Preview environments for Business Central 2021 release wave 1.

Hi Readers,

Yes the future version of Business Central is about to release in April.

But as developers we need access to Next version to be ready for what's changing and how our App Source Extensions and Per Tenant Extension will be impacted with Next Release.

Microsoft have released the Preview Environments for #msdyn365bc 2021 Release Wave 1. 

You can setup docker containers for next releases or create Sandbox for SaaS Customers to Test and Learn new features.

IMPORTANT: A few known issues – still pending to release in preview

• Deploying extensions from Visual Studio Code with install or upgrade code units fails on cloud sandboxes:
• There is a current issue with permissions when trying to deploy and execute install and upgrade code from Visual Studio Code to a cloud sandbox. This will also imply that this code cannot be debugged. Mitigation in preview is deploying through extension management page or working on a docker container.

•  A number of high impact report extension fixes are not in the preview:
• These include that using dataitem columns with quoted names with spaces will result in runtime resolve errors, that triggers in request pages and the report extension itself are not working, that attempting to use CurrReport.Quit in a report extension results in a crash, and that referencing local variables in request page extension triggers or procedures raises error diagnostics.

• Permissionsets are not working properly in Docker
• The new permission system is disabled by default in RC1. When running in Docker you might need to add this parameter if you are logging on as anything but SUPER: -additionalParameters @("-e customnavsettings=UsePermissionSetsFromExtensions=true")

Steps To Setup Docker Container For BC 18 Preview - 

Open PowerShell and run below command, after updating path of your Development License. 

(Line No. 5)

$containerName = 'bc18preview'

$credential = Get-Credential -Message 'Using UserPassword authentication. Please enter credentials for the container.'

$auth = 'UserPassword'

$artifactUrl = Get-BcArtifactUrl -storageAccount BcPublicPreview -country 'us' -type 'Sandbox'

$licenseFile = 'C:\Dev.flf'

New-BcContainer `

    -accept_eula `

    -containerName $containerName `

    -credential $credential `

    -auth $auth `

    -artifactUrl $artifactUrl `

    -multitenant:$false `

    -assignPremiumPlan `

    -licenseFile $licenseFile `

    -dns '8.8.8.8' `

    -memoryLimit 4G `

    -updateHosts

Enter username and password that you would like to use for docker.

After sometime, the docker environment will be ready for testing as shown below.

Hope you learn with the new release via docker.

If you are using BC SaaS then you can create new sandbox with Preview Version as shown below.

Hope this article helps you to setup the Public Preview of Business Central 2021 Wave 1.

If you have questions please add comment to this article.

Regards,

Saurav Dhyani

www.sauravdhyani.com