Quick Answer
Business Central Express Agent and Dynamics 365 Business Central Copilot work together to automate workflows in Dynamics 365 Business Central using natural language. They turn plain-English requests into repeatable processes, enabling AI workflow automation in Business Central for finance, sales, and operations. This makes it much easier to handle everything from order handling to approvals and everyday Business Central task automation.
If you’re like most Business Central users, you didn’t buy an ERP so your team could babysit data entry and click through the same screens all day. You bought it to help run your business; but until recently, a lot of that still meant manual work, re-keyed orders, and sticky notes hanging on your monitor to remind you to not forget to fill out that field.
With Business Central Express Agent and Dynamics 365 Business Central Copilot, that’s starting to change in a very real way.
Microsoft is baking practical AI workflow automation in Business Central directly into the tools you and your team already use, so routine tasks increasingly become things the system takes care of on its own, rather than something your team has to remember to do every time.
In this post, we’ll look at how organizations use these capabilities to automate workflows in Dynamics 365 Business Central without turning every enhancement into a development project, including things like:
- Automating workflows in Dynamics 365 Business Central without writing code
- Turning natural language prompts into reusable workflow templates
- Reducing errors and delays in Business Central order automation and approvals
What does this new wave of Business Central task automation looks like in finance, sales, and operations? How do the latest Business Central Copilot features plug into your day-to-day work and become core features rather than fun novelties?
FROM FIXED RULES TO FLEXIBLE, AI-DRIVEN WORKFLOWS
The first big shift is moving from rigid “if X then Y” configurations to something more conversational. Business Central Express Agent lets you describe the outcome you want, then it turns that into a workflow that runs reliably every time with minimal inputs. Instead of hunting through setup pages, you can say, “When a sales order is fully shipped, email the customer their tracking link and notify the account manager,” and use that as the blueprint for automation. And because Express Agent is native, you’re still automating workflows in Dynamics 365 Business Central rather than bolting on a separate tool. It hooks into standard tables and processes that your team is readily familiar with, so that you can orchestrate Business Central order automation, approvals, notifications, and data updates without writing AL code or maintaining separate scripts.
On top of that, Dynamics 365 Business Central Copilot adds an intelligence layer. Copilot can suggest next-best steps, draft messages, or help you refine a process in plain English.
This is where AI in Dynamics 365 Business Central transforms itself from purely theoretical benefit into something more like an assistant that helps you finish your setup – and then gets out of the way.
A typical pattern looks like this:
- Use Copilot to describe what you want the process to do in natural language
- Let Express Agent translate that into a structured workflow
- Add conditions and branching for more advanced Business Central task automation scenarios
- Plug in notifications, approvals, and Business Central order automation steps where they belong
- Iterate as you go, using the various potent Business Central Copilot features to refine and optimize over time
Ideally, Business Central Copilot workflow automation should feel less like building a flowchart and more like collaborating with a colleague who knows their stuff. Over time, you’ll slowly build a library of reusable patterns, whether simple reminders or multi-step order-to-cash processes, that your team can adapt as your business grows, you onboard new clients, and your needs evolve.
AUTOMATING “THE LITTLE THINGS” IN FINANCE
In finance, the biggest wins often come from cleaning up the small, repetitive tasks that are necessary rather than busywork – but which still chew up the clock like it is.
With Business Central Express Agent, you can automate workflows in Dynamics 365 Business Central around things like overdue balances, missing dimensions, or approvals that stall at month-end. For example, you might configure a workflow that watches for posted invoices with a certain customer group and payment term. If they’re still open after 30 days, Express Agent can trigger Business Central task automation to send a reminder, flag the account for review, and notify the collections team without needing your dev team to take time out of their busy schedules to build a Power Automate flow or custom extension.
AI in Dynamics 365 Business Central starts to feel like a really tangible boost in moments like these. Copilot can help you phrase the rule, explain what data it needs, and suggest variations, so you tighten up the process over time instead of trying to design it perfectly on day one.
SMARTER SALES AND ORDER HANDLING
On the sales side, Business Central Copilot workflow automation and Business Central order automation are a perfect match.
You can define patterns like “web orders over a certain value need manager approval” or “rush orders should alert the warehouse immediately,” then let the vast suite of Business Central Copilot features guide you through configuring notifications, status changes, and follow-up tasks that keep orders moving.
BRINGING OPERATIONS, IT, BUSINESS, AND MORE ONTO THE SAME PAGE
When operations, IT, and business users are all working from the same playbook, things just work better. Instead of IT hand-coding every tweak, process owners can describe what they need and let AI workflow automation in Business Central handle the heavy lifting. IT still governs the guardrails that make sure everything is, like security, environments, naming standards, but they’re not stuck building everything you need by hand.
For IT, that’s a big shift. You’re no longer asked to custom-build every little reminder or status change. Instead, you design standards and let teams safely automate workflows in Dynamics 365 Business Central inside those boundaries.
Everyone else, meanwhile, ends up with a catalog of Business Central task automation patterns that reflects how your organization actually works. The automation knows how you work, not how some template you found online works for the person who wrote it. It knows how you chase down missing PO numbers, how you route exceptions, how you treat VIP customers, and more.
Over time, those patterns get smarter as you refine them and take advantage of newer Business Central Copilot features that can suggest additional steps, surface anomalies, or highlight bottlenecks you didn’t see at first.
A partner like IES at this stage becomes invaluable. We’ve seen what works (and what can break) when you automate workflows in Dynamics 365 Business Central across multiple verticals, like finance, sales, supply chain, and service. Our team can help you design a roadmap for Business Central Express Agent and Dynamics 365 Business Central Copilot, configure the first wave of automations, and train your users to extend them safely.
If you’re ready to move beyond manual busywork and build a more automated ERP, IES is here to help you get there.
