Steve Endow's Business Central Podcast

I Need Coffee - Episode 200 - Weekly BC Review! (February 13, 2026)
1. Vibe Coding / Agentic Engineering Mania  
   - Steve stayed up past 10 p.m. multiple nights vibe coding with Claude + GitHub Copilot  
   - Customer (inspired by previous stream) published a full custom API in one evening  
   - New internal app idea → started and largely completed in ~8 hours total (vs estimated 100–120 hours manually)  
   - GitHub Copilot suggested complete redesign of Sales Hold app → **80 % complexity reduction**, better UX, aligns with standard BC workflow  
   - Franklin (junior dev, <1 year experience) fully refactored the app and is now vibe-coding automated approval-workflow pre-configuration on install  

2. Claude Code (new tool) & PRD Explosion 
   - Installed Claude Code (Opus 4.6) – called “more developer-friendly, empathetic, no noise”  
   - Generated 71-page PRD (started at 28 pages) with ultra-detailed acceptance criteria, API call validation, error handling for every HTTP response, etc.  
   - Agentic debugging innovation: added “Run Diagnostics” button to setup page so the AI can query BC data itself and self-diagnose (solved account classification bug in 3 rounds)  

3. Diagramming & Tools Quest  
   - Exploring Draw.io MCP server for fully agentic business-process / wireframe diagrams  
   - Still evaluating PlantUML vs Mermaid vs Draw.io for “agentic diagramming” inside PRDs/SOWs  

4. Business & Operations Highlights 
   - iSolutions training completed (payments + tokenization); internal implementation started  
   - Partner Dashboard live in production; registration dashboard next  
   - Mysterious production environment deletion in demo tenant → treated as breach, full lockdown performed (passwords, 2FA, app registrations reset)  
   - Fixed **13-year-old Dynamics GP 1099 bug** (partial payments/credit memos)  
   - MEM Aged AR report extension broken when using “Print to Excel” (bypasses report extensions)  
   - DevOps project creation automated via vibe-coded script (was 28-page manual nightmare)  

5. Team Excellence Updates (Berlin, El Salvador)  
   - Joselyn & David studying for MB-800  
   - David → Simple Object Designer wizard  
   - Ronald → leading Partner Dashboard + iSolutions + Continia  
   - Franklin → vibe-coding Sales Hold + auto-approval setup  
   - Fatima → PMP + vibe-coding full Greenfield BC project plan (stakeholders, risks, steering committee, etc.)  
   - First El Salvador Dynamics User Group meetup confirmed: **Thursday, February 19, 2026** (in Spanish)  

6. Personal / Weekend Notes  
   - Packing 3 suitcases as “mule” for El Salvador trip (soccer balls, backpacks, luggage rack, mattress pad)  
   - Received free Apple Watch Ultra 2 via insurance claim  
   - Achieved Avianca Elite Gold status for 2026  
   - Air-fryer ribeye + veggies dinner story  

7. Upcoming Events 
   - Directions NA – Orlando, April 27–29, 2026 → Steve + Brad presenting “Vibe Coding the Entire Partner Process” (phone call → PRD → wireframes → full app)  
   - Dynamics Con – Las Vegas, May 12–15, 2026  
   - Directions Asia (HCMC) – May 13–15, 2026 (Tanya attending)  
   - DynamicsMinds – Slovenia, May 25–27, 2026  
   - Summit NA roadshows starting Feb 19 (Tampa)  
   - Dynamics Con regionals: Denver (April 9), etc.

