D365FO

Interpreting compiler results in D365FO using PowerShell

When you build your code, the results are hard to interpret and are being capped at 1000 entries per category within the Visual Studio error pane. The compiler does generate output files with more valuable content within each package. We have written PowerShell code for analyzing and interpreting compiler results of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations in a more meaningful way.

The BuildModelResult.LOG and XML files have the details of your errors, warnings and tasks. Running the following script parses these files and counts the warnings and errors, to get a better idea of the remaining work during your implementation and upgrade:

$displayErrorsOnly = $false # $true # $false
$rootDirectory = "C:\AOSService\PackagesLocalDirectory"

$results = Get-ChildItem -Path $rootDirectory -Filter BuildModelResult.log -Recurse -Depth 1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force
$totalErrors = 0
$totalWarnings = 0

foreach ($result in $results)
{
    try
    {
        $errorText = Select-String -LiteralPath $result.FullName -Pattern ^Errors: | ForEach-Object {$_.Line}
        $errorCount = [int]$errorText.Split()[-1]
        $totalErrors += $errorCount

        $warningText = Select-String -LiteralPath $result.FullName -Pattern ^Warnings: | ForEach-Object {$_.Line}
        $warningCount = [int]$warningText.Split()[-1]
        $totalWarnings += $warningCount

        if ($displayErrorsOnly -eq $true -and $errorCount -eq 0)
        {
            continue
        }

        Write-Host "$($result.DirectoryName)\$($result.Name) " -NoNewline
        if ($errorCount -gt 0)
        {
            Write-Host " $errorText" -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Red
        }
        if ($warningCount -gt 0)
        {
            Write-Host " $warningText" -ForegroundColor Yellow
        }
        else
        {
            Write-Host
        }
    }
    catch
    {
    Write-Host
    Write-Host "Error during processing"
    }
}

Write-Host "Total Errors: $totalErrors" -ForegroundColor Red
Write-Host "Total Warnings: $totalWarnings" -ForegroundColor Yellow

The compiler results are displayed in the following format as an overview:

compiler results

If you want to do a detailed analysis, we also have PowerShell scripts prepared for extracting the errors and saving them in a CSV file for better processing. Opening it with Excel allows you to format them into a table.

We typically copy all error texts to a new sheet, run the duplicate entries removal, then do a count on what is the top ranking error to see if we have any low-hanging fruits to be fixed.

=SUMPRODUCT(('JADOperation-Warning'!$D$2:$D$1721=Sheet1!A2)+0)

You could be very efficient about deciding what things to fix first and next, and is easier to delegate tasks this way.

Source code for all four scripts are available on GitHub.

Synchronize Models between workspaces in MSDyn365FO

For our upgrade project we have decided to create 4 packages/models to start with, which is enough to separate larger areas. Once the models have been created on my VM, I had to make it available for everyone. The goal was to synchronize models between workspaces of other developers.

Package / ModelDescription
JAD CoreCore application framework changes, essentially what is in Platform and Foundation
JAD OperationBusiness application customizations, later on we might create additional models for larger functionality
JAD IntegrationFor exchanging
JAD ReportingFor reporting, data warehousing, CDS and entities

The devil lies in the details and for some reason the model was not showing up after synch. It turns out that the model description sits in an XML file within the Descriptor folder. You need to manually include it in source control, as explained in the documentation as well. Once it is checked in, all you need to do to synchronize models between workspaces is to get latest changes, then click on Dynamics 365 > Model Management > Refresh models.

Synchronize models between workspaces

Developer VM performance for MSDyn365FO

When you are used to snappy desktops or locally hosted virtual machines and suddenly you need to move to the cloud, you would expect to see similar capabilities for a reasonable price. Unfortunately that was not my experience when it comes to deploying AX 8.1 in Azure cloud. This post is about setting expectations straight for MSDyn365FO developer VM performance hosted in the cloud vs. locally.

First of all, when you deploy your developer VM on the cloud, you have two options. Standard and Premium, which is a reference to what kind of storage will be allocated to your machine. The default size is D13 (8 cores, 56 GB RAM) for regular rotating hard disks, and you need to use the DS-prefixed computers for the flash storage with memory-optimized compute. You can read up about them on these pages in more detail on the Microsoft Docs site:

Premium disk tiers
Virtual machine sizing

When it comes to premium performance, the Virtual Machine template that Microsoft has built for the LifeCycle Services deployment is using the following structure:

PurposeTierIOPSThroughput
Operating SystemP1050025 MB/sec (50K reads)
Services and DataP202300150 MB/sec (64K reads)
Temporary BuildP1050025 MB/sec (50K reads)

(more…)

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