What's New: Commerce Capabilities of Business Central Apps (2024 release wave 1)

Overview

The session explains how ISVs can sell Business Central add-on apps directly through AppSource and through the CSP reseller channel. It walks through Partner Center setup: opting into Sell Through Microsoft, creating plans (country-specific, waterfall pricing, monthly or yearly billing, trials, private plans) and automatic currency conversion.

It then follows the customer side: the Buy Now button, the Plans and Pricing tab, checkout, license assignment and app installation in the Admin Center, and a combined invoice. The developer part covers entitlements (per-user offer plan, group-based, unlicensed, administrator) and why admins must still grant permissions. The closing sections cover CSP direct and indirect models, private offers, roadmap items and advice on testing before moving existing customers.

Key points

• Transact on AppSource applies to add-ons only, not connect apps. Each app must opt in to Sell Through Microsoft in Partner Center.
• Microsoft charges a 3 percent flat transaction fee per transaction. It covers platform maintenance, hosting on the Business Central platform, money collection and deposit to the ISV bank account.
• Country setup moves from the offer to the plan when opting into transactability. Plans support waterfall pricing, monthly or yearly billing, private plans for specific tenants, and automatic or manual currency pricing.
• Trials are limited to one month, need a credit card, and convert to paid unless canceled.
• Entitlements are required for AppSource transactability. The entitlement ID matches the plan ID and sets maximum permissions. A BC admin must still grant permissions to each user.
• Licenses are purchased and assigned in the Admin Center, and the app is installed separately. Customers get one combined invoice with first-party licenses.
• For existing customers, set up side-by-side first and use unlicensed entitlements to avoid lockout. Group and admin-role entitlements give access to developers and admins without licenses. Practice on a test app first.

Features

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.

• other “convert temperature sample app” at 12:59
• other “Coffee App” at 24:55
• other “Hello World 4 Sample App” at 22:00
• other “Convert Temperature App” at 18:40
• permissionset “coffee app full permission” at 27:11

Not found in BC28-30: permissionset “coffee app full permission”.

Quotes

• 2:17 “the cloud demand out there by 2026 is going to be 1 trillion think about that 1 trillion is an amazing amount”
• 3:18 “in the Futures marketplaces are going to be the primary way of how software will be sold”
• 3:30 “if you go to appsource at this moment in time you will find more than 5,000 apps”
• 9:10 “already 6 months ago we will launch the very first version of our transact ability and in that version what we did is isvs”
• 9:50 “we’ve got one of the isvs out there which is basically Western computers that told us like listen we didn’t want to go to”
• 10:11 “there’s going to be a three% flat transaction fee for every for every transaction that you do”
• 12:59 “that transact capability is applicable to add-ons only so you might be familiar with that we also have another concept which is based solely”
• 13:38 “the offer setup where you can opt into sell through microsoft”
• 15:00 “country setup has now moved from the offer to the plan so you can have”
• 17:46 “Partner Center will convert with today’s currency exchange rate convert the prices to the markets that you define for the plan automatically”
• 19:00 “you will see that there’s a buy now button that actually allows the customer to purchase transact inside of appsource”
• 20:32 “you purchase licenses but you still need to assign those licenses to users and so the way you do that is that you go”
• 23:03 “for a customer they can then see or get a combined bill of all of the apps as well as the first party license”
• 26:11 “the type for that entitlement would be per user offer plan and that would be”
• 27:12 “still needs to grant that specific user those permissions”
• 27:12 “this is the maximum amount of permissions that you have access to if you have a certain license expressed in the”
• 28:13 “As soon as you opt into using entitlements we will start to expect and enforce entitlements for any user”
• 30:29 “Instead of forcing all of those customers to purchase licenses immediately you can create a special kind of entitlement which we call unlicensed”
• 36:25 “The release which is made available in April 2024 this is exactly what we’re going to focus on at this moment in time”
• 36:46 “In a direct model a customer will buy from a partner and the partner will buy from Microsoft. In an indirect model a customer”
• 39:03 “As a publish or isv you head to a partner Center and there you under resell through CSP you can opt into selling through”
• 39:43 “and you can now go into the private office Tab and within there you can uh head to the CSP subtab and create a”
• 44:57 “we need to make sure that we also support different pricing models like not only the per user model which is uh available today”
• 45:17 “we are influencing all the teams at this moment in time we don’t really have set dates for when that’s going to be but”
• 45:37 “first off um you look at the apps that you have today uh and think about which of those makes sense or you can”
• 46:57 “you can practice uh on a test app to understand especially how these entitlements work and and get that right sort of in the”
• 47:38 “if you have existing customers you need to um to work on the Side by Side Story before you go into transact right because”

Disclaimers in the video

• 5:53 coming-later: potential experiences in the product where that skew which is made available in the one catalog is now also been made available within the product
• 24:55 other: Often you want the developer to be able to have access to test out functionality
• 35:24 other: I added a link here at the bottom if you want to read more and see more examples of how entitlements work
• 44:57 coming-later: support different pricing models like not only the per user model which is uh available today but also that we have a per site uh license like a onetime fee
• 45:17 subject-to-change: we are influencing all the teams at this moment in time we don’t really have set dates for when that’s going to be

Presenters (as heard): Kurt, Peter, Curt.