What's new: Add existing table fields to pages (2023 release wave 2)

Overview

The session shows how consultants and administrators can add any field from a page’s source table, including extension fields, to an existing page without code. The capability is in preview with update 23 and was one of the most highly voted community ideas. Demos use vendor and sales pages, with field discovery tooltips, filters for large tables, drag and drop placement, and locking of field editability.

It also covers safety and limits. Added fields are read-only, only available in role customization, and need a permission granted by an administrator. Developers can block fields with a table field property. Changes can be tested in a sandbox and imported to production. Extensions remain the choice for more complex scenarios, and page customizations in AL cover simple cases for developers.

Key points

• Add existing table fields to pages is in preview with update 23. It lets users pick any field from the page’s source table, including extension fields, not only recommended fields.
• It works in role customization only, not personalization, and not organization-wide. Added fields are read-only, and fields developers locked for data integrity cannot be unlocked.
• Administrators must grant the ‘add table field to page’ permission, which is in the D365 Profile Management permission set.
• Developers can set the new ‘allow customizations’ property on a table field to never or always. Setting it to never removes the field from the customization UI, including fields already added.
• Role customizations can be tested in a sandbox, then exported and imported to production.
• Adding many flow fields to one page can hurt performance. Some pages may need a refresh to load the data.
• Extensions are still needed for scenarios requiring code or behavior. Page customizations in AL cover simple field and group additions, and ‘Explore in Visual Studio Code’ helps inspect a page’s source.

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.

• table “vendor table” at 5:59
• page 27 “Vendor List” at 3:40
• page 26 “Vendor Card” at 9:59
• page 143 “Posted Sales Invoices” at 13:46
• permissionset “D365 Profile Management” at 18:42

Not found in BC28-30: table “vendor table”, permissionset “D365 Profile Management”.

Quotes

• 0:59 “this addition to our UI customization tooling which is the ability to add existing table fields to your pages”
• 1:39 “one of the most highly voted community ideas of all time yes i think it’s amongst the top two in fact six”
• 3:20 “we have some tables that have more than 100 Fields more than 200 Fields as well so we’re also supporting scale here”
• 11:41 “the developer has already defined on this page for example the balance field here this field is never meant to be editable”
• 12:34 “we’re really empowering customers to pick from any fields from that Source table that powers the page including extensions and bring that in into”
• 12:54 “we are launching this capability in preview with update 23”
• 13:46 “notice one very significant change which is the filter now says all Fields It also says in preview”
• 15:27 “every table field you add will be readon uh in most cases it’ll also load up the data for that field instantly”
• 17:08 “this is for role customization only right we focus on the users who naturally already have some degree of technical understanding”
• 19:03 “we created a new property on table field which is called allowing customizations which you can set to never or always”
• 20:26 “if you add a lot of flow fields to one single page that could have a performance impact”
• 21:42 “this functionality does not replace extensions because you can still do U many you know scenarios um or more complicated scenarios in extensions”
• 26:30 “as a developer you can now also add page fields and groups in this way um but again you know for most scenarios the”
• 27:10 “showed you the ability to add existing table fields to a page to allow both consultants and administrators and end users you know a”
• 27:30 “this is such a powerful combination of features uh that we have today uh especially for Consultants right and we’ve also given control uh”
• 28:11 “adding an existing field from the table to the page originated as a community idea so if you’ve got more great ideas that can”

Disclaimers in the video

• 12:54 preview: we are launching this capability in preview with update 23
• 13:46 preview: also says in preview as I mentioned earlier
• 25:54 other: we actually renamed that session so it’s not called what’s new inh but what’s new in developer tools

Presenters (as heard): Peter, Mike.