BC 16 update is ready for Business Central – are you?

Microsoft rolling notifications that Microsoft is ready to update tenants to BC 16 (wave 1 2020) and are we ready?

1.    Didn’t you get notifications?

Setup notification recipients in the Admin Center

How can I set that?

Follow the below link

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/administration/tenant-admin-center-notifications

Result should look like below

2.   How can we check whether we are ready?

Check the compatibility of PTEs with BC 16

How can we check?

One way is: We already have 16 version Preview available in Admin center so we can create a sandbox environment with 16 preview version and check our extensions compatibility and also test the new functionality and PTE functionality.

Another way is: create a container using below docker image which will give 16 version already.

     mcr.microsoft.com/businesscentral/sandbox:us

3.    What we have to do after we are ready for update to BC 16?

Microsoft notification email comes with lot of information.

Mainly, header part contains important dates

Example:

Updates will automatically start:    On or after 4/30/2020 (UTC)

First day to apply update:                4/16/2020 (UTC)

Last day to apply update:                6/15/2020 (UTC)

Scheduled time:                                Between 12:00:00 AM and 11:59:59 PM (UTC)

Bottom part contains versions:

Example:

Your service identifier (Tenant):      M365B085983-sandbox Environment:                                      Sandbox Version before update:                      15.4.41023.41345 Version after update:                         16.0.11240.11946

NOTE: Now the good news is: we have 60 days to select out update. Usually it was 30 days.

Microsoft gave us 14 days to set the update date:

From 04/16 to 04/29

If we did not set the update before 04/29 then Microsoft will update on or after 04/30 (may not be all on same day)

How can I set update date?

If we go to Admin center and the environment then we will see whether “update scheduling available”

If yes then it will show update will start on or after date: in this case 04/30 as I didn’t set update date yet.

On top, click on update and then schedule update

Here, we can select the version and date that we want to update our environment

I prefer to update Sandbox environments which is a copy of production first and test and then plan for Production later.

On top, click on update and then schedule window

We can also set update window: which means this is the time on the day the updates to be rolled out.

Note: make sure that your environments are on 15.4 to update to BC 16.

If your environment is below 15.4 then Microsoft will not schedule update to BC 16.

Stay Home and Stay Safe and enjoy the update.