Upgrade and migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Online ASAP! 2025 is coming!

Monday, December 30, 2024
Reading time: 10 minutes

In this blog I will explain to you why you should not delay upgrading your customers’ Dynamics NAV and Business Central systems anymore. The reasons behind the statement in the title are the changes coming in 2025, which may impact your customers’ installations and make them vulnerable to operational, security and compliance risks. Some of these changes are related to Microsoft’s product support policy, the others – to technical limitations of NAV/BC upgrades.

Support policy for Dynamics NAV and Business Central

As the ERP system is usually critical for running business operations by most companies, nobody needs to be convinced that the producer’s support for such software is one of the main concerns for the management. And support doesn’t only mean that in case of a problem, you can ask the producer for help. It also means that you can align your system with any regulatory changes and stay compliant with the law of the country of your business. It could also mean that if any security loopholes are found in the software, they should be “patched” by the producer to assure the security of the product.

Now let’s talk about Dynamics 365 Business Central, formerly Dynamics NAV (and a few other names before that). The lifecycle policies for this system have evolved over the years, reflecting changes in Microsoft’s strategy. As the name has changed, Microsoft also changed the lifecycle policy. Both didn’t happen at exactly the same time, but the new policy was strictly related to the changes “announced” by the new name.

And currently we still have both lifecycle policies existing next to each other as still there are products in support under both of them. Older versions are under Fixed Lifecycle Policy and the newer ones – under Modern Lifecycle Policy.

Fixed Lifecycle Policy (FLP)

This update and service policy of Microsoft has been used until Business Central 14 (Spring 2019 Update) version. This means that all Dynamics NAV versions are also under this policy. Support for each such version lasts for a minimum of 5 years since its first release. Actually, an exception from this rule was BC13, which had a shorter support period. But I wouldn’t focus on that as not many customers are still on that version and support for it ended a long time ago. Especially as the very next version is BC14, which is kind of special and I would say one of the most common to be used and to hold on to (with no statistics to back my thesis).

One of the reasons is of course being the last version on FLP, which means a very long support period comparing to the “next generation” of product support policy. Another reason for BC14 to be so popular is that it is available in both C/AL and AL languages. So many partners upgraded and kept their customers on this version if their customers had a lot of customizations done in C/AL or some 3rd party add-ons, which were critical for their operations but still not ready in AL. BC14 is also special for another reason, but let’s come back to this later.

Microsoft’s Fixed Lifecycle Policy is provided in two subsequent phases – Mainstream and Extended support. Except for having a supported version of the system, you also need to be on the supported Service Pack (SP) published by Microsoft. In case of Dynamics solutions, the installed SP cannot be older than 24 months.

Mainstream support

Mainstream Support is the first phase of the product’s lifecycle. It includes incident support (free and paid), security update support and the ability to request non-security updates. In other words, if you are out of mainstream support and you have a problem with your system, Microsoft will not help you. It will also not provide cumulative updates, fixes, or patches. Only security related updates.

Being out of mainstream support would usually be acceptable for a head of IT on the customer’s side, as no security would be compromised. So, if the “business” part of a company didn’t insist too much to upgrade due to lack of critical functionality in existing version, the upgrade decision could be hard for the company’s management. Unless there are some regulatory changes, which the existing version wouldn’t support. But these could be usually addressed by partners, who would provide these in the form of modifications. Which in turn would be depending on a specific partner in terms of legal compliance of business operations – a bit risky game for a customer.

Extended support

The Extended Support phase follows Mainstream Support. It includes security updates at no additional cost and paid support.

Modern Lifecycle Policy (MLP)

The Modern Lifecycle Policy is applicable for Business Central on-premises since version 15. Product’s lifecycle period under this policy is significantly shorter than under FLP. In total it is 18 months since the first release of a specific version. Yet still this period is divided into two phases – each covering different scope of updates and support.

The first phase lasts for 6 months since version’s first release (so until the release of the next major update). During this period Microsoft provides new features, bug fixes and regulatory fixes. For the subsequent 12 months, only bug and regulatory fixes are provided. So, in general you need to upgrade your system for the latest 18 months after you deploy it. Otherwise, you are left without any producer’s support, meaning no security updates.

Update policy for Business Central Online

I would not focus on this part too much as the update cycle and thus the product’s lifecycle is quite straightforward: you should always update to any latest version available. Of course, you can put off an update for a certain period of time or even skip the minor updates from October this year. But I would say you do it with your own responsibility, as Microsoft can always say: update to the latest available version in case you encounter any problems with your solution.

