Microsoft Dynamics® AX
Lifecycle Services: Develop Phase
Last Updated: June 2014
AX 2012 R3 / Version 1.0.0
2 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
Table of Contents Demo Overview .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Target Audience ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Demo Scenario ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Background ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Problems this demo addresses .................................................................................................................................................... 5
Purpose of demo (solutions to pains, benefits, value proposition) ............................................................................... 5
List of Personas .................................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Technology .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Microsoft Technology ..................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Third Party Technology .................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Demo Pre-steps .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Demo of Business Process Modeler.................................................................................................................................................... 8
Demo of Cloud-Hosted Environments ........................................................................................................................................... 17
Demo of Customization Analysis ...................................................................................................................................................... 22
Demo of Upgrade Analysis ................................................................................................................................................................. 28
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 33
Glossary and Additional Background Content ............................................................................................................................ 33
Disclaimer .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 35
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Demo Overview
Introduction
Lifecycle Services (LCS) is a set of tools that helps you manage the application lifecycle of Microsoft
Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and later implementations.
It is a cloud-based service that runs on Microsoft Azure and helps proactively manage all the application
lifecycle phases, including Define, Develop, and Operate, of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and later
implementations to help them to repeated and predictable success.
LCS is focused on, and continuously developed for, project managers, business analysts, developers and
IT administrators so they get the right information, at the right time, delivered to the right person.
This document and its four (4) included scripts will introduce you to the Develop phase of Application
Lifecycle Management (ALM) in LCS.
When you complete this document and demo scripts you will be able to demonstrate the features and
functionality of the following services that comprise the Develop phase of LCS:
Business Process Modeler (BPM)
Cloud-hosted environments
RapidStart – demo not included due to updates coming to the service in Q3 CY 2014
Customization analysis
Upgrade analysis
Target Audience
The included script should be used to demonstrate the value of the services in the Develop phase of ALM
in LCS to both information technology decision makers (ITDMs) and business decision makers (BDMs),
including CIOs, CFOs, and CEOs.
The executives that you are presenting to will find value in this script if they are challenged with:
Managing near-flat budgets that force them to have to do more with less and lower ROI
Meeting expectations of customers (both internal and external) to deliver the support they need
when they need it and exceed their expectations
Providing solutions that deliver greater uptime and instill confidence in the organization to
support their needs now and in the future so they can realize business value faster
Reducing implementation cycles to be more agile and better serve the needs of the organization
faster
Making sure they achieve rapid time to value
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Demo Scenario
Background
Companies are looking for ways to make sure they are successful in their implementation projects and
achieve rapid time to value for their implementations of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and later.
LCS was designed to help organizations have repeatable and predictable success by creating a series
of tools that help them step through the three different phases of ALM – Define, Develop, and
Operate.
This series of scripts is for the Develop phase.
Use Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services BPM to refine business process libraries and flowcharts and
include competitive differentiators for Microsoft Dynamics AX 3012 R2 and later implementations.
Create a gap analysis report that you can export to Microsoft Excel. This can be a starting point for the
discussions on the development work that is required. This can then be pulled into Microsoft Visual
Studio Online or Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) on-premises to help track and manage the
development work. For details on how to view, modify, or create business process within BPM, and
how to export the gap analysis to aid in the development of customizations, click here.
Cloud-hosted environments assists you in deploying Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 environments
on Microsoft Azure. You must already have a Microsoft Azure subscription prior to doing any demo,
and you have to connect a project in LCS to it. For information on how to create a project, you can
review the Define demo script (found on InfoPedia or PartnerSource) and you can also click here. For
more information on how to connect the project to your Microsoft Azure subscription, click here. Then
use cloud-hosted environments to select the type of deployment you want, and the service automates
the server setup and software deployment for the environment chosen.
RapidStart helps you configure a Microsoft AX 2012 environment using a cloud-based, interview-style
questionnaire. Because there are some major updates that are coming to RapidStart with the Q3
CY2014 updates, there is no demo script included at this time. Look for this to be updated after the
new features and functionality have been added. For more information about customizing RapidStart,
click here.
