Transform Your Quality Assurance Process with Dynamics 365 Business Central

Welcome and agenda

Hey, good afternoon and morning everyone. This is Mark, and today I’m going to take you through how to do quality inspections within Business Central, specifically through our Quality Inspector solution that’s part of our suite of solutions for Business Central. Alright, let’s get started.

Today we’ll do a quick PowerPoint on who we are, what Quality Inspector is, then a demo (probably a bit more than 45 minutes, depending on how excited I get). We’ll also cover licensing at the end.

If you have any questions as we go, feel free to put them in the question box in the GoToWebinar panel. I’ll do my best to answer them as we’re going through it, and if I don’t get to your question, we’ll answer it via email afterward.

About Insight Works and our apps

Really briefly about Insight Works: we’ve been around just over 10 years now, and we work primarily in manufacturing and distribution—so the kinds of places you’d want to do quality inspections.

We typically work through reseller partners. So if you have questions or you want to give this a try, get in touch with your partner and they’ll be able to help if they’re one of our resellers. If not, give us a shout and we’ll do our best to help you out.

We’ve got a lot of applications for Business Central (and these numbers change every day). We do a lot on the warehousing side, a lot on the manufacturing side, and a good subset of those applications are also free. We’ve got a bunch of free apps and add-ons for warehouse management as well.

Some of those free applications include Enhanced Planning Worksheet (great for distribution where the standard planning worksheet or requisition worksheet isn’t enough), Forecasting Worksheet for sales forecasting, and technical tools like cloud printing, data management, and generating barcodes.

Some of the more common ones people use are Graphical Scheduler (drag-and-drop scheduling for production orders by default, plus views for things like assembly orders, service scheduling, pick documents, and more). Quality Inspector integrates with Graphical Scheduler too—you can pop up a questionnaire when something is moved, and you can schedule quality inspections there as well.

Doc Extenders is drag-and-drop document management. You’ll also see it in Quality Inspector because it’s integrated wherever Business Central has document attachments. The big deal is you can drag and drop and store the file in SharePoint, create a nice hierarchy, and make it easy to find files without needing access to Business Central. Storing it in SharePoint also enables automation, revision control, and other document processes.

Ordership Express and WMS Express are about not paying for shipping or warehouse software if you don’t need it. Ordership Express handles domestic parcel shipments: labels, rates, cost back to the sales order, tracking number, and printing labels for carriers you choose. If you don’t have carrier accounts, you can use built-in accounts and get discounted rates as well.

WMS Express is barcoding for Business Central. You can get it running fast and start using core warehouse capabilities like receiving, picking/shipping, inventory counts, and bin movements. It’s free—you plug it in and away you go.

Safety Logbook can also tie into Quality Inspector. If you have an HSE event—spill, injury, certification, anything like that—you can pop up a related quality inspection to capture engineering change requests or other details tied to that event. Quality Inspector can capture additional detail about what’s happening in a specific process or record.

What Quality Inspector does

Quality Inspector does a bunch of stuff, and one of the key points is that it works with any table in Business Central. You can have a safety log kick off a quality inspection as an audit around why an event occurred, and you can put inspections against people, fixed assets, custom tables—whatever you want.

It’s very configurable and customizable. You can build forms for basic inspections, NCRs, CARs, ECRs—whatever you want—with calculations, lookup fields, and more. Typically, people use it for receiving, production, or warehouse movements.

There’s grading capability for environments like chemicals and foods, where different parameters can generate different grades (for example, moisture content driving grade A vs. grade B). Instead of only pass/fail tolerances, you can define grading tolerances so results automatically grade a product or lot number.

There’s also AQL sampling for environments where you need to sample instead of testing everything. If you receive 10,000 O-rings, you can test a sample, do lot skipping (first few lots pass, skip testing for the next set), and handle first article inspections like bubble charts.

Integration with Business Central workflows, Power Automate, and Teams provides a ton of flexibility, letting you tailor workflows to match internal processes.

Bottom line: Quality Inspector generates an inspection document, lets you enter test results, indicates pass/fail, and can automate what happens next based on the outcome.

