Core Development Specialist in Business Central
The Core Developer booster is the most comprehensive self-paced AL development programme available for Dynamics 365 Business Central. Built around a realistic case story following Botelo, a fictional company managed by the consulting firm Solutize, this on-demand course takes you from your first steps in VS Code and AL through to building, deploying, and maintaining production-ready Business Central extensions. Every topic is grounded in practical assignments with full solutions, and you have access to real-time support from a team of instructors throughout your learning journey.
Structured as a progressive developer path, the course covers everything from the BC data model and AL programming fundamentals to event-based architecture, design patterns, posting routines, and reporting. Whether you are new to AL or looking to build a solid, structured foundation, this booster gives you the skills and confidence to work professionally in real Business Central projects.
1. Getting Started
- About the platform and this course
- Technical requirements
- Case story: Solutize and Botelo
- Business Central in the Dynamics 365 ecosystem
- Business Central architecture
2. Setting Up Your Development Environment
- Creating a Business Central trial
- Visual Studio Code and the AL Language extension
- Sandboxes and the BC Administration Center
- Your first extension: structure and deployment
- Azure DevOps: organisation, project and backlog
- Docker and BcContainerHelper
- Git: local and remote repositories
3. The Business Central Data Model
- Objects and the database
- Tables: properties, fields and triggers
- Functional table types
- Table relations
- Calculated fields and flowfields
- FlowFilters
- Document tables: headers and lines
4. Building Pages and Navigation
- Card and list pages
- Actions
- Role centers
- Profiles and personalisation
5. AL Programming Fundamentals
- Syntax, identifiers and variables
- Data types and type conversion
- Operators, expressions and string functions
- Statements: conditional and repetitive
- Codeunits and parameters
- Debugging AL code
6. Working with Data in AL
- Record variables and Find functions
- Get, FindFirst and FindLast
- Filtering with SetRange and SetFilter
- Inserting, modifying and deleting records
- RESET and CLEAR
7. Extending Business Central
- Table extensions
- Page extensions
- Page, control and action triggers
- System-defined variables
- Labels and localisation
- Access modifiers and extension scope
8. Extension Lifecycle Management
- Installation code and default data
- Permission sets
- Upgrade code
- Obsoleting code and breaking changes
- Translations
- Deploying to SaaS
9. Building Real Features
- Factboxes
- Views, enums and setup tables
- Notifications
- Custom functions and reverse engineering BC code
- Event-based architecture
- Singleton and No. Series design patterns
- Standard data model and flow
- Journal and document posting routines
10. Reporting
- Report data model and dataset design
- RDLC layouts
- Word layouts
- Excel layouts
- Dataset patterns: union and join
- Multilanguage reports
- Report extensions
- Document reports
- Processing-only reports
11. Assessment and Certification
- Core Developer exam
- Certificate and badge
This course is part of the Business Central Developer Learning Journey
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Why switch to a subscription?
- More training for less budget
- Stay relevant in a fast-changing industry
- Courses created by MCTs and MVPs
- Faster onboarding for new hires
- Guidance for all certifications
Who is this course for?
Aspiring and junior AL developers who want to build a deep, structured foundation in Dynamics 365 Business Central development. No prior AL experience is required, though familiarity with basic programming concepts is beneficial.
What will you learn?
- How to set up a professional AL development environment using VS Code, Docker, Git, and Azure DevOps.
- How to build Business Central extensions from scratch, including tables, pages, codeunits, flowfields, and document objects.
- How to write and apply core AL programming concepts including variables, operators, statements, record manipulation, filtering, and triggers.
- How to implement key design patterns including the Singleton pattern, No. Series pattern, and event-based architecture.
- How to create reports with RDLC, Word, and Excel layouts, including document reports, report extensions, and processing-only reports.
- How to manage the full extension lifecycle including installation code, upgrade code, permissions, translations, and SaaS deployment.