Growing businesses running Dynamics 365 Business Central are at a crossroads with their data, and Microsoft Fabric is about to change what’s possible. Leadership wants faster answers, consolidated views across entities, and a credible path to AI. Meanwhile, the finance and IT teams who deliver those answers already have full plates.
The data needed for better decisions almost always exists. The hard part is getting it out of the ERP in a usable, timely form. That is exactly the problem Business Central mirroring in Microsoft Fabric is designed to solve.
By Tim Lally, President, KTL Solutions | Last updated: October 29, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Microsoft announced native data mirroring from Dynamics 365 Business Central into Microsoft Fabric at FabCon Europe in September 2026.
- Mirroring replicates the Business Central companies and tables you choose into OneLake within minutes of posting, with no custom pipelines.
- Public preview is listed for November 2026, with general availability targeted for April 2027.
- It adds no Business Central license cost and does not consume your API limits.
- KTL Solutions helps growing businesses prepare now with a phased approach: stabilize, govern, integrate, and enable AI.
Business Central Microsoft Fabric Mirroring: Quick Facts
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Feature | Native data mirroring from Business Central to Microsoft Fabric |
| Announced | FabCon Europe, Barcelona (September 2026) |
| Release | Business Central 2026 release wave 2 |
| Public preview | November 2026 |
| General availability | Targeted for April 2027 |
| Destination | OneLake, in Delta Parquet format |
| Data latency | Typically within a few minutes of posting |
| Business Central cost | None (you pay for Fabric capacity) |
| API limits used | None; uses Microsoft-managed replication |
| Supported tables | Standard and extension (including ISV) tables |
| Minimum production capacity | Fabric F2 (pilot on a free trial) |
What Is Business Central Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric?
Business Central mirroring in Microsoft Fabric is a native Microsoft feature that continuously replicates selected Dynamics 365 Business Central companies and tables into OneLake, Microsoft Fabric’s unified data lake, within minutes of each posting. It replaces custom API exports and data pipelines, adds no Business Central license cost, and makes ERP data immediately available for SQL, Power BI, and AI.
For years, Dynamics BC customers have filled the reporting gap with workarounds. Teams built reports on API pulls that competed with day-to-day transactions. Nightly exports landed in spreadsheets. Open-source connectors fell to whoever understood them best.
Traditional ERP reporting was never designed to feed a modern analytics platform. As a result, every new question tended to become a small integration project.
That is changing. At FabCon Europe in Barcelona, Microsoft announced native data mirroring from Business Central into Microsoft Fabric as part of Business Central 2026 release wave 2. Instead of building and babysitting pipelines, you simply choose the companies and tables you care about. Mirroring then replicates that data into OneLake, Fabric’s unified data lake, within minutes of each posting.
In this post, we’ll cover the data challenges growing businesses face, how Microsoft Fabric mirroring addresses each one, practical scenarios, and a phased plan for getting ready.
3 ERP Data Challenges Growing Businesses Face
The three biggest ERP data challenges growing businesses face are fragile hand-built pipelines, multi-company reporting stuck in spreadsheets, and an AI strategy with no reliable data foundation. When we talk with finance leaders and IT directors, these surface again and again.
1. Fragile, Hand-Built Data Pipelines
Most Business Central reporting outside the ERP depends on custom extractions: OData feeds, API calls, scheduled exports, or community tools someone configured years ago. Each one works until a field changes, someone adds an extension, or the person who built it moves on. Then reports quietly break, and nobody notices until a number looks wrong in a board meeting.
These pipelines also carry a performance cost. API-based extraction runs against the same environment your users post transactions in, and it counts against service limits. As data volumes grow, reporting starts to compete with the business it should support.
2. Multi-Company Reporting That Lives in Spreadsheets
Many mid-sized organizations run several legal entities in Business Central. Consolidated views of revenue, margin, inventory, or cash usually mean exporting from each company and stitching the results together in Excel.
The process is slow, hard to audit, and different every time a new analyst does it. Consequently, when leadership asks for a cross-entity view, the answer takes days rather than minutes.
3. An AI Strategy Without a Data Foundation
Executives are under pressure to show progress with AI, but AI is only as useful as the data underneath it. When ERP data sits in scattered exports with partial connections to CRM, eCommerce, or operational systems, there is no trustworthy foundation. Forecasting, anomaly detection, and Copilot experiences have no single source to build on.
