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Improving software configuration management across multiple

1. Class 4 change Class 1 change Class 2 change Class 3 change Acquire related objects Develop brief written Develop brief written assess impact of change description of change description of change Transmit to all Transmit to all team stakeholders for members for review Changes required in related objects evaluation is required evaluation is required OK to make OK to make Check out object s to be changed Make changes design construct test Check in object s that were changed Publish to WebApp Figure 2 Managing changes for WebApps Pressman 2005 Pressman also talks about version control A web application may exist in several versions at the same time one version is live and already in use by end users 30 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications another version is in the final stages of testing and may contain the latest increment from development and yet another version may be under development in the development environment Pressman stresses the importance of identifying each of the configurations item with its appropriate version Both version control and change control must be in place Pressman 2005 2 4 3 3 Status accounting Status accounting is important for knowing what changes have been applied to a certain item and to know the latest revision of any item Being able to query this data and retrieve information on how
2. else super The update method public void update H if tpAXNetworkingParameters find IsServer this data tpDevSession instance updateTableRecord this this doUpdate T else super Doing this allows changes to the tables to be temporary and mirrored to the server regardless of where they occur in code or in forms 5 4 5 1 2 The table find and exists The find and exists methods must also be modified The reason is that the search must be within the temporary data otherwise an empty record will be retrieved The find method 68 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications static TableName find TableNameRecordId TableName theRecord if tpAXNetworkingParameters find IsServer _id boolean selectForUpdate false theRecord tpDevSession instance getTable theRecord if id theRecord selectForUpdate selectForUpdate select theRecord where theRecord TableNameRecordId return theRecord The exists method static boolean exists TableNameRecordId _id SysElementName name return _id amp amp TableName find _id recId 0 This will allow for code in different areas to function reasonably well There might very well be glitches that need patching once the prototype is transforming into something with higher fidelity 5 4
3. 62 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Method checkOutTableRecord Attempts to check out a record sent in as XML Transforms the xml to record with xmi2table method Calls findRecord with the transformed record Checks the found record if any and assumes the record has a field called CheckedOutTo and whether that field is empty or not If it is empty the found record is updated to match the input record If a record was found that record is returned Otherwise and empty xml is returned by calling getEmptyXml Method findRecord Tries to find the record in common _table in the data It s possible to specify a indinTable that will allow searches in a reference to a temporary table The method builds up a query based on the firstUniqueIndex of the table sent in For a tableRecord to be found it must have a unique index setup as well as a recid The record returned is selected for update Method getEmptyTableMap Returns a map where RecId and the Record can be stored Used only to ease up the creation of the map needed from several places Method getEmptyXml Returns an empty xml that still validates Has a dummy element lt xml version 1 0 encoding utf 8 lt dummy gt Method getLatestVersions Returns an xml with all the latest released versions of the products that are associated to the _releaseld input lt xml version 1 0 encoding utf 8
4. Analysis of collected data 5 Reporting In this report the objectives for the thesis itself was the base of the case study Data collection was prepared by selecting an appropriate method constructing adequate questions for finding descriptions about the objectives gathering subjects for the planned interviews and listing certain written material from the companies involved The data collection was executed by performing the interviews and requesting written material The findings can be found in Chapter 3 Result Notes from the interviews as well as data in the written material have been analyzed and is the foundation of Chapter 4 Analysis 16 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications 1 7 2 Theoretical method for data collection With the qualitative data collection method it is important to use triangulation Triangulation is about viewing the subject from more than one angle and can be used for data validation Runeson amp H st 2009 mentions e g data source triangulation where more than one data source is used for collecting data The data needed for the thesis have been of different character A significant part has been concerning the understanding of To Increase and Annata as organizations and their activities related to software configuration management especially surrounding the tool Development Center Interviews and document studies have been varied with informal meetings and discussions W
5. both have a vast setup of applications to be able to support their current product portfolios The work with the thesis was initiated in the second half of 2008 a prototype implementing some of the suggested improvements was produced and recommendations were given in 2009 The after study was conducted in 2015 In the sections below the background to the thesis is presented The purpose of the thesis and specific questions are presented and the scope is set Furthermore the chosen methods and references are discussed At the end the outline is given to ease the reading and searching for specific information within the thesis 1 1 Background The use of computers and technology is playing a more and more important role for today s companies Often the systems are complex costly and critical for the business Leon 2000 pp 47 53 Many of the services provided by companies are partly or entirely dependent on computer systems Can you even withdraw money from your bank account if the bank s computer system is down Long gone is the time when the clerk wrote a receipt by hand and then handed over the money Now you learn that the computer systems are down and that you are welcome back another day In the heart of the enterprises computer systems is often the enterprise resource planning system ERP system If the ERP system fails it means unwanted and costly interrupts for the company Change is inevitable Heraclitus claimed there is
6. configuration audits on The level of control should however be optional 5 2 1 Tracking needs Below is a list of what the system needs to track and control changes to and why e Releases product versions grouped together make up a deliverable What releases exist and what do they consist of e Product versions what features can be found in what product version e Features have the features for a product changed e Requirements changed requirements have a huge impact on the product e Tasks changed tasks have a huge impact on the product e Elements these are the smallest building blocks classes tables forms etc and changes to elements change the behavior of the product Knowing that a release consists of a product that has a feature with certain requirements and that the requirements have tasks with certain versions of different elements it is possible to track all behaviors both top down and bottom up When changes to this chain are controlled considered and approved before being implemented the overall product quality can improve and issues can be resolved more efficiently By marking any of the items in the chain as touched or modified when changes are introduced areas that need documentation tests or any other review as part of the audit can be easily identified 5 3 Assumptions Some assumptions have been made to realize the first prototype of the DevCenter Server e It should use a single repos
7. tpDevWebService table2xml 1 1 CheckedOutTo tmpStr oo X oo if UseDotNetConnector dynAx tpDevSession instance getDynAx xml dynAx CallStaticClassMethod tpDevWebService updateTableRecord xml else axWebService new AXWebServiceDevConsumer Servicel xml axWebService CallStaticClassMethodParml tpDevWebService updateTableRecord xml tpDevSession instance updateTableRecord tpDevWebService xml2table xml 1 data tpDevWebService findRecord 1 tpDevSession instance getTable 1 else 1 CheckedOutTo endmacro This macro stores to whom the record is checked out removes that text and then creates an xml without the checkout field set It then sets the current record as checked out again The xml is sent to server with a request to update it The session data is updated with the record retrieved from the server That record is then set as the data of the current record on the datasource 5 4 5 2 5 The form refresh data On the forms we have added a button to retrieve new data from the server It sets the table as temporary updates the data and retrieves data from the server 77 void clicked super TableName setTmp tpDevSession instance updateData TableName TableName setTmpData tpDevSession instance getTable TableName element doResearch The doResearch method is s
8. 1 Infrastructure At Annata they have decided to deliver solutions by layer and to supply hotfixes as xpo files Many of Annata s solutions consist of different standalone products mixed together To be able to deliver layers they need at least one environment per solution to function as a layer factory For each development environment they need one AOS instance To make sure development can continue while stabilizing a release Annata has decided to use release environments for their solutions and these release environments fill the purpose of a layer factory The release environments each require their own AOS In total they maintain about 10 15 release environments and with a development environment for each it adds up to 20 30 environments This is only for one version and service pack of Dynamics AX There are a maximum number of available slots of AOS instances per server for Dynamics AX 4 and at Annata they have reached that maximum The solution is to add more physical servers and as a result of this the need for physical hard disk space and computing power increases with the number of environments 43 The major issue with the infrastructure is the vast number of development environments they need when maintaining their products On top of the development environments they have release environments where combinations of development environments are compiled As an example one can mention their two components called Application Pla
9. DevCenter built on Dynamics AX no additional server technologies are needed The prototype for DevCenter with a server setup meets requirements from most of the main functional areas defined chapter 2 5 It offers a tool with all data in one place on the server one shared repository and one place to manage all projects products Different client applications environments can access the same data It would even be possible to plug in other areas as well Dynamics NAV NET development etc I have also suggested applying version control revision control to tasks and other documentation as well thus creating traceability auditability and status accountability 86 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Putting elements tasks requirements features versions and products under configuration management is important and to include other artifacts produced in the same unified tool making it more streamlined to work users can document the solution and bring everything together in one place Releases have been a time consuming issue Improving auditability by managing releases and hotfixes properly makes is possible to know what is where when It is a basic principle and something that everyone agrees on takes a lot of time today Don t look for what is where when Make sure there are proper versions available that have a unique identifier and track where these versions have been installed I do believ
10. a bit confusing but in this thesis I use the term software configuration management and further down in this chapter I define what I mean with the term The concept of software configuration management is originally sprung out of configuration management What is configuration management CM then and how has it evolved 2 1 Configuration management history Configuration management was originally used as techniques and disciplines in the defense industry environment for resolving issues with poor quality incorrect parts being ordered and parts not fitting all problems that in the end were causing costly budget overruns This was in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was a response to the need of identifying and controlling the design of increasingly complex equipment and a way to communicate the information between involved engineers Earlier the systems were simpler and one could rely on the discipline of individuals Now the work could be initiated by one engineer and then carried out by another and the projects could span several years Berlack 1992 Since the middle of 20 century there have been various standards developed and refined in the area of configuration management Commercial standards are now available e g from the Electronic Industries Alliance EIA the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE and the International Organization for Standardization ISO Moore 1998 In the beginning the standards main
11. and applies many principles from the agile software development discipline Changes in the agile web engineering world are viewed differently than in a conventional software project The change control and configuration management in general can as already mentioned appear to be too bureaucratic and formal for the agile process Pressman states that configuration management principles practices and tools must not be rejected but rather molded to meet the special needs Pressman 2005 28 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications How do you manage the many iterations and continuous stream of changes then Pressman suggests a categorization of each change into one of four classes Pressman 2005 e Class 1 a content or function change that corrects an error or enhances local content of functionality e Class 2 a content or function change that has impact on other content objects or functional components e Class 3 a content or function change that has broad impact across a WebApp e g major extension of functionality significant enhancement or reduction in content major required changes in navigation Class 4 a major design change e g a change in interface design or navigation approach that will be immediately noticeable to one or more categories of users Once categorized the workflow described below can be used to handle the different classes 29 Classify the requested change
12. box represents one major area of functionality as identified by Dart All these requirements are seldom or never to be found in one single system but make up the requirements of an ideal system The team and process boxes are the significant areas since they affect or are affected by the other functionality areas according to Dart Dart 2007 Construction Structure Building System model Snapshots Interfaces Optimization Relationships Change impact analysis Selection Regeneration Consistency Workspaces Merging Families Versions Auditin 5 Configurations History Versions of configurations Traceability Logging Baselines Lifecycle support Project contexts Task management s Repository Communication Documentation Components Statistics Access control Status Process Change requests Reports Bug tracking Change propagation Accounting Partitioning Controlling Figure 3 Describing CM Functionality Requirements Dart 2007 The major areas of functionality are described below Dart 2007 Components identifies classifies and accesses the components that make up the software product Structure represents the architecture of the product e Construction supports the construction of the product and its artifacts e Auditing keeps an audit trail of the product and its process e Accounting gathers statistics about the product and the process e Controlling controls how and whe
13. gt Product Name 3 lt Name gt Prefix gt lt Prefix gt LabelFileld gt lt LabelFileld gt ConfigurationKey gt lt ConfigurationKey gt Path gt lt Path gt Description gt lt Description gt Layer gt usr lt Layer gt lt SecurityKey gt lt SecurityKey gt lt FunctionalOwner gt lt FunctionalOwner gt lt TechnicalOwner gt lt TechnicalOwner gt lt DevProduct gt lt Records gt S lt lt lt amp lt lt lt amp M lt lt x 64 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Method updateTableRecord Takes a xmlRecord as input and transforms it to a common with xm12table It then tries to find the record using findRecord and the result is called forUpdateRecord If the result has a recid the _xmlRecord data is copied to the forUpdateRecord which then is updated If the forUpdateRecord has a recid it is transformed to xml by tab1e2xm1 and the result returned Otherwise an empty xml is returned by getEmpt yXml Method xml2table Takes an xml table as input and loops over the records node of the xml It builds up the record from the xml and then inserts it into a temporary table That temporary table is then returned The parameter boolean permanent which defaults to a1se it no longer in use but could be used to skip the temporary table and have the records from the xml inserted permanently 5 4 4 The Session tpDevSession This secti
