- Feature
- Administrators control SIFT indexes
- Availability
- Generally available (October 2026)
- Industry focus
- Grocery wholesale and cash-and-carry
Grocery wholesalers post more transactions than almost any other Business Central customer. Thousands of lines a day across tills, delivery routes and supplier receipts create huge ledger tables. Behind the scenes, Business Central uses SIFT indexes to keep totals fast. Business Central 29.0 gives administrators direct control over those indexes for the first time.
The industry challenge
SIFT (SumIndexField Technology) is how Business Central quickly calculates totals, such as an item's inventory, a customer's balance or sales for a period, without adding up every record each time. SIFT indexes make those totals fast to read. The cost is that every new transaction must also update the SIFT structures, which slows posting and uses storage.
For a grocery wholesaler:
- Item ledger and value entries grow by millions of rows a year
- Posting speed matters at busy times, such as end-of-day till uploads or early-morning delivery runs
- Some SIFT indexes support reports or features the business never uses
In Business Central 28.0, administrators gained an Index Management page to view index usage and turn off rarely used, non-unique indexes. But SIFT indexes were protected and couldn't be turned off.
What Microsoft delivered in Business Central 29.0
According to Microsoft, administrators can now turn SIFT indexes on and off directly in Business Central.
An MVP walk-through explains how this works. On the Index Management page (reachable through Tell Me or from Table Information), a new Index Type field shows whether a row is a regular index or a SIFT structure. Administrators can choose to turn a SIFT index off for the current company or for all companies. Turning an index back on is queued for the next overnight maintenance window. The same applies to SIFT on custom fields.
Where the value shows up
| Business area | Impact for a grocery wholesaler |
|---|---|
| Posting speed | Fewer totals structures to update on high-volume tables |
| Storage cost | Less database space for SIFT on unused totals |
| Administration | Index decisions made in the client, without developer work |
| Flexibility | Indexes can be turned back on if a report needs them |
| Multi-company control | Settings applied to one company or all |
The gains depend on careful choices. Turning off the wrong SIFT index can slow the reports and pages that use it. Used with good data, though, this is a practical lever for keeping a high-volume system efficient.
A worked scenario
Consider a grocery and catering wholesaler with two cash-and-carry depots and a delivered service (an illustrative example). Its value entries table is one of the largest in the database, and end-of-day posting has been getting slower.
The IT manager reviews index usage with the partner. They find a SIFT structure on a custom extension field that supported a promotional report the business stopped using two years ago. They turn that SIFT index off for all companies and monitor posting times over the next week. End-of-day processing improves, and storage growth slows. The decision is documented, and the index can be re-enabled overnight if the report is ever revived.
Adoption considerations
- Use evidence. Base decisions on index usage data, not guesswork.
- Involve your partner. Make sure someone who understands your extensions reviews each change.
- Test first. Try changes in a sandbox with production-like data and check affected pages and reports.
- Remember the overnight delay. Re-enabling an index happens in the next maintenance window, so plan accordingly.
- Document every change. Keep a log of which indexes were turned off, why and by whom.
The bottom line
Grocery wholesalers push Business Central harder than most, and every efficiency counts. Administrator control of SIFT indexes in Business Central 29.0 adds a powerful tool for balancing fast totals against fast posting and storage cost. Used carefully, it helps high-volume businesses keep their system responsive as data grows.
If posting speed or database size is a concern for your business, it's worth reviewing index usage with an experienced Business Central adviser.
Sources: Microsoft roadmap 573316 · Dynamics 365 Lab: Administrators can turn SIFT indexes on/off