- Feature
- Check records for uncommitted changes
- Availability
- Generally available (October 2026)
- Industry focus
- Equipment and plant hire
Equipment rental companies run some of the most customized Business Central systems around. Rental contracts, off-hire dates, meter readings, damage charges and transfers between depots usually rely on extensions. A lot of that custom code reads, checks and saves records all day. Business Central 29.0 adds a small developer tool that makes this code smarter.
The industry challenge
In a typical plant hire business, custom code runs constantly:
- When a contract is extended, the system recalculates charges
- When equipment returns, it updates status, location and meter readings
- When a depot transfer is planned, it checks availability and moves assets
Much of this code follows a common pattern: load a record, maybe change it, then save it. Without an easy way to tell whether anything actually changed, developers often save the record anyway, or write extra code to compare old and new values.
Unnecessary saves have real costs. Each one is a database write, which can trigger more logic, update audit fields and change-log entries, and cause locking in busy periods. Users may also see misleading "last modified" information.
What Microsoft delivered in Business Central 29.0
Business Central 29.0 adds an IsDirty property to the AL Record API. According to Microsoft, it lets developers check whether a record instance has unsaved changes before they validate it, save it or ask the user what to do.
An MVP walk-through explains the behaviour more precisely. IsDirty returns true when the record in memory differs from the values loaded from the database. It's available from AL runtime 18.0.
Microsoft highlights two benefits: simpler logic for deciding when to save, and fewer unnecessary database operations.
Where the value shows up
| Business area | Impact for an equipment rental company |
|---|---|
| Performance | Fewer pointless writes during busy check-in and check-out periods |
| Data accuracy | "Last modified" information reflects real changes |
| Audit trail | Change logs show genuine updates, not empty saves |
| User experience | Prompts like "save changes?" appear only when something changed |
| Maintainability | Cleaner code without home-made comparison logic |
None of these benefits is dramatic alone. Together, they make heavily customized systems faster, cleaner and easier to support, which matters most in businesses that rely on many extensions.
A worked scenario
Consider a plant hire company with 15 depots and a large fleet of access equipment (an illustrative example). Every evening, a custom job processes returned equipment. For each asset, it loads the record, checks meter readings and status, and saves it.
Before 29.0, the job saved every asset record, even when nothing had changed. The change log filled with empty entries, and the job took longer than it needed to during the end-of-day rush.
With Business Central 29.0, the developer adds an IsDirty check before saving. Records are written only when the meter reading, status or location actually changed. The job runs faster, the change log shows real updates only, and depot managers can trust the "last modified" information on each asset.
Adoption considerations
- Find the hot spots. Focus first on batch jobs and high-frequency processes that save records in loops.
- Plan the runtime update. IsDirty needs runtime 18.0 or later, so include it in your 29.0 extension upgrade.
- Don't skip required logic. Some code must run even when values didn't change, so review each case carefully.
- Retire custom comparison code. Replace home-made "has it changed?" checks with IsDirty where it fits.
- Measure the result. Compare job durations and change-log volume before and after.
The bottom line
Equipment rental businesses depend on custom code to keep their fleet, contracts and depots in sync. IsDirty in Business Central 29.0 is a simple developer tool that helps that code do less unnecessary work. The result is faster processing, a cleaner audit trail and data that better reflects what really happened.
If your rental operation relies on custom Business Central extensions, it's worth asking your developer or adviser where IsDirty could simplify your busiest processes.
Sources: Microsoft roadmap 573360 · Dynamics 365 Lab: IsDirty on the Record API