14. have today Creating builds and building versions should have as few steps as possible The risk of users making mistakes during the process should be minimized by automating the build process To Increase also mentions structured tests like regression tests unit tests etc as something they would like to do more of Another area is the capacity within the company capacity to do things properly instead of trying to save time by not doing proven best practices which is not really saving time according to the interview subject 49 Chapter 4 Analysis In this chapter a discussion and analysis in relation to the results and the Software Configuration Management theories are presented 4 1 Current problem areas in relation to SCM activities Neither of the companies have the option to deliver a complete application using a license to limit functionality like Microsoft do with Dynamics AX simply due to the fact that such an option is not available to the ISVs solutions cannot be licensed and controlled properly This effectively means that all their components and sub products have to reside in different environments and later be combined compiled into certain offers or products This leads to a vast number of environments These environments are in turn interrelated both companies express issues with status accounting It is hard for them to know if the latest fixes have been applied to a certain environment The same version a
15. high degree of realism Runeson amp H st 2009 There are different means of collecting data in relation to case studies e g surveys interviews literature search etc For the case study itself interviews and observations are mostly used Runeson amp H st 2009 Data collected for studies can be either qualitative or quantitative The quantitative data can be analyzed using statistical methods whereas the qualitative data needs sorting and categorization Qualitative data collection tends to provide deeper and richer descriptions and most case studies are based on that Runeson amp H st 2009 The purpose of the case study was to gain insight into and knowledge about To Increase and Annata in general and their processes when developing software in Microsoft Dynamics AX in particular According to Avdic a case study is appropriate when an investigation doesn t have a narrow focus and a broader obtaining of information is desired Avdic 2005 The methods for gathering information have been observations and interviews as well as studies of various documents e g internal guidelines and presentations Information has also been collected during informal meetings and discussions and via instant messenger chats calls 1 7 1 The case study process The process of conducting a case is defined in five major steps by Runeson amp H st 2009 Case study design Preparation for data collection Collecting of evidence pecu pros
16. many items have been worked on their respective status if they have been approved or rejected or if work is still to be done are all useful information to provide service to the project Status accounting or configuration status reporting as Pressman refers to is an activity intended to answer the questions what happened who did it when and what else will be affected Associated to this is a flow of information For each identification change assignments or other modifications to a configuration item a configuration status reporting entry is made Each time a change is approved by the change configuration board an entry is made as well as when configuration audits are conducted Pressman 2005 Berlack describes status accounting as the recording activity and it follows up on the results of the configuration management activities This activity helps the user to keep track of the current configuration of delivered software status of suggested changes whether they are approved or reviewed or the implementation progress for a certain change It is important to be able to track the status both bottom up and top down according to Berlack Berlack 1992 Status accounting is information and can assist project management in decision making It can be used to tell what major problems there are how the project is progressing what types of changes and their respective causes how many of these have been approved and at what rate chan
17. microsoft com dynamics ax product default mspx 92 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Microsoft Corporation 2015 Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP Business Software Retrieved May 14 2015 from Microsoft Corporation http www microsoft com en us dynamics erp ax overview aspx Moore J W 1998 Software Engineering Standards a User s Road Map IEEE Computer Society Nationalencyklopedin 2008 Nationalencyklopedin Retrieved March 13 2005 from http www ne se jsp search article jsp i_art_id 167073 Pressman R S 2005 Software Engineering A Practitioner s approach 6th ed New York McGraw Hill Royce W 1998 Software Project Management a Unified Framework Addison Wesley Longman Inc Runeson P amp Host M 2009 Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering Empirical software engineering 14 2 131 164 Snaeland P amp van Veldhuizen J 2009 September 3 User manual Development Studio To Increase 2008 To Increase at a glance Retrieved June 26 2008 from http www to increase com Our_Company 47 To Increase_at_a_Glance html P svenska Detta dokument h lls tillg ngligt p Internet eller dess framtida ers ttare under en l ngre tid fr n publiceringsdatum under f ruts ttning att inga extra ordin ra omst ndigheter uppst r Tillg ng till dokumentet inneb r tillst nd f r var och en att l
18. repository pattern 5 4 1 4 Communication The communication between server and client has been implemented to use two different technologies but are basically the same 5 4 1 4 1 Web service A web service has been created It has tree operations that use the NET Business Connector to logon to AX and retrieve the data asked for 5 4 1 4 2 NET Business Connector To speed up communication in a local area network the NET Business Connector can be used directly It uses the same operations as the web service 5 4 1 5 Session On the client a session is initialized when a request for certain tables is done The session is implemented as a singleton and downloads all involved tables from the server keeps a reference to these tables made temporary by code and offers some basic functionality for communication with the server 5 4 2 Web service The web service was created using C NET and it offers three operations 1 CallStaticClassMethod a Input i ClassName as string ii methodName as string b Output i A string with xml Comment this is a bad design it should just return the xml but it was a corner cut with data types in AX NET and the NET Business Connector for AX 2 CallStaticClassMethodParm1 a Input i ClassName as string ii methodName as string 61 iii parm as string b Output i A string with xml see earlier comment 3 CallStaticClassMethodParm2 a Input i ClassName as string ii method
19. retrieved from the tpDevSession 5 4 5 2 2 The form allowing editing of data To allow editing an exclusive lock of the record must be acquired This is true regardless of if the table is temporary or not it is the scheme chosen for the first prototype to allow remote updating of shared records For that purpose a CheckedOutTo field is created in the physical table Editing is allowed if that field is set to the current user Since no notion of a global user exists yet it was decided to use current user name and the name of the database strFmt 1 2 2 curUserId systemInfo getloginDatabase The active method of the datasource triggers a method that will check if CheckedOutTo is set to the current user and allow editing accordingly A check out button on the form calls the checkout Task metod 72 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications void checkOutTask AXWebServiceDevConsumer Servicel axWebService XML xml ClrObject clrException Microsoft Dynamics BusinessConnectorNet Axapta dynAx macrolib tpDev try tpCheckOut devRequirement catch Exception CLRError BP Deviation Documented clrException CLRInterop getLastException if clrException error clrException get_Message j clrException clrException get InnerException if CLRInterop isNull clrException fa
20. sa ladda ner skriva ut enstaka kopior f r enskilt bruk och att anv nda det of r ndrat f r ickekommersiell forskning och f r undervisning verf ring av upphovsr tten vid en senare tidpunkt kan inte upph va detta tillst nd All annan anv ndning av dokumentet kr ver upphovsmannens medgivande F r att garantera ktheten s kerheten och tillg ngligheten finns det l sningar av teknisk och administrativ art Upphovsmannens ideella r tt innefattar r tt att bli n mnd som upphovsman i den omfattning som god sed kr ver vid anv ndning av dokumentet p ovan beskrivna s tt samt skydd mot att dokumentet ndras eller presenteras i s dan form eller i s dant sammanhang som r kr nkande f r upphovsmannens litter ra eller konstn rliga anseende eller egenart F r ytterligare information om Link ping University Electronic Press se f rlagets hemsida http www ep liu se In English The publishers will keep this document online on the Internet or its possible replacement for a considerable time from the date of publication barring exceptional circumstances The online availability of the document implies a permanent permission for anyone to read to download to print out single copies for your own use and to use it unchanged for any non commercial research and educational purpose Subsequent transfers of copyright cannot revoke this permission All other uses of the document are conditional on the consent of the copyright owne
21. the personnel experience different behavior depending on where the issue is investigated Every time issues like these arise the different environments have to be compared Part of the problem is the version management and versions between products When new tasks or updates have been applied the version has to be updated as well Since there are so many different environments installing and handling them is taking time The product development and maintenance of released versions is spanning many major versions of Dynamics AX The releasing process is also time consuming Creating a solid release and putting everything together requires a lot of work The lack of time needed to document things properly and the lack of specifications is also a major factor for time being wasted It may not be every day of the working week but when it happens it can mean that weeks of work are partially or entirely invalidated If To Increase could spend more time designing before they build things a lot of time could be saved according to the interview subjects 3 5 4 Improvements 3 5 4 1 Annata When asked about what they would like to improve a few things come up One of the things mentioned is the possibility to automate the build and release process Some kind of tool in the standard system to help the ISVs deliver solutions release code and deliver it to the customer application As it is now it is mostly handled using import export of xpo files S
22. where everything can be gathered and made available to others Support for a process spanning multiple applications is required The preconditions are to avoid using sandboxes and having to rely on external server technologies also the overhead must be kept to a minimum The prototype is a proof of concept It is using Dynamics AX s built in functionality to accomplish a centralized environment across multiple applications 5 1 Background DevCenter has been extended and now includes e Products e Versions of products e Product features per product version e Requirements for the product version and feature e Tasks for requirements Elements tables classes etc that developers check out in for editing are stored and can be associated to tasks It will thereby also be associated to product versions via the requirements and it is possible to track what element is in what product version Versions of elements are stored when checking out in 5 2 Software configuration management Software configuration management SCM is an umbrella activity and something that should be part of the entire lifecycle SCM activities should be applied to elements tasks requirements features products and releases by default These areas and their associated artefacts should be possible 58 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications to identify control change to perform status accounting on and also to perform
23. 09 applications In relation to the releases both companies describe a time consuming activity of putting different parts together ensuring that documentation training material included components etc are all in order This work could be interpreted as being part of the configuration audit even though it is more of a collecting and putting parts together than it is a review activity However many of the activities lack support from the system and rely on manual labour Also proper and structured testing activities are not clearly visible or traceable with the way the companies work Configuration audit can be improved Both companies describe similar structures in the way they work To communicate with the customers a separate web application is used This involves transferring the issues reported in the web application to Development Center and later updating the same web application again The many applications each have a separate installation of the tool Development Center for maintaining tasks This makes each development environment a separate repository with no possibility of sharing data This is a major drawback with the current tool and setup since the environments are interdependent According to Royce 1998 one key practice to improve overall software quality is providing integrated life cycle environments that support early and continuous configuration control The tools used are per environment and are therefore not provi
24. 5 1 3 The table validateField For some tables it is necessary to overwrite the validateField method The reason for this is that the kernel goes directly to the database to try to validate the field This forces implementation of validate functionality within the temporary data Below is an example of how that can be achieved In this specific example the validation is implemented for the DevRequirement table where the ProductI Product Id needs to be validated against the DevProduct table d is located The 69 public boolean validateField fieldId fieldIdToCheck boolean ret DevProduct devProduct if tpAXNetworkingParameters find IsServer switch _fieldIdToCheck case fieldNum DevRequirement Productld devProduct tpDevSession instance getTable devProduct select devProduct where devProduct ProductId this ProductId ret devProduct RecId 0 break else ret super _fieldIdToCheck return ret 5 4 5 1 4 The table lookup To enable lookups it is mandatory to write specific lookups since the kernel goes to the database table to find records for the lookup Below is an example once again on the DevRequirement table and for the Product Id 70 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications public void lookup FormControl _formControl str _filterStr SysTableLookup sysTableLook
25. 5 2 2 To Increase 3 5 2 2 1 Infrastructure To be able to develop test and deliver each component separately To Increase have one or more installations of Dynamics AX per component and version of Dynamics AX This means a huge amount of installations Some service packs and versions have compatibility issues and there is also a limit to how many servers you can run at the same time Each component should normally have a development test and release environment For Dynamics AX 2009 they have a separate server hosting in total 7 environments 4 development 2 test and 1 release For the oldest Dynamics AX 3 there exist approx 50 environments in total spanning 4 service packs In AX4 there are in total 15 environments It is difficult to have data transferred between the environments and the manual labor involved is very time consuming Each of the servers can be accessed using remote desktop connections In many cases different versions cannot co exist on the same servers This implies the need for more hardware Hardware requirements for running Dynamics AX have increased constantly Since each component more or less requires at least 3 environments dev test release it makes it important to know exactly what source code is where and when This was considered the single biggest issue since it is hard to maintain all the different environments checking and cross checking if elements are identical in two systems is tedious Creating a good