Customization analysis is an automated tool that validates model files against Microsoft Dynamics AX
best-practice rules for tables, classes, forms, and enums. It then generates reports, including a
summary report display on the site, a detailed Excel report that lists all issues, and a developer report
that the developer can load in Microsoft MorphX, the Microsoft Dynamics AX development
environment. For more information about using customization analysis, click here.
Upgrade analysis helps users plan a full-version upgrade to Dynamics AX 2012 R3 from Dynamics AX
4.0 or Dynamics AX 2009, or a minor version (or in-place upgrade) from Dynamics AX 2012 R1,
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Dynamics AX 2012or Dynamics AX 2012 R2. It uses the Rapid Data Collector to gather metadata about
the production environment, such as the number of records in tables. For information on how the file
is created, click here. This file is then uploaded along with the AOD file and processed, and it then
generates a series of reports. Click here for a list of the reports.
This script focuses on the following processes in each service:
- Business process modeler
- Exporting a process flow to Microsoft Visio
- Opening an object in Dynamics AX 2012 R3 directly from within the BPR workspace
- Creating a gap list for development considerations and export it so it can be used in Excel or
Microsoft Visual Studio Online or Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) on-premises
- Understanding version tracking and control
- Cloud-hosted environments (Microsoft Azure deployment portal)
- Selecting and deploying the available options
- RapidStart - Demo script coming when the Q3 CY2014 updates are available.
- Customization analysis
- Uploading and processing a file
- Reviewing the output reports (both HTML and Excel-based)
- Upgrade analysis
- Uploading and processing the files
- Reviewing the output reports (both HTML and Excel-based)
Problems this demo addresses
This demo walks the user through the Develop phase of ALM within LCS and how to use the services
available. It highlights the steps to leverage the features and functionality of LCS to finalize the design
and development of the company’s business flows within AX 2012 R2 or later implementations and
quickly and easily deploy the environments needed for different stages of the implementation. LCS
can analyze the customization work against best practices to suggest ways to increase code quality,
reduce down time, and make it easier to update in the future. And when considering updates, LCS
helps you to understand what development work could be necessary to upgrade to a new version
once it has been released.
Purpose of demo (solutions to pains, benefits, value proposition)
The purpose of this demo is to provide a step-by-step guide to how to use the services within the
Develop phase of LCS. It will show project managers and developers how they can use LCS to drive
the project to a successful completion and achieve rapid time to value. It helps them finalize business
processes within AX 2012 R2 and later implementations and then create gap lists to be used to
manage the development and customization of those processes. Being able to run those
customizations against a set of best practices developed over time, means having insights and
suggestions to improve system performance as well as customers’ experiences. And when it comes
time for upgrading, it’s helpful to get an understanding of the scope of the project before you even
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begin so you can plan time, resources and budgets more accurately.
List of Personas
Project Manager (Tim) – Tim is the IT manager and owns the IT budget. Tim manages Chris
(IT administrator) and complete some tasks to help balance his workload. Tim has overall
responsibility for the success of the implementations.
Developer (Nandita) - Nandita works in the IT department at larger businesses as a developer
and often manages projects involving partners. Because of her deep domain knowledge, she is
able to implement, maintain, customize, and upgrade the business system in a way that
integrates well with her company's processes.
Technology
Microsoft Technology
- Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3
- Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services
- BPM
- Cloud-hosted environments (Microsoft Azure deployment portal)
- RapidStart
- Customization analysis
- Upgrade analysis
Third Party Technology
- The taxonomy defined by American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) that is used to define and
organize Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and later industry-standard processes
Demo Pre-steps
- Business Process Modeler (BPM): BPM is a series of process flows that is used to define how those
processes are associated with (or mapped to) the customer’s Dynamics AX 2012 R2 or later
implementations. For this demo the focus is on developers and the work they may need to do to change
flows and then either export them to Visio to share with others or export a Gap analysis to use with TFS
or Visual Studio Online.
- You need to determine what flow is the best one to show. Base it on a customer need, or use one of
these suggestions that might be appropriate for the customer’s industry:
- General – 4.2.3.4 Create/Distribute purchase orders (10295)
- Retail
- Manufacturing
- Warehouse/Transportation
- Services Industry (SI)
- Public Sector (PS)
- Please Note: A lot of new flows were added (over 300) in the May and June 2014 revs including Retail,
Services, and Manufacturing. If you are going to use a flow from those, make sure the project you set up
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is for that industry type – that is the only way you can see them. For more information on properly
setting up the project you can review the Define set of LCS demo scripts on InfoPedia and PartnerSource,
and you can find more information by clicking here.
