What's new: Business Central Mobile App and Barcode Scanning (2024 release wave 1)

Overview

The session covers worksheet pages on mobile phones with a simplified layout, and native barcode scanning that was previously limited to on-premises and is now available on SaaS. It walks through three scenarios: a UI button on a field with extended data type barcode, a customizable camera scanning API based on a control add-in, and integration with dedicated laser scanners on Android.

Demos show camera scanning in the item journal with serial and lot tracking, continuous scanning, and a warehouse pick with a laser scanner, including gestures and a redesigned pick document. The video also explains the control add-in API design and security limits, and says net-based barcode APIs remain supported while functionality is migrated to control add-ins.

Key points

• Worksheet pages are now on mobile phones with a shorter header, worksheet lines and a full summary section; desktop and tablet pages are unchanged. Check how they look and verify the UI you want.
• Scenario 1: annotate a code or text field with extended data type equals barcode so the mobile client shows a barcode scanning button.
• Scenario 2: a new AL API based on a control add-in replaces the .NET based API and works on SaaS. The add-in is in the BC apps GitHub repo and offers request barcode and request barcode async procedures plus barcode available, barcode failure and control add-in ready events.
• Continuous scanning is done by calling request barcode async again after each barcode is processed.
• Scenario 3: laser scanner integration works on Android devices only. It needs configuration on the device and in the app, plus AL code to register scanning events.
• Control add-ins for this API are UI-less, with no JavaScript computation and no UI frame or styling properties; only Microsoft can provide them.
• Net-based barcode APIs are still supported, but Microsoft plans to migrate them to control add-ins and encourages using the control add-in API for new work. The location provider is planned to follow.

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.

• page 40 “Item Journal” at 6:23
• page 6510 “Item Tracking Lines” at 8:05
• other “camera Barcode Scanner provider addin” at 5:02
• other “barcode scanner” at 22:02
• other “request Barcode Scanner async” at 22:23
• other “barcode received” at 23:03
• other “control adding” at 23:24
• other “request Barcode Scanner a sync” at 23:44

Quotes

• 1:10 “the worksheet pages on mobile phones are a simplified version of what we already have for desktop and tablet”
• 2:01 “unfortunately due to some uh technical limitations we were not able to make these available on SAS but we did listen to your feedback”
• 3:41 “all you have to do is to annotate a field of type code and text with the property extended data type equals barcode once”
• 4:42 “in this release we are bringing you a new alapi based on controll D that is supposed to replace the donet based API and”
• 5:02 “we’ve added the new API to our open source GitHub repo namely BC apps and you can find it under the control addin name”
• 14:13 “this how you get uh The Continuous scanning kind of U experience”
• 14:33 “it’s important to mention that in order to update this functionality it requires configurations at two levels first level would be a configuration at”
• 14:53 “it’s really important to mention that this capability is available only on Android OS devices”
• 15:54 “similar as in the previous scenario we were not able to make the capability available in the last release on SAS but with the”
• 17:55 “it is a document with a set of instruction for the warehouse worker uh to move items from uh one bin in a location”
• 25:05 “they are a close system meaning that uh they can only interact with uh the barcode scanning functionality or any other client extensibility”
• 26:17 “we plan to migrate all the that net based apis to control Adin and therefore we strongly encourage to update any new barcode scanning”

Disclaimers in the video

• 1:50 other: we are um advising you to check how they look like and make sure that uh uh you have the desired user interface
• 15:54 not-in-this-release: we were not able to make the capability available in the last release on SAS
• 26:37 coming-later: in the upcoming releases we are also going to be making other client and Sensibility methods such as the location provider to be available via the control addins

Presenters (as heard): Claudio, Chan, Claudia.