SUMMARY

This article will guide a user through the process of managing updates in the Business Central Admin Center.

DETAILS

Managing Updates in the Business Central Admin Center

Business Central environments are updated according to the Business Central roadmap with two major updates in April and October each year, and monthly, minor updates.
Updates of the base application and platform are managed by Microsoft. As an internal administrator or as a partner, you can use the Business Central administration center to specify certain parameters of the timing of updates for each environment, and you can specify the people who must receive notifications of when an update is available.
Set the update window for each environment
The update window for an environment defines a window of time during the day in which the environment can be updated. When an update is rolling out to Business Central online, regardless of whether it's the monthly update or a major update, the update will be applied to an environment within the time frame that the update window defines. This helps to ensure that updates are applied outside of the normal business hours of the organization, for example.
The update window must be a minimum of six hours.
 Note
Desktop users who are signed in during the update will receive an alert in Business Central.
To set the update window for an environment:

1. On the Environments tab of the Business Central administration center, choose the Name of the relevant environment to open the environment details.
2. Choose the Update Settings action, and then choose the Set update window action.
3. In the Set update window pane, specify the start time and the end time for the update window for the environment.

 Note
The update window must be a minimum of six hours.

4. Choose Save.

This timeslot now becomes the default window when updates will be applied to this environment.
Schedule an update date
Once an update is available, you can choose a specific date that each environment is updated. The Available update version field in the Version Management section of the environment details also displays the version number of the available update version.
To schedule an update date:

1. On the Environments tab of the Business Central administration center, choose the Name of the relevant environment to open the environment details.
2. Choose the Update Settings action, and then choose the Set update date action.
3. In the Schedule Environment Update pane, specify the update date.

 Note
The specified date must be within a given date range that is shown in the pane.

4. Choose Schedule Update.

If an administrator has chosen the Set update date action but not set a date, then the update is applied automatically within a default date range. The default date range is communicated in advance to tenant administrators through administrative notifications. You can then choose to override that with a custom date by following the steps that are provided above. Not selecting an update date does not prevent the environment from being updated.
 Tip
Starting with 2021 release wave 1, you can also schedule update dates for minor updates.
Get notified of updates
For updates that tenant administrators can schedule, a notification is sent to all notification recipients that are listed on the Notification recipients tab of the Business Central administration center.
 Important
To not miss update notifications from Microsoft, you must add notification recipients and verify that the e-mails are not redirected to a spam folder by your e-mail software. The notifications are sent from the Microsoft Partner Center address, msftpc@microsoft.com and contain Dynamics 365 Business Central in the subject line.
For versions earlier than 2021 release wave 1, admins cannot schedule the monthly minor updates. Until such environments are updated to version 18.0 and later, the update is applied to tenant environments as it becomes available. No notifications are sent to tenant administrators prior to the update. Notifications are sent only after the update is applied.