- BPM has a new feature that was added in the May 2014 rev that allows you to open up an Application
Object Tree (AOT) object within AX 2012 R2 or later implementations directly from the process flow. If
you want to demonstrate this, make sure you have the instance or virtual machine (VM) up, running, and
available prior to starting the demo of BPM.
- BPM can easily export the current version of any process flow in Microsoft Visio format. If you
want to demonstrate this, make sure you have Visio installed and it is working correctly before the demo.
- When you make changes to any base process flow in LCS, that change is considered a gap, meaning
that some customization, or coding, to enable that functionality will be required. To help track this, there
is the ability to create a list of all the gaps in a project and then export that list to Excel. If you want to
demonstrate exporting the gap analysis to Excel, make sure you have Excel installed and it is working
correctly before the demo.
- Cloud-hosted environments – Make sure you have an active Microsoft Azure account associated with
the LCS project you want to use for the demonstration. You must associate your Microsoft Azure
subscription with each LCS project individually. For how to connect your Microsoft Azure subscription to
a project, click here. For more information about deploying Dynamics AX 2012 R3 on Microsoft Azure,
click here.
- RapidStart – Demo script coming when the Q3 CY2014 updates are available.
- Customization analysis – Make sure you have already uploaded and successfully processed a file. For
information about how to create the file that is uploaded for customization analysis, click here. By
uploading and processing the files prior to the demo, you can show the dashboard view of the project
with a status of “Processed” and also open reports and show the results. There is also a more detailed
customization analysis output report in Excel format that is included in the zip file for this demo
script as well as a sample file that can be used to run the analysis.
- Upgrade analysis – Make sure you have already uploaded and successfully processed a file. For
information about how to collect and upload the proper files based on the version of Microsoft
Dynamics AX that you want to upgrade from (Microsoft Dynamics AX, AX 2009, AX 2012 R1, or AX 2012
R2), click here and follow the instructions. By uploading and processing the files prior to the demo, you
can show the dashboard view of the project with a status of “Processed” and also open the reports and
show the results. Note: Processing times for upgrade analysis is measured in multiple hours (can be
three hours or more) so plan accordingly. There is also a more detailed upgrade analysis output
report in Excel format that is included in the zip file for this demo script as well as a sample file
that can be used to run the analysis.
Please Note: LCS sessions time out after 20 minutes, but this is changing with the July 8, 2014 update.
This will change to 12 hours. The reason that a sessions times out is to prevent hundreds of sessions
from remaining open indefinitely, and more importantly, if others are working in a project, things may
have changed so it is a way to make sure the user’s view is up-to-date.
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Demo of Business Process Modeler
Develop Phase – Business Process Modeler (BPM)
This series of demos is for the Develop phase of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) for LCS. LCS is a
cloud-based, continuously updated set of services that helps you achieve repeatable and predictable success
with your Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and later implementations. This demo will highlight the features
and functionality of Business Process Modeler (BPM).
Tip 1: Make sure to review the Demo Pre-Steps prior to demoing to make sure you have everything
configured correctly for the type of demo you will be doing.
Tip 2: This script does not include how to use the task recorder or its output files. That will be contained in the
BPM deep dive script (currently in development and scheduled for Q3 CY2014).
For more details about BPM, click here.
To learn more about the Develop phase of ALM, please view this video on YouTube:
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Lifecycle Services (LCS) Develop Phase Demo and Discussion
1. Go to lcs.dynamics.com and log on.
Tip: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
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2. Click the Projects tile.
Tip: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
3. Select the project you want to use for
your demonstration in the project list.
Tip 1: Remember to choose a Learn-phase
project to have access to all LCS services.
Tip 2: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
BPM lets you view the business process that are currently mapped to the default process flows in Dynamics
AX 2012 R3. You can modify them to incorporate your competitive differentiators, and you can create new
ones also and see the impact those processes might have to your implementation by examining their impact
and frequency of use in Usage profiler. You can find the Define demo script on InfoPedia and PartnerSource
as well as click here for more information.
