsoft actively works on resuming updates as a matter of highest priority once the issue is addressed. You receive another email notification when updates resume. The last available date is prolonged by the number of days that the update was postponed.

If it happens that you schedule the update of an environment to a date when the updates are postponed, the environment won't be updated. Microsoft won't send a separate notification. You can reschedule the update to a later date, or you can wait until you receive an email notification that the updates resumed. All environments that missed their scheduled update date are rescheduled automatically to run the update within seven days from the date the updates were resumed. You can change that date to any other allowed date, including the current date.

If you didn't explicitly set a date for your environment update in the Business Central administration center, this environment is picked up for updating automatically, shortly after the updates resume. The update will still be executed within the specified update time window.

Prepare, test, and learn before a major update

You can prepare yourself, users, and any customizations by trying out the new major version before your production environment is updated. The following sections provide recommendations for how to prepare for an update.

Important

We strongly recommend that you test any critical business scenarios before your production environments are updated to the new major or minor version.

Prepare for major updates by enabling select features earlier

Some new features can be switched on ahead of time on sandbox and production environments, giving you time to test and prepare for change. Most times, you can switch on features several weeks before preview environments for the major update are available.

When Microsoft releases features or feature design improvements as part of minor updates, some of these features are optional until the following major update. Administrators can turn these optional features on or off from the Feature Management page.

Learn more in Feature Management.

Prepare for major updates with preview environments

About one month before a major update, you can try out new functionality in preview environments. Preview environments are Business Central online sandbox environments that you create on a preview version of the application. When you create the new sandbox environment, choose the preview version marked as (Preview) from the version list. This way, you get a new sandbox environment with a preview version of the application.

For more information access to preview environments, see Prepare for major updates with preview environments.

Note

Previews roll out gradually across the world, so if the option is not showing up for you today, please try again tomorrow.

The newly created preview sandbox environment contains demonstration company data. Trying the preview on a copy of your current production data is not yet supported; nor is testing the upgrade from your current version to the preview. However, you can use the newly created sandbox environment for exploring and learning the new product capabilities. You can also use the preview environment to validate that any per-tenant extensions are still working as expected.

If you run your tests on a preview environment one month before the announced major release of Business Central, it is more likely that the coming updates of your production environments will go smoother. This way, you, your customers, and your code are better prepared for the official release.

We expect to update the preview version only if we discover critical issues before the major update is generally available for production environments. Apart from these potential fixes, we do not expect any further changes to the product between the preview and the official release. You can start your testing and learning activities immediately, without waiting for the official release.

Note

You will be able to test the update on a copy of your production data in a sandbox environment when we release the new update in production in April or October, respectively. When the official release becomes available, you can continue your tests on that version. You will no longer be able to create new preview sandboxes.

Important

The preview version as well as all sandbox environments that are based on it will be removed 30 days after the official release becomes available.

Learn more in Prepare for major updates with preview environments.

Prepare for major updates just before the production environment is updated

As soon as you're notified that the new major update is available, you can test the new version. Just create a sandbox environment that you then schedule to be updated. Start by copying your production environment into a sandbox on the same version as your production environment. All newly created environments are automatically included in the update process within one hour. You'll get notified that the update is available, and you'll be able to schedule the newly created sandbox for update within one hour after it was created. By default, the newly created environments are scheduled to run the update within seven days from the date they were created. But, you can change that date to any other allowed date, including the current date.

If you change the update date to the current date, the update starts within the closest available update time window you specified for the environment. If you want to start the update of your sandbox environment immediately, you can set the update time window for this sandbox environment to be 24 hours.

Microsoft monitors each update of an environment. If we detect any errors during the update, you receive an email notification that describes the detected issues.

Any environments that fail to update due to per-tenant extension compatibility issues or any other issues are automatically restored to the original application version. Within one hour, they're automatically rescheduled for another update attempt. The scheduled update date is automatically set to seven days in the future to give you time to resolve the issues. If you address the compatibility issues sooner, you can change the date to an earlier date, including the current date. This pattern repeats until the environment is updated successfully.

Important

Changing date to an earlier date might be blocked up to 24 hours after the last failed attempt to update.

Service updates

The service components apply to multiple environments, such as all tenants in a region. So Microsoft schedules those updates to a time when traffic is lower in each region, typically during the evening or night. Typically, these service updates are transparent to any users, as the service is designed to manage traffic in a way that any users still working in Business Central aren't affected by these service updates.

These updates don't add or remove functionality, and they're transparent to business users.

Managing Major and Minor Updates of Business Central Online
Working with Administration Tools
The Business Central Administration Center
Managing Environments
Managing Tenant Notifications
Introduction to automation APIs
What's new or changed in Business Central