Managing Development

Hello, We are about to begin the planning stages of our implementation and I am being tasked with managing all internal development within Axapta. If you wouldn’t mind sharing, I am wondering how everyone manages new development with a group of developers? How do you move the modifications to the test environment? I am basically trying to get an idea of all the different options that are out there for managing the development process so that I can list as many as possible and give my recommendation about which one I feel would be best. Any assistance will be appreciated! Thanks!

hi Matt. Many partners have developed their own version control modules for Axapta. Where I used to work we used a module called “Joblog” developed by the danish company “Columbus IT Partner”. This module allows you to create projects and list each element touched by the individual develop for his individual project. It is really easy to use, and is a big help when you change a lot of the default elements. We used to be 3 internal developers at the end user developing at the same time as 3 external/partner developers in the same application and virtually without any problems, because with this module you can see if the element you are modifying is included in other projects…and so on… In regard to how to move the modifications. You mean from the test and to the production environment ? If so, the best way is to export these projects (which yoiu can create by default without a module as described above) to export files (.xpo) and import them in the production environment. However, this can cause some irritations when using AOS. But when making many modifications it really is the best option… Hope it makes sense :slight_smile: Please let me know if I should go into more specific details.

Thanks for the info. Right now I am looking for information like (Example): “We have a monthly meeting with the developers where we decide what needs to be done for the next ‘build’. From there the developers provide documentation on how they plan to implement said functionality. All coding is done, and then the whole layer is exported for testing, with documentation pertaining to this specific build” OR “Each developer makes necessary changes in their respective areas and exports only those changes to the testing environment” I am basically just trying to figure out the how the development process as a whole will flow.

Hey Matt, What I found to be the most safe is having one send box for all developers. What I mean by that is make them develop on a single server using Terminal Services. So they log in to the same instance of the app. Then you can at least take advantage of being able to “lock” objects. Regards, Vlad.