4. Click the Business Process Modeler
(BPM) tile.
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5. Alternatively, you can click the down
arrow to the right of the project name
at the top of the screen.
6. Click Lifecycle Services and it takes
you to the main LCS screen (see #2).
7. Select Business process modeler
When working with, reviewing, and editing
process flows, you will use the following
areas:
Activities – The editing tools for making
changes to the exiting flows or creating new
ones.
Swim lanes – They run horizontally across the
process workspace to indicate what role is
responsible for the different steps in the
process.
Process workspace – Where the process flow
is displayed. If all of the flow will not fit in the
workspace view, scroll bars will appear,
allowing you to scroll left/right or up/down to
see the rest of the flow.
Properties – When you first open a process,
this is the list of the steps that are shown in
the video on the bottom right of how the
process was carried out.
Video – The video (from the Task recorder) is
of the process itself being stepped through.
This is very useful for training and on-
boarding.
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8. Click the object Create purchase
order.
You will see that when you click on an object
in the process workspace, the metadata for
that object is displayed under Properties.
This is where you see the information
captured as the process was recorded or as
changes are made showing the gap IDs,
editor, and so on.
Tip 1: The video might seem to have
“disappeared," but it just was shifted down
due to the metadata that is being shown.
Drag the right scroll bar down to see it.
Tip 2: Select different objects to show that
the metadata is different for each one. To
show how much there is, slide the left scroll
bar up and down.
9. Right-click anywhere in the
workspace and a menu at the bottom
appears with a number of choices.
A quick review of the options:
Edit - Allows you to edit the properties list of steps that are required for the process. (See the descriptions
listed just above step 8 above). This allows you to customize it for your organization by
adding/changing/adjusting just the information you need to match your corporate needs and requirements.
Delete – Removes the selected object or connector from the workspace.
Save - Saves any changes since the last time the process was saved, records it as a new version, and notes
who saved the document and at what time. (More on how this helps with regulatory compliance in step 20).
This shows how version control and tracking is automatically recorded for regulatory compliance. Previous
versions can be reactivated if changes in customization are needed, speeding process definition and
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implementations.
Export – Exports the current flow to Visio so it can be easily shared in a standard, familiar interface and format
that most everyone is familiar with across the organization.
Not a gap – Marks the object as not a gap so it is not tracked as part of the gap list.
Note: If you right-click the original objects (such as Create purchase order), you will see the option Open AX
2012, which takes you to where that step takes place within AX 2012. (See step 10).
Tip: To demonstrate opening a process flow object in Microsoft Dynamics AX, make sure you have the
instance or VM up, running, and available prior to starting the demo of BPM.
Gap list – Creates a list of all the gaps, or differences, between the standard processes provided and your
competitive differentiators. Hand this off to development to have a great starting point for estimates of
customization timelines. You can even export the gap list so it can be imported into TFS, enabling better
tracking and management of the development work.
Versions – This shows a list of all the different versions of the process that have been created. This is
important for regulatory compliance requirements to know who made modifications to a process and when. It
also is where you can activate an older version of a flow to help with development work (see step 20).
(See “Demo of Business Process Modeler” in the Define phase demo scripts on InfoPedia or PartnerSource for
information about how to modify or create business processes.)
To export to Visio:
10. Right-click anywhere in the
workspace.
11. Click Export on the menu that
appears at the bottom of the screen.
A dialog box opens at the bottom of the
screen.
12. Click Open to open the file in Visio.
Tip: Make sure Visio is installed and working
correctly on the system before you try to
open the file.
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The Visio diagram of the entire process flow
will be opened in Visio. It is fully editable
within Visio and you will see that the flow is
the current version, including the changes.
Tip: You cannot import a Visio file into BPM,
so you cannot make changes and update the
process flow back into BPM. This functionality
is currently being investigated for enabling in
the future, but there are no firm plans/dates
yet.
To open the object in AX 2012,
13. Right-click Create purchase order.
14. Click Open AX 2012.
BPM will open the AX 2012 client and go to
that object to help you understand where
within Microsoft Dynamics AX this process
takes place and in what form.
Tip 1: The AOT object name that will be
opened is shown under Properties in the
metadata.
Tip 2: To demonstrate opening a process flow
object in AX 2012, make sure you have the
instance or VM up, running, and available
prior to starting the demo of BPM.
To mark an object "Not a gap" so it is not
included in the gap report and thus not
needlessly tracked in any development work:
15. Right-click Send.
16. Click Not a gap on the menu that
appears at the bottom of the screen.
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As all objects added to standard process flow
are first identified as a gap, the confirmation
screen will appear.
17. Click Yes and it will record that the
object is not a gap and then return to
the project workspace.
To see the gap list:
18. Right-click anywhere in the
workspace.
19. Click Gap list on the menu that
appears at the bottom of the screen.
You will see the gap analysis for the project.
To export the list,
20. Right-click anywhere on the analysis.
The menu appears at the bottom.
21. Click Export on the left side of the
menu.
A dialog box opens at the bottom of the
screen.
22. Click Open to open the file in Excel.
Tip: Make sure Excel is installed and working
on the system before you try to open the file.
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When the report opens in Excel, expand the
columns so you can review the headers and
details: the gap ID, what area (process flow)
the gap is from, effort required (in days),
action (added/removed), any detail, change
type, original value, new value, description,
date/time it was modified, who modified it,
the library name, and the industry type.
Tip: This is what is imported into TFS online
or Visual Studio to help manage and track
development of the customizations.
To see the version history,
23. Right-click anywhere in the
workspace.
Click Versions on the menu that appears at
the bottom of the screen.
The version history for the flow is displayed.
Tip: This is very helpful for meeting
regulatory requirements because it shows
who updated the process and when.
If you start to make changes and realize that
you need to go back to a prior version, you
can click Activate and that version of the flow
will become the current version and be
editable.
Tip: If you are not sure which version to
activate,
24. Click View.
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You can review the flow, and make sure it is
the one you want.
25. Click the arrow to the left of the
process flow name to return to the
version history.
26. Click the arrow at the top left of the
screen next to “Version history” to
return to the process workspace.
Business Process Modeler (BPM) is a simple-to-use editor to review the exiting process flows within AX 2012
and make changes and modifications to match your competitive differentiators. You can export the flows to
Visio to easily share and review across the organization, use the version control to help meet regulatory
compliance, and easily roll back to previous versions to help with defining and building out the process flows.
Use gap analysis to gather all the changes and export them to Excel for review, and then import into TFS
Online or Visual Studio to help manage any development work that might be needed.
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Demo of Cloud-Hosted Environments
Develop Phase – Cloud-Hosted Environments
This series of demos is for the Develop phase of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) for LCS. LCS is a
cloud-based, continuously updated set of services that helps you achieve repeatable and predictable success
with your Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and later implementations. This demo will highlight the features
and functionality of cloud-hosted environments.
Tip 1: Make sure to review the Demo Pre-Steps prior to demoing to make sure you have everything
configured correctly for the type of demo you will be doing.
Tip 2: Make sure the role you assign to someone you invite into your project is properly authorized to use
cloud-hosted environments if they need to. This way, they can go in and, without any IT support, deploy any
available environment that is within the capabilities of your Microsoft Azure subscription thus providing the
utmost flexibility and delivering automated deployment support whenever the authorized user needs it.
For more details about cloud-hosted environments, click here.
1. Go to lcs.dynamics.com and log on.
Tip: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
2. Click the Projects tile.
Tip: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
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3. Select the project you want to use for
your demonstration from the project
list.
Tip 1: Remember to choose a Learn-phase
project to have access to all LCS services.
Tip 2: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
Cloud-hosted environments automate the server setup of the environments that you choose to deploy. As of
the time of the latest updates to this demo script, only the demo environment is publicly available. Click here
for a list of the current generally available options.
4. Select the Cloud hosted
environments (Beta) tile.
5. Alternatively, you can click the down
arrow to the right of the project name
at the top of the screen.
6. Click Lifecycle Services and it takes
you to the main LCS screen (see step
2).
7. Select Cloud hosted environments.
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You see the cloud-hosted environments
deployment portal.
The upper section is where you add or
remove environments from the project as well
as use Microsoft Azure settings to enter your
Microsoft Azure ID to connect it to the project
or adjust Microsoft Azure settings. The last
option you use to open the Microsoft Azure
management portal.
