As announced in the Microsoft Tech Community, Basic Authentication for Exchange Web Services (EWS) will be decommissioned in October 2020. Dynamics 365 Business Central integrates with Outlook and Exchange, and these features allow the option of Basic Authentication with EWS. In response to the change in EWS, beginning October 1, 2020, the option to use Basic Authentication with these features will no longer be available. We will decommission the option as part of the 2020 wave 1 release of Business Central.

Who is affected?

The Exchange team will stop supporting and fully decommission Basic Authentication for EWS to access Exchange Online. The change does not affect any Business Central customers using Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication for Business Central, including Business Central Online. So the customers that the change does affect are those who:

1. Use NavUserPassword, Windows, or UserName as the Business Central authentication method, and
2. Use Exchange Online.

What features are affected?

Business Central features that use Exchange Web Services and support Basic Authentication include:

• Deployment of the Business Inbox in Outlook.
  The option is currently available to deploy the Outlook add-in from Assisted Setup and from Office Add-in Management. If the change affects you, you will need to deploy the Business Inbox in Outlook manually. You can do this either for a single Exchange account for individual users, or using centralized deployment for administrators. Note that this affects only the deployment of the add-in. Using the add-in will continue to work following existing authentication and functionality.
• Synchronization of contacts in Business Central with Contacts in Outlook.
  This feature requires authentication through EWS, and will no longer be available with Basic Authentication.
• Invoicing for Microsoft Bookings in Business Central.
  Similar to synchronizing contacts, you can synchronize customers and items with Bookings. The bulk invoicing feature in Business Central for bookings requires synchronization of contacts and items through EWS. So the feature will no longer be available with Basic Authentication.

Next Steps

We understand that decommissioning features can have an impact on your business. If you have comments or suggestions on improving our support of these features, please provide your ideas at https://aka.ms/bcideas.

The post Deprecating Basic Authentication for Outlook Integration in Business Central appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We are pleased to announce the availability of the Dynamics 365 Business Central 2019 release wave 2 preview. The 2019 release wave 2 update for Dynamics 365 Business Central is coming in October. To help you prepare for this update, a preview of the release is available now in sandbox environments. This gives tenant administrators and users early access to the new release to prepare for the coming update.

Key dates for this release wave

Here are the key dates for the release to help you plan with confidence for new and changed capabilities.

• September 2, 2019: Release preview

Try the new capabilities today. Test the new functionality in a sandbox environment to prepare for the update in production. We expect to provide a new preview version every two weeks until the update is generally available for production environments.

• October 1, 2019: General availability

The 2019 release wave 2 update will be available for new tenants and environments. We will also begin scheduling existing tenants to be updated to the new version. Tenant administrators will receive an email notification when each Business Central environment is scheduled for the update. See our documentation on updating environments for more information.

What’s new in the release

The 2019 release wave 2 provides a wide range of phenomenal enhancements across the Business Central clients, application functionality, platform, and development tools. To review a full list of the new features in the release, see the Dynamics 365 Business Central 2019 release wave 2 plan.

How to get the preview

You can get access to the preview by creating a new sandbox environment from the Business Central Admin Center. When you create a new sandbox environment, choose the preview version from the Version list.

This creates a new sandbox environment with a preview version of the application. This way, you have easy access to an environment where you can review the new features that are part of the upcoming release.

The preview sandbox environment contains demonstration company data. We aren’t yet able to provide the option to include production company data in the preview. However, it will be important to test the update against production data in a sandbox environment. This option will be available when we release the new update in production in October.

Provide feedback

We need your feedback on the preview! Let us know about your experiences with the new version. You can provide feedback on Microsoft Collaborate:

1. Browse to aka.ms/collaborate
2. If you have not registered before, please complete the registration form to access Collaborate
3. Choose Engagements, and then choose Join
4. Under the Ready! for Dynamics 365 Business Central program, find 2019 Release Wave 2 Preview in the list of available engagements, and choose Join

Next Steps

The first step is to get the preview.

Next, once you have the preview, start using it:

1. Review the new functionality. Try it out, and begin training employees on the new features that are coming.
   Note that this is being rolled out gradually across the world, so if the option isn’t showing up for you today, please try again tomorrow.
2. Validate your extensions. Install your extensions and run through the functionality. Verify that the customization continues to work and is compatible with the new version.
3. Test the quality. If you run into issues related to the preview, please provide the feedback following the steps outlined above.

Finally, as always, if you have ideas for features you would like to see in future releases of Business Central, let us know at https://aka.ms/bcideas.

The post Business Central 2019 Release Wave 2 Preview appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The 2019 Wave 2 release of Business Central Online in October introduces the ability to create multiple production environments for each Azure Active Directory tenant. This provides companies with divisions in multiple countries the option to create a separate Business Central environment in other countries in which they have a business presence.

An integral part of this effort has been to version our web service endpoints to v2.0 so that you can use web services with each production environment. We have updated the routing of the services to be compatible with additional environments. This change applies to the base URL of all Business Central web service, including APIs, OData, and SOAP endpoints. Version 2.0 of these web services includes an environment parameter that is required to route the call to the correct resource in the selected environment.

What’s new in the v2.0 endpoint

Version 1.0 of the web services will continue to be compatible only with a single production environment named “Production” and a single sandbox environment. Any connected apps or other web service integrations must use v2.0 of the endpoints to be compatible with multiple production and sandbox environments. The primary difference to account for in the new endpoint is the required environment parameter in the URL. This was previously an optional parameter. The v1.0 endpoint would redirect to the Production environment by default if the environment was not specified. You must now specify an environment in the URL, even for Production.

For example, if you are using the companies resource type through the API endpoint, it must be updated to v2.0 and include the environment name as shown in the following example:

https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com/v2.0/<Azure AD tenant ID>/<ENVIRONMENT NAME>/api/v1.0/companies

Note that the Azure AD tenant ID is still optional if it can be determined based on the auth token. However, failing to specify an environment name will result in a 400 error.

Next steps

The new web service endpoint is available in production already now. Update any apps or integrations you have to v2.0 as soon as possible to ensure their compatibility with multiple environments when they become available.

See our online documentation for more information on creating connected apps or web service integrations for Business Central:

• Getting Started Developing Connect Apps for Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Business Central Web Services

The post Web Services and Multiple Production Environments with Dynamics 365 Business Central appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.