What is Feature Management in Business Central and How Is It Used?
Would you like to know more about new features before release dates?
Feature Management lists new functionality and allows you to enable and test it before it is enabled in future Business Central releases.
Feature Management not only shows upcoming new features but also features included in minor Business Central releases that will not be enabled until the next major release. In those cases, Feature Management lets businesses test the new features in specific environments and then turn them off again. Such features are only optional for a short time.
All features listed on the Feature Management page are generally available and ready to use. None are beta or preview versions. Feature Management is available for both cloud and on-premises deployments of Business Central.
Providing access to Feature Management
Most users do not have the permission required to enable upcoming features, but administrators can enable the new features so that your team can test them in your sandbox environment first. Or you can give specific team members access by assigning the appropriate Permission Set to that user.
Assigning the permission set to a specific team member or the administrator can help prevent users from turning on new features before they can be tested. (See our blog, Managing Permissions and Security Groups in Dynamics 365 Business Central – Part I, for more on permission sets.)
Using Feature Management
The Feature Management page can be found using the Search function. It lists some of the new features that will be available in Business Central. You can test in your Sandbox before the new feature becomes mandatory, allowing users to test their tasks before you roll out the new feature to all users in production. This gives you the time you need to prepare for the change.
New features are optional for a while, beginning from their release in a minor update until they become mandatory in a later major update. After this date, the feature will no longer appear on the Feature Management list page and can no longer be turned off.
Selecting “Learn more” takes you to a Microsoft page that provides more information on the new feature or shows a list of what is coming into Business Central, and you can find the feature on that list.
The “Enable for” column allows you to enable the feature for All Users, so you should only try this in your test environment first.
Selecting “Try it out” will allow you to test the feature before enabling it for others to try.
An important note: If you enable a new feature in production before testing it in your Sandbox, you cannot roll it back. We always recommend that you test new functionality in your Sandbox first!
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