
Steve Endow's Business Central Podcast
Steve Endow's Business Central Podcast
I Need Coffee - Episode 176 - Weekly BC Review!
1. Personal Updates and Weekend Activities:
- Dragon Fruit Plant: Shared photos of a blooming dragon fruit flower in the backyard, planted by his wife. Noted it produces fruit annually but flowers wilt quickly.
- Family and Leisure: Celebrated his younger daughter's (cyber security intern) birthday with ribs, baked potatoes, and friends. She's grown tall and excels in school. Went to Seal Beach for his wife's surfing session (pink surfboard); plans to provide moral support again this weekend. Grilled trout and shared with neighbors.
2. Business Central and Technology Projects:
- Continia Document Capture: Ongoing implementation with Ronald, including testing nuances, quirks, and advanced features (e.g., line recognition for multi-line invoices, routing across companies). Sandbox testing ready for customer/partner; noted challenges with messy PDFs (e.g., multi-page with attachments).
- Blue Dragonfly Recurring Billing: Added MEM (Multi-Entity Management) support (dimension fields); testing revealed a minor unrelated bug.
- App Development Subcontracting: Assisting a software firm with feature requests; challenges include estimating complex code (e.g., 3,000+ line objects), code review processes, bug handling, and aligning with their architecture/culture.
3. Cybersecurity and Tools:
- Encrypted/Protected Email in M365: Struggled with "Do Not Forward" feature in Outlook (not true encryption; requires authentication). Not available despite Business Premium license; navigation in Purview is a "nightmare" for SMBs.
- Turn Off VPN Series: Highlighted Fortinet SSL VPN brute-force attacks and vulnerabilities (e.g., ForManager flaws); joked about Fortinet's CVE issues. Reiterated advice: Close ports, unplug appliances; alternatives like SonicWall Cloud Secure Edge or Tailscale (limited use).
4. AI and Tool Selection:
- Claude's Update: Claude Sonnet 4 supports 1M tokens (5x increase; ~75,000 lines of code). Noted limitations in tools like VS Code/Copilot, which send limited context.
- Mixing AI Tools: Advice against loyalty to one tool (e.g., Cursor, ChatGPT); startups optimize by task (e.g., Claude for some, Gemini for others). Perplexity used for troubleshooting but led to dead ends.
5. Business Central Performance and Bugs:
- Telemetry Sleuthing: Used telemetry to diagnose slowdowns (e.g., financial reports with MEM via Binary Stream); issues vanished in sandbox copies, shifting to core BC queries (1,600+ SQL operations). Culprit: Auto-calculation on report previews with many columns; reduced columns improved performance from 30-60s to 1s. Questioned auto-calc toggle.
- Sales Order Posting Error: Persistent error ("nothing to post" despite quantities/amounts); preview doesn't catch it. Stumped after checks; seeking more eyes.
6. Community and Events:
- Upcoming Events: Summit NA (Oct 20-23, Orlando), Directions EMEA (Nov 4-6, Poland; verify visa requirements). DynamicsCon Regionals: Denver (Aug 21), Dublin OH (Aug 26-27), Copenhagen (Sep 4), Dallas (Sep 17). Summit NA Roadshows: Charlotte (Sep 9), Houston (Dec 9), Fort Lauderdale (Dec 11). Double-check dates/locations.
- ERP Center of Excellence: Interns advancing: Joselyn (RDLC reports), David (warehousing), Ronald (Continia), Franklin (dashboard). Berlin English Academy: Evening workshops on advanced English, pronunciation, call center skills; recent exposition on customer service scenarios.
7. Q&A and Entertainment:
- Movies Watched: Relaxed with *The Departed* (2006; great potential but inconsistent acting/accents), *American Gangster* (phenomenal era immersion, top actors like Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe), *Groundhog Day* (classic with Bill Murray).