How to Add Fields from Related Tables in Business Central
3 min read
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Dynamics 365 Business Central's analysis mode offers a robust platform for dissecting and interpreting your business data directly within the application. The upcoming June 2025 update introduces a pivotal enhancement: the ability to incorporate fields from related tables into your analysis views. This advancement empowers users to craft more comprehensive and insightful data analyses without the need to export data to external tools.
Understanding the Enhancement
Traditionally, analysis within Business Central was confined to fields present in the primary table of a list page. The new feature expands this capability by allowing the addition of fields from related tables. For instance, when analysing customer data, you can now seamlessly include fields from the associated Contact table, such as email addresses or phone numbers, enriching your dataset and providing a more holistic view of your business relationships.
How to Add Fields from Related Tables
Analysis mode is a powerful experience that lets you create and analyse data views easily. You can also use Copilot and natural language to create views. This release lets you add fields from related tables to an analysis mode tab, including grouping by these fields for advanced data analysis.
You can add fields from related tables in analysis mode tabs in two ways:
From the context menu Add columns from on an analysis mode tab. This inserts the fields as new columns at the end of the view.
In both cases, select the related table to choose fields from. If there is more than one relation to the target table, the context menus show via <relation> after the table name. For example, in an analysis mode tab on the Customer list, you can add fields from the Contact table via the relation "Primary Contact No. := No.", where the No. of the Contact matches the Primary Contact No. on the customer.
After you select the table, a dialog appears to choose columns. The dialog shows the source table name and number, as well as the fields in the table. You can only select fields that have already been added to one or more pages. Use the Show available fields from option to select a page, which then populates the available table fields.
You can add multiple fields at once using multiselect. User-defined views are personal and reside in the tenant database.
The following example shows how to add the Email field from the Contact table as a column, using the Contact List page to select fields. Notice the smaller Contact prefix above the E-Mail caption, indicating that this column comes from a related table.
Practical Applications
The ability to add fields from related tables unlocks numerous analytical possibilities
- Enhanced Customer Insights: Combine customer data with contact information to tailor marketing strategies and improve customer engagement.
- Comprehensive Sales Analysis: Integrate product details from related tables into sales reports to identify top-performing items and adjust inventory accordingly.
- Financial Reporting: Merge data from various financial tables to create detailed reports that offer a clearer picture of your company's financial health.
Important Considerations
- Permissions: Ensure you have the necessary permissions to access and modify data from related tables. Consult your system administrator if you encounter access issues.
- Data Integrity: When combining data from multiple tables, be mindful of data accuracy and consistency to maintain the reliability of your analyses.
- System Performance: Adding numerous fields from related tables may impact system performance. It's advisable to include only the fields essential to your analysis to optimise efficiency.
By leveraging this new feature, you can perform more nuanced and comprehensive analyses directly within Dynamics 365 Business Central, enhancing your decision-making processes and driving business growth.
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