Moving from paper to electronic inspections with AI

Everybody wants electronic inspections and to avoid paper, but moving from paper to electronic can be hard (and it applies to asset maintenance too). One option in Quality Inspector is taking paper documents—assuming they’re in a reasonable format—and importing them. We use Azure Document Intelligence and Copilot to grab existing quality forms and turn them into electronic versions by creating the fields you need within Quality Inspector.

If you want to manage change gradually, you can keep using paper for a while. People can handwrite results, scan the document, import it into Business Central, and it will OCR the handwritten text and fill in values automatically.

With Copilot, there’s also an option for hands-free data entry. If you’re measuring with calipers, you can talk to Business Central and have it fill in results as you read them off.

Initial setup in Business Central

Now let’s look at how this works. I’m going to fire up Business Central and go through some setup to show what’s required. If you install this from Marketplace (previously called AppSource), one of the setup wizard questions is whether you want to import sample data. If you do, you’ll see a setup similar to what I’m showing here.

Quality Inspector setup includes lots of configuration—how tests are recreated, UI behavior, COA contact info, and more. One thing to mention is the personal device interface. When you’re using a phone or scanner device, you can indicate what you want to show on a test. This also works with Teams integration: if you share to Teams—even with someone who doesn’t have a Business Central license—this setup controls what they see.

There’s also AI setup, and then the defaults for how tests get created automatically. For receiving, you can trigger a new incoming inspection when you post a warehouse receipt, when you post a purchase order, or even when it’s released. If your process is “don’t receive it until QC is done,” you can set it up that way. You can also override triggers at the test level.

Production has similar triggers, plus options like how often tests trigger (every five units, every 100 units, every hour, etc.). Inventory movement triggers are another approach: move inventory into a QC bin and automatically trigger an inspection based on a bin-to-bin movement.

Receiving, production, and inventory movement are the default scenarios, but you can trigger tests on almost anything in the system automatically or manually—safety logs, employee records, custom tables, and more.

Permissions, grading, AQL sampling, and tools

You can set granular permissions per Quality Inspector user. Standard Business Central permissions still apply for editing and viewing records, but within Quality Inspector you can define whether someone can reopen tests, delete tests, create retests, and so on.

Grading determines what you can do with a product. Many people use pass/fail/in progress, but you can also define grade A/B/C and set tolerances per grade. Based on the grade or state for a lot number, serial number, or package number, you can control whether you’re allowed to ship, receive, consume, and so on. For example, if it’s in progress you may block shipping; if it’s failed you block shipping; if it’s passed and signed off, it becomes available.

AQL (acceptable quality limits) sampling is supported. You can define sampling codes, lot sizes, inspection levels, and the system determines sample sizes as you receive or produce product. You can also do simpler sampling like “10%” without setting up formal AQL tables.

Tools are a way of tracking equipment needed for inspections—like a torque wrench—with calibration dates and views to filter for upcoming calibration. With Doc Extenders, you can drag and drop calibration records or documents and track them against the tool.

You can also require tool identification numbers during inspection, meaning the inspector records the serial number of the specific tool used. Tools can be generic, or linked to an item, fixed asset, or resource, depending on what you want to track.

Test templates: building the inspection form

Most setup can start with defaults and be tweaked over time. The key “guts” of the system are test templates. A test template is basically an entry form defining what your inspection data entry looks like. If you ran the setup wizard, most templates come in as sample data.

I’ve got a 5S inspection template here that I created differently—by importing an existing paper-based quality form. You’ll notice it’s a work center inspection, not inventory-based, which shows you can create inspections on anything, not just items.

Let’s look at a receiving template since that’s typical. On the template, you have code and description, and you can assign different number series for different types of inspections (receiving vs. production, etc.). Template type is typically a standard test, but for first article inspections you can use balloon/bubble marking and relate each inspection field to a drawing mark.

Templates include sampling options (fixed quantity, percent, or AQL). You can also add instructions for a particular inspection parameter, link to external documents, specify required tooling, and attach SOPs or supporting documents. Template attachments carry over when a test is created.