26. Expected result The expected outcome is a presentation of the software configuration management theories a description of the current situation at the companies and an analysis with suggestions for improvements of the software configuration management routines in relation to Development Center A prototype implementing the most important findings in Development Center should also be presented 14 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications 1 6 Intended readers Readers that might find this content interesting and useful are people working with development in Microsoft Dynamics AX Even though it is mainly intended for software product development organizations part of the content should be applicable also to companies focusing on implementations at customers For people with a general interest in software configuration management and possible implementations this thesis will provide information and examples for a specific case 1 7 Method To be able to describe the current situation at the companies I have chosen to conduct a case study According to the Swedish dictionary Nationalencyklopedin a case study is A detailed study of a specific phenomena e g a person or a group in a research context and is used to give a balanced picture enter deeply into and develop concepts and theories sometimes also to illustrate and strengthen hypothesis Nationalencyklopedin 2008 Runeson and Host hav
27. Institutionen f r datavetenskap Department of Computer and Information Science Final thesis Improving software configuration management across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications by Martin Cederbom LIU IDA LITH EX A 15 020 SE 2015 06 10 Link pings universitet Link pings universitet Link pings universitet SE 581 83 Link ping Sweden 581 83 Link ping Link ping University Department of Computer and Information Science Final Thesis Improving software configuration management across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications by Martin Cederbom LIU IDA LITH EX A 15 020 SE 2015 06 10 Supervisors Petur Snaeland Bj rn G Karlsson Examiner Kristian Sandahl Abstract When working with software development in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications as an independent solution vendor ISV with more than a few products in the portfolio the number of applications installations to support the processes tends to be vast Annata and To Increase are both ISVs and face this situation To Increase for example has about 50 environments for one single version of Dynamics AX Change is inevitable in the software industry regardless if the need originates from new features bug fixes or change requests from customers it requires modifications to existing products Uncontrolled changes to the products must be avoided and any modifications should be introduced without affecting existing fu
28. Name as string iii parm1 as string iv parm2 as string b Output i A string with xml see earlier comment All these operations call the static method in the specified class with the parameters specified It uses the NET Business Connector to do this There are security issues with this opening and a proper interface should be implemented instead of exposing all classes and static methods 5 4 3 The web service class in AX tpDevWebService This class offers all of the operations that are used via the web service and if setup to do so the NET Business Connector Only the methods that return XML are used in the communication 5 4 3 1 UML and method descriptions Below is a UML class describing the tpDevWebService class lt lt Class gt gt tpDevWebService checkOutTableRecord _xmlRecord XML XML findRecord _findInTable Common table Common Common getEmptyTableMap Map getEmptyXml XML getLatestVersions _releaseld toDevReleaseld XML getReleaseTableData _releaseld tpDevReleaseld table Common Map getTableData _releaseld toDevReleaseld tableName UtilElementName XML getTableRecord xmlRecord XML XML newTableRecord _xmlRecord XML XML str2con _ value str sep AmountMST container table2xml table Common tableMap Map XML updateTableRecord _xmlRecord XML XML xml2table permanent boolean xml XML Common Comments
29. being basic or aggregate items to organize them in an object oriented fashion A basic item or object can be any unit of information created during analysis design code or test It could be source code for a component part of a section of a requirements specification or a suite of test cases A grouping of basic objects and or other aggregate objects constitutes an aggregate object Pressman 2005 Berlack stresses the importance of carefully selecting the configuration items The selection and creation of the software hierarchy should be done early in the process and may impact the amount of work needed for maintenance later in the lifecycle Grouping functions into several dissimilar configuration items can lead to extra work when changes are introduced and the opposite is true proper selection can limit the efforts needed since the functionality is isolated to software units within fewer items Berlack 1992 2 4 3 2 Change control In this section it is declared when control is supposed to be initiated on a document source code etc and the item thereby be put under configuration control and becoming a configuration item This is an important activity The process of performing this activity should be described and documented Berlack presents a suggested software change flow Berlack 1992 26 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Software enhancements Software changes Analyze an
30. cation object 19 data is kept Partners and customers may access different layers Layers are ordered from the system layers via BUS VAR and CUS to USR See AOD RCM Retail Chain Manement product from To Increase Release Official build of a solution or product component SCM Software Configuration Management see also CM Solution A larger software product May be a bundle of smaller products or components USR Layer in Dynamics AX VAR Layer in Dynamics AX XPO A formatted text file containing mainly elements Has the extension xpo and is an export format from Dynamics AX 21 Chapter 2 Software Configuration Management What is software configuration management Pressman says change management is more commonly called software configuration management and uses the acronym SCM or CM for it Pressman 2005 That description implies that they are the same thing There seem to be considerable overlap and confusion between change management change control and configuration management Gartner calls SCM software configuration management but notes it is also known as software change management They define it as SCM is a methodology for software problem change request initiation and tracking change impact analysis version control security administration of software assets software promotion quality reviews and software distribution Gartner Inc 2015 The terminology might be
31. could also be added to e g product versions 4 7 Construction Releasing a product has been tedious and time consuming for the companies in the study With the concept of products features etc down to each version of an element it should be possible to gather all the elements for a certain product If the assumption is made that only the current active version is to be built and that future work has not yet commenced then these elements are the ones available in the Dynamics AX application itself A project in Dynamics AX can be created with these elements and an XPO can be exported It will also be possible to extract the AOD files needed If additional documents and or descriptions are available for the version feature requirement or task these can also be collected automatically from the system Releasing older versions is possible as well but then a different approach is needed Two main strategies are possible Either keeping track of what has been released previously and simply copying those artifacts or finding what version of each element was associated to the specific product version about to be re released Within Dynamics AX there is no such tool available out of the box but there are external tools to combine xpo files into one single xpo 55 Since AOD files are often a preferred method for delivering solutions separate build environments are needed or the AOD file must be extracted from the current development en
32. d assess impact Engineering change proposal preparation Evaluate engineering change proposal Archive change Supply feedback Verify change to originator Figure 1 Change flow as suggested by Berlack Berlack 1992 This section should also describe the change configuration board its named members and their respective functions and authority It is vital to control change a chain of uncontrolled changes can easily lead to chaos in a software project However too rigorous control processes can lead to decreased creativity and impede progress Pressman 2005 As seen in Figure 1 Change flow as suggested by Berlack a general change control activity can be simplified into a flow chart Pressman has a similar flow describing 27 the change control process He also refers to the version control process which he sees as a separate process step even though interrelated as a subordinate activity under change control Version control is about tools and procedures to manage different versions of configuration items A version control system should consist of four major features Pressman 2005 A project database or repository to store configuration items 2 Version management capability to handle version history 3 A make facility to enable the construction of specific versions from relevant configuration items 4 Issue or bug tracking capabilities The version control system comes
33. d in the total count To Increase has developed a product named Development Center and also Development Toolkit see 3 3 Development Center 3 3 Development Center Development Center DevCenter is a product developed by To Increase to support the development process in Dynamics AX It is available for Dynamics AX 4 and Dynamics AX 2009 The predecessor was called Developer Toolkit DevToolkit and was available on Dynamics AX 3 DevCenter is built on other components in the To Increase Suite making it very flexible but also dependent The two components are the Productivity Platform and the Workflow Management Productivity Platform is a powerful set of consistent reliable reusable building blocks for Dynamics AX components or solutions It acts like a fundamental layer that separates a solution from core Dynamics AX Workflows can assist in automating the development processes The Workflow Management supports sequential workflows using events actions and action flows and also state machine workflows using lifecycles and events on state transitions The component can route tasks alerts and approvals to people and execute any kind of operation based on configuration Therefore the DevCenter can be used with little or no need for customization With these features DevCenter can be configured to 39 support almost any needs And of course DevCenter could be extended if needed just as any Dynamics AX application DevCenter prov
34. ding the well needed integration In summary Missing software configuration management routines no plan e Lack of system support for development and project management Many products to develop maintain and support One installation per product version and service pack resulting in a vast number of environments e Dependencies between products and or componentized development 4 2 The SCM plan I would suggest a proper SCM plan is created with basis from the theories in Chapter 2 Software Configuration Management The SCM organization has to be described and the level of configuration management for each involved product component should be stated This is important since the level differs between products the certified solutions require more ceremony and better control than the smaller components The existing support and test organizations should also be described and how they interact with the development This addresses the SCM Organization Pattern 51 A formal description of how the DevCenter tool should be used together with routines for each of the configuration items should be documented This mitigates the Silver Bullet AntiPattern a tool alone will not solve all SCM needs Routines are needed 4 3 Configuration items It may be difficult to decide the proper level and definition of configuration item CI in the context of Dynamics AX The definition of CI as described in chapter 2 2 suggests it is a stand alo
35. e defined guidelines for case studies in the field of software engineering and conclude it is a suitable research method since it studies contemporary phenomena in its natural context Runeson amp H st 2009 In other research areas such as social sciences case studies have been well used and its methodology described in detail Often these have been applied to the field of software engineering straight off Runeson amp H st 2009 argues that there might be a difference in that way the study objects are more often Private corporations that are developing software rather than using software 2 Project oriented rather than line or function oriented 3 The advanced engineering work that is being conducted by highly educated people rather than simple routine work Runeson amp Host 2009 The matters investigated in this thesis all fit the descriptions from Runeson amp H st It is always a trade of between the amount of control and the degree of realism when studying real life phenomena Too little control in the study may lead to a result that cannot be interpreted properly thus failing at understanding the studied object Increased control reduces the degree of realism but can on the other hand lead to a scope that is too narrow leaving important factors uninvestigated Case studies are 1 Author s own translation from Swedish 15 targeting real life phenomena and may therefore be less controlled but will have a
36. e have met different stake holders and developers over a long period of time and discussed how the development progress from A to Z can be improved Since we have been working with the development in Dynamics AX for a several years we have gained a quite profound knowledge in a short period of time We are also a part of the business and we have decided to have broad and open questions in favor of specified questionnaires This is to try to avoid biasing the result with the author s opinions Still it might be a risk worth mentioning to readers see 1 8 Critique of choice of method 1 7 3 Interviews Through meetings with the stakeholders from both companies key personnel responsible for the software development routines where The director of development chief software architect and a senior solution architect developer were interviewed from Annata From To Increase the software architect product manager and two senior developers where interviewed The questions prepared were as follows 1 What are your main areas of work 2 Can you describe what a normal day at work looks like for you 3 Can you describe how o Anew feature is being handled from idea and approval to implementation and release o Achange request from a customer is handled from registration to closing the request o Abugis handled from the initial discovery until it is solved 4 What issues are you facing with the current setup of Dynamics AX o From the infrastructur
37. e perspective Where are servers located how are they accessible how many environments do you have etc 17 o From the developer perspective Where are tasks stored how are they accessed what layers are you working with how many environments etc What issues are you facing with the way you work today 6 What are the three most time consuming parts of maintaining your products today If you could change three things what would they be and why Do you have a formal description of your workflow o Who is responsible for that workflow o Where can I get a copy of it for further investigation 9 Do you have policies for your respective environments o Who is responsible for the policies o Can you describe the policy o Where can I get a copy of it for further investigation 10 How many products do you maintain actively in terms of development 11 How many versions of a product are maintained at the same time Versions AX3 5 releases customer installations etc 12 How are these products distributed over different environments 13 Is there anything you would like to add that I have not asked about From the interviews we received additional written information All the interview subjects were informed about the purpose and intended use of the interviews The interviews were recorded to facilitate follow up which the subjects approved prior to the start The recordings were later reviewed and key data from each que
38. e that DevCenter itself will make releasing solutions more efficient but if possible I would suggest trying to the build of new releases further down the road Proper testing after something has changed is important Track changes and their implications to make sure the outcome can be tested properly Support for testing within the system would be a great improvement Defects found early in the process save money No single tool however will solve all the needs it is not a silver bullet To make SCM work across multiple applications also requires commitment from the organizations and a plan to follow 87 Chapter 7 After study The intermediate result of the thesis was presented to the stakeholders early in the process After proving a server client setup was possible to achieve without any third party solutions work began with the new Development Studio The previous dependencies to existing components were removed and a stand alone product to support SCM was created In late 2009 the first version of Development Studio Server for AX 2009 SP1 was released It incorporated all of the findings and recommendations from the thesis Figure 8 below is a picture from the user manual and describes the overall functionality and how Development Studio supports the requirements management product management development testing and release management disciplines Snaeland amp van Veldhuizen 2009 Requirements Management Require
