Dynamics 365 CRM Tools and Process Tips

When we start thinking about SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) and DevOps for Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, we must highlight the very important tools and process.

In this post, I am going to explain three tools that come with Microsoft Dynamics SDK (Software Development Kit):

1. SolutionPackager.exe
2. Configuration Migration (DataMigrationUtility.exe)
3. PackageDeployer.exe

1. SolutionPackager.exe

This tool can reversibly decompose a Microsoft Dynamics 365 compressed solution file into multiple XML files and other files so that these files can be easily managed by a source control system.

When we export CRM solution from CRM, it's compressed into a few files, but with a lot of content for each file. The main reason for exporting the CRM solution is to import it to another CRM org or instance, so there's no need to have well-structured files, but when we talk about understanding the change and working as team, we would like to keep that under source control, so it's better if we structure those files well in many files, which will make it easy and manageable to see the changes made in each file. Each file may represent an item so we can track changes.

2. Configuration Migration (DataMigrationUtility.exe)

It's a tool that moves configuration data across Microsoft Dynamics 365 instances and organizations. Configuration data is different from end user data (account, contacts, and so on).

While this tool used for moving configuration data, it moves user data as well, so the data is mixed between configuration data and user data.

It also uses the GUID of the data, which is very important to keep since GUIDs are not the same across multiple CRM instances. This is a very important point — if you have, for example, a workflow which references some data, it uses GUID of that data behind the scenes and if we have the same data in two different CRM instances, they will not work, as the GUID is not the same.

There is another community tool, ConfigDataMover, which copies user data with their GUIDs (e.g. opportunities) over multiple instances (configuration management library here).

3. PackageDeployer.exe

This is a tool for deploying packages on Microsoft Dynamics 365. A package can consist of:

• One or more Dynamics 365 solution files.
• Flat files (CSV) or exported configuration data files from the Configuration Migration tool.
• Custom code that can run before, while, or after the package is deployed.
• HTML that can display at the beginning and end of the deployment process.

If you would like to learn more about Microsoft Dynamics development, have a look at this post.