I Need Coffee - Episode 199 - Weekly BC Review! (february 6, 2026)
1. Vibe 1.0 Conference Recap 
   - Small, intimate (~100 people), highly interactive & collaborative  
   - Three presentations delivered:  
     a. Managed Services / subscription pricing transition (with David Ler) → very interactive session  
     b. “Avoiding a Million-Dollar Lawsuit” – project management & risk (with Tanya) → real lawsuit survivor in audience  
     c. Building nearshore consulting/support practice in El Salvador from scratch (with Tanya) → strong positive feedback, even from non-BC attendees  
   - Praised the format; next event (Vibe 2.0) planned for September 2026  
   - Recap video available on YouTube channel (youtube.com/steveendo)

2. What Else Does Steve Do? (Weekend/Geek Activities)  
   - Saturday mornings → researches business diagrams (swimlanes, BPMN, DFD, ERD, UML…) with Perplexity  
   - Sunday mornings → reads legal/IT contract presentations → strongly warns against “generally accepted industry standards” clause in IT/MSAs (landmine for expert witnesses)  
   - Deep-dive into Notepad++ supply-chain compromise (state-sponsored → Lotus Blossom / Chrysalis backdoor via Hostinger hosting breach, ~June–Dec 2025)  
   - Read full Rapid7 report on the attack

3. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Notes 
   - Notepad++ update mechanism hijacked (man-in-the-middle on HTTP step) → targeted backdoor delivery (not mass malware)  
   - Azure Front Door frustration → recent BC customer hit “service behind this page isn’t responding” error (triggered “Love Shack” joke)  
   - Surprise Azure Functions cost explosion → new “Flex Consumption” plan (much more expensive than old Consumption plan) deployed by mistake via Visual Studio change (~$75/month per idle function)

4. Business Central / Partner Operations Updates 
   - Implementing iSolutions internally (electronic payment link in invoices → portal supports CC/EFT/check → auto-reconciles in BC)  
   - RDLC check printing bug found/fixed (margin pushed MICR line up ½ inch)  
   - Sales order hold / release logic in development  
   - PTE vs AppSource app decision framework: ≥2 customers → prefer AppSource for easier updates & potential subscription revenue  
   - Dynamics Con BC track: heavy technical/admin submissions this year (~60–70 sessions total, targeting 22+ technical ones); Vegas May 12–15, 2026  
   - Added third-party API / SaaS risk warnings to MSA templates

5. AI & Development Experiments 
   - Using AI agents to review/refactor code → dramatically simplified Sales Hold app (50%+ complexity reduction) by suggesting alignment with standard BC workflow  
   - Created full Product Requirements Document (PRD) + medium-fidelity SVG wireframes in ~1.5 hours using Claude 3.5 / Cursor  
   - Exploring “agentic diagramming”: AI generates PlantUML or Mermaid syntax for process flows / ERDs / swimlanes (leaning toward PlantUML for hard pinning & reliability)

6. Team & Nearshore Highlights  
   - Joselyn: financial reports (trial balance, BS, IS), cat fostering/vet care  
   - David: Simple Object Designer expert, RDLC fix, MB-800 prep  
   - Ronald: Partner Dashboard rollout, iSolutions deployment  
   - Franklin: Sales Hold refactor using AI suggestions  
   - Fatima: PMP / SDLC study, organizing first El Salvador Dynamics UG meetup (Feb 12, 2026)

I Need Coffee - Episode 198 - Weekly BC Review! (january 23, 2026)
1. Weekend & Personal Life 
   - Oil change + mobile office setup at dealership (good remote work test via SonicWall & tethering).  
   - Weekend mostly a blur due to cold; little memory of non-work activities.

2. Weekly Work & Projects
   - Preparing Vibe conference presentations (co-presenting with Tanya & David Ler).  
   - Progress on Partner Dashboard app, Teams Planner, maintenance/service agreement pricing.  
   - New AppSource app now live in production → surprises (obscure permissions, out-of-sequence user actions).

3. AI / "Vibe Coding" Experiences* 
   - Discussion of agentic/AI development tools & efficiency (podcast appearance on "Window on Technology" with Jeremy Vyska).  
   - "Vibe coding" experiments → fast prototyping but bad code ("Michael Jackson" style), bugs in PTEs, performance profiler revealing excessive events.  
   - Critique of viral "live stream to $1M revenue" vibe-coding project (crypto coin pivot turned him off).

4. Time Zone Challenges in Business Central  
   - Job queues, tenant time zones, DST issues → built custom time zone management with nightly refresh.  
   - Surprising bug: one Mexican time zone causes 1-hour offset in license validation timestamp.

5. Edge Cases & Production Surprises  
   - Repeated theme: bizarre, unforeseeable sequences of events and bugs appearing only in production/real usage.  
   - Philosophy shift → "bugs are actively finding us".

6. DynamicsCon Session Review  
   - Reviewing hundreds of submissions → humorous observations on self-awarded titles ("world-renowned", "expert", "wizard").

7. Cybersecurity & OSINT  
   - Mind-blowing OSINT webinar (Anti-Cyphon / Michelle Khan): doxing via voter records, insurance databases, hotel Wi-Fi room enumeration, GitHub email exposure, etc.  
   - Ransomware hitting a partner → reminder of real risk.  
   - Recent attacks: Fortinet firewalls/portal bypasses, Cloudflare WAF zero-day.

8. Security / AI Critique 
   - Zach Corman interview breakdown of MCP servers (Anthropic-related) → horribly insecure single-endpoint design, prompt injection risks.

9. Integrations & Pain Points
   - Nightmare Salesforce → BC integration (customized, messy data model, years-long project).  
   - Completed painful but successful Bill.com + Multi-Entity Management (MEM) integration.

10. Team & El Salvador Updates 
    - ERP Center of Excellence in Berlin, El Salvador: team studying (MB-800), building Partner Dashboard, payment portal, custom reports.  
    - Fatima passed PMP exam; planning local Dynamics user group.

11. Upcoming Events & Personal 
    - Partner & Vibe conference (next week, Texas).  
    - Directions NA (late April, Orlando?), DynamicsCon (May, Las Vegas), etc.  
    - Personal: prom escort practice with daughter, standing desk experiment, at-home AI-generated workouts, key person insurance research.

12. Closing Notes  
    - Shout-out to Mauricio (podcast producer).  
    - Light-hearted sign-off: cats, coffee, Claudebot/AI lobster project.

I Need Coffee - Episode 197 - Weekly BC Review! (january 16, 2026)
1. Tech setup struggles & camera troubleshooting 
   - Live camera aperture/shutter/exposure hacks during stream  
   - $1,000 Sony camera repair (gear grinding failure) → new backup body ordered

2. Personal weekend activities  
   - Detailed engine bay cleaning (inspired by ChrisFix YouTube videos)  
   - AGM battery testing, sulfation concerns, OptiMate 7 charger upgrade  
   - Emphasis on small, satisfying analog/mechanical projects

3. Vibe coding & agentic AI development 
   - Voice coding on watch/phone fantasy  
   - Prompt Requests > Pull Requests philosophy  
   - Junior developer blown away by live vibe-coding demo (wireframe → AL page in ~1 min)  
   - Limits of AI in complex Business Central AL scenarios (PTE event cascade problem)

4. Business Central / Dynamics 365 pain points 
   - Teams Planner UX disaster (tedious, fighty interface)  
   - Business Central V27 1099s configuration = “absolute user experience disaster”  
   - Reverse voided check + bank rec + credit memo mess (no easy undo button)  
   - 1,440+ events firing in customer PTE sandbox (debug nightmare)

5. Microsoft 365 Copilot / Excel agent mode  
   - New-ish agent capabilities in Excel (data cleanup, fill blanks, etc.)  
   - Limited without full M365 Copilot license → creates new workbook instead  
   - Potential use-case: cleaning messy customer migration data files

6. Cybersecurity highlights
   - Anti-Phishing / Black Hills DNS C2 threat hunting masterclass (highly recommended)  
   - Fortinet FortiSIEM RCE actively exploited (CVE)  
   - Browser extension takeover attack vector (Paste Ready → malware in 3 days)  
   - SignToolEx – using expired/stolen certs without clock tricks  
   - MCP servers = massive security risk (“The S in MCP stands for security”)