Fields, tolerances, and flexible pass/fail logic

The fields on a template are the individual inspections. For example, you can enforce an allowed entry range (like 10 to 200) while still having a pass criteria (like 15 to 30). Pass criteria uses standard Business Central filter formats, so you have flexibility beyond simple low/high limits.

You can set pass criteria like “between 15 and 30,” or “starts with U,” and use the same kinds of operators you’d use in Business Central filtering. If you use grades, you can define different tolerances per grade. You can also add a description for readability, including detailed notes on pass expectations.

Field types can include decimals, text, lookup values, and references to other Business Central tables. You can add a new field, choose an existing field from another template (for example, reuse a color field), detect fields from a picture by uploading a scanned form, or have AI suggest fields based on what you’re inspecting.

Sampling fields can also include sample summaries like averages, and you can evaluate samples individually to determine whether the overall test passes or fails. There’s a sample worksheet for capturing results across the sample size.

Dynamic tolerances with formulas

If you need very specific tolerances per item—without creating thousands of templates—you can use formulas. For example, you can reference the gross weight field from the item card and create a plus/minus tolerance (like ±5%). That means one template can be applied to many items while tolerances adjust dynamically based on item data.

You can pull values from item attributes, routings, customers, vendors, bills of material, and more. If you use routing quality measures, you can use min/max tolerances from those measures. You can use more complex formulas too—if statements, calculations, and even logic based on other inspection fields (for example, if package height is a certain value, then package length must be below another threshold).

Test generation rules: when inspections get created

To indicate what needs to be inspected using a template, you use test generation rules. These rules define when a test should be created based on filters like vendor, item, item card fields, attributes, and more.

For example, you can say: if we buy a particular item from a vendor, create an inspection automatically when the purchase order is received (or released). You can also filter on item card fields that aren’t copied to the purchase line—like a custom “QA required” flag—so the rule can still trigger based on item data.

You can filter on attributes too, like “vendor 10,000 and color is orange,” and trigger a test. You can also mix triggers for different scenarios, including outbound checklists and NCR-style tests that are always created manually.

What an inspection looks like in use

Once a test exists, entering values is straightforward. You can type values or use lookups, and the system evaluates pass/fail automatically. Some fields might be yes/no style, some lookup lists, and some calculated tolerances based on formulas.

At the top of the test, you’ll see tracking info like item number, lot number, serial number, package number, and so on. The control information section shows exactly where the test originated—for example, a sales order number and line. You can configure what fields appear there (like customer name) to support reporting such as failures by customer, vendor, or product.

Receiving example: automatic test creation

To show automatic test creation, I receive inventory and post the receipt. In this demo I ran into a standard Business Central message because the item requires item tracking, so I assign a lot number and then post the receipt.

For demos, I have it configured to pop up the test that gets created when I post a receipt. In real environments, that’s often turned off so the receiving person isn’t interrupted; QC staff would run the test later.

The created test includes the lot number, item number, and control information like vendor and purchase order, so you can report on failures by vendor or product. I enter values, the formula-based tolerance evaluates the measurement, and the test shows as passed.

Even if it’s passed, it can still be open until final sign-off. You can configure multi-step testing where one person enters results (maybe on a handheld or tablet) and a QC person signs off and finishes the test. Once it’s finished and passed, grading rules apply and the lot becomes available for put-away, sale, or other transactions. If it’s in progress or failed, you can block usage based on your rules.

From the purchase order, you can also view existing tests, manually create tests, and work with tests even if you don’t have automated rules set up for a specific item.

Importing a completed paper inspection into a test

Here’s a quick example using a 5S inspection created by importing a scanned document. I manually create a test for a work center, choose the work center, and now I have a quality inspection tied to that work center.

If someone already walked around with a paper form and filled it out, instead of retyping everything, I can drag and drop the scanned document into the test. The system analyzes it, picks out yes/no values from checkboxes, reads text, and brings the values in. If anything doesn’t match, I can adjust it before confirming.

