Business Central (formerly known as Navision or Microsoft Dynamics NAV) item attributes let you define and assign characteristics to items—such as colour, size, and style—to improve how you classify and find products.
A common question—especially if you’re used to item numbering in Navision—is: “Why use attributes at all when we could encode key details into the item number and filter from there?”
In Microsoft Dynamics NAV, item numbering can work for a very small catalogue—if you only need a few filter criteria and your coding scheme stays within the 20-character item number limit.
In Microsoft Business Central, attributes go further: they reduce coding errors, allow you to add many characteristics without redesigning item numbers, and make filtering and reporting far more reliable across the product catalogue.
There are different types of product characteristics:
Microsoft Business Central supports several attribute value types, depending on the data you need to store.
- Option — choose from predefined values (e.g., product colour, material type).
- Text — free-form notes (e.g., a short description or a remark where values may vary).
- Integer — a whole number value (e.g., height, width, year of manufacture).
- Decimal — a numeric value with decimals (e.g., thickness, density, melting temperature).
- Date — a relevant date value (e.g., production start or end date).
Product characteristics can also have a structure tree, for example:
With a consistent attribute structure, you can quickly filter the right item from the full catalogue. For example, you could filter for “Volvo cars, fuel type = diesel, year of manufacture = 2021” and immediately respond to a customer—while also checking available stock and any other relevant characteristics.
In Business Central, all specified product attributes can be viewed on both the product card and the product list:
Note:
If you add images to the product card, the Image Analyzer add-on can find the attributes in the image and suggest them, leaving you to decide whether to assign them to the product card.
The tool is owned by Microsoft. The tool is freely distributed on App-Source and ready for business use.
One more practical use of attributes is an integration with e-shop.
On the website, goods are classified according to the categories (attributes) in order to structure information and facilitate the selection of the desired goods. For this, attributes can be managed in the D365 Business Central, and the structured goods‘s data can then be transferred to e-shops.
Here‘s an example of e-shop product selection:
The conclusion would go as follows: the product attributes allow to enter more information as well as filter out the products of the desired configuration, thus helping the integration with the e-shop.
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