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Monitoring Build Pipelines with Application Insights

Monitoring Build Pipelines with Application Insights

Any kind of automation will lead into losing information about the magic in the background. You see only the results like “Build Succeeded” or “Build Failed”. That’s fine if you manage one or two Azure DevOps build pipelines, but this is terrible if you maintain hundreds or thousands! What happens is predictable. If you don’t know what is going on in the background and what causes problems – you are in trouble. You have to investigate issues direct in each…

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Business Central – From Docker Container to SaaS

Business Central – From Docker Container to SaaS

Why should I setup a Data Migration from my Business Central Docker Container to a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS tenant: “Because I can?” Well, this might be one answer, but there are other good reasons. Let me explain. When I start a SaaS migration project for a customer I want ensure that all needed business data will be migrated and transferred in the right way. Furthermore I want to identify and remove all technical obstacles like missing apps,…

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PowerUp your PowApps with PCF Components

PowerUp your PowApps with PCF Components

Early this year I discovered an announcement about PCF components for the Power Platform. What does this mean? Can I create own powerful components in TypeScript and React, import them into my PowerApps, and add new functionality? Can I perhaps even bypass limitations of standard controls? This all sounds promising, and you know I’m incredibly curious. What more can I say, PCF Components have definitely peaked my interest! As soon as I realized that this preview feature was available in…

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More Badges please, I need Project Insights! – CI / CD 9

More Badges please, I need Project Insights! – CI / CD 9

My main requirements for a modern Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central project are automation, transparency and traceability! Therefore I include status badges in my documentation to give all team members an overview of the project status. In detail, you can use status badges in Azure DevOps to visualize all information that is useful for your team. Do you know badges from Azure DevOps and their possibilities? If not, let me explain. 🙂 Badges At the beginning I told you that…

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Release Management with Artifacts & Stages – CI / CD 8

Release Management with Artifacts & Stages – CI / CD 8

In my last article of the CI/CD series I explained which package types I use to upload my Artifacts. As you can imagine, this is just one piece of the puzzle in my release management workflow for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. More important for me is the correct traceability of my artifacts. In other words, this is the key to keep control over my projects. As a result, I track each of my Artifacts respective to each deployment stage….

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Repository Template for MSDyn365BC Projects

Repository Template for MSDyn365BC Projects

Sometimes it’s hard to start. Especially when everything is new. You have to deal with the new programming language Microsoft AL. You are facing the challenge to use a new Source Code Management like Git. And finally, your CI build automation in Azure DevOps expect a well structured project. I know these problems. Therefor, I provide templates for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central projects to my developers. You find my example repository for Business Central (BC15) at GitHub: https://github.com/megel/MSDyn365BC-15-Template Company…

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Package Types for Business Central Artifacts – CI / CD 7

Package Types for Business Central Artifacts – CI / CD 7

In my last CI / CD post I promised to describe: “… why I use Universal Packages for my artifacts”. To explain this, I must answer the following question: What kind of artifacts do I have in my Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central projects? Well, my answer is simple: I usually have to manage files in my CD process… 😮 Simple Files My CI build pipelines compile and create my Apps-Files. In case of Hybrid-Development, my Artifacts are also FOB-Files….

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Improving PowerApps by Centralized Processing

Improving PowerApps by Centralized Processing

PowerApps are promoted as Low-Code / No-Code platform to write Apps and this is right! Power users can easily adopt the “programming” language which is similar to the Microsoft Excel Formula language. On the other hand, when developing PowerApps, users tend to duplicate command snippets and code fragments. I did this until I found a way to reduce this redundancy of my code copies in my apps. Let me show you this on a very simple example:Calling a Power Automate…

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Branching Workflow – CI / CD Part 6

Branching Workflow – CI / CD Part 6

“How to start?” … Well, I avoided answering this question a long time, until now. I found an approach which fits perfect into Azure DevOps and satisfy my CI / CD workflow. You know, Real-Life of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is development, deployment, support, and maintenance together. Therefore all of these processes need access to the right source code. Source Code Management (SCM) Some basics: Most of us know “OMA” (Object Manager Advanced). Microsoft Navision developers uses OMA since…

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Uploading a file from MSDyn365BC as “multipart/form-data” message

Uploading a file from MSDyn365BC as “multipart/form-data” message

Yes, uploading a file from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central to a Web API sounds easy because Microsoft AL provides all these new and cool objects like JsonObject, HttpRequest, HttpResponse and HttpClient. But sometimes the devil is in the detail…“How-to setup the corret HttpRequest message with all the needed HttpHeaders and how-to add the file content?” Swagger “Web API” Definition Good news, my Web API provide a Swagger definition. Now I see what is needed. Swagger-UI visualization display the API…

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