Add enhancements to Business Central demo environments

Once you have a demo environment set up, you can enhance it with more data, apps, and integrations to showcase more advanced capabilities.

Add Contoso Coffee demo data

The Contoso Coffee Demo Data app for Business Central includes demo data that you can add to a trial company or a sandbox environment to showcase or learn advanced manufacturing capabilities.

Use this when: You want to demonstrate supply chain and advanced manufacturing features.

Learn more in the business functionality content for Business Central:

• Introduction to Contoso Coffee Demo Data
• Scenarios for Contoso Coffee Demo Data

Add connectivity apps

Demonstrate integrations and connected scenarios with connectivity apps.

Starting in 2022 release wave 2, Business Central online environments can list one or more apps on the Connectivity Apps and Banking Apps pages. We recommend that the admin opens the Connectivity Apps page from the Extension Management page and allows the underlying extension to connect to its external service either once or always. Business Central then connects to Marketplace to generate a short list of apps that are approved for that country or region. These particular apps can connect to external services, such as online banking.

If you're an ISV and want your banking app to show up in the Connectivity Apps page, reach out to us at Microsoft. We're testing the suggested apps according to business and functional requirements. The list relies on Marketplace and is intended to show the best apps in that business's country or region for core connectivity scenarios. Learn more at Requirements for Connectivity Apps.

Add Dynamics 365 Sales Professional and Field Service

After you have a Microsoft 365 demo account, you can sign up for trials of Dynamics 365 Sales Professional and Dynamics 365 Field Service to demonstrate their integration with Business Central. Business Central integrates with both apps through Dataverse. Field Service integration builds on the Sales connection, so set up Sales integration first, even if your goal is to demo Field Service.

Step 1: Sign up for the trials

1. In a dedicated browser window, sign in with the admin account for the Microsoft demo account.

   With an MDX tenant, you were given an account when the tenant was created. Learn more in Set up Microsoft 365 and Business Central demo environments with MDX.

2. Go to the Dynamics 365 Sales Professional page, select Try for free, and then follow the steps to add the Sales trial to your account.

   This trial creates a Dataverse-enabled Sales trial environment in Power Platform.

3. To also demo Dynamics 365 Field Service, go to the Field Service product page, select the Try for free button, and follow the steps to add the Field Service trial to your account.

   This trial creates a separate Dataverse-enabled FieldService trial environment in Power Platform. The environment is installed with the Dynamics 365 Field Service app.

4. To run Sales and Field Service in the same environment, install the Dynamics 365 Field Service app to the Sales trial environment. Follow these steps

   1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.
   2. In the navigation pane, select Manage.
   3. In the Manage pane, select Environments.
   4. On the Environments page, select the Sales Trial environment.
   5. Select Resources, and then select Dynamics 365 apps.
   6. Select Open AppSource to go to Microsoft Marketplace.
   7. Search for Trial: Dynamics 365 for Field Service, select Free trial, and follow the instructions to install the app. When prompted to select an environment, select Sales Trial.

Learn more about managing apps in Power Platform at Manage Dynamics 365 apps.

Step 2: Connect Business Central to Dataverse

1. In another browser tab, sign in to Business Central at https://businesscentral.dynamics.com.

2. Select Search (Alt+Q) in the upper-right corner, enter Assisted Setup, and then choose the related link.

3. Choose Set up a connection to Microsoft Dataverse to start the assisted setup guide.

4. In the assisted setup guide, choose the Sales trial environment and install the Business Central virtual table on it when prompted.

   Installing the virtual table can take a while. You can check the status in Power Platform.

Step 3: Connect Business Central to Dynamics 365 Sales

1. Select Search (Alt+Q) in the upper-right corner, enter Assisted Setup, and then choose the related link.

2. Choose Set up Dynamics 365 Sales Connection to start the assisted setup guide.

3. Follow the steps in the assisted setup guide to enable the connection to your Sales trial.

   To also integrate Field Service, select Install Field Service App in the guide, and then install the Field Service Integration app in Business Central.

Learn about setting up the connection in Connection settings in the setup guide.

Step 4: Add Dynamics 365 Field Service integration

Complete the Sales connection before you set up Field Service. The Field Service setup isn't available until the Sales setup is finished.

1. Select Search (Alt+Q) in the upper-right corner, enter Assisted Setup, and then choose the related link.
2. Choose Set up an integration to Dynamics 365 Field Service to start the assisted setup guide.
3. Follow the steps in the assisted setup guide to complete the Field Service integration.

Learn about setting up the connection in Integrate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service.

After setup, Business Central, Dynamics 365 Sales, and Dynamics 365 Field Service share data through Dataverse. You can demo end-to-end scenarios such as customer management, sales processes, and service operations.

Use the sandbox environment for demos

Convert Power Platform environments to sandbox environments for demos. In the sandbox environment, you can:

• Reset without Dynamics 365 apps: Reset the environment to get an empty Dataverse database. Then use the Set up Dataverse connection assisted setup to integrate Business Central with Dataverse.

Learn more at Reset environment and Integrating with Microsoft Dataverse.

• Reset with specific Dynamics 365 apps: Reset the environment with specific Dynamics 365 apps, with or without sample data, to demo to different audiences. Learn more at Reset environment.

For example, when you reset the sandbox environment, you can choose to deploy Sales enterprise and demo integration between Business Central and the full capabilities of Dynamics 365 Sales. Learn more at Integrating with Dynamics 365 Sales.

Convert production environment to sandbox

1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center with the same admin credentials.

2. In the list of environments, select the trial environment, and then select the Convert to production action.

   Note

   The trial environment has the Type field set to Trial (29 days). Don't convert the default environment.

   After a few minutes, the trial environment is converted to a production environment, and the Type field changes to Production.

3. Select the converted environment again, and then select the Convert to sandbox action.

Related information

Demo environment options overview
Set up Microsoft 365 demo environments
Use trial and sandbox demo environments
Preparing Test Environments of Dynamics 365 Business Central
Administration of Business Central Online