Elevate Admin
Administration tools for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Overview
Elevate Admin gives Business Central administrators a single place to monitor an environment and run privileged maintenance tasks. The Elevate Admin Hub dashboard summarises the live state of the environment — email activity, job queue health, recent data edits, current user and tenant — and exposes the tools that administrators reach for most often.
Key benefits:
- A central Admin Hub dashboard that shows environment, tenant, user and platform information at a glance, alongside live email and job-queue tiles.
- A powerful Data Editor for viewing and modifying any table, with optional validation bypass, audit logging, presets, find-and-replace, sort, import / export, insert, bulk updates and bulk deletes.
- A Run Object action that launches any page, report, codeunit, XMLport or table by ID without needing menu entries.
- An Email Cleanup action that purges old sent and outbox email logs.
- An Update Company Information action that bulk-applies a name prefix, badge text, badge style and environment creation date across one or all companies.
- A Disable AAD Applications action that disables Microsoft Entra (AAD) application registrations — intended to be run right after a sandbox is refreshed from production.
- A password-protected allowed-users list so only authorised users can run sensitive actions.
- A built-in assisted setup guide for first-time configuration.
Feature guides
Detailed walkthroughs for each feature live on their own pages:
- Assisted Setup — first-time configuration and managing allowed users.
- Run Object — launch any page, report, codeunit, XMLport or table by ID.
- Update Company Information — apply prefixes, badges and the environment creation date.
- Email Cleanup — purge old sent and outbox email logs.
- Data Editor — review, edit, import, export and bulk-update any table.
- Disable AAD Applications — disable Microsoft Entra application registrations after a sandbox refresh.
Key Concepts
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Admin Hub | The central dashboard page (Elevate Admin). Shows environment status tiles and is the launch point for every Elevate Admin action. |
| Allowed User | A Business Central user who has been added to the Allowed Users list and is therefore permitted to run privileged actions such as the Data Editor or Update Company Information. |
| Admin Password | A password configured during assisted setup that gates editing of the Allowed Users list. Stored in isolated storage and resettable by SUPER users. |
| Data Editor | The table-editing tool. Loads any table into a working grid (or runs against the filter without loading) so administrators can review, edit, insert, import, export or delete records. |
| Preset | A saved Data Editor configuration (source table, filter, field selection, validation flags) identified by a code, so the same query can be loaded again in one click and shared between environments via JSON import / export. |
| Audit Log | The Data Editor Log — an append-only record of every change made through the Data Editor (Insert, Modify, Delete, Rename, Truncate, Delete All), enabled on the Data Editor Setup page. |
| Without Validation | A Data Editor option that skips standard table validation triggers when modifying or deleting records. Faster but bypasses business logic — use with caution. |
| Sandbox / Production | Elevate Admin distinguishes the two. Update Company Information and Disable AAD Applications are blocked in production. |
| Company Badge | The system indicator label and colour shown in the application header (for example SANDBOX) — configured via the Update Company Information action. |
| Environment Creation Date | The date the sandbox was created or last refreshed from production. Recorded once on Company Information and visible on the Admin Hub. |
How It Works
The Admin Hub is a live dashboard. When you open it, the extension automatically:
- Reads the current environment (Production vs Sandbox, environment name, application family, SaaS vs On-Premises, server time).
- Reads the current tenant state (current company, total companies, total users, environment creation date, company badge, your full name, your licence type).
- Reads version information (Elevate Admin version, BC platform version where the licence permits).
- Checks whether the assisted setup is complete, whether you are an allowed user and whether the Data Editor audit log is on, then enables or disables admin actions and updates the Setup Status, Your Access and Audit Log tiles accordingly.
- Counts emails sent today and pending in the outbox.
- Counts job queue log entries in the Error state and ready / in-process job queue entries.
- Lists the most recent changes recorded through the Data Editor in the Recent Data Edits factbox.
When you change a record through the Data Editor and the Enable Data Editor Log setting is on, the extension records the table, field, action type, old value and new value in the Data Editor Log — providing an audit trail of every administrative change.
Pages Reference
| Page | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Elevate Admin | Card | Main dashboard — environment, tenant, application and access tiles, plus actions for Data Editor, Run Object, Email Cleanup, Update Company Information, Disable AAD Applications, Setup and Allowed Users. |
| Elevate Admin Setup Guide | NavigatePage | Three-step assisted setup wizard that captures the admin password and the initial allowed users. |
| Allowed Users | Worksheet | Password-gated list of users authorised to run privileged Elevate Admin actions. |
| Allowed Users FactBox | ListPart | Embedded version of the allowed-users list used in the assisted setup wizard. |
| Reset Admin Password | StandardDialog | Dialog (SUPER required) that assigns a new admin password. |
| Job Errors FactBox | ListPart | Read-only list of job queue log entries in the Error state, embedded in the Admin Hub when errors exist. |
| Data Editor Setup | Card | System-wide Data Editor settings (audit log, parallel-load thread count). |
| Data Editor (dialog) | StandardDialog | Entry point for the Data Editor — source table, filter, field selection, validation and update / delete options. |
| Data Editor Grid | List | Working grid for Review and Edit mode — shows loaded records and exposes Insert / Update / Delete / Find & Replace / Sort / Import / Export actions. |
| Bulk Update | Card | Working page for Bulk Update mode — exposes Update Column / Copy Column To Column / Find & Replace against the filter without loading data. |
| Insert New Record | StandardDialog | Captures the primary-key values for a new record before insertion. |
| Edit Field Value | StandardDialog | Type-aware editor used when drilling down on a field in the Data Editor or Find and Replace. |
| Find and Replace | Worksheet | Find / replace dialog used by the Data Editor — lists every match and optionally replaces them. |
| Sort Key | List | Read-only viewer of the keys defined on the source table; used when sorting in the Data Editor. |
| Select Fields | List | Field picker used to choose which fields are loaded into the Data Editor or used by Find and Replace. |
| Import / Export | StandardDialog | Captures the file format (JSON / Excel), import-on-find behaviour, and experimental BLOB / Media JSON export options. |
| Data Editor Presets | Worksheet | Manages saved Data Editor configurations — create, view, import and export as JSON. |
| Data Editor Log | List | Audit trail of every change made through the Data Editor. |
| Data Editor Log (factbox) | ListPart | Embedded version of the Data Editor Log shown on the Admin Hub. |
| Run Data Editor From Filter | ConfirmationDialog | Helper page that lets you launch the Data Editor directly from a deep link with a pre-applied filter, without opening the dialog first. |
| Run Object (request page) | Report request page | Dialog that launches any page, report, codeunit, XMLport or table by ID, optionally in a chosen company. |
Fields Added to Standard Pages
| Page | Field | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Company Information | Environment Creation Date | Added to the System Indicator group. Visible only on sandbox environments. Locked to read-only once a date has been recorded for the first time. |
Tip: You can personalise the Company Information page to reposition this field if your organisation prefers it elsewhere.
Permissions
Elevate Admin ships two assignable permission sets.
Data Editor (Data Editor_ADM_EQL)
Grants access to the Data Editor and its supporting objects. Suitable for users who only need to read and edit table data.
| Object Type | Object | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Table data | DE Binary Value, DE Staged Record, Data Editor Log, Data Editor Setup, Data Editor Field, DE Find Replace State, Data Editor Preset | RIMD |
| Page | Elevate Admin, Data Editor Grid, Data Editor Log, Data Editor Setup, Data Editor Dialog, Edit Field Value, Find and Replace, DE Import Export, Insert New Record, Data Editor Sort Key, DE Preset List, Run DE From Filter, DE Field Picker | Execute |
| Codeunit | Data Editor Mgt., Data Operations, Read Data Batch, DE Caption Cache, Run Object Mgt. | Execute |
Run Object (Run Object_ADM_EQL)
Broader administrator permission set covering all Elevate Admin objects, including Data Editor, Email Cleanup, Update Company Info and the Admin Hub itself.
| Object Type | Object | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Table data | Elevate Allowed User, DE Binary Value, DE Staged Record, Data Editor Log, Data Editor Setup, Data Editor Field, DE Find Replace State, Data Editor Preset | RIMD |
| Page | Elevate Admin, Elevate Admin Guide, Data Editor Grid, Data Editor Log, Data Editor Setup, Data Editor Dialog, Edit Field Value, Find and Replace, DE Import Export, Insert New Record, Data Editor Sort Key, DE Log FactBox, DE Preset List, Run DE From Filter, DE Field Picker, Job Errors FactBox | Execute |
| Codeunit | Elevate Assisted Setup, Elevate Admin Hub Mgt., Data Editor Grid Mgt., Data Editor Mgt., DE Dialog Mgt., Data Operations, Find and Replace Mgt., Read Data Batch, DE Caption Cache, Admin Password Mgt., Run Object Mgt. | Execute |
| Report | Run Object, Email Cleanup, Update Company Info | Execute |
Important: The Disable AAD Applications report is intentionally not included in either permission set — assign it explicitly to administrators who must run it, and only on non-production environments.
FAQ
Q: Who can run the Data Editor and Update Company Information? A: Only users listed on the Allowed Users worksheet. The corresponding actions on the Admin Hub are disabled for everyone else.