39. ed as configuration items In figure 5 below I call them requirements thus each requirement should be a CI with a classification of its origin 52 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Change request New feature Require ment CI Figure 5 Requirements The requirement in turn needs to be associated to the correct product The product has different versions and may contain different features It may also consist of other sub products Features Sub products Version components Figure 6 Products A requirement should then be associated not only to a product but also to a version and a feature The product version and feature should all be under configuration management and considered as informational CIs If we map this to the functionality requirements as outlined by Dart products versions features and requirements will be the components The actual elements are as discussed earlier also CIs and they are building blocks of the product Therefore elements need to be associated to the product This can be done directly by stating that the product consists of certain elements Elements are subject to change which originates from the requirements support issue change request or new feature A requirement may lead to certain activities or tasks A task can be defined as the work item during implementation of the requirement If each 53 element being modified in relation
40. elopment Center and link it manually to the originating service request They describe if the fix has to be back ported to previous version of Dynamics AX and they try to add a note if the task solved would be beneficial for other customers as well To gain the most from any modifications Annata tries to generalize the problem at hand to be able to find a generic solution If a generic solution can be found that affects other customers as well it may be decided that the issue should be solved as part of the product development If not it may be decided 41 that the solution should be applied locally at the customer site and remain a customer specific customization Defects or bugs might be assigned higher priority and are more likely to result in a hotfix than other issues When the associated task is solved and is linked to a service request the service request it updated manually They try to be agile so design and details might be specified on the fly During this process and any modifications they try to keep product documentation up to date at the same time Recently Annata has started to conduct a list of new features they are adding to be able to describe functionality for new versions in a user friendly way 3 5 1 2 To Increase The existing routines at To Increase are said to be documented by the interview subjects However these documents are not easily available or accessible and even though developers are aware of them no
41. ement ii as ei 57 BO Track neos iia 58 5 3 ASUMA PONS ut poii asp a bob RA idu innt cfe cadeau did b M Heo 58 54 Technical solo 59 54AT Generalem user ete brad aba steady e Ed ameter 59 DA Webservice scat angi DO pd A 60 5 4 3 The web service class in AX tpDevWebsService sees 61 544 The Session tpDevS sstODuacoiieedusenas ai oc 64 5 4 5 Allow a form to use temporary tables 66 5 9 2 Eas e TS ST L 1 pi 77 Do EE AA item te RER 77 G A aR gra RR NEU RAT SER RETS Taras 78 95 9 Te 78 5 5 4 Schema for update and refresh of data ainda 78 0 59 Data model aida 79 5 56 Exclusive Leo ues AE 79 o DA Se d adopte 79 519 8 Te a T 80 5 5 9 Configuration management sss dia etu ee eee 30 5 5 10 Persistent or non persistent data 80 9 0 Setting the protelvpe T 81 5 6 1 Development Center AX2009 di 83 AN iiine arie ease a Ea a E E EAEE E EEEE 83 5 6 3 Business connector and Active Directory sess 83 Chapter 6 Conclusion ee ooo tts users sense na dT mice RH IE 85 Chapter 7 After PU y eid iesu icto aid A AE AAA 87 Chapters TSelereniees Aia 91 11 Chapter 1 Introduction This thesis discusses the need for Software Configuration Management and how it can be improved for companies working with software development in the enterprise resource planning system Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 especially when there are multiple applications involved The companies investigated To Increase and Annata
42. es come to think of it Through all this supporting me and believing in me my loving wife Linda that kindly left a blank space on the wall next to her framed master s diploma to motivate me to finally finish Table of contents Chapters Intro dCi AAA A EA 11 MEET pino et 11 LD Microsoft Dynamics AN antiguo A suave ges As 12 LI YS h Le T etie tiii ni asd acai Monae 12 FI AMA dte ia OE e AVE gU ad 12 1 2 UDHEBOSO ecd ern D ted aret pers Dic Udine ut edo pra 13 T3 Specified questions tod tia 13 Jd o NOR EAR ANI ERI EQ FARAO NN BARRE ARA ERR Lec I UN eds 13 Lo Expected P I sopa 13 l6 Intended TeXdefsusisntucec opu eem HE droite a caue tiii dp ne nde 14 17 A teet casetas d bas dte das ttn dta i tico puc HANNAS ERAN te 14 ds ENG Case Stud v protesis a 15 1 7 2 Theoretical method for data collection eese 16 RT 16 Le Critique of choice OF Medi A Maced iaa 17 1 9 Abbreviations and explanada o 18 Chapter 2 Software Configuration Management sse 21 2 1 Configuration management History eee ra epe ii 21 22 E 12 s le T 22 23 ANDE EN AAA A A 23 2 42 SE MPA AAA AAA A ANA 24 24AT COME and ST S TT 24 2 4 2 Organization and resources ete n aei I e E SERENO QU as 24 24 3 SENA IES seo diede pr vrbe leq ined Ui elato td rete ta 24 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications 2 5 SCM Functionality Requirements viandas 32 2 6 Anti patterns and patte
43. es used 83 EER File Edit View Favorites Tools Help Back K E Search E Folders RO G Folder Sync Folders X Name Size Type Date Modified a amp SheredProject tpDev AX4 temporarytables ALLxpo 590KB XPO File 2009 01 07 23 40 SharedProject tpDev AX4 temporarytables LISR xpo 468 KB XPO File 2009 01 07 23 39 a SharedProject tpDevPermanent Ax4 based on tpDev xpo 62KB XPOFile 2009 01 07 23 22 These files are for AX4 but there are only minor changes to AX2009 The first file is a complete xpo with all the elements modified The second one is the same project but with only the modifications from the working layer The last xpo file is an example with persistent data It requires the first files to work 5 6 1 Development Center AX2009 The prototype is based on Development Center AX2009 and some of the elements from this product have been modified 5 6 2 References You must add references to the business connector and the web service consumer dll that you have to create 5 6 3 Business connector and Active Directory The web service requires that the IIS can communicate with the Active Directory to authenticate the user This may also be true for the business connector when used inside AX depending on how credentials have been cached 85 Chapter 6 Conclusion In the beginning of the thesis a purpose was presented to suggest improvements to the software configuration management routines across multip
44. f tasks and their statuses is needed and the tool should facilitate the 34 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications communication of information about relevant events to the appropriate users It should also provide facilities for documenting knowledge about the product Dart 2007 The other more important area is the team area Users need personal and group workspaces tools for merging multiple changes and to perform conflict analysis Also support for grouping products into families of product is desirable Dart 2007 2 6 Anti patterns and patterns for SCM In the area of SCM patterns and anti patterns do s and don ts have been documented Below a few of these are briefly mentioned since I believe these simple statements can be of help 2 6 1 SCM Organization Pattern Define the SCM to establish organizational values SCM goals organization structure processes standards authority and responsibility Brown 1999 2 6 2 Silver Bullet AntiPattern Addresses the mistaken belief that a tool can solve all of your configuration management problems Brown 1999 2 6 3 Developer Software CM AntiPattern Identifies what occurs when CM is left to the development team rather than to an independent CM organization as it should be The anti pattern teaches us to make sure SCM is not only something done for the code itself The product is more than source code documentation of tests design
45. for that was stored in the AOT somehow to avoid having to rely on data in the client database 5 5 2 Security There are major security issues with the current prototype For example the web service is currently allowing all class static methods to be called That could be improved by omitting the class name in the calls to make sure only methods of that specific class can be called The webservice is run by a user with administrator rights in AX Multiple options are available to move away from this setup I performed some tests where the user needs to logon to the website where identification can be done against the Active Directory and those credentials used for making the connection via the NET Business Connector Unfortunately I didn t find out exactly how the sessions and users are treated in the connector and didn t prioritize to find out Some findings suggested that the first user to logon is the credentials used until the connection times out Other users will also logon as that specific user then and code will be executed with a possibly incorrect policy Another issue is the data sent back and forth It is in plain text and can easily be read by eavesdroppers There is no input validation and the methods exposed by tpDevWebService allow a user to extract information as they like This is a major security risk 5 5 3 Sessions Retrieving data from the server is expensive when measured in time One of the more time consum
46. from the server must be handled somehow as well as possible off line editing from the client The deletes must be marked somehow perhaps in a separate table that will be used to synchronize the deleted records to the client 5 6 Setting the prototype up In the zip file with the delivery these folders can be found Bi ServerClient TER File Edit View Favorites Tools Help Q park CJ d Jo Search fer Folders Er B Folder Sync Folders X Name Type Date Modified A WebService File Folder 2009 01 07 23 42 Expo File Folder 2009 01 07 23 39 The WebService folder contains the following 82 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications fit WebService EE E File Edit View Favorites Tools Help o Back gt gt 27 Jo Search eE Folders mE G Folder Sync Mame S Type Date Modified Text Dacument 2008 12 04 19 41 8 Service1 asmx 1KB ASP NET Web Service 2008 11 27 12 32 H Servicet asmx cs SKB Visual G Source file 2009 01 07 23 29 54 Web config 2KB XML Configuration File 2009 01 07 23 35 e An example file on how to compile and create a consumer for the web service That consumer should be used in AX as a reference e Servicel files are the methods exposed by the web service They should be compiled and put on a web server The web config file contains information used in the Servicel files It is for user name and password for the business connector The xpo folder holds the xpo fil
47. ges are introduced Berlack 1992 Status accounting can be a major benefit for maintenance purposes Berlack reasons that maintenance starts as soon as the first change has to be made and may very well be during early testing phases To introduce new changes the history of what has been done previously must be known to make sure pitfalls are avoided and that the changes suggested still conform to requirements An equally important motivation for status accounting is keeping project members up to date with information about what is being developed what is ready for test etc Berlack also mentions assured 31 supportability of released products as one the benefits with status accounting Berlack 1992 2 4 3 4 Configuration audit The SCM plan should describe how the outcome of the development process will be tested and examined and how that testing is to be performed to ensure that outcome conforms to the requirements It should also describe how the documentation associated to the product is reviewed to make sure it describes the actual work product being delivered The plan should describe how this audit should be conducted by whom and with what authority Configuration audits are part of the answer to the question how can we ensure that a change has been implemented properly The other answer is formal technical reviews according to Pressman There is a gap between the control mechanisms being applied up until a change has been a
48. gt lt text gt lt version product Cnt gt Ver 2 lt version gt lt text gt Method getReleaseTableData Retrieves a set or subset of the data in the table specified by the common _table given the _releaseld as the common denominator Some tables are returned in total others that are related to a product version get just the data associated to the specific product version If a product version for the _releaselad is set as active however it is assumed it is the development environment and returns all versions for that product Returns a map created by getEmptyTableMap containing the recids and records found Method getTableData Returns an xml with data in the table specified by the _tableName The _releaseld is optional and if provided this method calls getReleaseTableData to get a subset of the data related to _releaselad This method calls getEmptyTableMap and inserts the found records in the table map The table2xml is then called with the table map 63 Method getTableRecord Transforms the input xmlRecord to a record with xml2table It then tries to find the specified record using the method findRecord If a table record is found it is converted to xml with table2xml If it is not found an empty xml is returned with get Empt yXml Method newTableRecord Converts the input _xmlRecord to a common with xml2table and tries to find that record using findRecord If a recid is found for that comm
49. handful of them are kept in house at the moment To facilitate and keep track of builds and versions Annata has developed their own system in Dynamics AX Identifying and removing elements that have been deleted is one of the shortcomings of the current delivery model that they try to handle with clever tools With the version control system in Dynamics AX 2009 the means to handle a delivery has been improved but many features are still missing 3 5 2 1 2 Development One of the major issues with Dynamics AX is the use of IDs for certain elements such as tables and table fields The IDs are used internally to reference these 44 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications elements When changing an ID on a table and synchronizing the application data the table is dropped from the database and then recreated If not handled correctly by the developers the result is potential data loss for customers Annata aims to use the same IDs in all environments from development and release environments and at customer sites Internally they use an ID server and when they have dependent products those are installed in the lower layers The development is taking place in the USR layer For task management they use a fairly flat system without sub tasks etc and find it easy to work with The building of the releases and the involved work is time consuming and they would like to automate the steps to a higher degree 3
50. ides functionality for task management with workflow version control of individual elements automation of tasks and it provides a set of tools to support the developer in the everyday work 3 4 Microsoft Dynamics AX and version control The current versions of the applications maintained at Annata and To Increase span Dynamics AX 3 AX 4 and AX 2009 Support for version control for source code within Dynamics AX is as follows AX3 non existing AX4 requires MS Team Server and e g MS Visual Source Safe AX2009 offers the same version control system as AX4 but also has built in support with MorphX 3 5 Stakeholder perspective 3 5 1 Current processes This section describes the current processes at the companies 3 5 1 1 Annata Amnata uses a service system for handling issues This service system is part of one of the solutions they offer to the market and it is also used internally to manage all kinds of issues The development process is well documented They strive to be as agile as possible and their process can be described in the following schematic picture 40 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Start work on release N 1 Iteration O Construction Release Production Warm up iterations End Game eOperate and support release eInitiate the eDeliver a eDeploy release S project working system N into which meets production changing needs of stakeholders F
