Get Ahead of Performance Issues in Business Central: The Simple Way to Start Monitoring
Most Business Central performance problems don’t announce themselves. They creep in quietly. Pages take a bit longer to load. Posting feels sluggish. Background jobs fail now and then. Users adapt, complain occasionally, and work around it — until one day the system is suddenly “too slow” and everyone wants answers.
The problem is simple: most companies aren’t monitoring Business Central at all. Without data, you’re guessing. And guessing is how small performance issues turn into lost productivity, delayed month-ends, and frustrated teams.
The good news is you don’t need a complex monitoring setup to get control. You only need visibility into four key metrics that reveal whether Business Central is healthy, drifting, or already in trouble.
The Four Essential Metrics Your Team Should Be Watching
1. Page Load Times – How fast your users can work
If your Sales Orders, Item Cards, Journals or Warehouse pages take too long to open, users lose time on every action. A few seconds here and there multiply into lost hours across teams.
A healthy system opens key pages in under 2 seconds.
Anything above 3 seconds needs investigating.
Page load visibility tells you instantly:
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Which pages frustrate users
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Whether customisations are causing delays
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Whether performance is drifting over time
2. Posting Duration – When finance and warehouse grind to a halt
Posting is where BC does the heavy lifting: invoices, journals, shipments, picks, receipts. If posting takes too long, queues form. Month-end runs late. Warehouse teams slow down. Invoices get delayed.
Good posting times are generally under 5 seconds.
Anything over 8 seconds is a red flag.
Without monitoring this, you won’t know whether slowness is:
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A one-off spike
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A structural issue in custom AL code
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A workload problem (e.g., everyone posting at 9am)
Related Article: Top 10 Performance Issues
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3. Error Rate (%) – The quickest way to spot hidden problems
Errors fall into two buckets:
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Functional — caused by setup or user mistakes
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Technical — caused by extensions, integrations, or system issues
If your error rate creeps above 1%, it’s often the first sign that something deeper is wrong.
Tracking error trends lets you quickly answer:
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Is an integration failing repeatedly?
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Are posting errors increasing?
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Are users stuck on specific processes?
Most companies only discover errors when users report them. By then, it’s too late.
4. Job Queue Reliability – The silent killer
Background jobs run everything from integrations to batch posting to automated reporting. When they fail, there’s usually no warning—you only notice later when data is missing or someone asks why orders aren’t syncing.
A healthy system has a job success rate of 98% or higher.
Anything below that risks:
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Late or missing integrations
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Orders not syncing
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Background posting failures
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Stale inventory or finance data
If you’re not tracking these jobs, you are flying blind.
Why These Four Metrics Matter More Than Anything Else
Because together, they give you a complete picture of Business Central’s operational health:
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User experience → Page Load Times
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Throughput & business continuity → Posting Speed
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System stability → Error Rate
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Automation reliability → Job Success
Monitor these four, and you’ll know:
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How well BC is performing today
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Whether performance is trending up or down
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Where your team is being slowed down
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What underlying issues are forming before they escalate
This is your Business Central “vital signs” panel—clear, direct, actionable.
Take advantage of our 15% discount on your Business Central license renewal. Enter your details at the end of this blog for a personalised quote.
The Easiest Way to Start: A Fixed-Cost Performance Baseline Dashboard
To help companies get started without faff, we offer a fixed-cost Baseline BC Performance Dashboard built using Application Insights + Power BI.
What you get
A clean, simple dashboard showing:
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Page load times (with your slowest pages highlighted)
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Posting performance across key processes
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Error rates over time (functional vs technical)
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Job queue success rates
Plus:
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Trend data for the past 30 days
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Red/Amber/Green indicators
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Clear explanations for non-technical managers
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Drill-downs for your technical team
What we handle
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Setting up the telemetry connection
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Configuring Application Insights
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Deploying the Power BI dashboard
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Tweaking thresholds for your business
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Giving your team a short walkthrough
What you pay
A fixed, predictable fee of £1,500 (+VAT) —no surprises.
Designed so even small businesses can afford proper performance visibility.
Related Article: Want to set up monitoring yourself? Read this.
Why Start Now?
Because performance issues rarely appear out of nowhere. They build gradually.
A baseline dashboard gives you data, not guesswork.
It lets you spot inefficiencies early, budget for fixes, and avoid system slowdowns at critical times such as month-end.
If your teams rely on Business Central every day, this is one of the simplest, highest-value upgrades you can make.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should we monitor Business Central performance?
Without monitoring, issues like slow pages, posting delays, failed jobs, and rising error rates go unnoticed until users complain. Tracking a few key metrics gives early warning so you can fix problems before productivity drops.
What are the most important performance metrics to track?
The four essential indicators are page load times, posting duration, error rate, and job queue success. Together, they reveal system health, user experience, and process reliability.
Do we need technical expertise to start monitoring?
No. With a simple baseline dashboard, anyone can understand the key metrics using clear red/amber/green signals. Your technical team only needs to step in when deeper investigation is needed.
How long does it take to set up the baseline dashboard?
Most customers are fully set up within a couple of days – once we have reviewed your current BC setup. Once installed, the dashboard updates automatically and provides ongoing insight with little maintenance overhead.
What does the fixed-cost setup include?
The fixed-cost offer includes configuring telemetry, connecting Business Central to Application Insights, deploying the dashboard in Power BI, and tuning thresholds for your business. A walkthrough the setup is included.
Can the dashboard be expanded later?
Yes. You can add deeper technical analysis, alerts, trend reporting, or environment-wide monitoring at any time. The baseline dashboard is designed as the starting point for a full performance management setup.
Want to See Your Own Performance Baseline?
If you’d like help setting up your performance monitoring or want the fixed-cost dashboard installed in your environment, just get in touch.
Enter your details below or call us on +44 (0) 1782 976577