Introducing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

The current Microsoft Dynamics 365 family portfolio could be described as follows.

Here is some information regarding the ERP cloud-based version:

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: This targets small to medium-sized businesses. The product has a solid and strong Microsoft Azure footprint. Its application and some core technologies come from a streamlined evolution of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This has been a well-known market leader in the SMB ERP software segment for the last 30 years.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Financials & Operations: This targets enterprise businesses. It represents the transformation equivalent of another historical Microsoft product: Microsoft Dynamics AX.

CRM cloud-based and specific ERP modules offer the following:

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Project Automation
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Talent
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing

For each of these products, Microsoft provides partner and customer full official documentation at the following link: https://dynamics.microsoft.com/.

To subscribe to a fast setup of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, start with the trial version; everyone around the world simply needs a suitable work email linked to an Office 365 subscription and a phone number. Just follow this link: https://trials.dynamics.com/Dynamics365/Signup/BusinessCentral.

While trials are open to everyone, when the trial period ends, the product needs to be purchased. Customer official licensing is assigned exclusively through Microsoft partners that are credited and certified by the CSP program.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central delivers out-of-the-box functionalities in modules with a fixed price per month, per user licence model. The SaaS version is quite simple, and there are basically two licence types of user choices, with different capabilities:

• ESSENTIALS (currently from $70 per month):
  • Financial management
  • Customer-relationship management
  • Project management
  • Supply-chain management
  • Human-resource management
  • Warehouse management
• PREMIUM (currently from $100 per month):
  • All included in ESSENTIALS
  • Service management
  • Manufacturing

More details about licensing types and their benefits are described in the official Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=871590&clcid=0x409.

Once you get started with your trial or production version, you will be offered a productive, intuitive, and user-friendly web client interface:

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central web client is supported by the following browsers: 

• Microsoft Edge
• Internet Explorer 11 or higher
• Google Chrome 61.0 for Windows or higher
• Mozilla Firefox 55.0 for Windows or higher
• Safari 10.0 for macOS or higher

While the best experience is offered by the latest Microsoft technologies (Microsoft Edge), Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can also be deployed to almost every device, such as tablets or phones, by downloading an app (technically known as a universal app) from the main marketplaces: Windows Store, Google Play, and Apple Store (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/install-mobile-app):

Currently, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is localized and released in the following countries:

• United States
• Canada
• United Kingdom
• Denmark
• Netherlands
• Germany
• Spain
• Italy
• France
• Austria
• Switzerland
• Belgium
• Sweden
• Finland
• Australia
• New Zealand

In the fall of 2018, it will also be localized and available in these countries:

• Iceland
• Mexico
• Norway

Since the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central July 2018 update, it is also possible for partners to create their own localized versions, starting from the worldwide standard application base (called W1) and distributed as an app through the Microsoft Dynamics 365 marketplace called AppSource.  For more informations, you can check the following link:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/developer/readiness/readiness-develop-localization).

The first two countries being localized externally by partner through extension (the new programming model that we'll see in this book), available through AppSource, are the following ones:

• United Arab Emirates (UAE)
• South Africa
• South Korea

Here you can see an example of the South Korea localization: