Error During Platform Update – “UpdateRetailSelfService.ps1 failed”

Starting the process of digital transformation for your company it’s not easy. In one of our previous blog posts, we shared how to install a deployable package like platform update/D365 version, and one of the errors we encountered in the Sync AX Database step.

 

As many of you know during the installation of the platform update you might encounter various errors. This time we would like to share a quick fix for the following error: “UpdateRetailSelfService.ps1 failed”

 

 

For this error try to start the Azure Storage Emulator on your D365 environment. As soon as you get the confirmation that the storage emulator is running you can click on the resume in LCS or rerun the failed step in your already opened cmd:

 

AXUpdateInstaller.exe execute -runbookid=”runbook1″ -rerunstep=52

 

 

Now the error is fixed.

 

No need to thanks us, we are glad to help you. So, if you are in need of someone to upgrade your systems from Microsoft Dynamics AX to Dynamics 365, we are open to future collaboration. Reach out to us here.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Applications – What’s New

More and more companies, especially now given the state of the world, opt for digital transformations in many sectors of their businesses. Microsoft has followed this movement every step of the way of providing its clients with customizable solutions to best suit any businesses and their needs.

 

Thanks to the variety of available solutions for digital transformation fit for financial services, retail, healthcare, and much more, Microsoft has been able to help its clients adjust seamlessly to the ever-growing technological demands that arise.

 

On this topic, you may come across new and recently updated Microsoft Dynamics 365 suite.

 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Applications

 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a total business software package, ERP, and CRM solutions, comprised of multiple applications. Applications offered are Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Human Resources, Finance, Project Operations, Supply Chain Management,  Commerce, Project Service Automation, Marketing, and Business Central.

 

What is important to note here from the aforementioned is the news regarding splitting Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations in new separated applications that covers parts of the business functionalities that offer one ERP system.

 

What was formerly known as Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations has now been split into separate applications and with that, we now have Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Dynamics 365 Commerce, and Dynamics 365 Human Resources. This change was made in order to offer greater flexibility to the users to apply the applications per their business processes’ needs.

 

Let make a quick overview of what the new applications offer to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 community.

 

Dynamics 365 Finance

 

Dynamics 365 Finance is the application used to simplify and automate global financial operations. This is the only solution you will need for all financial plans and decisions.

 

With Finance, all company expenses can be automated, saving on time and manpower. Automated financials results in greater control over regular expenses, cash flow, budgeting, and much more.

 

In addition, coming soon there will be Finance Insights with which predictions of financial success would become much easier and more accurate.

 

 

• Increased awareness of company-wide finances with real-time analytics;

 

• Taking advantage of AI with machine learning, predictive recommendations ensures an increase in profits and simplifies decision making;

 

• Simplified financial planning and budget control with financial process automation;

 

• Ensured compliance with local (and global) financial and business requirements with customizable payment, tax, and reporting formats.

 

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

 

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is the new application used to streamline all company operations from production to transportation and more.

 

Apart from automation of supply of stock, with which overstocking or lack of stock can be avoided, with Supply Chain Management you can modernize warehouse management as well as prolong the life of equipment with regularly scheduled maintenance aided by IoT and mixed reality.

 

 

• A greater understanding of warehousing capacity, shipping operations, and turnover of materials in real-time;

 

• Improvement of manufacturing operations and delivery processes by using machine learning and increase the productivity of people, processes, and equipment with mixed reality;

 

• Ensured timely availability of necessary materials and products on designated locations with automatization of supply chain operations;

 

• Increased product quality with integrated quality-control.

 

Dynamics 365 Commerce

 

Dynamics 365 Commerce, formerly known as Retail, offers its users a full omnichannel solution that unifies back-office, in-store, call center, and digital experiences.

 

With Commerce, retailers can forge a stronger connection and have a better understanding of their customers’ needs. With this solution, online stores work seamlessly on any device.

 

 

• Ability to engage with customers at any stage and have access to a comprehensible view of every client;

 

• Highly scalable to fit the specific needs of e-commerce;

 

• Simplify the creation of interesting and intelligent storefronts with easy-to-use development tools;

 

• Maximize profits and customer loyalty by using all AI has to offer, from targeted recommendations to insights.

 

Dynamics 365 Human Resources

 

Dynamics 365 Human Resources is an application for people. Any company that cares for its employees wants to make their day to day office life simpler so they can focus on more important things.

 

With this solution, all HR-related questions are easily accessible to the employees through self-service tools. HR management has never been so simple as this app can be easily tailored to fit companies of any size and help them simplify and organize all HR programs such as compensation, benefits, absence, and more.

 

 

• Keep track of employee KPIs, certifications, training, and skills by creating detailed employee profiles;

 

• Very adaptable allowing any company, whatever size or vocation, to successfully scale, extend, and connect to existing systems;

 

• Ability to optimize HR programs by simplifying absence reporting, optimizing benefits, managing recruiting, and much more.

 

Dynamics 365 Project Operations

 

Dynamics 365 Project Operations is the latest release and it’s set to be available in October of 2020. Project functionality that used to come native to Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 — Project Service Automation will now be merged and available as Dynamics 365 Project Operations.

 

Businesses that work with project-based services know that this is cooperative work. Dynamics 365 Project Operations was created with this in mind, so the goal is to unify operational workflows within a single application for increased productivity and timely project delivery.