Below that is the list of the environments that
have been deployed into the associated
Microsoft Azure subscription through cloud-
hosted environments.
Tip 1: You must attach a Microsoft Azure subscription to your project prior to the demo by using the
Microsoft Azure settings selection at the top. You can find out how to do that here.
Tip 2: Removing an environment here only removes the association from the project. It does not spin down,
stop, or delete the VMs within Microsoft Azure or stop any charges they may incur while running. You can
only do that through the Microsoft Azure Management Portal. This is where you stop, start, and change the
size of the VMs and manage your Microsoft Azure subscription VMs.
8. Click the plus sign (+) near the top
under Cloud.
Tip: It will only say "(Beta)" while the support
is being built out for dev/test deployments.
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9. Click Demo. (The colored back ground
of the selection shows it is selected.)
10. Click Next.
11. Enter the environment name.
12. Select the check box to acknowledge
that you agree to the pricing and
licensing terms viewable by the link
just below it.
13. Click Next.
14. Click Deploy.
Tip: Once you click Deploy, the Microsoft
Azure billing, per the Microsoft Azure price
list, will begin immediately.
You will see that the environment now
appears in the list in alphabetical order by
environment name and that its deployment
status is Deploying.
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While the environment is deploying,
15. Click the name of the environment.
You will see the topology of the virtual
environment, including the environment type
(demo), the number of virtual machines in the
environment (in this case one), and the
deployment ID and activity ID.
Tip: The IDs help you in the Microsoft Azure
management portal to properly select the
environment and/or VMs you want to work
with.
When the deployment status is Deployed:
16. You can click the name of the
deployment.
The Topology window opens to the right
with all the detail for the deployed
environment including the names of the VMs,
description, status, and the logon information.
To see that the VM is deployed and running,
17. Click Microsoft Azure portal.
The Microsoft Azure Management Portal is
opened in a separate tab and you are logged
on to your subscription. Here you can see the
VM has been deployed and is running.
For information on managing VMs including
how to log on to a VM, configure, and
manage them, click here.
Cloud-hosted environments provide a simple and quick way to deploy different Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
R3 environments to your Microsoft Azure subscription. Simply choose the environment you want to deploy
and it will automate the server setup of the environment, saving you up to hundreds of hours per deployment.
You can also deploy multiple environments simultaneously, helping you save even more time and resources.
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Demo of Customization Analysis
Develop Phase – Customization Analysis
This series of demos is for the Develop phase of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) for LCS. LCS is a
cloud-based, continuously updated set of services that helps you achieve repeatable and predictable success
with your Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and later implementations. This demo will highlight the features
and functionality of customization analysis.
Tip 1: Make sure to review the Demo Pre-Steps prior to demoing to make sure you have everything
configured correctly for the type of demo you will be doing.
For more details about customization analysis, click here.
1. Go to lcs.dynamics.com and log on.
Tip: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
2. Click the Projects tile.
Tip: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
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3. Select the project you want to use for
your demonstration from the project
list.
Tip 1: Remember to choose a Learn-phase
project to have access to all LCS services.
Tip 2: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
Customization analysis compares the uploaded model files against best practices that have been developed
over a number of years to help identify areas that could be improved, not only to help improve performance
but also to make grades smoother and quicker.
4. Select the Customization analysis
tile.
Tip: Any information displayed on the tile is a
quick summary of the results of the most
recently run analysis. In this case there are 51
changes, 738 cautions, and 14 information
points that have been identified.
5. Alternatively, click the down arrow to
the right of the project name at the
top of the screen.
6. Click Lifecycle Services and it takes
you to the main LCS screen (see step
2).
7. Select Customization analysis.
24 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
Here you see the main Customization
analysis screen when you first start in LCS.
You will see three separate sections:
- A link to the Best practices for developing
customizations white paper, the main
dashboard showing the different
customizations projects and their current
status, and the bar at the bottom with an Add
customization projects button. A Remove
button will appear after a project has been
created.
Tip: Log on to Information Source to view
the white paper.
Note: For reference, here is the view when
there are a number of projects. You can see
the status of each project: Describe (still need
to enter data/upload files), Processing, or
Processed.