In short, traditional ERP reporting answers yesterday’s question about one system. It was never designed to be the governed, organization-wide data layer that modern analytics and AI require.
How Microsoft Fabric Mirroring Solves These Business Central Challenges
Business Central mirroring solves these challenges by replacing custom pipelines with automatic replication, consolidating multi-company data in one place, and creating a governed foundation for analytics and AI. Powered by Microsoft Fabric and OneLake, it is a Microsoft-supported way to make ERP data available without the usual plumbing.
1. Automation Without Heavy Overhead
Setup runs through an assisted setup guide inside Business Central:
- Install the Microsoft Fabric Mirroring extension.
- Register an app in Microsoft Entra ID.
- Create a mirrored database in a Fabric workspace.
- Connect Business Central to that database.
- Select the companies and tables to replicate.
From there, the service keeps OneLake current on its own. An initial historical load comes first, followed by incremental updates that typically arrive within a few minutes.
Importantly, mirroring uses a Microsoft-managed replication process instead of the public Business Central APIs. It does not draw down your API limits, and early testers report no noticeable effect on production performance. It also covers both standard and extension tables, so customizations and ISV add-ons come along without separate integration work. The data lands in OneLake in Delta Parquet format, ready to query with SQL or use directly in Power BI.
- Replace scheduled API exports with continuous replication managed from a single setup page.
- Bring extension and add-on tables into analytics without writing new connectors.
- Assign dedicated permission sets so only designated administrators can change the Fabric connection.
Example scenario: A professional services firm has relied on a community export tool for years. It tests native mirroring in a sandbox and compares results side by side. Once the numbers reconcile, it retires the custom pipeline. Fewer moving parts means lower maintenance cost and fewer surprises at month end.
2. Faster, Consolidated Decision-Making
Mirroring works across companies, which makes multi-entity reporting a configuration choice rather than a spreadsheet exercise. In addition, Microsoft is rebuilding its nine standard Business Central Power BI apps to read from Fabric, with both single-company and multi-company versions that can filter by company.
For finance leaders, that means a consolidated view of performance that refreshes throughout the day. For operations leaders, it means inventory, sales, and purchasing data from every entity in one place.
- A distributor with three regional entities mirrors item ledger entries and sales lines from each. Every morning, a single Power BI report compares fill rates and margin by region.
- A CFO reviews a consolidated G/L, customer ledger, and vendor ledger view during the close instead of waiting for each controller’s export.
- A manufacturer tracks production output and scrap across plants that run as separate Business Central companies, spotting a quality problem before it reaches customers.
When everyone works from the same current numbers, decisions move faster. Meetings shift from debating whose spreadsheet is right to deciding what to do next.
3. A Governed Foundation for Analytics and AI
Once Business Central data sits in OneLake, you can combine it with other sources in the same Microsoft Fabric environment. Microsoft also announced expanded OneLake connectivity, including Salesforce Data Cloud integration and Google BigQuery mirroring. Data engineering, data science, and Power BI all work against the same copy of the data.
That shared foundation is what makes AI practical. Forecasting models, anomaly detection, and natural-language reporting all depend on clean, current, connected data. Mirroring delivers the ERP portion of that foundation without a custom project.
- A wholesaler blends mirrored sales history with eCommerce orders to build a demand forecast that informs purchasing in Business Central.
- A finance team flags unusual vendor payment patterns by running anomaly detection against mirrored vendor ledger entries.
- A sales leader joins Business Central invoicing data with CRM pipeline data to compare forecasted revenue against what actually shipped and billed.
Ultimately, a governed data layer turns AI from a pilot that never scales into a capability that improves decisions across the business.
KTL Solutions’ Phased Approach to Business Central Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric
The best way to prepare for Business Central mirroring is a four-phase approach: ERP stabilization, data governance, system integration, and AI enablement. At KTL Solutions, we guide growing businesses through each phase so they are ready to move quickly as the feature reaches general availability.
Phase 1: ERP Stabilization
First, we make sure your Business Central environment is on the 2026 release wave 2 update path and that your core data is clean. Mirroring replicates every field in the tables you select, so resolving duplicate customers, inconsistent dimensions, and outdated item records pays off in every downstream report.