51. igure 4 Annata s development process As figure 4 describes the work is done in iterations The development and design efforts are encapsulated in the construction iteration Annata has an experienced team with in depth knowledge of development the application itself and real life experience of the areas involved in their products With the teams organized as described they can get a good throughput and quickly respond to new requirements One of the keys is the active participation of the stakeholder The document that describes the development process also describes how Annata work with Development Center Defect reports and requests for new features interact with the process described above and they have different processes but in reality there is little difference in how they are treated All issues should start as a service request in the service system The employees describe the issue at hand with the words of the customer requester The requester is associated with the service request and the request is classified Some of these tasks might never become developer tasks as they are solved by other means However they set a developer as responsible for the issue Since Annata has multiple environments with different components maintained in different environments part of the initial analysis is deciding to what system the issue belongs In the environment they identify Development Center is installed They create a development task in Dev
52. ilable for tracking actions per user e To allow working on a task from several different environments an exclusive lock is required or merging capabilities For now exclusive locks with check in check out are suggested 5 4 Technical solution This section describes the design and ideas behind the development 5 4 1 General idea KISS Keep It Simple Stupid is a good strategy that we have tried to enforce 5 4 1 1 Server client elements To make implementation easy the server and client contain the exact same tables and forms Some functionality will however not be available on the client and additional functionality may be needed on the server for the future For now a parameter specifying if it is a server or client decides the behavior The decision to have the same tables and forms is not a mandatory requirement and can be changed later 5 4 1 2 Data All data should be on the server Clients should be able to connect to the server and modify the data Data is available on the server and you are allowed to change it but all data in your client session is volatile unless you save it to the server 5 4 1 2 1 Client data in temporary tables 60 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Aligned with the web server client metaphor the client only operates on data stored in tables made temporary in Dynamics AX 5 4 1 3 Basic interface The interfaces are based on some ideas taken from a
53. imply doing a refresh but allows for a find in the temporary data void doResearch TableName tableNameTmp if DevRequirement isTmp tableNameTmp tpDevSession instance getTable tableNameTmp if tableNameTmp RecId tableName RecId select tableNameTmp where tableNameTmp RecId tableName Recld tableName ds executeQuery if tableNameTmp tableName ds findRecord tableNameTmp For some reason this method was sometimes causing troubles Most likely because the cursor pointed to a certain record and when the select statements were executed the cursor was changed Therefore a check is needed to see if the recids are different before doing any search Normally the cursor is at the right position and the result from the get Table method is what we want to find 5 5 Further development During the development of the prototype some ideas for further development were sprung as well 5 5 1 Clean up The code must be cleaned up and streamlined Gather as much as possible in classes and move code away from forms 78 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications One suggestion could be to use the table and form behavior from the APP classes to make it easy to include the new tables as temporary This could be implemented separately to make sure it does not interfere with the App product I would also make sure that the settings and data needed
54. ing activities is logging on to AX via the NET Business Connector Maintaining a session on the website that is logged on to AX improves performance considerably This could be implemented without too much effort From a client in a local network setup the tpDevSession class holds an active session to the server via the NET Business Connector which is why that setup is much faster at the moment 5 5 4 Schema for update and refresh of data All Dev tables are currently transferred to the client at the first initialization of the session class tpbevSession When a record is checked out each write is sending the entire record back and forth between the server and the client The good thing is that data is stored on the server as soon as something is changed the bad thing is that 79 data is stored on the server as soon as something is changed there are both pros and cons for this Several different improvements for this schema are possible e Don t initialize everything by default only retrieve data when it is requested This will result in shorter startup time but some delays when something new is requested e Create separate forms and tables for the client mimic web pages where the user first gets a list and then clicks a link to go to the details By doing that it is possible to limit the fields needed for most of the tables and only retrieve details for individual records when needed e Define what fields are really needed
55. into play when a change has been approved and objects are about to be modified By using a simple check in out approach for configuration items the version control mechanisms can provide access control and synchronization control Pressman 2005 Berlack treats internal changes as a separate process less structured and with no suggested standard He describes a workflow which basically follows the same pattern as a more formal change process and stresses that it is necessary to record the changes regardless Berlack 1992 Pressman refers to informal change control something to apply before a configuration item is treated as a baseline Many people fear the bureaucracy introduced with software configuration management and it is important to find the appropriate level For informal change control the developer may decide on minor changes himself as long as it doesn t affect broader system requirements After a formal technical review and approval of the changes made a baseline can be created Thereafter project level change control is implemented In order to make a change the project manager or change configuration board must be consulted for approval Once the software has been released to customers formal change control should be applied Pressman 2005 2 4 3 2 1 Change control for web applications Pressman describes web engineering as somewhat different to traditional software engineering It uses iterative and incremental approaches
56. ionality in general is time consuming with the related activities When something has been modified proper tests have to be executed At the moment tests are based on the knowledge of the testers They want to move towards automated tests e g unit tests Keeping documentation up to date in relation to modifications and new features is considered time consuming The releasing of new versions compiling everything doing quality checks and best practice compliance checks etc do take a lot of time There are also dependencies between different products A hotfix required for the IDMS solution may very well be related to the application platform or separate stand alone products maintained in another environments The hotfix request therefore issues a modification need in another environment Corrections should be done in the correct environment progress through test environment and later be released That release in turn should be implemented in the IDMS development environment before tests can be executed and a new release can be created 46 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications 3 5 3 2 To Increase Adding documentation and merging is time consuming One change implicates updates to training material documentation and information to the customer When issues are reported a lot of time is spent on double and triple check if the environments are the same The issues surface in different environments and
57. itory e Allis taking place within a local area network for now at least see next point e File shares should reside in the repository as well not only the data all folders and files must be available in the entire setup e Asingle development environment on a server level per product i e no sandboxes per client for individual developers e When a product version is released it is stopped from further development and is treated as a baseline The only allowed changes to a released version are hot fixes Before each new build previous hot fixes must be taken into account and merged to the mainline i e to the new build 59 e Hot fixes that have not been merged must be highlighted before a new version is built so that a decision can be made whether or not to include them e Each build must be uniquely identifiable and the ID of the build must be in the AOT e Each hot fix applied to a system must be uniquely identifiable and the ids of the fixes must be in the AOT e Ifa product consists of several components to which modifications are allowed for integration purposes modification of the components should be treated as part of the major product e Ifa product consists of several components to which improvements are made they should be treated as hot fixes and thus be added to the original component s hot fix list e Components and products are grouped together via releases e A global user ID must be ava
58. ize and larger companies and offer a multi currency and multi language system The core strengths are in manufacturing and e business but the system also has great functionality for wholesale and service industries Microsoft Corporation 2008 Dynamics AX automates and streamlines financial customer relations and supply chain processes Microsoft Corporation 2002 1 1 2 To Increase To Increase with headquarters in the Netherlands is mainly focusing on developing solutions and components for Microsoft Dynamics products and Microsoft technologies They provide products designed for specific vertical industry segments and sell their products via a partner network Since 1999 they have been working with Microsoft Dynamics AX and today they employ approximately 50 persons One of their products is called Development Center and is designed to assist organizations developing in Microsoft Dynamics AX To Increase 2008 For the oldest Dynamics AX version there exist approximately 50 applications installations in total spanning 4 service packs 1 1 3 Annata Annata is an Icelandic company working with Microsoft Dynamics AX They offer several vertical solutions such as the Annata IDMS for Microsoft Dynamics AX IDMS stands for Import and Dealer Management System and offers a vertical solution for companies involved with vehicles heavy machinery etc The Annata 13 Group has about 60 employees in Iceland Sweden Denmark and the U K An
59. k 1992 2 4 2 Organization and resources The organization chart of the project is presented and this section describes at what levels configuration management are to take place in the organization The resources section describes the persons involved and includes the authority and responsibilities of the different positions in the SCM organization Under this heading one also describe any interfacing organizations such as a support or software quality assurance organization Berlack 1992 2 4 3 SCM activities Below are the activity sections as outlined by Berlack 1992 2 4 3 1 Identification The identification activity is concerned with identifying the configuration items and their components Capturing specifications and documents related to the software being developed and putting them under configuration management is described Requirements traceability is important and the configuration items interrelationships 25 must be documented in some way Both top down and bottom up traces need to be available on request and Berlack 1992 suggests a parent child relationship approach but notices that the system gets more complicated when interfacing elements and changes are introduced To be able to control and manage change to configuration items they have to be identified and organized in some way Berlack 1992 Pressman 2005 Pressman suggests a text string identifying each configuration item and classifies the items as
60. l the overall management process Moore 1998 2 3 Why use SCM What motivates the use of SCM in a project Quality demands alone might motivate the use of SCM but there are more reasons of course Without going too much into the software engineering principles with the classical waterfall model versus more iterative approaches the trend today in many companies in the software development industry is towards a more agile and iterative process Royce claims that change management is critical to iterative processes tracking changes to configuration items is crucial to be able to track the progress of creating an acceptable end product He continues and states that change management has become fundamental to all phases and almost all activities Royce 1998 Changes will always occur in software development and most of them are justified Pressman 2005 The origin of the changes can be anything basically but Pressman identifies four fundamental sources new business or market conditions customer needs reorganization or business growth downsizing and budgetary or scheduling constraints Pressman 2005 Product development companies as well as companies involved with customer implementations all face ever changing environments Managing changes is important and Pressman claims that a well run software project easily can turn into chaos by a stream of uncontrolled changes Pressman 2005 Pressman states that a primary goal of software e
61. le applications of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Some specified questions were also listed I believe I have fulfilled the purpose and answered the questions The challenge with the multiple environments for the companies in the study is the fact that none of them used a centralized repository making it hard to track and trace what was happening in different environments There were many places to work with tasks and elements one in each environment It was difficult to do status accounting What would be necessary to make software configuration management work across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications To answer this I have found recommendations in the theories What constitutes desirable features of a SCM system What should be under configuration management I have suggested a central repository a Development Studio Server where the tool can tie everything together where all CIs can be tracked and traced I have suggested what to treat as configuration items in the context of product development within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 General improvements to both issue tracking and current change management routines have been suggested SCM is an activity that should be part of the entire product lifecycle it is an umbrella activity as Pressman says A unified system across environments would be one large leap in the right direction making it possible to get an overview of all bits and pieces of the solutions being developed With
62. lse error clrException get_Message j this doResearch The macro tpCheckout looks like this 73 flocalmacro tpCheckOut startLengthyOperation if 1 isTmp oo l CheckedOutTo tpDevImpTables checkOutUserName ml tpDevWebService table2xml 1 1 CheckedOutTo X oo f UseDotNetConnector H dynAx tpDevSession instance getDynAx xml dynAx CallStaticClassMethod tpDevWebService checkOutTableRecord xml else axWebService new AXWebServiceDevConsumer Servicel xml axWebService CallStaticClassMethodParml tpDevWebService checkOutTableRecord xml tpDevSession instance updateTableRecora tpDevWebService xml2table xml 1 data tpDevWebService findRecord EL tpDevSession instance getTable 1 else 1 CheckedOutTo tpDevTmpTables checkOutUserName endmacro The idea is to first set the CheckedOutTo and send the record to the server The server method will make sure it is not checked out on the server side update the record and then return it The session data is updated with the record retrieved from the server That record is then set as the data of the current record on the data source 5 4 5 2 3 The form updating data The write method on the data sources must be overridden to allow modification of data to be treated properly Since the table is already
63. ly focused 22 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications on requirements and needs for hardware As the software became an integrated component of the hardware the need for management of software evolved 2 2 Definition According to Berlack the primary activities of configuration management are identification change control status accounting and configuration audit He also argues that when interface and subcontractors are part of a project interface control and subcontractor CM control should be added to the activities Berlack 1992 Pressman describes the SCM as an umbrella activity that is applied during the entire software process He defines it as activities developed to identify change control change ensure that change is being properly implemented and report changes to others who may have an interest Pressman 2005 Even though expressed differently they identify the same activities Since I have chosen to use the term software configuration management let us look at the words involved A formal definition of the term configuration can be found in MIL STD 480B Department of Defense United States of America 1988 The functional and physical characteristic of hardware firmware software or a combination thereof as set forth in technical documentation and achieved in a product The term configuration item is then defined in the same military standard as An aggregati
64. ment Center and its predecessor Development Toolkit see 3 3 Development Center Even Rapid Configuration Tool nowadays a Microsoft product has been evaluated Normally however there is no general Dynamics AX system support on site for the 38 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications change management process The gap fit lists are maintained in Excel spreadsheets documentation and change requests are created and scattered around file shares and personal folders 3 2 To Increase The focus of To Increase is product development Their largest solutions for the Dynamics AX area are called Industrial Equipment Manufacturing IEM and Retail Chain Management RCM They have a far evolved component strategy for their development the main products are based on smaller and standalone components These components in turn are shipped and treated as individual products Both IEM and RCM are certified for Microsoft Dynamics AX and are Microsoft Dynamics Industry Solutions meaning they have passed quality tests and conform to the best practices provided by Microsoft The current strategy is to separate development efforts for the different components In total To Increase have about 7 Dynamics AX 2009 environments 4 development 2 test and 1 release environment The AX3 version range 4 service packs and sums up to approximately 50 environments They use separate environments for testing purposes and these are include
65. ments Changes Defects Issues d 9 Product Management Development Testing Test cases Release Management Mad azz Figure 8 Development Studio features at a glance Snaeland amp van Veldhuizen 2009 88 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Many improvements surrounding testing were introduced Out of the box Development Studio supported tracking both manual and automatic tests By defining test cases test suites could be created for recording the results of test case execution The key elements are described in figure 9 below Snaeland amp van Veldhuizen 2009 Design t Case Test Suite lt gt Test Run 7 gt Test Map S 77 gt TestCase Result Test Step Figure 9 Key elements of testing features Snaeland van Veldhuizen 2009 As the components in the test system were reusable units tests could be executed multiple times and reused between different versions ensuring that old functionality would not deteriorate when changes were introduced The release management that was identified as time consuming has become a lot more automated Releases were added as a concept A release was defined as a build that would be officially delivered to customers In most cases all version elements such as requirements tests and tasks should have been closed executed and all included documents be ready
66. metodik FoMet 207 pdf Berlack H R 1992 Software Configuration Managment John Wiley amp Sons Inc Brown W J 1999 AntiPattern and Patterns in Software Configuration Management John Wiley amp Sons Inc Dart S 2007 January 11 Retrieved October 28 2008 from Spectrum of Functionality in Configuration Management Systems http www sei cmu edu legacy scm tech_rep TR11_90 TOC_TR11_90 html Department of Defense United States of America 1988 July 15 MIL STD 480B Configuration Control Engerineering changes deviations and waivers Retrieved September 22 2008 from http www product lifecycle management com download MIL STD 480B pdf Department of Defense United States of America 1992 April 17 MIL STD 973 Configuration Management Retrieved September 22 2008 from http sepo spawar navy mil Mil STD 973_CM pdf Gartner Inc 2015 May 14 SCM software configuration management Retrieved May 14 2015 from Technology Research Gartner Inc http www gartner com it glossary scm software configuration management Leon A 2000 A Guide To Software Configuration Management Artech House Microsoft Corporation 2002 July 11 Microsoft Acquires Navision Retrieved May 14 2015 from Microsoft http news microsoft com 2002 07 11 microsoft acquires navision Microsoft Corporation 2008 ERP software Microsoft Dynamics AX product information Retrieved September 17 2008a from http www
67. modified to handle the insert and update all we need to do is make sure they are called 74 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications public void write if TableName isTmp if TableName RecId TableName update else TableName insert 1 super 5 4 5 2 4 The form finished editing When the editing of a record is finished the exclusive lock is released to allow others to access it This is achieved by a check in button on the form calling code like this 75 void checkInTask AXWebServiceDevConsumer Servicel axWebService XML xml ClrObject clrException str tmpStr macrolib tpDev Microsoft Dynamics BusinessConnectorNet Axapta dynAx try tpCheckIn devRequirement catch Exception CLRError BP Deviation Documented clrException CLRInterop getLastException if clrException error clrException get_Message j clrException clrException get InnerException if CLRInterop isNull clrException false error clrException get_Message j this doResearch The tpCheckIn macro looks like this 76 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications localmacro tpCheckIn startLengthyOperation if 1 isTmp tmpStr 1 CheckedOutTo 1 CheckedOutTo ml
68. mpilation of components This area of functionality should help the user analyze the impact of a proposed change before any modifications are realized and support possibility to go back to a certain stage in the lifecycle Dart 2007 For auditing all changes must be stored as historical data a trail should be kept so tracing is made possible between related components in the product and their evolution It is also important to store a detailed log of the work done Dart 2007 Accounting is about recording statistics for the product providing tools to allow the user to examine the status of and generate reports for different aspects of the product Dart 2007 The functional area of controlling should provide the user with tools to control access to components to avoid unmanaged changes or conflicts in changes The toolset should also provide for on line change requests and bug tracking with the ability to trace what is assigned to whom and who is working with what when and where Changes should only be allowed to propagate over different versions of products in a controlled way and means to support this should be included in the toolset It is also desirable to limit the effects of changes to the product and this can be done by partitioning Dart 2007 The significant process functionality area should provide the user with support for the organizations policies and lifecycle models Means for assisting in identification and tracking o
69. n changes are made Process supports the management of how the product evolves Team enables a project team to develop and maintain a family of products 33 The component area of functionality holds requirements such as recording versions of components their differences and the reasons for the differences It also includes the identification of groups of components groups that make up a configuration Versions of these components are also identified In this area one will also find baselines for a product and the project context to which collections of components and artifacts are related The components need some kind of repository or library once under configuration management control Dart 2007 Structure is the functionality area where users can model the structure of a product via a system model In the model it should be possible to specify interfaces among the components versions and configurations By doing this the components become reusable Support for identifying and maintaining relationships between components is required as well as the possibility to create sound versions of a product by selecting compatible components Dart 2007 Construction is concerned with providing means to build and construct the product It should be possible to freeze the development at a certain stage e g by creating snapshots Optimization is about providing mechanisms to assist in way the product is built to minimize the need of reco
70. nata Sverige AB 2008 At Annata over 30 applications installations in total are needed for handling the product portfolio for one single version of Microsoft Dynamics AX 1 2 Purpose The purpose of the thesis is to suggest improvements to the software configuration management routines across multiple applications of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 for a small to medium sized software product developing company 1 3 Specified questions The resulting suggested improvements have been reached through the investigation of several questions These questions are 1 What challenges are introduced by the multiple applications setup from a software configuration management perspective 2 What would be necessary to make software configuration management work across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications 3 How should a configuration item CI be defined in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 4 What are the most beneficial improvements to be made to the current issue tracking 5 What are the most beneficial improvements to be made to the current change management 1 4 Delimitations This thesis will be limited to focusing on the specific enterprise resource planning system Microsoft Dynamics AX It will also focus on the management of changes to objects caused by new feature development bug fixes and customer specific requirements The basis for the suggested improvements shall be the existing tool Development Center 1 5
71. nctionality This thesis investigates how two ISVs work with Dynamics AX and the existing tool Development Center and suggests improvements to the Software Configuration Management The most beneficial change suggested is to create a single repository within the existing tool across the applications 4 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Acknowledgements With no particular order in mind I would like to thank some of the people that made this thesis possible My supervisor Petur Snaeland for giving me the opportunity to do my thesis at To Increase and for allowing me to take part in some genius work during the process One of the greatest software architects I have had the pleasure of meeting Bj rn G Karlsson for always supporting me in whatever I do and for the many sessions together constantly increasing my knowledge You are a true Master My examiner Kristian Sandahl at IDA Link pings University and my opponent Alexander rtenberg for reviewing commenting and suggesting improvements Employees at both To Increase and Annata for taking time for interviews and meetings with me Family and relatives for their support during the more intense periods without you this would not have been possible My sister Charlotte Vainio for valuable thoughts on the thesis My children Oscar and Linn a you are the reasons I am breathing and why I wake up in the mornings and during nights sometim
72. nd central repository 56 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications Development Center Server Client Local area network Clients Production sites Builds product versions etc Release Production IEM RCM CNT etc Release builders Check for updates hotfixes report issues etc XA Features prioritizing project management etc 3 Web server Re Sp service Managers project products support Requirements tasks etc Developers Development IEM RCM CNT etc Tests defect reporting etc Testers Test Application consultants IEM RCM CNT etc Te Intern DevCenter ems Server 1 Developers consultants Repository Report fix and close issue on site Clients Production sites 57 Chapter 5 Prototype for DevCenter Server Client Making the DevCenter tool a Server Client application with a central repository could help solve many of the major issues Annata and To Increase face with their current tools and routines It is also the most challenging technical part and this chapter describes a prototyped possible solution The prototype was implemented and offered a fully functioning DevCenter Sever Support for software configuration management and increased control over the processes involved when executing projects and or product development is a goal A central repository is needed
73. ne test alone and use alone element In the military standard described it is any discrete portion of the software which satisfies an end use function and is designated to configuration management If configuration management is considered change control in this context it can be concluded that the elements within Dynamics AX the building blocks like classes tables forms etc should be under change control This would motivate defining each element as a CI Uncontrolled change to any of the elements will put the entire system at risk As of now change control is not properly applied to the requirements specifications etc They are also treated a bit different depending on the source for the needed change Both companies register support issues via a web interface The issues may sometimes get prioritized differently depending on the urgency As Berlack points out in the SCM activity Identification chapter 2 4 3 1 capturing specifications and documents related to the software and putting them under configuration management should be done Not all the support issues will reach development but it is still important to document each track any changes to them and possibly be able to trace changes to elements back to the originating issue Therefore each support issue should be under configuration management The handling of change requests and new features is somewhat more formal in both companies from what we learned but needs to be treat
74. ngineering is to make it easier to implement changes with less effort Change management is the set of actions that will make it possible for engineers to reach the goal Pressman 2005 According to Royce one of the key practices to improve overall software quality is providing integrated life cycle environments that support early and continuous configuration control and change management He also mentions support for rigorous design methods document automation and regression test automation as key factors Royce 1998 24 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications 2 4 SCM plan Failing to plan is planning to fail as the saying goes An SCM plan is needed to document the procedures duties and responsibilities decided upon Leon 2000 The SCM plan describes how configuration management is to be performed and there are several standards available Berlack 1992 describes the basic outline of such a plan e Scope and purpose e Organization and resources e CM activities for o Identification o Control o Status accounting Configuration audits O e Subcontractor control e CM milestones schedules e Notes and appendixes The sections in this chapter follow the same outline 2 4 1 Scope and purpose This section provides a background and reasons as to why SCM is to be used for the current project It describes the project with its objectives and purpose and gives an outline of the plan Berlac
75. nothing permanent except change Business or market conditions change customer needs require new functionality and changes to the existing solutions business organizations change the budget and schedule change Pressman 2005 Being able to maintain large software products while reacting to ever changing surroundings and adding more value to customers without risking existing functionality is a must for most companies in the software business Responding 12 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications quickly and efficiently to support issues tracing defects and behaviors back to the original demands and modifications avoiding interrupts and making sure all systems are up and running are some of the tasks at hand for the software development company especially if they are in the ERP business To Increase and Annata are two software developing companies that build add ons to the ERP system Microsoft Dynamics AX Both companies are Microsoft Gold Certified Partners and provide solutions that are certified for Microsoft Dynamics AX Improving quality and the ability to provide desired customer functionality to the market as effectively as possible is a competitive advantage and a desired objective for most companies 1 1 1 Microsoft Dynamics AX Microsoft Dynamics AX is an ERP system that has evolved from XAL Concorde via Axapta to the product it is today Earlier versions of Dynamics AX are designed for mids