Tip: You can sort the projects by column by
clicking the arrows next to each column
header.
To add a project,
8. Click Add at the bottom of the
Project page.
9. Enter the appropriate information.
10. Click Create.
Note the chevrons across the top that show
the progress.
25 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
11. Click Add files at the lower part of the
page, and upload the files to analyze.
Tip 1: For reference, the version type of the
project is displayed to help remind you of the
correct files to upload.
Tip 2: If you decide not to upload a file, just
click in the gray area to return to the main
Upload page.
If you need to remove a file before starting
the analysis:
12. Hover the pointer over the name.
13. Select the box in front of the name.
14. Click Remove at the lower part of the
page.
Once the files are uploaded:
15. Click Analyze code in the lower-right
corner of the Upload screen.
You will see the confirmation screen.
16. Confirm the files are from the proper
build, and click OK.
The files will be processed and the progress will be shown by the chevrons at the top as they automatically
refresh. You do not have to stay on this page – you can navigate away. You can come back anytime to Code
analyzer and click the file name from the main Project screen to see how far along the progress is.
When the analysis has finished, the status
changes to Processed on the main Project
page. To view the results:
17. Click the file name.
You are taken to the Completed screen
where you can select from the three different
reports: the Excel or HTML version of the
Analysis report and also the Developer
report
18. Under View, click the Excel logo to
26 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
view the Excel version of the Analysis
report.
Tip: If you select the Excel version, make sure
Excel is installed and working correctly on the
system before you try to open the file.
Note: The colors of the symbols in the reports reflect different meanings: red = errors, yellow = warnings, and
blue = information.
19. Click Open on the dialog box and you
can click through the different tabs
showing the results of the analysis.
Tip 1: A good tab to click is
IssueTypeVsIssueCategoryStats, because it
shows how Customization analysis is
analyzing both code and metadata to identify
best practices, help with data integrity, find
functional and code issues, and identify
performance issues.
Tip 2: There is a sample file (Sample
Customization analysis report.xlsx) that is
included in the zip file of the Develop phase
demo scripts.
20. Click the Globe logo for the HTML
version of the Analysis report.
It will open the report in a separate tab.
21. Scroll down to see the results.
22. Click the other Globe logo for the
Developer report.
It will open in a separate tab.
This report can be imported in the Microsoft
Dynamics AX developer environment
27 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
(MorphX) simply by saving the file to a
computer in your development environment
and then importing it through the compiler
output window.
Customization analysis validates your AX 2012 model files against Microsoft Dynamics AX best-practices rules
to help identify areas that can be modified to provide better performance and improve uptime. And the
developer report that is created can be imported into the Microsoft Dynamics AX developer environment to
help identify the reported issues.
28 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
Demo of Upgrade Analysis
Develop Phase – Upgrade Analysis
This series of demos is for the Develop phase of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) for LCS. LCS is a
cloud-based, continuously updated set of services that helps you achieve repeatable and predictable success
with your Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and later implementations. This demo will highlight the features
and functionality of Upgrade analysis.
Tip 1: Make sure to review the Demo Pre-Steps prior to demoing to make sure you have everything
configured correctly for the type of demo you will be doing.
For more details about Upgrade analysis click here.
1. Go to lcs.dynamics.com and log on.
Tip: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
2. Click the Projects tile.
Tip: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
29 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
3. Select the project you want to use for
your demonstration from the project
list.
Tip 1: Remember to choose a Learn-phase
project to have access to all LCS services.
Tip 2: Skip this step if you are already logged
on to LCS. You do not need to exit and
reenter LCS to go between services or
projects.
Upgrade analysis helps users plan a full-version upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 from Microsoft
Dynamics AX 4.0 or Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 or a minor version or in-place upgrade from one version of
AX 2012 to another. The output reports can provide guidance on how much time and effort will be required
for the upgrade and can help in the decision process for upgrading from AX 4.0 and AX 2009
implementations.
4. Select the Upgrade analysis tile.
5. Alternatively, click the down arrow to
the right of the project name at the
top of the page.
6. Click Lifecycle Services and it takes
you to the main LCS page (see step 2).
7. Select Upgrade analysis.
30 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
Here you see the main Upgrade analysis
page when you first start in LCS.
