Business Central Simple Tip #4: Exporting Leading Zeroes to Excel and then CSV- It works fine!

by Steve Endow

This may seem obvious to some, but I've learned through many painful lessons that unless I actually test a scenario and see for myself that it works exactly as desired, it can be dangerous to make assumptions about software functionality and offer promises to customers...

ERP users regularly need to export data to CSV files, and then send or use those CSV files somewhere else. 

A common problem with working with CSV files is that leading zeroes can sometimes be removed by Excel.  This typically occurs when a user opens an existing CSV file, makes a change, and then saves the CSV file.  During that CSV editing process, Excel will typically remove all leading zeroes from field values.

A customer recently asked us to create a custom file export to send to their bank.  They need a list of payments created in Business Central, as well as all of the purchasing invoices that were paid by that payment--essentially a remittance file.

To keep things simple at first, we're looking to create a custom Business Central List Page that has all of the fields the customer needs for their bank.  A user can then just click on the Open in Excel action from the list page to save the data to a file.

Open in Excel from a List Page

Business Central Simple Tip #3: Those Role Center "Square Things" - Cues and Action Tiles

by Steve Endow

I was recently researching those "square things" that are displayed on the Business Central Role Center "home" page.

You know, the square things:

"Square Things"

After searching my memory, I recalled they were called "Cues".  As in they provide a visual "cue" with information.

But when I started to research them and how I could create a custom Cue, found an article that mentioned both "Cues" and "Action Tiles".

What?

Business Central Simple Tip #2: Update AppSource Apps

by Steve Endow

(There is some technical background involved in this Simple Tip, so if I got any details wrong or missed something that is important, please let me know).

Today's Business Central Simple Tip comes from the book Administrating Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Online by Andrey Baludin.

It relates to "AppSource Apps" that are installed in your Business Central Online Environment.  If you have Andrey's book, turn to page 46, and look for the heading "Apps and sessions".

He provides instructions on how to navigate in the Business Central Admin Center to the "Manage Apps" page.  The Manage Apps page lets you see a list of apps that are installed in that particular Environment.

Business Central Admin Center - Manage Apps Page

Business Central Simple Tip #1: List Page Search

by Steve Endow

This morning I opened Jeremy Vyska's Your First 20 Hours with Business Central book to see what I could learn.

As I was scrolling through the PDF with my signature Short Attention Span (tm), glancing at the pages, I happened to notice a note.

I don't know why my pre-coffee brain happened to notice this particular note, but I saw that it used the interesting combination of words like "Search", "magic", and "more slowly".

Wait, what is this about?  What Search? 

A Note About Search Performance

So I scroll up to see what he's talking about there, and I see that it's referring to the Search function on the List page.

List Page Search Field

My New Criteria for a Password Manager

December 27, 2022

by Steve Endow

On December 22, 2022, LastPass disclosed that they had discovered that an attacker had copied a backup of customer "vault data" following a cyberattack and data breach that occurred in August 2022.

Aside from the obvious bad news, I initially learned of two interesting things about LastPass that I never would have thought to consider when evaluating password managers.

1. While web site username and password values are encrypted, the URL for the web site entry is not encrypted by LastPass.  I believe this poses a security risk for LastPass users.

2. Prior to 2018, LastPass used 5,000 iterations in the key derivation process. In 2018, they increased that to 100,100 iterations.  Even if you don't know what key derivation iterations are, just make note of that significant change.  From what I've read, older vaults were not automatically upgraded to the more secure configuration.  In theory, this means that vaults created prior to the 2018 upgrade are potentially more vulnerable to brute force password cracking.

Improving Personal Email Security

by Steve Endow

Last week I discovered that my personal information was included in 2 massive data breaches in under 24 hours.

This was the last straw for me.

Yet Another Data Breach

Background

Data breaches aren't new, and have unfortunately become so common that I don't think they garner any more than an eye roll or a shrug these days.  Here is just a partial list of breaches that occurred in 2022.  I happen to know that December 2022 is missing several significant entries.  And this doesn't include all of the shady data brokers who buy and sell your data constantly.

https://tech.co/news/data-breaches-2022-so-far

I don't see data breaches decreasing any time soon, and I assume that we will continue to see an increasing number of breaches in coming years.  It's going to get far worse before it gets better.

So what does this have to do with email?

The problem is that several of these breaches have included my "personal" email address.  

Disable The Annoying Dialog After Posting in Business Central

by Steve Endow

Why does this dialog appear by default after EVERY document posting in Business Central?

This is an annoying dialog

I was recently on a call with my colleague Tanya Henderson to review some accounts payable payment processes in Business Central.

After I posted a purchasing invoice, she told me to click No on this useless dialog, saying that she has to train all of her customers to click no, and she wished she could get rid of it.  

Can this dialog be turned off?  If not, can a PTE suppress it after posting?

Challenge accepted!