Overview
This post explains how Business Central Fabric mirroring works and which routes you can use today. It also covers the benefits for manufacturers, distributors and food businesses, plus what to plan before you start.
Key Takeaways
- Mirroring keeps a near-live copy of your Business Central data in OneLake, so your reports stop adding load to your ERP.
- Two routes work today: the free bc2adls extension and Navida’s BC2Fab workload. Both use Fabric’s Open Mirroring feature.
- Microsoft announced deeper Business Central integration with OneLake at FabCon Barcelona in September 2026. Microsoft has not yet published full details.
- You need a Fabric capacity, although a new zero-provisioned option (in preview) lowers the entry cost.
- Choose tables deliberately, plan for schema changes and set Fabric permissions before you go live.
- Mirrored tables arrive raw, so you still need a clean Power BI semantic model on top.
Where Business Central Reporting Starts to Struggle
Most Business Central customers reach the same point sooner or later. Your ERP holds your sales, stock, production, purchasing and finance data. However, getting that data out for serious reporting is slow and fiddly. Business Central Fabric mirroring offers a better route.
Power BI reports that read Business Central through APIs work well at first. Then data volumes climb and refreshes slow down. Each new report also adds load to your live system.
Combining Business Central with your webshop, warehouse system or CRM brings another problem. You usually end up with spreadsheets or a custom data warehouse that someone has to maintain.
Mirroring solves this. It keeps an analytics-ready copy of your Business Central data in Microsoft Fabric and updates it automatically. As a result, your reports run against Fabric rather than your ERP.
What Is Business Central Fabric Mirroring
Microsoft Fabric is Microsoft’s all-in-one analytics platform. At its centre sits OneLake, a single data lake for your whole organisation. Microsoft Learn compares OneLake to OneDrive, but for data.
Mirroring keeps a copy of a source system in OneLake without you building and scheduling data pipelines. Unlike other Dynamics 365 apps, Business Central doesn’t run on Dataverse. For that reason, it had no simple Microsoft-supported route into Fabric until recently. Partners filled the gap with tools built on Fabric’s Open Mirroring feature.
In plain terms, the process follows four steps:
- You choose the tables. Pick the Business Central tables you want in Fabric, including custom fields and extension tables.
- The tool copies your data into OneLake. It loads your selected tables once into a mirrored database in Fabric.
- Only changes flow across after that. The tool sends new, changed and deleted records incrementally, so Fabric stays close to live.
- Every Fabric tool reads the same copy. Power BI, notebooks, data warehouses and AI tools all use it, with no extra exports.
Which Mirroring Routes You Can Use Today
You have three options to consider, although only two are ready to use now.
- bc2adls. This free, open-source extension sits on GitHub. Microsoft originally developed it, and the community now maintains it. It includes an Open Mirroring mode.
- BC2Fab by Navida. This Fabric workload runs on Open Mirroring. Navida lists it on Microsoft Marketplace with a free trial.
- Microsoft’s own integration. At FabCon Barcelona in September 2026, Microsoft announced deeper integration between OneLake and Business Central. Microsoft has not yet confirmed release status or UK availability, so check before you plan around it.
For most UK SMEs, the choice comes down to support and ownership. bc2adls costs nothing to license, but your team or partner maintains it. By contrast, BC2Fab is a commercial product with vendor support behind it.
Why It Matters for Manufacturers, Distributors and Food Businesses
The benefit isn’t the technology itself. What matters is what you can see once your data sits in one place and stays current.
Your reports read from Fabric, so month end and busy trading days run without extra reporting load on Business Central. Stock, open orders and production output also stay close to current, rather than reflecting last night’s refresh.
Mirroring also gives you one view across systems. For example, you can combine Business Central with Shopify, your WMS, your CRM or shop floor data without a separate warehouse. Large tables stay usable too, so you can analyse years of item ledger and value entries without queries timing out.