You will see two separate sections:
- The main dashboard showing the different
Upgrade analysis projects and their current
status, and the bar at the bottom of the
screen with an Add customization projects
button. A Remove button will appear after a
project has been created.
Note: For reference, here is the view when
there are a number of projects. You can see
the status of each project: Describe (still need
to enter data/upload files), Processing, or
Processed.
Tip: You can sort the projects by column by
clicking the arrows next to each column
header.
8. Click Add at the lower part of the
Project page.
Follow the steps based on the version of
Microsoft Dynamics AX that you are going to
upgrade.
When you have the appropriate files, you will
need to create a project and upload the files
for processing.
9. Click Create.
31 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
10. Click Add files, and upload the
relevant files to analyze.
Tip 1: For reference, the version type of the
project is displayed to help remind you of the
correct files to upload.
Tip 2: If you decide not to upload a file, just
click in the gray area to be returned to the
main Upload page.
If you need to remove a file before starting
the analysis:
11. Hover the mouse over the name.
12. Select the box in front of the name.
13. Click Remove.
After the files are uploaded:
14. Click Analyze code in the lower-right
corner of the Upload page.
You will see a warning message. It is just
confirming that it could take some time to
process.
15. Click OK.
The files will be processed and the progress will be shown by the chevrons at the top as they automatically
update. You do not have to stay on this page – you can navigate away. You can come back anytime to Code
analyzer and click the file name from the main Project page to see how far along the progress is.
Tip: When the project is processing, it will
show an estimate in minutes of how long it
will take to run and show the progress it has
made so far.
32 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
When the analysis has finished, the status
changes to Processed on the main Project
page. To view the results:
16. Click the file name.
You are taken to the Completed page where
you can select from the three different
reports: the HTML or Excel version of the
AXCompileAll report as well as the
Log_ExcelReport.
Note: The colors of the symbols in the reports reflect different meanings: red = errors, yellow = warnings, and
blue = information.
17. Under View, click the Globe logo to
open the HTML version of the
AxCompileAll report. Scroll down to
see the results.
18. For the Excel version, click the first
Excel logo just below the Globe logo
and it will open the Excel version of
the AxCompileAll report in Excel.
Tip: If you select the Excel version, make sure
Excel is installed and working correctly on the
system before you try to open the file.
33 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
Conclusion
The series of demo scripts in this collection walk you through the tools and services in the Develop phase of
ALM for LCS. These services help project managers and business analysts better analyze and plan usage,
speed up and increase user adoption, help meet regulatory requirements, maximize uptime, and help the
organization realize business value faster all while delivering amazing customer experiences.
Glossary and Additional Background Content
There is a series of three videos on LCS, one for each phase, which are available on YouTube:
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Lifecycle Services (LCS) Define Phase Demo and Discussion
http://youtu.be/ij28o4JznJA
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Lifecycle Services (LCS) Develop Phase Demo and Discussion
19. Click the second, or bottom, Excel
logo to open the Log_ExcelReport.
Scroll down to see the results.
This report can be imported in the Microsoft
Dynamics AX developer environment
(MorphX) simply by saving the file to a
computer in your development environment
and then importing it through the compiler
output window.
Tip: Here is an example of the Excel report for
an upgrade from AX 4.0 or AX 2009. This is
from the sample file (Sample Upgrade
analysis report.xlsx) that is included in the zip
file of the Develop phase demo scripts.
Upgrade analysis helps you to estimate and understand the level of work necessary to upgrade to Dynamics
AX 2012 R3 from AX 4.0, AX 2009, AX 2012 RTM, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack, and AX 2012 R2
implementations. By analyzing the uploaded files, it identifies, both in HTML-based and Excel-based reports,
errors, warnings, and places for investigation. This can help identify and estimate the amount of work
necessary to do the upgrade prior to beginning work on the project and can help make educated decisions on
the correct ways to upgrade to Dynamics AX 2012 R3 from your current implementation.
34 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
http://youtu.be/TTAuukkK5Mo
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Lifecycle Services (LCS) Operate Phase Demo and Discussion
http://youtu.be/Uiok3ziH2Eo
35 Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 | LCS: Develop Phase | Last Updated: June 2014
Disclaimer
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The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft
Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market
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