Breaking Changes in Version 26 (Business Central)

Breaking Changes are Coming in Business Central version 26.0

Microsoft has announced their new upgrade strategy, where they explain that they need to cleanup obsoleted fields and tables since version 12.

Version 25 is going to be a Jump Version.

Source: Microsoft on YouTube: Introduction to Business Central cloud migration (2023)

What is a Jump Version?

The following versions are Jump Versions.

• Version 14.0 aka BC 2019 Spring
• Version 25.0 aka BC 2024 Wave 2 (arrives in October 2024)
• Version 30.0 aka BC 2027 Wave 1 (every 5 versions will be a jump version in the future.)

You can upgrade directly to a Jump Version if you are on a previous version. But you have to stop on the Jump Version to get to the next one or higher.

This means that to upgrade to version 26.0 aka BC 2025 release wave 1, you will first have to upgrade to version 25, if you are on an earlier version.

Now is a good time to cleanup

What does it all mean? It means that it is in your and your customers’ best interest to cleanup, implement robustness and automated tests.

Automated Tests

We used to test when a new version was installed. Now we need to automatically test business critical functions and APIs frequently.

There has never been a better argument or a better time for getting started with automated tests.

In my Clean AL Code Initiative series you can read more about Automated Tests in AL

Robustness

We need to have build-in robustness in our customizations. We need to require that our suppliers also have this robustness build-in.

In my Clean AL Code Initiative series, you can read more about How to make a code review and how to make robust code in Preconditions and TryFunctions in AL

Explain it and Sell it to your customers

We told customers that they never have to go through upgrade hell again, but did we tell them that they now are in maintenance mode?

We need to explain and sell this to our customers.