Dynamics Business Central / NAV Developer Digest - Vol. 542

ArcherPoint by Cherry Bekaert’s Developer Digest focuses on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV development. This week’s volume includes an overview of the major APIs, the context window and LLM performance, using the agent framework with BC’s MCP server, and an introduction to YAMPI, an open-source MCP.

The Dynamics 365 Business Central community, consisting of developers, project managers, and consultants, collaborates across various platforms to share valuable insights. At ArcherPoint, we greatly value their dedication and expertise. To ensure widespread access to this technical knowledge, we created Developer Digest.

Pick an API, any API

We utilize various APIs regularly. But sometimes the alphabet soup becomes overwhelming. The folks at Codist have put together a short, easy-to-understand video introducing the major APIs, including a brief description of what each one is and how they are used in practice. 

Included are: REST, SOAP, gRPC, GraphQL, WebHooks, WebSockets, and WebRTC.

If you’re not familiar with some of these APIs (or perhaps you’re trying to explain them to a non-technical person who might have influence on the project you’re working on), this video can help!

Check out Every Type Of API You Must Know Explained! You might also find some of their other videos helpful.

Thanks to Yann Saint-Laurent for finding this gem.

How the context window affects LLM performance

Large Language Models (LLMs) are constrained by their context window. The context window defines how much text the LLM can process in a single request. The window is measured in tokens and includes everything, such as prompts, context, and the model’s response.

As you approach the limit of the context window, the LLM must process more information, which can degrade system performance.

Stefano Demiliani explains why this happens and what developers can do to mitigate it in his blog, Understanding LLM performance degradation: a deep dive into Context Window limits.

Using Microsoft’s agent framework with BC’s MCP server

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Business Central provides a standard API that helps developers expose BC entities (customers, items, sales orders, etc.) to agents built on AI platforms that support the MCP protocol, such as Azure OpenAI and Copilot Studio.

Microsoft’s Agent Framework combines the Semantic Kernel and AutoGen into an open-source development kit that provides a foundation for building AI agents and workflows using .NET and Python.

Bert Verbeek explains how to connect your agent to the Business Central MCP, including setting up authentication, connecting to the BC MCP endpoint, and creating the MCP plugin.

Read his blog, Connect AI agents to Business Central through MCP server, to learn more.

Get involved in YAMPI, an open-source MCP

Stefano Demiliani discusses YAMPI (short for “Yet Another MCP for Productivity Increase”), an MCP server designed to enable Business Central users, including admins, DevOps, and consultants, to perform administrative operations on BC environments using conversational commands via AI assistants.

YAMPI includes a natural language interface, broad administrative management (such as environment, authentication, and session management), security, and multi-tenant support.

And since YAMPI is open-source, the Business Central community can contribute, adapt, or extend it.

Find out how you can use and contribute to YAMPI. Read Demiliani’s blog, Introducing YAMPI: the MCP server for Dynamics 365 Business Central administration.

Are you interested in Dynamics NAV and Business Central development? Check out our collection of NAV/BC Development Blogs.

Read “How To” blogs from ArcherPoint by Cherry Bekaert for practical advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central.

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