Introducing Spreadsheets for Business Central
Demo of spreadsheets in the advanced spreadsheet and reporting app for Business Central (expanded from the advanced financial reporting app). It covers Excel-like cells with BC functions (TODAY, WORKDATE, CALCDATE) and regions that connect BC data (tables with write-back, charts, queries, budgets, pages for preview and print). It also covers virtual fields, read-only or edit sharing permissions, and a bring-your-own-key AI agent that builds SQL query regions.
- Introduction to spreadsheets in Business Central
- Excel muscle memory and spreadsheet basics
- Business Central functions and cell formatting
- Regions and data connectivity types
- Working with tables and editing data
- Virtual fields and calculations
- Charts and page regions for presentation
- Sharing and permissions management
- AI agent for query generation
- Additional features and access information
Overview
Erik Hougaard introduces a spreadsheet that runs inside Business Central and keeps Excel-style typing and formulas. Business Central data is brought in through regions, which can be tables, charts, financial reports, pages, KPI cards, budgets, queries, reports, pivot tables, flow fields, images and journals.
The demo covers Business Central date functions in cells (TODAY, WORKDATE, CALCDATE), editing table data, virtual fields with formulas, chart regions, and page regions for preview and printing. It also covers sharing with read-only or edit access, and an AI agent that builds queries from natural language using a bring-your-own-key AI provider. The video states it is free to use in a cloud sandbox.
Key points
- A region is how Business Central data is connected into the spreadsheet; region types include table, chart, financial report, page, KPI card, budget, query, report, pivot table, flow field, image and journal.
- Cells support the Business Central functions TODAY, WORKDATE and CALCDATE.
- Virtual fields add formula columns to a table region without changing the underlying Business Central table.
- Page regions define what is printed and shown in preview mode; content outside them is not included.
- Sharing can be read-only or full edit. Writing data back requires the user to have the permission configured.
- The AI agent generates SQL queries and regions from natural language. It needs an AI provider configured with bring-your-own-key (Anthropic Claude, Azure OpenAI, Chat, Grok and Google are named).
- Scenarios (freeze a sheet state and revert to saved scenarios) and conditional formatting are mentioned. The video says the app is free in a cloud sandbox.
Features
| Feature | Status | At |
|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheets for Business Central | status not stated, demoed | 0:00 |
| Regions | status not stated, demoed | 3:31 |
| Virtual Fields | status not stated, demoed | 8:31 |
| Page Regions | status not stated, demoed | 11:40 |
| Permissions and Sharing | status not stated, demoed | 13:12 |
| AI Agent | status not stated, demoed | 13:47 |
| Chart Regions | status not stated, demoed | 10:31 |
| Business Central Functions | status not stated, demoed | 2:06 |
| Scenarios | status not stated | 16:01 |
| Conditional Formatting | status not stated | 16:13 |
AL objects mentioned
As heard in the captions. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.
- table 3 “Payment Terms” at 3:44
- table “Posted Sales Headers” at 14:52
- table 18 “Customer” at 15:06
- table “Ledger Entries” at 15:06
Not found in BC28-30: table “Posted Sales Headers”, table “Ledger Entries”.
Quotes
- 0:13 “a spreadsheet that is running inside Business Central and it’s a spreadsheet that have Business Central in it”
- 0:23 “we have expanded our financial advanced financial reporting app to also include the spreadsheet.”
- 1:30 “I operate this exactly like you I would type this exactly the same way as I would do it in Excel”
- 3:31 “A region is where we connect Business Central directly into the into the spreadsheet”
- 7:42 “Very important. So, you can configure whether a user have permissions to to use the right back functionality or not”
Presenters (as heard): Eric.