This week, Directions EMEA 2025 for partners took place in Poznań, Poland (Nov 4–6, 2025).
Even if you couldn’t attend, the highlights were impressive Special thanks to Gert Hector for keeping the whole community in the loop!
Week 45 shows just how vibrant and forward-looking the #msdyn365BC ecosystem is — full of ideas every partner and developer can use.
Business Central on Linux?! 🐧
It’s not supposed to work… but somehow, it does!
A jaw-dropping community experiment by Torben Løkke Leth took the spotlight this week — Business Central running on Linux! 😅
Armed with curiosity, energy drinks, and a touch of stubbornness, Torben managed to run BC in an environment where it simply wasn’t meant to.
While it’s not a fully supported scenario, it’s an inspiring reminder of how far passion and persistence can go in the Dynamics ecosystem.
💬 Torben teased more details in his session at Directions EMEA, and invited anyone curious to chat during the event for a deeper technical dive.
📎 Check out his original post here:
👉 Business Central on Linux — It’s not supposed to work… but somehow, we made it happen
Directions EMEA 2025 Highlights – Road to 2026 🚀
Special thanks to Gert Hector for keeping the whole community in the loop!
Even if you couldn’t make it to Directions EMEA 2025, Gert made sure no one missed out — sharing dozens of session highlights, photos, and summaries straight from the event floor.
Through his updates, we got a first look at the Business Central 2026 Wave 1 Roadmap, and it’s looking impressive:
- 🆕 New Business Central Logo — a refreshed brand identity on the way.
- 🤖 AI Everywhere — Copilot and agents continue to expand across modules.
- 🌍 50,000 Customers Milestone — the BC community keeps growing stronger!
- 📄 E-Documents Evolution — smarter, more integrated electronic document handling.
- ✅ Quality Management Module — a long-awaited feature coming next year.
- 🔗 Dataverse Mapping Enhancements — tighter data connectivity across apps.
Even though I couldn’t attend this year, following Gert’s posts made me feel like I was right there. Hopefully, next year we’ll meet in person at Directions 2026 in Paris, France 🇫🇷✨
#TipsAndTricksThursday – Cyclomatic Complexity in AL 🧠
A smart reminder from Walter Orando this week: sometimes the biggest performance issue in your Business Central code isn’t SQL, it’s complexity.
Walter breaks down cyclomatic complexity — a fancy term for how many decision points your function has — and why it matters more than we think.
The problem
Every extra IF, CASE, WHILE, or REPEAT-UNTIL adds to your code’s complexity. More decision points mean more bugs, slower debugging, and longer onboarding for new team members.
Quick math:
- Each
IF= +1 - Each
CASE= +1 - Each loop (
WHILEorREPEAT-UNTIL) = +1
If your function’s total exceeds 25, it’s a red flag 🚩
The fix:
✅ Keep one function = one job
✅ Use guard clauses to exit early
✅ Extract validations into separate functions
The result? Cleaner, faster, safer code — and a much happier future-you when debugging at 2 a.m. 😅
📎 Read the full post here:
👉 #TipsAndTricksThursday for #msdyn365bc Developer
End of Free Backend for AL Object ID Ninja 🥷
A big update from Vjekoslav Babić — the creator of one of the most essential tools for Business Central developers: AL Object ID Ninja.
After four years of being completely free, Ninja’s backend will move to a sustainable model starting December 31, 2025.
Developers will have two choices:
- 🧩 Self-host it on your own Azure subscription (stay free forever), or
- 🚀 Subscribe to the new Premium backend for hassle-free updates, new features, and dedicated support.
This change ensures Ninja continues to grow and support the community long-term — still the same tool we all rely on, just built to last.
📖 Read the full post: End of Free Backend for AL Object ID Ninja
🛠️ Get the extension: AL Object ID Ninja on Visual Studio Marketplace
Smarter Data Protection in Business Central 🔐
A brilliant open-source contribution this week from Gerardo Daniel Rentería García, who took the new MaskType property in Business Central v27 to the next level.
The MaskType feature introduced in BC27 allows developers to hide sensitive information on the client side — but only with two modes: None or Concealed.
Gerardo’s idea? Go beyond that all-or-nothing approach.
His Partial Masking extension lets you define custom masking patterns for any field — including standard Business Central fields.
That means you can choose exactly which part of a value remains visible, offering smarter and more flexible data protection without losing context.
🧩 Open-source extension on GitHub: GDRGDev_PartialMasking
📖 Full article: 🔐 Partial Masking in Business Central – Smart Data Protection 👀
#BCWeekendCodeHacks – Data Archive in Business Central 🗃️
This week, Jeffrey Bulanadi shared a great weekend hack every #msdyn365BC developer should know — the Data Archive feature.
Think of it as taking a photo of your records before deleting them. You free up space without losing history — perfect for compliance, audits, or simply staying organized.
Microsoft built this archiving capability right into Business Central, and it’s far more powerful than many realize.
Here’s what makes it shine:
✅ Archive before delete — no data lost, just safely stored
✅ Works on custom tables — not limited to standard entities
✅ Saves everything as JSON — clean and portable format
✅ Export to Excel or CSV — for quick reviews or reports
✅ Includes full walkthrough + working code
📖 Read the full guide: Data Archive in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
👨💻 Follow Jeffrey Bulanadi for more hands-on AL insights and technical deep dives.
Week 45 showed once again how vibrant and fast-moving the Business Central ecosystem is — from daring experiments like running BC on Linux, to refined tools and open-source creativity improving everyday development.
A huge thanks to all the creators, contributors, and community voices sharing their knowledge each week — you make #msdyn365BC not just a platform, but a thriving space for innovation.
💬 What caught your attention this week?
Drop a comment or share your favorite highlight — let’s keep the learning (and curiosity) going until Week 46! 🚀
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