Microsoft positions Fabric as the data foundation for Copilot and its agents. When your Business Central data sits cleanly in OneLake, you can ask questions of your business in plain English.
What This Looks Like in Practice
- A manufacturer tracks actual against planned output, scrap and capacity use across every work centre, with figures refreshed through the day.
- A distributor sees margin by customer, product and channel, with webshop and EDI orders alongside Business Central sales.
- A food and drink business follows lot tracking, shelf life and waste across sites. It spots slow-moving, short-dated stock before it becomes a write-off.
What You Need Before You Start
Mirroring does a lot, but it still needs planning. Check these six points before you commit.
- A Fabric capacity. Mirrored data lives in OneLake, so you need Microsoft Fabric in your tenant. In September 2026, Microsoft introduced on-demand billing and a zero-provisioned F0 capacity, both in preview. Together, they lower the barrier for smaller businesses.
- Deliberate table selection. Mirroring everything is tempting. However, it costs more and makes models harder to use. Start with the tables behind your key reports.
- A plan for schema changes. Business Central receives two major updates a year, as our 2026 release wave 2 preview shows. Extensions also add fields. Your mirror and reports must cope when the schema moves.
- Integration hygiene. Microsoft keeps retiring older connection methods, such as the removal of SOAP web services in version 29. Review your other integrations while you plan the mirror.
- Security and access. Fabric permissions control mirrored data, not Business Central permissions. Decide who sees what before go-live, especially for finance and payroll data.
- Business Central online. These routes target Business Central online. On-premises customers have different options. For many, a move to the cloud makes more sense long term. Our Migrate from NAV page explains how that move works.
Mirrored tables also arrive raw. You still need a clean Power BI semantic model on top to give users consistent answers.
What This Means for Your Business
Business Central Fabric mirroring moves your reporting load off your ERP and puts near-live figures in one place. For growing manufacturers, distributors and food businesses, that means faster answers at month end and fewer spreadsheets.
Mirroring is not the right step for everyone yet. If your built-in reports and a few Power BI dashboards still refresh quickly, you may not need Fabric today. When refreshes slow down or you need to combine systems, mirroring becomes worth planning.
Start small. Mirror the tables behind two or three key reports and prove the value before you expand.
Get Help Setting Up Business Central Fabric Mirroring
Tecvia is a Manchester-based Microsoft Solutions Partner for AI Business Solutions. We implement and support Business Central for UK manufacturers, distributors and food and beverage businesses. As a result, we know which Business Central tables drive the reports your team relies on.
We can help you:
- Decide whether you need Fabric yet, or whether Business Central reporting and Power BI cover your needs
- Choose the right mirroring route for your size, budget and setup
- Select and mirror the tables that matter, including your extensions
- Build a clean Power BI model on top, so your numbers match Business Central
- Prepare your data for Copilot and AI agents
Want to see your Business Central data in Fabric? Get in touch with Tecvia for a review of your current reporting. Together, we’ll find where mirroring makes the biggest difference.
You can also read more about our implementation approach. IT teams planning this kind of change may find our page for IT Directors and Managers useful too.
FAQs
Yes. You can use tools built on Fabric’s Open Mirroring feature today, such as bc2adls and BC2Fab. Microsoft also announced deeper Business Central integration with OneLake in September 2026.
Mirroring tools send changes incrementally, so your data stays close to live. Exact latency depends on the tool and the settings you choose. Check the sync interval before you promise real-time figures to your users.
Yes. Mirrored data lives in OneLake, which comes with Microsoft Fabric. The zero-provisioned F0 capacity, currently in preview, lets you start without an upfront capacity commitment.
It usually reduces load. Reports read from Fabric instead of querying Business Central directly. The mirroring tool still reads from Business Central. However, it only sends changed records after the first copy.
Not always. If Business Central’s built-in reports and a few Power BI dashboards meet your needs, Fabric may be more than you require today. Mirroring pays off when refreshes slow down or you need to combine several systems.