Q: I have SUPER. Why are some actions still greyed out? A: Elevate Admin enforces its own allowed-users list on top of standard permissions. Add yourself to Manage Allowed Users (you will need the admin password) and the buttons will enable.
Q: I forgot the admin password. What now? A: Open Manage Allowed Users and choose Reset Admin Password, or run the same action from the assisted-setup guide. The reset requires SUPER permissions.
Q: Can I run Update Company Information or Disable AAD Applications in production? A: No. Both actions check the environment type and stop with an error if the environment is Production. They are intended for sandbox / test environments, typically right after a refresh from production.
Q: Where do I see what my colleagues changed through the Data Editor? A: Open the Data Editor Log page. The Admin Hub also embeds a Recent Data Edits factbox with the latest entries. Logging must be turned on in Data Editor Setup for entries to be recorded.
Q: What is the difference between Review and Edit and Bulk Update? A: Review and Edit loads the filtered records into a working grid where you change them one row at a time. Bulk Update runs an action (Update Column, Copy Column to Column, Find & Replace) against the filter without loading the records first — useful when there are too many records for the grid to be practical.
Q: What does Without Validation actually skip? A: Standard AL validation triggers — OnValidate, OnModify, OnDelete and so on. Use it when you need to bypass business logic (for example, fixing data that is preventing those triggers from running). Enable the Data Editor Log so the changes are still auditable.
Q: What file formats does the Data Editor import and export? A: JSON and Excel. JSON keeps full fidelity (including optional experimental Base64-encoded BLOB and Media fields) while Excel is convenient for editing in a spreadsheet. FlowFields and MediaSet fields are not processed.
Q: When I import, what happens if a record already exists? A: The Import On Find option on the Import / Export dialog controls this. Choose Error to stop the import, Modify to update the existing record, or Skip to leave it unchanged.
Q: What does the Job Queue Errors section on the Admin Hub show? A: Job queue log entries currently in the Error state. The list is hidden when there are no errors. Use it as a starting point to investigate failed background jobs.
Q: The Total Users and Your Licence tiles are missing — why? A: Those tiles depend on read access to the User table, which not every licence grants. The tiles are hidden automatically when the licence does not permit reading users.
Q: How do I share a Data Editor configuration between environments? A: Save the configuration as a preset on the Data Editor dialog, open Data Editor Presets, and use Export Json to download it. In the target environment, create a preset with the same code and use Import Json.
Troubleshooting
| Issue | Resolution |
|---|---|
| Admin Hub action buttons (Data Editor, Update Company Information, Disable AAD Applications) are disabled. | You are not an allowed user. Have an existing admin add you via Manage Allowed Users (admin password required). |
| "This action cannot be performed in a Production environment." appears when running Update Company Information or Disable AAD Applications. | Both actions are blocked in Production. Run them only on sandbox or test environments. |
| Setup Status tile says Setup not complete. | Click the tile, or choose Elevate Admin Setup from the Admin Hub, and complete the three-step assisted setup. |
| "You must enter the admin password to delete allowed users." when removing a row from Allowed Users. | Type the admin password into the field at the top of the page; once accepted the list becomes editable. |
| "You must have SUPER permissions to reset the admin password." | Only SUPER users can reset the admin password. Have a SUPER user run the action, or grant yourself SUPER temporarily. |
| Data Editor Log is empty even after editing data. | Open Data Editor Setup and set Enable Data Editor Log to Yes. Logging is off by default. |
| The Data Editor takes a long time to load a large table. | Open the Data Editor dialog and enable Read in Parallel, leave Exclude FlowField's on, and consider narrowing the Table Filter or Field Filter. The thread count for parallel reads is set on Data Editor Setup (2–8). |
| Email Cleanup reports nothing was deleted. | Verify that Delete Emails Older Than is set (e.g. 30D, 1M, 1Y) and that at least one of Delete Sent Emails or Delete Outbox Emails is enabled. |
| Update Company Information was run but the badge is still missing. | Sign out and back in — the system indicator is cached in the browser session. The post-run message also reminds you to refresh. |
| The Recent Data Edits factbox is empty. | The audit log is off, or no edits have been made. Enable Enable Data Editor Log in Data Editor Setup. |
| Running an object from Run Object in another company has no effect for a Codeunit or XMLport. | Codeunits and XMLports always run in the current company — the Company Name field is ignored for those object types. Switch company first if you need a different scope. |
| "Inserting the primary key for >15 values is not supported." when using Insert new record. | The Data Editor's insert dialog supports up to 15 primary-key fields. For tables with more, insert via the source-table page directly. |
| Job Queue Errors section is missing on the Admin Hub. | The section is hidden when there are no errors — this is the desired state. |