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Azure

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Automate data package import with Azure DevOps Pipelines
In Azure

Restore a data package with Azure DevOps Pipelines

8 Mins Read

You can read my complete ALM guide on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations and Azure DevOps.

Moving data from the production to a sandbox environment is something we regularly have to do to have real updated data to do some testing or debugging. It’s a process that takes time and that can be automated as I explained in the post LCS DB API: automating Prod to Dev DB copies.

In this post, I’ll add an extra step to the database refresh: restore a data package (DP). Why? Because I’m sure we all need to change some parametrization or some endpoints in our test environments after a prod refresh.

You can learn more about the DMF REST API, which I’ll use, reading this post from Fabio Filardi: Dynamics 365 FinOps: Batch import automation with Azure Functions, Business Events and PowerBI.

You can learn more about the LCS DB REST API by reading these posts I wrote some time ago. You might want to read them because I’m skipping some steps which are already explained there:

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Azure DevTest Labs Dynamics 365
In Azure

Azure DevTest Labs powered builds for Dynamics 365 FnO

20 Mins Read

The end of Tier-1 Microsoft-managed build VMs is near, and this will leave us without the capacity to synchronize the DB or run tests in a pipeline, unless we deploy a new build VM in our, or our customer’s, Azure subscription. Of course, there might be a cost concern with it, and there’s where Azure DevTest Labs can help us!

This post has been written thanks to Joris de Gruyter‘s session in the past DynamicsCon: Azure Devops Automation for Finance and Operations Like You’ve Never Seen! And there’s also been some investigation and (a lot of) trial-and-error from my side until everything has been working.

If you want to know more about builds, releases, and the Dev ALM of Dynamics 365 you can read my full guide on MSDyn365 & Azure DevOps ALM.

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Tier 1 VM Gone
In Azure

Tier 1 Microsoft managed VMs will be removed

4 Mins Read

If you receive the LCS email notifications for your projects you already know this: all Tier 1 virtual machines from Microsoft’s subscription will be gone as early as 1 December! This is what the emails say: As communicated previously, Microsoft is removing the use of Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to access environments managed by Microsoft. As RDP access is required for development, going forward customers will be required to develop using a Cloud Hosted Environment or…

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In Azure

Azure functions & Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

5 Mins Read

This is another post about solving Dynamics 365 problems using external tools. However I’m starting to think as everything Azure-related as not external at all. In this case I’ll show different scenarios using Azure functions with Dynamics 365.

I wrote this almost three weeks ago and it was intended as a two-part post but after seeing this wonderful blog post about Azure Functions from Fabio Filardi I don’t know what else could I add to it and will probably leave it here. Go check it!

In this post we’ll see what Azure Functions are and how to create one locally and deploy it to Azure.

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In Azure

Secure your Azure Pipelines with Azure Key Vault

4 Mins Read

You can read my complete guide on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations and Azure DevOps.

After the update of my last post about calling the LCS API from Azure DevOps Pipelines I thought that creating a pipeline with a password in plain sight was not very secure. How could we add extra security to a pipeline? Once again we can turn to an Azure tool to help us, the Azure Key Vault.

Azure Key Vault

A Key Vault is a service that allows us to safely store certificates or secrets and later use them in our applications and services. And like many other Azure services it has a cost but it’s really low and, for a normal use, you will be billed like a cent or none a month. Don’t be stingy with security!

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In Azure

Calling the LCS Database Movement API in your Azure DevOps pipeline

5 Mins Read

You can read my complete guide on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations and Azure DevOps.

I talked about the LCS Database Movement API in a post not long ago, and in this one I’ll show how to call the API using PowerShell from your Azure DevOps Pipelines.

What for?

Basically, automation. Right now the API only allows the refresh from one Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations environment to another, so the idea is having fresh data from production in our UAT environments daily. I don’t know which new operations the API will support in the future but another idea could be adding the DB export operation (creating a bacpac) to the pipeline and having a copy of prod ready to be restored in a Dev environment.

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In Azure

Set up the new Azure DevOps tasks for Packaging and Model Versioning

3 Mins Read

You can read my complete guide on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations and Azure DevOps.

During this past night (at least it was night for me :P) the new tasks for Azure DevOps to deploy the packages and update model versions have been published:

There’s an announcement in the Community blogs too with extended details on setting it up. Let´s see the new tasks and how to set them up.

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I spy
In Azure

Using Azure Application Insights with MSDyn365FO

4 Mins Read

READ THIS!!! This is a really old and outdated post. Microsoft is already offering native built-in monitoring and telemetry using Application Insights for Dynamics 365 F&O. You can learn more in this Learn article: Monitoring and telemetry using Application Insights. First of all… DISCLAIMER: think twice before using this on a productive environment. Then think again. And if you finally decide to use it, do it in the most cautious and light way. Why does…

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