76. oblem One approach is to always check out records on the top level for certain operations This will however not make collaboration on the same set of records as flexible as with other approaches 80 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications 5 5 8 Elements Elements are tables classes reports etc and can be found in the AOT Elements that are checked out and stored in Dev tables are at the moment handled as temporary tables I believe it is a good strategy to try to store this information on the server side as well The reason for this statement is the increased flexibility with no data dependencies to different clients Patterns also suggest that de centralization should be avoided However the data model must be modified if that strategy is to be supported 5 5 9 Configuration management At the moment the system does not support some of the desired configuration management routines Below is a list with suggestions for improvement in this area e Create a parameter setup that allows certain user s to act as a configuration control board e Ensure that certain changes are only allowed by members of the configuration control board o Approving requirements o Modifying the content of requirements that are approved o Changing features o Changing products and versions e Make sure there is traceability between builds and product releases a new build is a new product release version Make sure hotfi
77. on i e an existing record was found and a new record must be created Depending on the table certain initializations are done If a recid was not found by the findRecord we assume it is correct from the xmiRecord and just insert it The resulting record is transformed to xml again by table2xml That xml is returned If no table record was found nor created an empty xml from getEmpt yXml is returned Method str2con Modified from the global class Original does not take into account the length of the separator this method does however Method table2xml Takes a record in as common table The tableMap is optional and if it is the default value the record currently in table is inserted Thereafter the map enumerator is used to loop over all the records creating an xml out of it The resulting xml is returned Can also handle arrays like dimensions lt xml version 1 0 encoding utf 8 lt Records gt DevProduct RecId 5637145359 gt Product Id gt IEM lt ProductId gt Name gt Product Name 2 lt Name gt Prefix gt lt Prefix gt LabelFileld gt lt LabelFileld gt ConfigurationKey gt lt ConfigurationKey gt Path gt lt Path gt Description gt lt Description gt Layer gt usr lt Layer gt lt SecurityKey gt lt SecurityKey gt lt FunctionalOwner gt lt FunctionalOwner gt lt TechnicalOwner gt lt TechnicalOwner gt lt DevProduct gt DevProduct RecId 5637145360 gt Product Id gt RCM lt ProductId gt Name
78. on a client level skip all other fields in the communication e Remove updates for each write when modifying data Only perform an update to the server when the record is checked in 5 5 5 Data model At the moment the data model must be kept in mind when the data is transferred to the client There is nothing ensuring data completeness so to say With the ideas from the entity framework in the APP product it is possible to make sure associated records are always grouped together when the client is initialized keeping the data model intact without missing records 5 5 6 Exclusive locks The prototype uses exclusive locks for allowing updates to the shared records Another alternative could be to implement merging capabilities for individual fields in the table By comparing the old data before doing a write one could decide whether anyone else has modified the data If a field has changed the user then has to decide what version to use or how the data should be merged 5 5 7 Robustness The communication is not robust at the moment Error messages must be improved to provide proper feedback and exception handling must be improved The chain of updates that are triggered automatically must be controlled For example when a task is completed changes to the requirement is triggered The task might be checked out the requirement might not This will result in unauthorized updates to the requirement There are several approaches to this pr
79. on describes the session class implemented as a singleton using the global cache Since all references go via the public static instance method it will be created when first called upon When that happens it initializes the Dev tables and keep a reference to them during its lifetime The CLRObject dynAx is only used if it is set up to use the NET Business Connector directly otherwise the communication goes via web services 5 4 4 1 UML and method descriptions Below is a UML class describing the tpDevSession class 65 lt lt Class gt gt tpDevSession devVersionMilestone DevVersionMilestone devVersionHotfix DevVersionHotfix devVersionFile DevVersionFile devVersionFeatureTest DevVersionFeatureTest devVersionFeature DevVersionFeature devVersionElement DevVersionElement devVersion DevVersion devUserTask DevUserTask devUser DevUser devTaskElement DevTaskElement devTask Dev Task devRequirement DevRequirement devProduct DevProduct devParameters DevParameters devHistory DevHistory devElementVersion DevElementVersion devElement DevElement devAttachment DevAttachment dynAx CLRObject disposelnstance finalize getDynAx CLRObject getTable _table Common Common init insertTableRecord _tableRecord Common Common instance toDevSession new setTable _newTableData Common Common updateData _table Common upda
80. on of hardware firmware software or any of its discrete portions which satisfies an end use function and is designated for configuration management Configuration items may vary widely in complexity size and type Configuration items are those items whose performance parameters and physical characteristics must be separately defined specified and controlled to provide management insight needed to achieve the overall end use function and performance Berlack summaries this and says that a configuration item is a stand alone test alone use alone element Berlack 1992 MIL STD 973 Department of Defense United States of America 1992 states that that configuration management from the configuration item perspective is a discipline applying technical and administrative direction and surveillance over the life cycle of items to 1 Identify and document the functional and physical characteristics of configuration items 23 2 Control changes to configuration items and their related documentation 3 Record and report information needed to manage configuration items effectively including the status of proposed changes and implementation status of approved changes 4 Audit configuration items to verify conformance to specifications drawings interface control documents and other requirements Configuration management is not to be seen as means solely for software product control it is a technique to contro
81. one can say how to retrieve the latest version It seems that many efforts have been made but a formal companywide approved document describing the routines does not exist They do however have informal routines and processes that they follow The processes differ a bit depending on the product IEM and RCM the major products have more ceremony associated with the new feature bug and change request handling than smaller components Requirements from a customer can be handled differently depending on the need There may be features needed to e g win a deal such as prototypes design or a proof of concept Some issues may be rush service requests high priority issues to solve emergencies at the customer site In general ideas for new features come from various sources such as product managers customers support or developers The process for handling the new feature suggestions varies between different products Some products are certified by Microsoft and thus require stricter handling before changes are introduced Normally all these features should be documented and then handled properly but that is not always the case At To Increase they do have good internal understanding of the processes but not everything is done by the book it is not a completely documented process and the current handling is described as consistently inconsistent to quote one of the interview subjects To Increase uses a website for support issues The iss
82. pproved and the control during the actual implementation of the change The software configuration audit complements the formal technical review and helps bridging the gap ensuring that what has been implemented is also what actually was intended Pressman 2005 Berlack divides the audits into two types the functional and the physical configuration audit The functional configuration audit s objective is to verify that the functionality of a certain software configuration item conforms to its requirements This is done by reviewing data from test reports and other documents and comparing it to statements in documents such as the requirement specification It s also important to check interrelationships for example to verify that user documentation for a certain requirement contains the latest changes Berlack 1992 The physical configuration audit focuses on determining if design and product specifications as well as other documents represent the actual software created Berlack 1992 2 4 3 5 Subcontractor control This section is involved in describing how configuration management control is to be applied to any subcontractor and how the internal demands should be mirrored to the subcontractors 32 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications 2 5 SCM Functionality Requirements Susan Dart Dart 2007 describes functionality requirements for a configuration management system In figure 3 below each
83. quests or new features have been reported e What features have issued the most support requests e What requirements have been approved but not yet acted upon e What requirements are parts of the next planned version 54 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications As this information is to be treated as Cls I would suggest adding a check out check in functionality to each of them and keeping a history of each modification This way all changes will be traceable from the individual elements via tasks requirements features and versions up to the product itself Auditing will be facilitated with this functionality 4 5 Controlling access Since the DevCenter is developed in Dynamics AX it is possible to assign different access rights for users to different entities This would aid controlling only authorized personnel modify certain categories of CIs like e g and approve reject requirements in relation to a feature in the upcoming version 4 6 Process Basic functionality to support the management of how the product evolves can be easily implemented With the CIs as described in chapter 4 3 it is a matter of assigning requirements and tasks to persons responsible having routines different strict depending on what is defined in the SCM plan for reviewing and processing these CIs through different statuses Adding due dates to requirements and tasks will ease planning and management Due dates
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85. release and bringing everything together takes a lot of time 3 5 2 2 2 Development In general To Increase find themselves in a fairly good situation as they have separate environments for different solutions For pure development the 45 environments are easy to work with The issues arise when the code is to be moved between different environments and errors are to be reproduced In certain situations fixes may even have to be developed and applied in the test environment where the issue can be reproduced before being merged back to the development environment The product team experiences problems communicating about what is happening in different environments due to the issues with moving both code and data between environments Some solutions like IEM and RCM are built in the VAR CUS layer with BUS layer containing related products like e g the APP DevCenter is installed in the USR layer Something To Increase say they lack is the bigger picture both for elements across different environments and the developer perspective but also from a product manager perspective It is hard to see what is going on in different environments and get an overview In these situations Excel spreadsheets come into play The use of spreadsheets undermines the tools within the application that are supposed to be used 3 5 3 Time consuming activities 3 5 3 1 Annata Annata identifies a few activities as time consuming Building new funct
86. rns for SCM ii 34 26 1 SCM Organization Patten ica nts An mucus iia Qua deba b Rud dos tin qaae 34 2 6 2 Silver Bullet Ant Pate ada 34 2 6 3 Developer Software CM AntiPattern tint distal tl 34 2 6 4 Decentralized CMA atea idas 34 2 6 5 Requirements Jeopardy Aa 35 2 6 6 Object Oriented CM AntiPatterns uusisetodes et biete dai calcio 35 Chapter 3 ResUlt ss susssssivsdisssdsnsenss tet itio st mala D Mine aed ru La s M PN M dre ad 37 31 o siete MG bei bit MORI M pd Visa i M darsi Mid 37 3 2a To angie des bt Nr iM tet ON A E ME 38 3 3 Development iaa 38 3 4 Microsoft Dynamics AX and version control sss 39 3 9 Stakeholder perspective us pv besiate eto De Dedi innu testes adobe as 39 DO Current Processes Mi miretur depu io bd n bust 39 SUME ID E 42 DD dime CONSUMING ACUVILIES aa 45 3 54 JINPROVEMENIS npa dolia Ctm E am itd races a duda 46 Chapter ME VC cR 49 4 1 Current problem areas in relation to SCM activities sss 49 2 dhe5 M plateau dote domui dt Drs utet eO dep AM dide 50 4 3 Configuration tems aeia eiie rper odi dite at tisse obedit tede 51 Z4 Accounting and AUGMING ease eene t rer sned n i EREA idus 53 4 Controlling ACCESS acute pe it hee Na 54 AG PROCESS A 54 cP CONSTA AAA epu cai tu 54 4 8 How to tackle multiple applications isis marcada dendo ced Fase id 55 Chapter 5 Prototype for DevCenter Server Client uvas natin ated taba 57 5 1 O 57 5 2 Software configuration manag
87. roduct development as well as customer implementation projects and consultancy activities For their product development Annata uses the To Increase product Development Center to organize and handle tasks for each product On top they have an issue management system which is publically available to customers via a web front end Maintaining the connection between the two systems is manual at the moment and the process is described in their internal guidelines There are numerous solutions identified as products and currently maintained at Annata Each product is maintained within a separate development environment where the Development Center is installed For each product development environment exists a release environment The purpose of the release environment is to allow only certain approved modifications to be released to customers and partners since the development environment is constantly evolving The products are also componentized in the sense that one standalone product can be a component of another product Over 30 installations in total are needed for handling the product portfolio for one single Dynamics AX version The current maximum number of AOSes on a physical server is 30 forcing Annata to use several different machines to handle their environments During the beginning of 2009 their products spanned 3 versions of Dynamics AX AX3 AX4 and AX2009 For the customer projects there have been experiments with using Develop
88. rver 5 4 5 Allow a form to use temporary tables This section describes how the forms and tables were transformed to allow operations on temporary tables Assume that the server version and client version share the same tables and forms Working with the server version should be exactly as working with a normal form directly towards the data in that environment Thit behavior is expected on the client side as well but towards data held in the session class tpDevSession The implementation of this functionality is not ideal The code should be rewritten and moved from the forms and put into classes Some of the macros are used just to allow for less duplication of code with the choices made for the prototype 5 4 5 1 The table This section describes changes made to tables in order to implement the temporary table synchronization In general write methods are modified to make sure the modifications are updated on the server All code that retrieves a record in any way must be modified This applies to all elements in the AOT not only tables 5 4 5 1 1 The table update and insert There are a few things needed on the table level to make sure everything is consistent The insert and update methods should be modified as follows The insert method 67 public void insert H if tpAXNetworkingParameters find IsServer this data tpDevSession instance insertTableRecord this this doInsert
89. s user manuals etc are also artifacts that constitute the product Brown 1999 2 6 4 Decentralized CM AntiPattern Provides insight into the value of a central repository for performing development and configuration management The benefit with the central repository is the ability to share information and to make it available to all users Brown 1999 The anti pattern stresses the importance of a central repository The solution to the anti pattern is to gather everything in one place make information available in one single tool Avoid having bits and pieces spread over the entire infrastructure Brown 1999 35 2 6 5 Requirements Jeopardy AntiPattern From this anti pattern we learn that we should make sure to submit the requirement baseline to CM Brown 1999 2 6 6 Object Oriented CM AntiPattern This anti pattern tells us to keep track of both the component level and the code level This is even more crucial for object oriented development Different levels of granularity in the software configuration management are needed to reflect the object oriented reality Brown 1999 37 Chapter 3 Result To gain knowledge about Annata and To Increase I have conducted interviews and gone through internal documents The interviews took place in September 2008 Information has also been collected during informal meetings and discussions and via instant messenger chats calls 3 1 Annata At Annata they are involved in p
