D365 FinOps Creating, updating, deleting and deploying model

 I have given a brief description of a model in my previous article.

In this article I will be giving an overview of how we can create, modify, remove and deploy a FinOps model. 

Note: The instructions in this article are for a FinOps development environment that has the dynamics 365 extensions enabled on Visual Studio Studio  2019. The location of the Dynamics 365 menu may differ in other versions of Visual Studio. 

Create a new model file

  1.  Open Visual Studio in admin mode
  2. Navigate to Extensions > Dynamics 365


  3. Select Model Management > Create model


  4. Enter the model details
    Model name - the name of the model, for example, MyNewModel
    Model publisher - the name of the model publisher, for example Artika Dutt
    Layer - this represents the level you intend for your deployment. If you are a Microsoft partner then choose isv. If you are performing development for a customer then choose cus layer. If you are developing for users then choose usr. 
    See this article for more details.
    Version - this is the current version of the model. Can be incremented after every update.
    Model description - the description of the model
    Model display name - the display name for the model
  5. Choose Next. If you were creating a new model within an existing model then you would choose select existing package. For this example, choose create new package.
  6. Choose Next. Here we can select all existing models that the current model will either use or will reference. For a new model I usually add ApplicationFoundation, ApplicationSuite, ApplicationPlatform as these models have the maximum reusable elements for most FnO functions. 


  7. Click Next and select Finish

Once complete the new model will be created. 
Navigate to View > Application Explorer

Right click on the node and select model view.

Scroll down and search for the name of the new model to confirm if the new model has been created. 

Once a model has been created, a new folder with contents of the model with the same name as specified in the model name section above will be created in your ./AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory.

The descriptor located ./AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory/MyNewModel/Descriptor contains the details of the model as specified in the create model wizard. 



This is what a descriptor file looks like. Notice the DisplayName, Layer, ModelModule, Name, ModuleReferences and Publisher. These are the same as specified in model create section.

Notice the version details are also available.

Modify a model
To modify a model the descriptor file can be either be manually updated from the location within AosService or it can be modified using the tool.

  1. Open Visual Studio in admin mode
  2. Navigate to Extensions > Dynamics 365
  3. Select Model Management > Update model parameters


  4. Select the model name from the drop down list


  5. Now you can modify any detail, for example, update the model version to 10.0.30.1


  6. Choose Next. We can also update the model references, for example, add reference to Retail.


  7. Choose next and click Finish

Export a model file
For distribution we can create a deployable package that can be applied to a LCS environment. This will however contain only the binaries of the model. The contents of the model can also be distributed as a model file which will have access to all the elements within the model.

To achieve this;

  1.  Open command prompt in admin mode
  2. Navigate to the ./AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory/bin folder.
  3. Enter the following command
    %YourDrive%:/AOSService/PackagesLocalDirectory/Bin/ModelUtil.exe -export -metadatastorepath=%YourDrive%:\AosService\PackagesLocalDirectory -modelname="%ModelToExport%" -outputpath=%OutputPath%
    For example, 
    K:/AOSService/PackagesLocalDirectory/Bin/ModelUtil.exe -export -metadatastorepath=K:\AosService\PackagesLocalDirectory -modelname="MyNewModel" -outputpath=K:/Temp
  4. Once complete this will generate a file with extension .axmodel within the output path specified. 

Deploy a model
We can deploy the contents of a model as part of a deployment package to any LCS environment for FinOps. This will however, not allow you to modify any of the contents of the model. It will be installed as binaries. I will discuss more on this in later in one of my articles.

  1. Open command prompt in admin mode
  2. Navigate to the ./AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory/bin folder.
  3. Enter the following command
    %YouDirve%:/AOSService/PackagesLocalDirectory/Bin/ModelUtil.exe -import -metadatastorepath="%YourDrive%:\AosService\PackagesLocalDirectory" -file="%YourPath%\%ModelName%.axmodel"
    For example, 
    K:/AOSService/PackagesLocalDirectory/Bin/ModelUtil.exe -import -metadatastorepath="K:/AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory" -file="K:\Temp\MyNewModel.axmodel"
  4. This will import your model into the packages local directory folder of the AOSService. 
  5. Build and compile your model from Visual Studio
  6. Run database sync
Delete a model
When developing within a development environment we have the option to delete models manually as well. Recommendation is to remove models from the deployable package and apply it to the environment. I will discuss on this approach in one of my later articles. 

In this section I want to go over the deletion process for the model files. 

  1. Open command prompt in admin mode. 
  2. Navigate to the ./AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory/bin folder.


  3. Enter the following command. In this case t
    %YourDrive%:/AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory/bin/ModelUtil.exe -delete -metadatastorepath="%YourDrive%:\AosService\PackagesLocalDirectory" -modelname="%ModelName%"
    For example, 
    K:/AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory/bin/ModelUtil.exe -delete -metadatastorepath="K:\AosService\PackagesLocalDirectory" -modelname="MyNewModel"
  4. Choose yes to delete the model.


  5. Navigate to the ./AosService/PackagesLocalDirectory folder within file explorer and confirm that the folder for MyNewModel has been removed and search for the model name in Application Explorer within Visual Studio to confirm that the model does not exist.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

D365FO - Create a multi-select lookup in batch jobs

Image
D365FO - Create a multi-select lookup in batch jobs In this article, I will be describing how we can create a multi-select lookup for display within the batch job dialog. Contract class Create a new variable of type 'List'. This will store the selected values of the user for the dropdown from the dialog. Create a parm method to access the new list object Ensure to specify the DataMember attribute Add an appropriate label Specify the data type for the list's content Ensure to specify the DataContract and SysOperationContactProcessing attributes above the class declaration. An UI builder is also required. The requirements for this is explained in the next section. Example: UI builder class Create an UI builder class that extends SrsReportDataContractUIBuilder Add a new variable of type 'DialogField'. This will be displayed on the UI for user. Implement the postBuild method. Initialize the contract from this.dataContractObject() and bind the dialog field variable to th...
Read more

Generate and download a csv file using X++

Within Dynamics 365 HQ we often need to be able to export data as a csv file. This article explains how we can generate a csv file. The following lines of code can be used to create and download a csv file Create a writable stream. CommaStreamIo streamIO = CommaStreamIo::constructForWrite();   streamIO.writeExp('Id', 'Title'); // These will represent the header of the csv file  streamIO.writeExp('001', 'Science'); // Row 1 streamIO.writeExp('002', 'Nature'); // Row 2 // Get the stream System.IO.Stream        stream              = streamIO.getStream(); const str               extensionCsv        = '.csv'; stream.Position = 0; // StreamReader to read as str System.IO.StreamReader...
Read more

Creating a batch job with query based filter in D365 back-office

There are often business processes that requires us to run specific operations as a batch process. Dynamics 365 Head quarters (HQ) allows us to be able to periodically execute batch jobs. To create a custom batch job you need to extend the  RunBaseBatch class. The following lines of code show how we can create a simple export job.  class InvoiceExport extends RunBaseBatch {      Query                   query;     QueryRun                invoiceQueryRun; // QueryRun object that will be used to generate data for invoices to be exported.      DialogGroup             dialogGroupSetup; // This is a dialog group.     DialogField      ...
Read more