To be completely honest, Microsoft doesn’t elaborate too much on any specifics related to BC Online support cycle and requirements. It is clearly stated that it is also covered by MLP – just like the on-premises versions. But we all know that update flexibility is lower in BC Online, so also the support period gets shorter than for on-premises MLP. So, you can assume that each Online version is fully supported for the first 6 months after its release. Then it enters this limited support period, which for on-premises is 12 months. But with BC Online you can only delay updating your solution to the newest version for up to 6 months (officially 5 months but if you add 1-month grace period, then you get 6 months in total). This way you get 6 months of full support + 6 months of limited support.

Upcoming changes

In 2025 there will be three BC versions losing Microsoft’s support completely:

Probably many partners and customers used BC 14 as a staging area before having to move to AL and extensions and could have been doing it for up to 5 years. But it is all over as on 14th of October 2025 the extended support for this version expires. So, if you still have customers on this version, the absolute minimum you should do is to make them aware of the upcoming situation. The preferred action would be to start planning upgrades with such customers as soon as possible.

On-premises products with expiring Microsoft’s support

Dynamics NAV / BC version	Mainstream support end	Extended support end
Dynamics NAV 5	Out of Support	Out of Support
Dynamics NAV 2009	Out of Support	Out of Support
Dynamics NAV 2013	Out of Support	Out of Support
Dynamics NAV 2015	Out of Support	14 January 2025
Dynamics NAV 2016	Out of Support	14 April 2026
Dynamics NAV 2017	Out of Support	11 January 2027
Dynamics NAV 2018	Out of Support	11 January 2028
Dynamics NAV 13	Out of Support	Out of Support
Dynamics NAV 14	Out of Support	14 October 2025
...	...	...
Business Central 23	Out of Support	2 April 2025
Business Central 24	Out of Support	1 October 2025
Business Central 25	2 April 2025	1 April 2026

Upgrade path changes – stepping-stone releases of Business Central

I mentioned that BC14 was a special version and there is one more reason for me to call it that way. It is a stepping-stone major release, which means that if you are upgrading from any NAV/BC version older than BC14, you need to first upgrade your data to BC14 and only then you are able to upgrade to the latest version or migrate to the cloud. So, if you are currently using NAV2018 and would like to upgrade to the latest release, which is currently BC25, you would need to first upgrade to BC14 and only from BC14 can you upgrade it to BC25. Although I don’t have any developer or consultant experience, I would still risk the opinion that such an upgrade path requires more workload than if that could be done in one step instead of two.

But it will get even harder in 2025 as there was already another stepping-stone version released in October 2024. So once the next version (BC26) is released in April 2025 upgrading from BC13 or earlier versions will require 3 steps. First you will upgrade to BC14, then to BC25 and only then to BC26 and any subsequent version. Thus, despite the stepping-stone version of BC25 is already released, any change related to its emergence may be felt only since April 2025.

Such stepping-stone version will now be released with every 5th major release. This means that the next one will be BC 30 – to be released in April 2027. Microsoft will be using these versions to clean all the obsolete schemas (e.g. fields, tables) which have been carried over from the previous versions. Each element marked as “ObsoleteState = Removed” since BC14 will still exist in BC25 but will be cleaned up in BC26. Respectively, each element marked as “ObsoleteState = Removed” between BC25 and BC30 will be cleaned up in BC31.

In the meantime, of course, there are a lot of other changes happening and features being changed or removed from Business Central. And it looks like this pace of changes is constantly speeding up. As an example you can see which features will be deprecated in BC26 under this link: Deprecated features in Business Central | Microsoft Learn.

Final Thoughts: Time to Act

The longer you and your customers consider upgrading their old NAV/BC or migrating to the cloud, the more hassle it will be required to do it eventually. By “hassle” I mean: costs, workload, time, complexity and risk. And we should expect that Microsoft will keep making it even harder to upgrade and migrate with the release of any subsequent BC versions. So, if you still haven’t talked with your customers about upgrade or migration, you shouldn’t be putting it off any longer. If you don’t talk about it with your customers, someone else will. Start planning it and present the available options to your customers.

If you’re uncertain about where to start or how to navigate these changes, there are resources and expert guidance available to help you and your customers every step of the way. We’ve scheduled a webinar specifically for our partners, offering actionable insights into the upcoming updates, strategies for planning migrations, and practical tips for managing the upgrade process smoothly. Join me, along with colleagues from Microsoft and Companial, on January 23, 2025, to gain valuable insights for planning upgrades and cloud migrations of your customers.

2025 Roadmap: Ready to Migrate & Modernize Your D365 NAV/BC Customers?

Here you can find more details and register to our webinar.

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Radoslaw Dudziak

Partner Success Manager
Radoslaw is a seasoned Microsoft Dynamics professional with almost a decade of experience in ERP systems, focusing on Dynamics NAV/BC. As a Partner Success Manager for Technical Services at Companial, he's dedicated to empowering partners to succeed with technical projects and drive success in their ERP implementations.

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