A new avenue of read-only access to Dynamics 365 Business Central data has been opened by Microsoft to launch its Teams interface for Microsoft 365 users without an ERP license.
“We have made it possible for a user in Microsoft Teams to access Business Central records without a Business Central license,” explained Microsoft product manager Mike Borg Cardona at the Directions EMEA 2022 event.
A special read-only view of the ERP data will be received by new users who are licensed only for Microsoft 365. This read-only view is shared with them in a Teams chat or channel by a licensed Business Central user, with specific limits on the type and format of the information they see.
In October 2020, Microsoft first introduced this capability in preview. Customers who have updated to Business Central Online version 21.1 can enable the feature. Once made available, admins can start planning for the types of views and data that they want to make available through specific channels or Teams chat.
Borg Cardona explained that we understand there's a lot of newness for this. And when people collaborate, they are naturally going to try different things to get data out of [their] system and get it into the conversation. So we felt the right thing to do was to enforce it. It's also going to give guidance early on so people can learn what the limitations are, and what the boundaries are. Cardona also remarked we're very open to having a conversation around [whether that] would that be valuable to you. Is that something you think: that the role centers you've crafted already or new role centers you want to craft, we should bring them into this context as well? We're very open to feedback.
The full range of possibilities for Business Central user experiences will get broadened by the introduction of Microsoft 365 read-only users of Business Central data in Teams. A Business Central Team Member license will also be offered by Microsoft that provides full UI access, full read, limited write, and no access to manufacturing or service order management