Business Central 2026 release wave 2 (BC29) lets administrators turn SIFT indexes on or off directly in the app — no developer needed.
Here’s what it means for governance and performance.
What’s New
With Business Central 2026 release wave 2 (BC29), administrators can now turn SIFT (SumIndexField Technology) indexes on or off directly inside the Business Central application — no AL code changes or developer involvement required.
This is a governance and administration enhancement that puts database performance controls where they belong: in the hands of the people managing the environment.
Why SIFT Indexes Matter
SIFT indexes power fast sum calculations on numeric fields (Decimal, Integer, BigInteger, and Duration) across large tables. They’re what make FlowFields and totals feel instant, even on tables with thousands or millions of records. But that speed comes at a cost: every SIFT index adds overhead to inserts, updates, and deletes, and consumes extra storage.
Previously, enabling or disabling a SIFT index required a developer to change the MaintainSIFTIndex property in AL code and redeploy. That’s no longer necessary.
How It Works
Administrators can manage SIFT indexes two ways:
- Index Management page – Search for Index Management via Tell Me, then select the table to manage.
- Table Information page (Old way)– Open Table Information, locate the target table, and select its Table No.
Inside the index details, a new Index Type field now shows whether a row is a regular database index or a SIFT structure. From there, admins can choose:
- Turn index off – disables the SIFT index for the current company
- Turn index off (all companies) – disables it tenant-wide
Disabling takes effect immediately. Re-enabling an index is queued and applied during the next scheduled overnight maintenance window. This also works for custom SIFT fields added through table extensions.
Why This Matters for Governance
This feature shifts database performance tuning from a development task to an administrative one, giving IT and system administrators:
- Direct control over storage costs and write performance without waiting on a developer
- Faster response to performance issues — no code deployment cycle
- Better visibility into which indexes exist and how they’re used, via the Index Type field
- Safer experimentation, since disabling and re-enabling is fully reversible
Key Takeaway
Turning SIFT indexes on or off used to be a developer-only, code-first task. In BC29, it’s a few clicks in the application — a small change that gives administrators real, direct control over database performance and governance.
Also, worth checking …Creating Indexes across base and extension tables
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