1. AX 2012 Code Management & Promotion Best Practices
AXUG Upper Midwest Regional Meeting
Fargo, ND
Sept 20 & 21, 2017

2. Contact Info
Steve Walsh
Technical Director – Managed Services
mobile
Jason Spindler
Senior System Engineer – Manager Services
mobile

3. Agenda Why code management/Promotion Code Management
Code promotion flow
Code naming convention
Tracking request to completion
Separation of duties
Maintenance windows
Communication plan
Source code control & TFS
Code Promotion (Demo)
Model store move
Temp scheme move

4. Why Code Mgt & Promotion Standards
The key is the best practice and standard
Consistency across the team
Easier to communicate the plan for each situation
Proven steps
Minimizes risk and stabilizes Production
Able to answer “What changed?”

5. Code Promotion Flow
Walk thru the process each environment servers a purpose discuss them.
DEV – development – XPO is created from here; any rework from Test is done in DEV
Don’t trust Hot fixes, ISV solutions….test everything.
TEST- XPO is imported into Test; any rework goes back to DEV environment; no code is modified in TEST. Part of the Test is the importing of the XPO
BUILD – used by MCA it is refreshed from PROD and the XPO’s that were test in TEST get imported, complied, and synced. A model store can them be exported and ready to go to PROD
PROD – Production. we import the build model store into a temp scheme and wait for a maintenance window to promote to the main scheme. Then a build, CIL, and sync are ran.

6. Naming Conventions Standardize the naming
Customization request/Functional Design/Case Number
AX Project Name:
ABC_CR999_FunctionalityOfTheMod
ABC_FDD999_FunctionalityOfTheMod
ABC_Case _FunctionalityOfTheMod
XPO – when it exports we use the Project Name

7. Tracking the changes

8. System Engineers/Admin
Separation of Duties
Functional/ Bus Analyst
Developers
Release Manager/
System Engineers/Admin

9. Maintenance Windows Consider Best hours to do this:
8 to 5 Hours of Operation
Evenings
24 X 5
Weekends
24 X 7
This is the tricky one; lower productivity time
Shift Change or Lunch time
Company events/meetings
How much time is needed?
2 hours; 4 hours, or More?
Expect something to go wrong

10. Communication Plan Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!
Prior to Code Promotion
Developers, System Engineer, & Release Manager
Announcement of Maintenance Window
About 1 week
Remind a couple of days before
Remind day of… in the morning & hours before
Start of Maintenance – Announce the Start
End of Maintenance – Announce the Completion

11. Communication Plan What if something starts to go wrong?
Stay Calm and…
Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!
If you start to think you might need more time:
Communicate to User Group and Managers
Reset Expectations for more time
If you need to Roll back:
Communicate to the same groups

12. Communication Plan Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!
Be consistent with messaging
Always include the same group for communication
Have a Plan B/Contingency Plan put together
Plan B – have a Developer on stand by during code promotion

13. Version Control Concurrent development No Yes Isolated development
MorphX
MorphX VCS
Visual SourceSafe
Team Foundation Server
Concurrent development No
Yes
Isolated development
Change description
Change history
Quality bar enforcement
Branching
Work item integration
Labeling support

14. Version Control – TFS Benefits Integration into VSTS
Branching capabilities
Auto-builds
Model Store numbering/releases numbers

15. Code Promotion using Model Store move

16. Code Promotion Flow
Walk thru the process each environment servers a purpose discuss them.
DEV – development – XPO is created from here; any rework from Test is done in DEV
Don’t trust Hot fixes, ISV solutions….test everything.
TEST- XPO is imported into Test; any rework goes back to DEV environment; no code is modified in TEST. Part of the Test is the importing of the XPO
BUILD – used by MCA it is refreshed from PROD and the XPO’s that were test in TEST get imported, complied, and synced. A model store can them be exported and ready to go to PROD
PROD – Production. we import the build model store into a temp scheme and wait for a maintenance window to promote to the main scheme. Then a build, CIL, and sync are ran.

17. Step 1 Create Temp Scheme
Initialize-AXModelStore -AOSAccount "Domain\AccountName" - SchemaName TempSchema -Server <ServerName -Database <DatabaseName>
Creates a second Schema on the model store database for us to promote code to.

18. Step 2 Import into Temp Scheme
Import-AXModelStore -File Staging.axmodelstore -SchemaName TempSchema
We import our model store in the temp schema in order to speed up process.
We can do this ahead of the maitenance window and it is faster because the Schema is not in use.

19. Step 3 Apply Temp Scheme Import-AXModelStore -Apply:TempSchema
This step should only be done when your are ready to promote to live. In the case of Production you may wait a day or 2 for the maintenance window.

20. Step 4 Drop Temp Scheme Initialize-AXModelStore –Drop TempSchema
Always remove the Temp Schema after you are done to keep things clean.

21. Links
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 White Paper: Deploying Customizations Across Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Environments Version Control System [AX 2012] Joris de Gruyter – Application Lifecycle Management/TFS

22. Q&A

23. Contact Info
Steve Walsh
Technical Director – Managed Services
mobile
Jason Spindler
Senior System Engineer – Manager Services
mobile