90. s the main branch of a component may be installed as a sub component of another product There may however be fixes applied in the original system and those have not yet been properly released and therefore the version number has not yet been updated The many environments are all under version control when it comes to the elements source code However requirements tasks versions etc are not This fits the Developer Software CM AntiPattern the Requirements Jeopardy AntiPattern as well as the Decentralized CM AntiPattern According to Berlack 1992 and Pressman 2005 change control needs to be applied to more than just source code The current way of working makes it impossible to know if a certain task has been opened closed re opened etc or modified in any way The identification of configuration items is lacking as well as the change control to these items Change control as suggested by Berlack in the change flow diagram in figure 1 chapter 2 4 3 2 is being performed to some extent in both companies It might not be as strict and structured but change requests new features and support issues are all analyzed reviewed and evaluated before implementation From what I learned during the interviews these steps are not that formalized and is sometimes even skipped The outcome of these change control meetings should be documented and be part of the configuration management 50 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 20
91. stion was identified summarized and grouped under certain headings It is presented in Chapter 3 Result 1 8 Critique of choice of method The author has been working with Microsoft Dynamics AX since 2004 first as a customer and later as project manager responsible for technical aspects and developer Due to this the result might be biased by the author s opinions with both pros and cons Interviews and discussions and the result thereof might benefit from the author s prior knowledge of the subject as they can go beyond the surface and more deeply penetrate the essence of the matters On the other hand certain old standpoints and methods might not be challenged to the same extent as if someone outside of the subject area would have investigated the topics at hand Annata has a Swedish subsidiary focused on consultancy services and customer implementations where the author is currently employed The business is separated 18 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications and the Icelandic headquarter is the product development company investigated in the thesis Case studies are often criticized for being of less value than analytical and controlled empirical studies By applying proper research methodologies and keeping in mind knowledge is more than statistical significance some of that can be remedied Runeson amp H st 2009 1 9 Abbreviations and explanations In this thesis certain abbrevia
92. teTableRecord _tableRecord Common Common Comments e Method disposelnstance Disposes of the instance by finalizing it and removing the reference in the global cache e Method finalize Removes the references to the temporary tables and logs off if the business connector has been used e Method getDynAx Returns the NET Business Connector member variable Is null if it is not setup to use the connector e Method getTable Returns the reference to the member table specified by the type of the common use e Method init Logs on to AX if it is setup to use the NET Business connector Calls to get data from the server for each member table e Method insertTableRecord Sends a request to the server to insert a record Returns the record that the server sends in the reply 66 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications e Method instance Creates an instance of the class and ensures that only one instance can exist e Method new Is private called only from the instance method e Method setTable Sets a member table to temporary and the temporary data to what is sent in via common _newTableData Returns the temporary table e Method updateData Retrieves a whole table from the server and calls set Table with the result as input e Method updateTableRecord Updates the input common _tableRecord to the server Returns the updated table record retrieved from the se
93. tform APL and the Business Platform BPL Their major product IDMS is built on APL and BPL They ship all as separate products In some customer scenarios they bundle IDMS and Connectivity Studio CNT from To Increase This means one release environment for APL one for APL and BPL one for IDMS with APL and BPL and yet another one with IDMS with CNT and APL BPL All these different environments require a lot of hardware and a lot of storage One suggested solution for Dynamics AX is to use one layer for all solutions use nightly builds and keep track of the versions produced Microsoft supplies the full setup of Dynamics AX and limit functionality with license keys This seems to be logical and sound and when Annata was asked why they do not use this approach which would definitely reduce the need for the many environments the answer was twofold 1 First of all there is no way of licensing ISVs solutions like they do at Microsoft Microsoft does not supply the use of license keys for ISVs This means that all solutions would be available to everyone which is not acceptable 2 Secondly not all solutions could be treated as the Microsoft certified solutions Annata provide The rigorous testing documentation and quality requirements would be too costly to apply to all parts of all solutions Annata have more than 50 customers and want to keep them in house as well something that is not possible due to these limitations just a
94. tions and words will be frequently used Here is a table with the definition we use Abbreviation Description AOD Application Object Data A file with extension aod meaning Application Object Data It contains Dynamics AX application data the model element source code etc Used to deliver solutions AOS Application Object Server server used by Dynamics AX AOT Application Object Tree a tree view of all elements in Dynamics AX APL Application platform product from Annata APP Application productivity platform product from to Increase BPL Business platform product from Annata BUS Layer in Dynamics AX CM Configuration Management or Change Management see also SCM CNT Connectivity Studio product from To Increase Development Development StudioCenter or DevCenter software developed by Center To Increase The earlier version was called Development Toolkit The new version was later renamed to Development Studio DevStudio Dynamics AX Microsoft Dynamics AX enterprise resource planning system from Microsoft Element The unit in which metadata and source code are stored in the aod file IDMS Import Dealer Management System product from Annata IEM Industrial Equipment Manufacturing product from To Increase IIS Internet Information Services web server from Microsoft ISV Independent Software Vendor Layer DAX Dynamics AX has several layers in which appli
95. to a task is recorded the setup will support traceability bottom up and top down as suggested by Berlack The CIs will have a parent child relation ve Element Task Require Feature Version a s ment e Figure 7 Configuration items and relations With relations between products sub products and the components version and features the setup offers a representation of the structure Each of these CIs should also be under change control The amount of routine surrounding each CI must be specified in the SCM plan Introducing these CIs will help address the Object Oriented CM AntiPattern not only code level but richer hierarchies such as features components are required 4 4 Accounting and auditing By representing the configuration items as data structures with unique indexes we can construct queries and be able to see data such as e All elements related to a product e All requirements or tasks related to single element e All elements affected by a requirement Features in a specific version All requirements needed for a specific feature e Conflicting elements in two products Changes to elements between versions By adding additional data to the configuration items such as status the setup will get functionality to support accounting as defined by Dart It will be possible to extract review and analyze data such as How many new requirements have been added How many support issues change re
96. to ship at the time of release With Development Studio it was easy to get a good overview Released versions are treated like a new baseline and no changes could be done to the release itself However a specific type of requirement labeled as hotfixes could be introduced and later be built and delivered to customers Documentation can easily be generated both for releases but also for e g test protocols in Word etc for printing The server client approach implemented in the end was using persistent data to support off line functionality Development Studio was upgraded and is available also for Dynamics AX 2012 R3 and has been improved with even more features to support the development of products within Dynamics AX To Increase has been selling Development Studio as a separate product after its release and also used it internally for several years Annata is still using the product 89 for some of their applications in 2015 but has initiated a change in setup since technical possibilities and tools provided by Microsoft have changed for the better 91 Chapter 8 References Annata Sverige AB 2008 Om Annata Retrieved June 26 2008 from Annata Sverige http www annata se dync aspx id 200008 Avdic A 2005 Forskningsmetodik AA 3 Retrieved March 13 2005 from Forskningsmetodik AA 3 http www oru se oru upload Institutioner Ekonomi 20statistik 200ch 20informatik Dokument l nformatik InformatikD Forsknings
97. ues are validated and if they should be solved by means of code changes it should normally end up as a task associated to a component and version in Development Center In the system 42 Improving SCM across multiple Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 applications specific workflows apply for the tasks and there are routines for documentation of hotfixes and new releases Change requests may be new features depending on if it fits within the product or not If a change request is deemed suitable as a new feature for the product at hand it is processed further if not the change request is returned to the customer without a fix To Increase used a web portal both for the support issues but also for other customer related communication such as providing information about updates to their products hotfixes available etc Normally the need for a change is described by a consultant The need is reviewed and discussed by e g solution architect senior developer and product managers to identify if it can be solved in a generic way and or whether it should be part of the product or not A decision is taken regarding the feature in terms of e g validity against target markets The design idea may be approved and if need be it will be reviewed from a technical viewpoint before a detailed design is created To document and record new changes different techniques are used such as spreadsheets and DevCenter 3 5 2 Issues 3 5 2 1 Annata 3 5 2 1
98. up Query query QueryBuildDataSource datasource DevProduct devProduct if tpAXNetworkingParameters find IsServer sysTableLookup SysTableLookup newParameters tableNum DevProduct _formControl datasource query addDataSource tableNum DevProduct query new Query sysTableLookup addLookupfield fieldNum DevProduct ProductId sysTableLookup addLookupfield fieldNum DevProduct Name H devProduct tpDevSession instance getTable devProduct sysTableLookup parmTmpBuffer devProduct sysTableLookup parmQuery query sysTableLookup performFormLookup else super _formControl filterStr 5 4 5 2 The form Forms that are to display temporary data need some modification in order to work properly In the following sections the modifications and schemes are described 5 4 5 2 1 The form display data On the form the datasources init method should be overwritten 71 public void init if tpAXNetworkingParameters find IsServer TableName_ds allowEdit false TableName setTmp TableName setTmpData tpDevSession instance getTable TableName y super This says that if it is a client i e not a server make sure the users are not allowed to do any changes To do changes they need to acquire an exclusive lock The data source is set as temporary and the temporary data is
99. upport for semi or fully automated creation of layers with compilation etc would be beneficial Annata would also like to go deeper into task management They are worried about documentation not being done properly or even forgotten One way they have considered is to start with not only development tasks but also documentation tasks They do not want to stop development tasks being closed thus why they need separate documentation tasks Testing should be part of the development task a development task should not be closed unless tests are okay Automated tests like 47 e g unit tests and better test scripts are other areas where Annata would like to improve AS of now a lot of attention is focused on the IDs in the applications They do not want to the take IDs into consideration at all if possible 3 5 4 2 To Increase To Increase lists a few of the improvements they wish to see One of the areas is involving information For example if there is a new release built on a certain product they would like the stakeholders to be informed such as the sales people people responsible for customers etc They want all this information to be available in one place in some kind of centralized environment They also would like to get e g task management into a centralized environment The interview subject also describes this as a way to give them a forest view of products environments tasks etc instead of a per tree view as they
100. vironment during the release process If the development environment is used then re releasing is not possible and only the latest current version can be released 4 8 How to tackle multiple applications The multiple applications are something that cannot be avoided easily for the companies in this study The single most beneficial change to the way they work would be to make a common SCM plan and use a global tool with a central repository That also addresses Decentralized CM AntiPattern I suggest a server client approach for DevCenter where each Dynamics AX environment can function as a server or client depending on setup Normally only one server should be present There are tools within Dynamics AX to allow external components to communicate with the application such as the NET connector and support for web services By using these tools within Dynamics AX it is possible to allow the application itself to communicate with other Dynamics AX applications Since many of the basic functionality requirements for an SCM tool can be made available without too much effort within DevCenter as discussed above the single most important feature would be to gather all data in one single repository This would give a well needed complete overview of all environments the versions installed the products maintained requirements tasks and elements It would also allow for communication between clients production sites and the DevCenter server a
101. xes are belonging to the version where they originate from and apply to 5 5 10 Persistent or non persistent data At the moment data is non persistent it is kept in temporary tables With the current approach each write to a record issues an update to the server Therefore the only data a user may lose is the same as when entering information in a web form the current data not yet saved to the server Another possible approach is to keep records stored locally but use the same mechanisms as described above Keeping data locally was tested and abandoned early in the process but with another approach After discussions I implemented a quick demo where data is stored locally as well There are issues that arise by moving to a persistent data setup but a good synchronization pattern can solve most problems There are of course pros and cons with a temporary table setup as well 81 The idea I had for the demo I created was to have a service class running as a batch updating the tables needed Checked out records for the specific environment shouldn t be updated since they are currently edited in the local environment Apart from that all data could be updated Although not implemented in the demo the idea was to keep track of the latest synchronization time in the local environment it is easy to get only records with a modified time later than last synchronization time With no synchronization time everything is synchronized Deletes

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