How-ToAdministration

How to Manage Environments in Business Central (SaaS)

Create, copy, restore, and manage Business Central environments using the Admin Center, covering both production and sandbox environments.

Stein Sæstad
7 min read

In Business Central SaaS, environments are managed through the Business Central Admin Center, a separate portal outside the application itself. From there you can create new environments, copy data between them, restore from backup, and control who has access.

This guide covers the SaaS (cloud) setup. On-premises deployments use different tooling and are not covered here.

Step 1: Access the Business Central Admin Center

  1. Sign in to https://businesscentral.dynamics.com with a Global Administrator or Dynamics 365 Administrator account.
  2. In the top-right corner, select the settings icon and choose Admin Center.
  3. Alternatively, navigate directly to https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/admin.

The Admin Center lists all environments for your tenant with their type, version, and status.

Access to the Admin Center requires one of these Azure Entra ID roles:

  • Global Administrator
  • Dynamics 365 Administrator
  • Delegated Administrator (for partners managing customer tenants)

Step 2: Understand Environment Types

Business Central SaaS supports two environment types:

TypePurpose
ProductionLive business data. Updates are scheduled and may require advance notice.
SandboxTesting, development, and training. Can be reset or deleted without affecting production.

A standard Business Central subscription includes one production environment. Additional production environments and sandbox environments are licensed separately or included depending on your plan.

Step 3: Create a New Environment

  1. In the Admin Center, select Environments > New.
  2. Fill in:
    • Name, a short identifier (e.g. SANDBOX-TEST)
    • Type, Production or Sandbox
    • Country, determines the localization and default chart of accounts
    • Version, typically the latest available
  3. Select Create.

Environment creation takes a few minutes. The status column will show Preparing and then Active when ready.

Step 4: Copy an Environment

Copying is useful when you want to create a sandbox that mirrors your production data, for testing an upgrade, validating a configuration change, or training users on real data.

  1. In the Admin Center, select the environment you want to copy.
  2. Choose Copy.
  3. Enter a name for the new environment.
  4. Select the Target Type, copying production to a sandbox is the most common scenario.
  5. Select Create Copy.

The copy process creates a full snapshot of the source environment. Depending on database size, this can take 30–90 minutes.

Note: Copying production to a sandbox does not affect the production environment. Users can continue working in production while the copy runs.

Step 5: Restore from Backup

Microsoft automatically backs up Business Central production environments. Backups are retained for a rolling window (typically 30 days for production, 7 days for sandbox).

To restore from a backup:

  1. In the Admin Center, select the production environment.
  2. Choose Restore.
  3. Select the Backup Date and Time you want to restore to.
  4. Give the restored environment a new name, restores always create a new environment, they do not overwrite the existing one.
  5. Select Create.

After restoring, review the data and compare it to your current environment before making any decisions about switching over.

Step 6: Manage Environment Access

Environment access is controlled through Azure Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory). Users must exist in your Entra ID tenant and have a valid Business Central license before they can sign in to any environment.

Within Business Central itself, access is further controlled by permission sets and user groups.

From the Admin Center you can:

  1. Select an environment and choose Manage Access to view which users have been assigned to it.
  2. Use the Authorized Azure AD Apps section to register service-to-service integrations.

Adding or removing users from the environment access list does not override their license or permission set assignments inside Business Central.

Step 7: Update an Environment

Business Central releases major updates twice a year (wave 1 and wave 2) and minor updates monthly. By default, Microsoft schedules updates automatically, but you can set an update window.

  1. In the Admin Center, select the environment.
  2. Choose Update or navigate to the Updates tab.
  3. Set the Preferred Update Date and Preferred Update Time to a low-traffic window.
  4. Optionally, enable Notification on update to receive an email when the update completes.

Sandbox environments are updated on a faster cadence than production and may receive updates sooner. This makes them useful for previewing upcoming changes.

Step 8: Delete or Disable an Environment

To remove an environment you no longer need:

  1. In the Admin Center, select the environment.
  2. Choose Delete.
  3. Type the environment name to confirm.

Deletion is permanent and removes all data. For sandboxes you want to keep but not actively use, setting the status to Inactive is an alternative, the environment is preserved but users cannot sign in.

To install and manage extensions across your environments, see How to Manage Extensions and Apps in Business Central.