Business Central BC28: Show Record Creator and Modifier Avatars in List Pages

The roadmap entry (ID 573364) marks the feature as Launched. It lists general availability for October 2026, on the Web platform, for the Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) cloud. Microsoft's older documentation gives an earlier date, though, and that matters to anyone planning training or a rollout.

What the feature does​

Microsoft's release-plan page says this feature introduces visual avatars in Business Central list pages to indicate which user or agent created or last modified a record. The idea is to save you the click into a record when all you need to know is who's responsible for it.

Here's what is documented:

• Three kinds of identity: an avatar can stand for a named Business Central user, a system user or an AI agent, following the product's existing identity model.
• Hover for details: Users can hover over the avatar to see a tooltip with the full display name and record update timestamp (if available).
• No new data: Microsoft says the feature surfaces existing Created By and Modified By fields more intuitively while respecting Business Central's data privacy and permissions model.
• Who benefits: Microsoft names accountants, order processors, warehouse staff, service teams, and administrators. These are roles that often have to check who owns items, documents or configuration entries.

The agent part is why this sits under Copilot and agents. Microsoft says it also helps organizations adopting AI‑generated records understand when an automated agent has contributed.

In short: this is a visibility change, not a new audit system. It shows attribution data Business Central already keeps, in a place you can scan quickly.

How to find it​

Microsoft Learn's page on list views places the feature among the list layouts. Under List > Created/Modified by, Business Central displays avatars in the By column indicating who created or last modified each record—a user, AI agent, or system. Hover over an avatar to view the full names and timestamps. The same documentation says you change list layouts with the layout button in the upper-right corner of the page.

To try it:

1. Open a list page in Business Central online, such as items or sales orders.
2. Select the layout button in the upper-right corner.
3. Under List, choose Created/Modified by. Labels may differ by language.
4. Look at the By column and hover over an avatar to see the name and, where Business Central has it, the timestamp.

If you see a timestamp, you've confirmed it working. Don't expect it every time, though: Microsoft says the timestamp shows only if it's available. Community write-ups describe the feature as appearing on supported list pages. Microsoft hasn't published a list of which pages are supported, so if a list doesn't offer the layout, that may be by design rather than a bug.

In short: it's a layout you choose from the layout button, not a column you add through personalization.

The date question: April or October?​

This is where admins should read carefully. Microsoft's 2026 release wave 1 plan lists the feature as Show avatars for record creators and modifiers in lists | Users, automatically | - | Apr 1, 2026. That means it's turned on automatically for users, with no public preview listed. Microsoft's "What's New" page for update 28.0 also lists the feature with a status of General availability.

The AI at Work roadmap entry gives October 2026 instead. Microsoft hasn't explained the difference. One likely factor is the change in where Microsoft publishes this information. The Learn release-plan page now says release plans will stop being published from September 2026, and new Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Dataverse features will go on the AI at Work roadmap. Migrated entries can pick up new dates along the way. The roadmap also warns that its dates are estimates and that all information is subject to change.

Community coverage backs up the earlier timeline. Business Central MVP Yun Zhu wrote about the feature in early March 2026, when the public preview for Dynamics 365 Business Central 2026 release wave 1 (BC28) is available. Microsoft's own plan doesn't list a public-preview date.

In short: Microsoft's documentation ties this to version 28 (April 2026), while the new roadmap says October 2026. Check your own tenant before you announce anything.

Why it's useful​

Business Central has stored creator and modifier data for years, but it wasn't easy to read. Yun Zhu points out that the SystemCreatedBy/SystemModifiedBy fields are system fields. System fields are fields that are automatically included in every table object by the platform. Those fields hold a GUID, the user's security ID, not a name. Zhu notes that if you just add the field to a page, this will only show the GUID (User Security Id). Developers have been writing extra code to turn those IDs into names that people can read.

The avatar layout removes that step for the common case of "who did this?" Saurav Dhyani, writing about the version 28 release, describes the old routine: Identifying who created or modified a record often required opening the card page, checking system fields, or relying on change logs.

Developers get a related improvement in the next release. According to Yun Zhu, Business Central 2026 release wave 2 (BC29) added four new system flow fields on Normal and Temporary tables: SystemCreatedByUserName (Text[50]), SystemCreatedByFullName (Text[80]), SystemModifiedByUserName (Text[50]), and SystemModifiedByFullName (Text[80]). Taken together, the avatars cover users looking at lists, and the new fields cover reports, extensions and integrations.

Limits to keep in mind​

The feature is useful, but it has clear limits:

• It isn't an audit trail. It shows the creator and the last modifier. It doesn't show earlier changes, which fields changed, or why. For that you still need the change log or proper auditing.
• It depends on the stored data. Alex Bourne at azurecurve notes that the main limitation is that it relies on the Created By and Modified By fields being populated, which may not always be the case for legacy or migrated data. Expect gaps on records brought in from older systems.
• "Last modified by" isn't the whole story. If a scheduled job, integration or agent edited a record after a person did, the avatar shows that last edit. You might see a system or agent identity even though a person did most of the work earlier.
• Some things aren't documented. Microsoft doesn't say whether admins can configure the layout or turn it off, how avatars look when a user has no profile picture, or exactly what permissions control who can see them.

Agents need a name tag​

The agent angle is the most important part. As Business Central adds built-in agents, finance and operations teams want to know which records software touched. Bourne calls agent avatars a timely complement to the growing use of Payables and Sales Order agents.

When an agent drafts a sales order or processes a vendor invoice, seeing an agent avatar next to the record gives reviewers a fast way to know what to check. It won't replace approval workflows or segregation of duties, but it makes it harder for agent activity to go unnoticed. That matters if you're explaining a strange ledger entry to an auditor.

Bottom line​

• What: creator and modifier avatars (user, system or AI agent) on Business Central list pages, using the List > Created/Modified by layout.
• Where: Business Central online, web client, worldwide multi-tenant.
• When: the roadmap says October 2026. Microsoft's release-plan documentation says April 1, 2026, turned on automatically with version 28.
• What to do: try the layout on lists your team uses heavily. Tell users that "last modified by" is a quick pointer, not an audit record. Check migrated data for empty fields.

It's a small change that makes data Business Central already stores easy to read, and with agents now creating and editing records, that's more useful than it sounds.