Business Central - Configuration Packages
Business Central continues to evolve and for the better! With new features, improvements, and many other cool functionalities, it makes Business Central easy to use.
As I noted, there are plenty of improvements throughout the years and one of them is the “Configuration Packages”. For those who have worked with the previous version of Business Central, known as Dynamics NAV, this functionality used to be called “RapidStart”. Microsoft have shifted away from calling it RapidStart and moved towards Configuration Packages. However, searching for “RapidStart” within Business Central will still pull the results to Configuration Packages.
Configuration Packages can be used in many applications and scenarios. This includes specific table edits, bulk data imports, data migrations, and many more.
If you’re new to Business Central or in the process of implementing Business Central, by default, Business Central online comes with one configuration package for default application set ups and local functionality.
You can utilize the default configuration package as a template or start scratch from a new one. Configuration Packages can be used to facilitate the import of master data, such as customer and vendor information, in a form of Config. Package or the configuration templates. Configuration Templates contain a set of default settings that are automatically assigned to the records imported into Business Central. It is also an alternative to the cloud migration tool that you use to migrate your data from supported products.
Full disclosure that the Configuration Packages has its limitations. An example of this limitation is that you cannot import data to tables that contain posted entries, such as the tables for customer, vendor, and item ledger entries. So do not include this data into your configuration packages.
We won’t dive into the full data migration on this blog, but I can illustrate how to create a configuration package, importing a sales price for items.
From the global search menu, search for “Configuration Packages”
From the Configuration Packages page, click “New” and populate the suggested fields. I would recommend that you populate the Package Name, Product Version, Language ID, and Exclude Config. Tables aside from the “Code” field. This is a good habit to have. Then click on the first line and drill-down to search for the table you want to populate.
Once you have the table you need (table ID 7002 Sales Price), you can also specify the fields you only need. Sometimes the table fields are too many, you may want to narrow the fields you only need.
Once you’re ready, you can then export to excel, this would generate a template for you. The excel template will include records that already exist within your Business Central.
Add the records you need unto your excel file and save it. I recommend that you save the file with a different name in case you need to reference the original data/records, especially if you are editing/modifying data instead of inserting a new record. Then head back to your Config. Package Card and Import from Excel. Navigate the file and click Import.
During import, it is normal for you to have some results in errors. You can easily make corrections by drilling down into the “No. of Package Errors”. This provides you details on what is wrong with the data, giving you an opportunity to correct the data from your Excel file or directly from the page.
Once you’ve made the corrections, you can then Apply Data. If no other errors, you can confirm that the record was inserted into the table successfully by looking at the record count on the “No. of Database Records” or navigating to the table/page to confirm your data.
If you have any questions or comments, leave a comment below! Thank you and have a wonderful day!
