Extending Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations Cookbook

By : Simon Buxton

Extending Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations Cookbook

By: Simon Buxton

Overview of this book

Dynamics 365 for Operations is the ERP element of Microsoft’s new Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition. Operations delivers the infrastructure to allow businesses to achieve growth and make better decisions using scalable and contemporary ERP system tools. This book provides a collection of “recipes” to instruct you on how to create—and extend—a real-world solution using Operations. All key aspects of the new release are covered, and insights into the development language, structure, and tools are discussed in detail. New concepts and patterns that are pivotal to elegant solution designs are introduced and explained, and readers will learn how to extend various aspects of the system to enhance both the usability and capabilities of Operations. Together, this gives the reader important context regarding the new concepts and the confidence to reuse in their own solution designs. This “cookbook” provides the ingredients and methods needed to maximize the efficiency of your business management using the latest in ERP software—Dynamics 365 for Operations.

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Free Chapter

Starting a New Project

Introduction

Creating the Visual Studio Team Services project

Connecting Visual Studio to Visual Studio Team Services

Creating a new Model and Packages

Configuring project and build options

Creating a Label file

Data Structures

Introduction

Creating enumerated types

Creating extended data types

Creating setup tables

Creating a parameter table

Creating main data tables

Creating order header tables

Creating order line tables

Creating the User Interface

Introduction

Creating the menu structure

Creating a parameter form

Creating menu items

Creating setup forms

Creating details master (main table) forms

Creating a details transaction (order entry) form

Creating form parts

Create tiles with counters for the workspace

Creating a workspace

Application Extensibility, Form Code-Behind, and Frameworks

Introduction

Creating a handler class using the Application Extension factory

Hooking up a number sequence

Creating a create dialog for details transaction forms

Creating a SysOperation process

Adding an interface to the SysOperation framework

Business Intelligence

Introduction

Creating aggregate dimensions

Creating aggregate measures

Creating aggregate data entities

Creating and using key performance indicators

Security

Introduction

Creating privileges

Creating duties

Creating security roles

Creating policies

Leveraging Extensibility

Introduction

Extending standard tables without customization footprint

Creating data-event handler methods

How to customize a document layout without an over-layer

Creating event handler methods

Extending standard forms without customization footprint

Using a form event handler to replace a lookup

Creating your own query functions

Data Management, OData, and Office

Introduction

Creating a data entity

Extending standard data entities

Importing data through Data Import/Export Framework

Reading, writing, and updating data through OData

Consuming and Exposing Services

Introduction

Creating a service

Consuming a Dynamics 365 for Operations SOAP service

Consuming a Dynamics 365 for Operations JSON service

Consuming an external service within Dynamics 365 for Operations

Extensibility Through Metadata and Data Date-Effectiveness

Introduction

Using metadata for data access

Using Interfaces for extensibility through metadata

Making data date-effective

Unit Testing

Introduction

Creating a Form Adaptor project

Creating a Unit Test project

Creating a Unit Test case for code

Creating a test case from a task recording

Automated Build Management

Introduction

Creating a Team Services Build Agent Queue

Setting up a build server

Managing build operations

Releasing a build to User Acceptance Testing

Servicing Your Environment

Introduction

Applying metadata fixes

Applying binary updates

Servicing the build server

Servicing the Sandbox - Standard Acceptance Test environment

Workflow Development

Introduction

Creating a workflow type

Creating a workflow approval

Creating a manual workflow task

Hooking up a workflow to the user interface

Creating a sample workflow design

State Machines

Introduction

Creating a state machine

Creating a state machine handler class

Using menu items to control a state machine

Hooking up the state machine to a workflow

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Introduction

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 underwent a name change in what would have been version 7. The official name is now Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations. It isn't just that the version number has been dropped, but it appears to have been adopted into the Microsoft Dynamics 365 product suite. The product is not a component of Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is just a way to group Microsoft's various business solutions. We can't, therefore, shorten the name to Dynamics 365, we will refer the product by either its full name or the abbreviation Operations.

New features will be introduced to Operations as both a continual and cumulative process. There are two main types of update, Platform and Application. Platform updates are similar to the binary updates in prior releases, but also contain AOT elements that are now locked and can no longer be changed. Platform updates can contain changes to the language, and new features have been brought in with each bi-yearly release. When running in the Cloud, Microsoft will periodically release updates to the Platform for you. This is needed, since the it uses Azure SQL Server and they may need to service the platform in order to maintain compatibility to the database server.

Application updates are changes to the other packages that make up the source code of Operations, and can be considered similar to the meta data updates in previous releases of Operations.

This book was started on the May 2016, or Update 1 release and has been updated with each release. The version on publication is Update 5, released in March 2017.

All development work is carried out in conjunction with Visual Studio Team Services or VSTS. It used to be optional, but the implementation process that is managed through Lifecycle Services (LCS) requires that we have a VSTS project linked to it to function to its fullest. This is not just for source control and work management, but it is also used when performing code upgrades.

Please see the following links for further reading on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations:

For more information on LCS, please see the link, https://lcs.dynamics.com/Logon/Index
An overview of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations for Developers and IT Pros is available at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/operations/dev-itpro/
To obtain an evaluation copy of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations, please see the link, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/operations/dev-itpro/dev-tools/get-evaluation-copy

All development work in Operations is either performed on a development virtual machine hosted in Azure, or a local virtual machine. Each developer will use their own virtual machine. Azure hosted virtual machines are deployed through LCS under your own Azure subscription, and can be used to development, learning, and demonstration. Once, as a customer, a cloud hosted subscription has been bought, you are provided 3 environments as part of that subscription under Microsoft's subscription. These are Build, Sandbox, and Production. The build sever is a OneBox server (all in one virtual machine) that is also labelled Development, but it should always be used as a build server and not for development. The sandbox server is a full environment, with multiple servers using a separate Azure SQL Server. The production environment is the environment that you (as a customer) will go live with. All code must first be deployed to the sandbox before it is applied to live, which this is enforced by LCS - no more 'quick fixes' directly into live, and no access to SQL server for the production environment.

The on premise version of Operations may allow us to bypass some of these rules, but we shouldn't try - these practices of forcing code through a full testing cycle are very important. Waiting a couple of days for a needed feature may be inconvenient, but regression is perceived very negatively by users. During the implementation we ask a lot of the users, they are already busy with their jobs and are being asked to also help with testing new software, so user buy-in to the project is a critical factor, and regression is the most efficient way of eroding the initial excitement of delivering new software.

For local development virtual machines that are often the cheapest option, we will download the virtual machine from Microsoft Connect. This is a website used for many programs at Microsoft, and access is provided to partners and customers.

Extending Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations Cookbook

By : Simon Buxton

Extending Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations Cookbook

By: Simon Buxton

Overview of this book

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