Breaking up the Base App | Request new Interfaces

Most of you, if you are a more or less loyal reader of my blog, will remember that last year I blogged about breaking up the base app, how to do that and a call to action for volunteers.

After that I blogged a bit about visiting the office in Lyngby and starting a project.

However, I don’t think I’ve ever officially reported back how that project worked out and how it “ended”.

Let me do that now and add a new call to action for the community.

Last week I had a meeting with Microsoft (via Teams, I have not left my home in like 7 weeks) and we decided that the project was a succes and that it is now closed.

What did we do?

Based on BC15 we had 5 project teams trying to split a module from the base app and see what we ran into.

Because we all worked in BC15 we essentially all ran into the issue that enums were not yet implemented.

In the end the only module that was really possible to disconnect was Cost Accounting.

Item Tracking is also something that Microsoft has a working prototype for to decouple.

What are the next steps?

In order to decouple something from the base app, a business case is needed. A partner needs to have the requirement to decouple something as a prerequisite to publish something in the app store.

Microsoft cannot decouple something in vNext just because they can or for the fun of it. Even if there are no breaking changes.

An example is the implementation of the Sales Price interface in BC16 which was done together with a partner to make sure the interface was meeting the requirements.

Once an interface is in place it’s there to stay forever more or less.

How To Request an Interface

You can request interfaces in the same way as you request events or enums. Go to https://github.com/microsoft/ALAppExtensions/ and submit an issue.

To be perfectly honest, I have not yet seen a label for it, but then again I don’t think partners know how to request interfaces to it’s a chicken and egg thing.

Examples could be an interface that allows you to plug in your own Reminders module or your own Account Schedules module.

Any Account Schedule module should work side-by-side with Microsoft’s module but it would be nice to be able to disable A and enable B.

How easy is it to get a new interface in Business Central?

It will probably be perceived by partners as next-to-impossible because interfaces have a massive impact on everyone using our beloved Business Central.

That does not mean you should just give up. I had a German partner last week with two valid cases and we’re going for it and see what we can get out of it.

What probably helps is the size of your solution. If you’ve been extremely succesful in for example North American Sales Tax calculation and sold thousands of copies of your C/Side solution then there is a fair chance you’ll be heard by Microsoft if everyone agrees that making an interface will make everyones life easier.

Thank You!

I would like to thank everyone on the team that worked with trying to break the base app. We had fun, we learned a lot. I also apologise for being slow in responding to emails and being unorganised.

Enjoy, stay healthy and keep on coding!