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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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Avoiding Parameter Chaos in PowerApps

Avoiding Parameter Chaos in PowerApps

I love PowerApps! This technology gives me the freedom to create a portable user interface (UI) for my demos in a couple of minutes. Well, sometimes it takes a little bit longer, especially when… Direct before NAV TechDays 2019 I decided to create a PowerApp to demonstrate the power of our Intelligent ERP framework. To execute the needed API calls I attached a Power Automate flow to my PowerApp. During setup of the flow I played a little bit to…

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Application Versions – CI / CD Part 5

Application Versions – CI / CD Part 5

Classic NAV development processes, customizations with C/Side became obsolete in the Business Central age was replaced by Apps. Apps have version numbers to identify which app version is newer, handle updates and finally synchronize data changes in the right order. New App Versions are produced by fully automated CI processes in a very short time and the generated Artifacts replace the installed version in target environments during automated CD processes. The application version helps to keep the necessary overview and…

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