Dynamics Business Central / NAV Developer Digest - Vol. 558

ArcherPoint by Cherry Bekaert’s Developer Digest focuses on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV development. This week’s volume includes isolation levels and their impact on database transactions; using Analysis Views to bypass report generation or expors to Excel; the new Base64 encoder/decoder in BC; and whether using file structure is still relevant.

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.

Isolation levels and their impact on database transactions

In version 11 of Business Central runtime, Microsoft introduced the Record.ReadIsolation method. This method controls the isolation level for database transactions, offering degrees of isolation to prevent problems arising from concurrent transactions.

The values for the IsolationLevel options are: Default, ReadUncommitted, ReadCommitted, RepeatableRead, and UpdLock.

Each option has its purpose. However, the isolation level option you choose can have a profound effect on your system performance.

Stefano Demiliani walks through each option and shows the impact each one can have on system performance.

Check out his blog, Dynamics 365 Business Central: AL transaction isolation levels and cache usage, to find out more.

Bypass reports and Excel by using Analysis View

The Analysis View feature lets you analyze data directly from the page or query. It lets you quickly obtain insights from your data and examine and summarize it, without running a report or exporting to Excel or Power BI for analysis.

Saurav Dhyani has created a video that demonstrates how to enter Analysis Mode, as well as other actions such as sorting by columns, applying filters, generating summaries, exporting to Excel, and selecting other options for your analysis. He also discusses how Analysis View can affect system performance and addresses administrative details, such as permission settings.

Watch his video, Analysis View in Business Central Explained | When & Why to Use It, to learn more about using this exciting feature.

The new Base64 encoder/decoder in BC

Base64 encoding and decoding are used to transfer binary files, such as PDFs and images, using text-based data structures like JSON or XML.

Microsoft introduced codeunit 4111, System.Runtime.Base64Convert, in Business Central 2026 Wae 1, which is a streamlined improvement on codeunit 4110. The new Base64Convert improves performance and lowers the NAV Service Tier (NST) memory requirements.

Duilio Taconi takes this new codeunit for a spin and shows how it can increase performance by 30-45% for encoding and by 15-25% for decoding.

Read the full article, Optimized Base64 file handling in Dynamics 365 Business Central 2026 Wave 1, to learn more about this new codeunit.

Is file structure still relevant?

Back in the C/AL days, Object Designer made clear distinctions between tables, codeunits, pages, etc., and navigation was by object number.

When Microsoft moved the platform to AL and VS Code, most developers kept the file structure model intact.

Matt Traxinger points out that younger developers are accustomed to searching without needing to understand the concept of folder hierarchies. Everything else in their world is searchable, so why not objects?

Navigating Business Central using a source tree helps humans make sense of the project’s files, but, as Traxinger asks: if developers are increasingly not navigating that way, what is the structure actually for?

It’s a question worth considering.

Read We’re Still Looking Through Object Designer’s Eyes and If Nobody Navigates, Does Structure Still Matter? to find out more.

See all of Matt’s articles on LinkedIn.

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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