Dynamics 365 Support and Development: Who Keeps Your ERP Running, and Who Extends It?
This hub is for IT directors and technical leads who keep Business Central or Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management running after go-live and need it to do more than it does out of the box. You face two linked decisions: who supports the system day to day (your team, a managed services partner or a mix), and who builds and maintains the extensions and integrations it needs. Both depend on what an outage costs you, how much ERP work you have and which skills you hold in-house.
Key points
- For mid-size and large firms, ITIC's 2024 survey found an hour of downtime costs more than $300,000 in over 90% of cases, so know your own hourly figure before pricing support.
- Most SMEs land on a hybrid: an internal ERP owner who sets priorities, plus a partner for depth, after-hours cover, development and escalation.
- Configure first, buy a maintained app second, and build custom extensions (AL for Business Central, X++ for Finance and Operations) only for gaps unique to your business.
- Business Central has two major updates a year, in April and October, and Finance and Operations apps take at least two service updates a year; every extension needs testing against each one.
- A signed functional design document and an SLA with clear severity levels are the two documents that keep outside partners accountable.
What does ERP downtime really cost?
An ERP outage stops sales, shipping and billing at once. For mid-size and large firms, ITIC's 2024 survey found an hour of downtime costs more than $300,000 in over 90% of cases; SMEs lose less in dollars but feel it just as hard. Most incidents in a cloud ERP start in the customer's own layer: integrations, extensions, data and setup changes. A simple estimate adds revenue at risk, idle labor and recovery overtime for one hour of a full outage, and tells you what support is worth.
Upcoming Guide: what an hour of ERP downtime really costs
Should ERP support be in-house, managed or hybrid?
In-house support wins on process knowledge and speed for small daily changes. Managed support wins on skill breadth, after-hours coverage and continuity when people leave. Most SMEs choose a hybrid: an internal owner backed by a partner for depth, escalation and update testing. For projects and peaks, resource augmentation adds contract developers or consultants who work under your direction for a set period. The deciding factors are workload variability, coverage hours, key-person risk and who will test each update.
Upcoming Guide: in-house vs managed ERP support compared
How do you set SLAs, escalation and update testing?
A working SLA (service level agreement) defines severity by business impact, sets response and update targets for each level, and names who takes over at every tier up to Microsoft. It should also cover release management, because each Business Central and Finance and Operations update needs a sandbox test and a sign-off owner. Review response attainment, repeat incidents and update success every month, and act on the trends rather than single tickets.
Upcoming Guide: how to set ERP support SLAs and escalation paths
Should you build a custom extension or buy an app?
Build only when the gap reflects how your business competes and no maintained app fits without workarounds. Common needs such as barcode scanning, point of sale and approval routing are usually cheaper to buy from Microsoft AppSource, now part of Microsoft Marketplace, because the publisher carries the update burden. Custom extensions give you exact fit and full ownership, but you pay to retest them on every major release. Start with configuration, then shortlist apps, then build what is left.
Upcoming Guide: when to build vs buy a Dynamics 365 extension
Who should write the code: your team or a partner?
In-house developers win on business context and quick daily fixes. Outsourced teams win on specialist depth across AL, X++ and integration work, on flexible capacity, and on removing the risk of a single developer leaving. Many mid-sized companies split the work: an internal owner sets priorities and writes the functional design document, and an external team builds, reviews and tests the code. Whichever model you choose, insist on source control, code review and full ownership of the code.
Upcoming Guide: compare in-house and outsourced Dynamics development
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Keep Dynamics 365 stable with Hull's managed services
Hull provides monitoring, SLA-backed issue resolution and update testing for Business Central and Finance and Supply Chain Management, with developers for extensions and integrations when you need them.
Frequently asked questions
What response times does Hull offer for critical issues?
Hull's managed services agreements set a 15-to-30-minute initial response for Severity 1 issues, with immediate technical escalation. For comparison, Microsoft's own Dynamics 365 support plans target under one hour for Severity A. Confirm the exact targets in your contract.
How is emergency support handled outside business hours?
Hull runs 24/7 emergency support channels with on-call engineers for high-priority outages. Lower-severity requests are handled in business hours. Agree in your SLA which severities qualify for after-hours response, so your team knows when to call.
How are custom extensions built so they survive Microsoft's updates?
They use Microsoft's extension model instead of changing base code. In Business Central that means AL table extensions, page extensions and event subscribers. In Finance and Operations it means X++ class extensions, Chain of Command and event handlers, since overlayering is no longer supported. Extensions are still retested against each update in a sandbox before production; for Business Central, Microsoft offers preview environments before each major release. Hull's Outsource Development Services team builds and maintains extensions this way.
Who owns the code a partner writes for us?
With Hull, all intellectual property rights transfer fully to the client, backed by NDA agreements and strict security around environment data. Source code lives in a repository you can access, so you can switch developers or bring work in-house without starting over.
Can we add developers or consultants for a project without hiring?
Yes. Through Hull's Resource Augmentation service, staffing allocation is adjusted monthly to match workload, go-live windows or development sprints. Augmented staff work under your direction and priorities, alongside your own team. This differs from managed services, where the partner owns outcomes under an SLA.
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