 

 

• Greater visibility for better collaboration between previously disconnected systems with the goal of precise tracking of project expenses, delivery dates, timely billing, and more;

 

• Supply teams with the right insights to better understand every step made with visibility into the back-end and front-end processes of the same application;

 

• Faster client billing and reimbursement with simplified processes of reporting time and expenses.

 

These are only a few of the capabilities of these new applications. Now as Microsoft keeps up to date with the needs of its users, so do we. As a Gold Partner specialized in delivering Microsoft Dynamics 365 services that cover the ERP part of the suit, we keep up with the latest Microsoft updates and help our clients to adapt more easily.

 

The developers and consultants here at Axapta Masters are skilled at these new applications and up to the task of assisting our clients as they begin to integrate them for themselves.

 

If you are interested in our services, or you have an idea of how can we help, feel free to drop us a line in the Contact section.

Extending Standard Data Entity with Fields Coming From a View

When working with Microsoft Dynamics AX, we often encounter with situations where a standard table needs to be extended with more fields that come from a view, when the relation to the view is through RecId.

 

When using the table for data export and import the data management framework can not find the related record coming from the view, so this needs to be set manually in the findEntityDataSource method of the entity, which is used for the import export.

 

Because the scenario involves a standard table and a standard entity, we need to use an extensible solution and in addition of extending data entity we need to add an event handler method that is subscribed onFoundEntityDataSource event.

 

We all know that in our Microsoft Dynamics community we have a lot of challenges with extending the Data management framework, which is the reason for writing this blog post, simply because we wanted to share this findings and try to help and save some time to someone that encounters a similar scenario. 

 

In our case, we were extending the TSTimesheetLine table with fields from the ResourceCategoryView view.

 

 

Next, we were extending the TSTimesheetLineEntity data entity and its staging table. On the TSTimesheetLineEntity we have also added the ResourceCategoryView as a data source and we added CategoryId field to the field list.

 

 

 

 

The AXMResourceCategoryField is not included in the staging table, because it’s the RecId relation field to the ResourceCategoryView and it is set to private in the data entity.

 

The logic that we added here, that is nowhere to be found in the standard Microsoft Dynamics AX, for finding related record of the view in the method that subscribes to the onFoundEntityDataSource event for finding and setting the related view record is as follows:

 

Deploying and Managing Models in AX 2012

Microsoft had introduced the Model concept in Dynamics AX 2012, in order to help customers more easily to install and maintain multiple solutions side by side in same layer. It is recommended to use models and the model store to deploy customizations or entire solutions.

 

Model management should be very well known topic for build managers, but sometimes developers need to do the same task for any purpose.

 

For that purpose, our team made instructions using two command-line tools:

 

• Windows PowerShell
• AXUtill

 

How to Create an Empty Model that Has Default Manifest Properties

 

(AXUtil)

On the Start menu, click Command prompt.

 

Navigate to the directory for the management utilities. Typically, the location of this directory is %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\ManagementUtilities. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

 

axutil create /model:<ModelName>/layer:<LayerName>

 

(Windows PowerShell)

 

On the Start menu, click All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Microsoft Dynamics AX Management Shell. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, PS C:\>, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

 

New-AXModel –Model <ModelName> -Layer <LayerName>

 

How to Export a Model

 

(AXUtil)

 

On the Start menu, click Command prompt.

 

Navigate to the directory for the management utilities. Typically, the location of this directory is %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\ManagementUtilities. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

 

axutil export /model:<modelname> /file:<filename> /verbose

 

(Windows PowerShell)

 

On the Start menu, click All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Microsoft Dynamics AX Management Shell. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, PS C:\>, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

 

Export-AXModel -Model <ModelName> -File <FileName.axmodel>

 

These commands export the model to an .axmodel file

 

 

How to Uninstall a Model

 

 

(AXUtil)

 

On the Start menu, click Command prompt. Navigate to the directory for the management utilities. Typically, the location of this directory is %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\ManagementUtilities.

 

At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

 

axutil delete /model:<name>

 

(Windows PowerShell)

 

On the Start menu, click All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Microsoft Dynamics AX Management Shell. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, PS C:\>, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

 

Uninstall-AXModel –Model <ModelName>

 

It is recommended to perform this action only if the intention is the model to be permanently removed. But if the goal is to upgrade a model or replace a model with newer version, it is better to import the model over the existing model, because element IDs and element handles are assigned at installation.

 

If you delete a model, and then import the same model or a model with newer version, element IDs and element handles are randomized, and that affects data integrity.

 

How to Import a Model

 

(AXUtil)

 

On the Start menu, click Command prompt. Navigate to the directory for the management utilities.

 

Typically, the location of this directory is %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\ManagementUtilities. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

 

axutil import /file:<filename> /verbose

 

(Windows PowerShell)

 

On the Start menu, click All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Microsoft Dynamics AX Management Shell. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, PS C:\>, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

 

Install-AXModel –File <FileName.axmodel> -Details

 

These commands install the specified .axmodel file in the same layer that it was exported from.

 

When you import a model, elements in the model that you are importing may conflict with another model in the same layer or may conflict with overlaying version for these elements in upper layer. These conflicts must be resolved. There are several ways to resolve the conflicts occurred during the model import process, and we will write about it too.

 

When you install or uninstall a model, it is recommended, before taking the action, to create a backup of the database and after the performed action you can run a full compile, synchronize the database and generate Full CIL.