7. Nearshore / outsourcing discussion  
   - Building in-house nearshore practice in El Salvador  
   - Researching outsourced nearshore providers (Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia)  
   - Strong opinion: outsourcing fails without new customer-side skills

8. Team / company updates (ERP Center of Excellence – El Salvador)**  
   - Partner Dashboard app ready for deployment  
   - Vibe-coded PRs flowing fast from junior devs  
   - MB-800 exam prep (Joselyn, David)  
   - Fatima taking PMP exam next week

9. Upcoming events & pricing 
   - Vibe Conference (South Padre Island, < 2 weeks away) – 3 sessions  
   - Pricing updates 2026 (AppSource, consulting, support plans)  
   - Session idea: modern SaaS support / managed services for cloud BC

10. Cultural / philosophical notes
    - Difficulty explaining current AI reality to “normies”  
    - Growing preference for human-made, analog, low-budget, hands-on content  
    - Vibe-coding rabbit hole → 15–20 unfinished side projects instead of 2–3

I Need Coffee - Episode 196 - Weekly BC Review! (january 9, 2026)
1. Clawdbot / CLAWD explosion  
   - Viral open-source personal AI assistant (“space lobster”, pun on Claude → CLAWD)  
   - Exploded in days → thousands in Discord, huge community excitement  
   - Runs locally (even on old ThinkCentre tiny PC or Raspberry Pi), connects to WhatsApp/Telegram/Discord/email/calendar/Amazon/etc.  
   - Described as “what we wish Siri was” — real action-taking agent  
   - Some chaos when updating (flooded WhatsApp with thousands of messages)

2. Vibe coding / AI-agentic development experiences 
   - Heavy use of AI (Claude, Copilot, Cursor) to generate AL code, PTEs, tests, docs  
   - Very fast prototyping → but extremely weird, unintuitive bugs (counting log lines instead of invoices, conflating headers/lines/logs)  
   - Testing vibe-coded apps is a completely different skill — no rational assumptions possible  
   - Huge productivity gain once you accept looping “fix your bugs” cycles  
   - Copilot sometimes breaks known-good obscure AL patterns (while Claude/Cursor handle them fine)

3. Business Central development & AppSource reality 
   - Struggles with registration/licensing system (self-built after bad experiences with third-party providers) → geo-redundancy, heartbeats, failover  
   - Mysterious production-only issues debugged with in-client Performance Profiler → traced to Microsoft Subscription Billing app blocking field changes  
   - Very close to finishing major AppSource app release (classic “halfway to the finish line” feeling)  
   - Adding visible version info directly on pages for easier support

4. Challenges with rapid AI iteration & bleeding-edge risks 
   - Claudebot project architecture changed multiple times in days → update broke things badly  
   - Accidental high-volume spam to contacts during bug  
   - Senior developer quits team when shown agentic coding (sees only bugs, not fix speed)

5. Tools & productivity workflow observations
   - Pandoc + Markdown Monster for AI-generated documentation → Markdown → Word/PDF pipeline  
   - GitHub Copilot now doing git staging/commit/push/PR creation  
   - Upcoming VS Code improvements (agent skills, centralized chat sessions/archive)

6. Security & cyber news highlights 
   - IP-based KVM devices extremely insecure (backdoors to critical systems)  
   - Tailscale config auditor (Tail Snitch) — found outdated nodes  
   - Massive alleged leaks (1.2B Chinese citizen records)  
   - n8n CVE-10.0 full host compromise vulnerability (~100k exposed servers)

7. Business / operations notes
   - Need better contract lifecycle management (considering PandaDoc) after clause dispute  
   - Upcoming talks: nearshore consulting setup, avoiding million-dollar lawsuits, modern SaaS support models

8. Light / humorous recurring motifs 
   - “Crustacean power” / lobster memes  
   - “It works fine in dev”  
   - Drive failures (Steve is “the luckiest administrator in the world”)  
   - “Vibe coding warning”