That’s how you can keep a paper process for a while but still maintain electronic inspection records.

Disposition actions and automation

If a test fails, there are disposition options like creating return orders, transferring, internal put-aways (if it passes), and other actions. You can do these manually, but you can also automate dispositions.

There are two ways to automate: Business Central workflows and Power Automate. In Business Central workflows, there are Quality Inspector triggers such as test created, retest created, test finished, and so on. For example, when a test is finished and it’s a specific template (like a bicycle checklist) that failed, you can move inventory into a quarantine/holding location and bin (optionally without posting), block the serial number so no transactions can happen, and automatically create a follow-up quality inspection like an NCR or CAR to capture more detail about the failure.

Another workflow example is when a new test is created during receiving: you can automatically move received inventory into a QC location/bin and post it immediately, keeping it out of availability and sales until the inspection is finished, then move it back into inventory afterward using put-away or movements.

Power Automate examples: page extensions, Teams notifications, and data entry

Power Automate is more capable and works differently. For example, on a lot number information page, you wouldn’t normally have actions to create tests directly. Using Power Automate, you can add an action (through the Automate button) like “Create test on lot information.” After you set up the flow, you can run it from the page and it creates the test. With a few minutes of work, you can expose Quality Inspector capabilities on pages that don’t have them by default.

You can also share a test to Teams. Even if someone doesn’t have a Business Central license, they can see a preview of the inspection in Teams. The Quality Inspector setup controls what fields show up in that Teams view.

Power Automate can send notifications too: Teams messages, texts, emails, document creation, or starting an engineering change request process. You can take an event like “quality inspection test changed,” grab the inspection details, and post a Teams message with the key information.

One neat flow allows data entry directly in Teams. When a test is created, the flow posts it in a Teams channel and someone can enter results in Teams—drop-downs and all—save it, and finish it. When you refresh in Business Central, the entered data appears on the test record.

Mobile and personal device interface

Quality Inspector also works on tablets, phones, and handheld scanners. In Warehouse Insight, you can expose Quality Inspector and use it on a tablet interface for things like NCR entry and other inspections.

Licensing and comparison to Microsoft’s quality module

Business Central (Microsoft) is coming out with their own quality management module. That’s actually our module that’s been licensed to Microsoft, but it’s a stripped-down version, so you don’t get the full set of features. Once the final release is out, you’ll be able to see the differences. The Microsoft module can be a decent starting point, and you could customize it to add features like formulas if you want to build up from the free version.

Quality Inspector licensing is not user-based; it’s per company. It’s around $200 a month (pricing is listed on the website), with no user limit. It’s any number of facilities per company. We can do fixed-price implementation, training, and setup. If you want AI capabilities, you need your own Azure AI subscription, but otherwise it’s low cost, no user limits, and integrates with Shop Floor Insight, Warehouse Insight, phones, tablets, Power Automate, and Teams.

If you have additional questions, you can visit qcfordynamics.com or our main website and look for Quality Inspector in the apps area. You can also contact us through the website or talk to your partner.

Q&A highlights and closing

I wasn’t watching the questions box and there are a bunch of questions. I’ll spend a few minutes for anyone who wants to stick around and answer some, otherwise we’ll follow up by email.

On licensing: it’s per company, any number of facilities, and there’s no user limit. The recording will be available afterward.

There was a question about a mismatch between a description and the bike weight tolerance. That happened because the description was a default description that didn’t match the tolerances set in the formula. You can override descriptions to differ from tolerances, but it’s generally not recommended.

On AI accuracy: it’s pretty accurate and impressive, but it depends on your paper forms. Very complicated forms can be hit and miss, but standard tabular sheets work great.

On inspection queues: you can view what’s unassigned, open, assigned to you, finished, and filter by production tests, receiving tests, and more using views. There’s also reporting and analysis available, including charting like line charts. SPC/SQC reporting isn’t currently included, but it’s coming.

Alright, I think I’ll end there. There are a few questions we’ll answer by email. Thank you everybody for attending—hopefully that was useful, and we’ll talk to you again soon. Thanks everyone.