Phase 2: Data Governance
Next, we decide which companies and tables to mirror, who owns each dataset, and who can access it in Fabric. Most organizations begin with a focused set covering the general ledger, receivables, payables, inventory movements, and order documents, then expand from there.
Phase 3: System Integration
Then we stand up a Fabric workspace in the same Microsoft Entra tenant as Business Central and size the capacity. Mirroring adds no charge on the Business Central side, so the budget question is Fabric capacity.
We typically pilot on a Fabric trial capacity. The new zero-provisioned F0 option announced at FabCon may also fit once Microsoft supports it for mirroring. From there, we move to F2, the smallest fixed capacity suited to production mirroring. Where you rely on custom exports or community connectors, we run both in parallel in a sandbox, reconcile the results, and plan a clean cutover.
Phase 4: AI Enablement
Finally, we build on the mirrored data with consolidated Power BI reporting, blended datasets from CRM and eCommerce, and targeted AI scenarios such as forecasting and anomaly detection. With a reliable foundation in place, these capabilities deliver measurable value rather than one-off demos.
Business Central and Microsoft Fabric Mirroring FAQs
Microsoft’s roadmap lists the public preview for November 2026, with general availability targeted for April 2027 as part of Business Central 2026 release wave 2.
No. Mirroring adds no charge on the Business Central side. Your cost is the Microsoft Fabric capacity you run it on, which can start with a free Fabric trial capacity.
Most organizations can pilot on a free Fabric trial capacity, then move to F2, the smallest fixed capacity suited to production mirroring. Microsoft’s new zero-provisioned F0 option may also fit once it is supported for mirroring. The Fabric workspace must be in the same Microsoft Entra tenant as Business Central.
An administrator uses the assisted setup guide in Business Central to install the Microsoft Fabric Mirroring extension, register an app in Microsoft Entra ID, create a mirrored database in a Fabric workspace, connect Business Central to it, and select the companies and tables to replicate. Business Central then performs an initial load followed by incremental updates within minutes.
Mirroring uses a Microsoft-managed replication process rather than the public Business Central APIs, so it does not consume your API limits. Early testers report no noticeable effect on production performance.
Yes. Mirroring covers both standard Business Central tables and tables added by extensions, so customizations and ISV add-ons come along without separate integration work.
Yes. Mirroring works across companies, and Microsoft is rebuilding its nine standard Business Central Power BI apps to read from Fabric with multi-company versions that can filter by company.
Learn More About Fabric Mirroring from Microsoft
Business Central mirroring runs on Microsoft Fabric’s open mirroring capability. Microsoft has also published prerelease Business Central setup articles, which it will update as the preview rolls out. These official resources are a good starting point for IT and data teams:
- Data Mirroring to Microsoft Fabric from Business Central: Microsoft’s Business Central documentation covering requirements, setup, table selection, and monitoring.
- What is Mirroring in Fabric?: An overview of how mirroring keeps a continuously updated, analytics-ready copy of operational data in OneLake.
- Tutorial: Configure Microsoft Fabric open mirrored databases: A walkthrough of creating the same type of item Business Central connects to during setup.
- Microsoft Fabric trial capacity: How to start a free Fabric trial, the simplest way to explore mirroring before committing to paid capacity.
- Microsoft roadmap: Business Central data mirroring to Microsoft Fabric: The official roadmap entry (ID 574126), which tracks preview and general availability dates.
Conclusion: Get Your Business Central Data Ready for Microsoft Fabric
Growing businesses need faster, consolidated insight and a credible data foundation for AI. They can’t afford to keep maintaining fragile pipelines to get there, and traditional ERP reporting was never designed to carry that load.
Business Central mirroring in Microsoft Fabric gives organizations a Microsoft-supported path from transactional data to organization-wide analytics, with no added Business Central cost and far less maintenance. With the public preview arriving this fall, now is the right time to clean up your data, plan your scope, and pilot the integration.
KTL Solutions can help you do all three. After all, better decisions start with data you can actually reach.
Contact KTL Solutions to start planning your Microsoft Fabric and Business Central data strategy.
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About the Author
Tim Lally is President of KTL Solutions, a Microsoft partner that helps growing businesses implement and optimize Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft Fabric, and Power BI. He works with finance and IT leaders to turn ERP data into reliable reporting and practical AI.