James Pearson
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j-pearson.bsky.social
James Pearson
@j-pearson.bsky.social
Product Manager @ tes365.com
I post marginally interesting things about BC, Power Platform, Azure, DevOps, Git and related tech
jpearson.blog
Embed Visual Studio Code in Business Central.

Could be a great user experience when you've got a large block of text that you need to display and/or edit.

#msdyn365bc
Embed Visual Studio Code in Business Central
From time to time you might want to display large block of text in Business Central. Maybe the request / response from some integration. Maybe the contents of a text file that has been imported. I've written before about using the WebPageViewer add-in to format text nicely for a user to read. That's cool, but we can do better than that. We can embed Visual Studio Code's Monaco editor in a control add-in for a lovely text viewing and editing experience.
jpearson.blog
September 5, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Hi @evernote.bsky.social, love Evernote, but I don't want Ctrl+Shift+K to launch the search. Can I change that?
August 21, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Using Azure DevOps Wiki as a WYSIWYG Editor for Your Static Site

Using Azure DevOps Wiki as a WYSIWYG Editor for Your Static Site #msdyn365bc #azure #docfx
Using Azure DevOps Wiki as a WYSIWYG Editor for Your Static Site
Using Azure DevOps Wiki as a WYSIWYG Editor for Your Static Site #msdyn365bc #azure #docfx
jpearson.blog
August 13, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by James Pearson
Reposted by James Pearson
Truly extraordinary Google AI results. Amazing.
July 30, 2025 at 3:07 AM
Calling Business Central Directly from a Managed Identity #msdyn365bc

Authenticate directly from your Azure resources into Business Central without an app registration or client secret.
Calling Business Central Directly from a Managed Identity
TL;DR You can assign Business Central (and other) API permissions to managed identities. Use the Microsoft Graph PowerShell module and then create an Entra Application record in Business Central for the client id of the managed identity (without the need for a separate app registration). Intro I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best thing about blogging now and then is that when people find a better way to do the things you're blogging about they sometimes tell you.
jpearson.blog
July 18, 2025 at 11:56 AM
I can't tell if it is foreach or Copilot (or maybe the combination), but everytime I use foreach VS Code goes mad. All sorts of false compilation errors highlighted in the editor but actually compiles when I build.

Foreach does feels a little like a forgotten child of the AL language. #bcalhelp
July 16, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Calling Business Central APIs without a client secret

How to setup an Azure function to call a Business Central API without the hassle of having to manage and maintain client secrets.

#msdyn365bc
Calling Business Central APIs Without a Client Secret
Intro We're doing more with Azure resources. I expect that you are too. Especially Static Web Apps and Azure Functions that we need to be able to call back into the Business Central and Dataverse APIs. To authenticate with Business Central we would typically: create an app registration in Azure add Business Central APIs permissions to the app registration create an Entra Application in Business Central and assign permission sets to it…
jpearson.blog
July 4, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Can we auth web service calls with a managed identity? Telemetry says "successfully authenticated in Microsoft Entra ID but the user does not have any entitlements in Business Central". Also found @demiliani.bsky.social blog which suggests this is not possible. Is that right? #bcalhelp #msdyn365bc
July 2, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Anyone willing to share data transformation rules that they use to reduce BC telemetry costs? Trimming out authorization calls (RT0004 and RT0003) seems like an obvious place to start? #bcalhelp #msdyn365bc
April 28, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Outlook is genuinely baffling. Downloaded an appointment ics file. Outlook (new) opens and...does nothing with it. I select "Outlook" from the open with menu (called "Outlook (classic)" in start menu). Prompts me to set up my account. Evidently the two outlooks don't even share account setup.
April 14, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Problems logging into @evernote.bsky.social web app? The Continue button on the login page remains disabled after I enter my username... 🤔
March 19, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Genuine question. Does anyone actually use AI tools to "change the tone" of their writing? Just noticed that it has popped up in Evernote now as well. Who needs that?
February 6, 2025 at 9:06 PM
@tobiasfenster.io, @arthurvdv.bsky.social - great webinar recently on artifacts (www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i1h...) 👍 I'm trying it out in our pipelines, but the version returned by the proxy doesn't exist in the MSApps nuget feed. Am I doing something wrong? Perhaps a question for Microsoft?
20250127 - Grabbing BC artifacts in your pipelines via an Azure Function and how all of this works
YouTube video by Areopa webinars
www.youtube.com
February 6, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Didn't see this coming, but one of the more satisfying uses of Copilot in VS Code is to suggest completions to my apologetic comments to others devs/future self.
February 4, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by James Pearson
There's a special circle in hell for those who comment their code with 'magic happens here.' Magic is for Hogwarts, not for code review.
January 7, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by James Pearson
Here’s another “Let me bookmark this” post

What’s executed earlier, OnBeforeValidate event or OnBeforeValidate trigger?

I’m never 100% certain so I’ve visualized a few sequences for myself. Maybe it will help you too!

tine.staric.net/blog/2025/tr...
Trigger Sequence in AL
Here’s a small “let me bookmark this” post.
tine.staric.net
January 7, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Does anyone seriously need or want AI features built into Notepad? Surely this is a solution looking for a problem.

Maybe next time I ask someone to copy an error message and callstack I'll get them to change it to an inspirational tone first.
December 17, 2024 at 10:07 AM
Is it possible to have people login to BC with user credentials from a different Azure tenant? e.g. User is user@tenant1.com but BC lives in tenant2 #bcalhelp #msdyn365bc

thanks
December 13, 2024 at 9:25 AM
Reposted by James Pearson
New pre-release is out 15.0.1251540 try it out for the next #msdyn365bc major. Resources++, continue, JSon helper methods for easy data access, Yaml support, hovering shows locked, peek references and much more...
an elf on the shelf is sitting on a couch next to a sign that says " you opened your gifts before christmas "
ALT: an elf on the shelf is sitting on a couch next to a sign that says " you opened your gifts before christmas "
media.tenor.com
December 10, 2024 at 10:12 PM
Use Alpaca containers? Want to use AL Test Runner with them? Take a look here 👀 github.com/jimmymcp/al-.... Would be great to have some more people testing. You need the pre-release of AL Test Runner and the latest version of bccontainerhelper installed. #msdyn365bc
Issue when running AL Test Runner against a COMSO Alpaca container · Issue #152 · jimmymcp/al-test-runner
When executing tests using f.e. Run All Tests against a COSMO Alpaca container I am getting the error Error: No such object: fps-alpaca.westeurope.cloudapp.azure.com Get-CompanyInBCContainer Teleme...
github.com
December 9, 2024 at 9:34 AM