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LCS February 2019 (release 1 ) release notes

The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) team is happy to announce the immediate availability of the release notes for LCS (February 2019, release 1).

Maintenance mode for environments deployed using self-service deployment

With this release of LCS, we’re adding the ability for customers to put their environment in maintenance mode for the environments that are deployed using the self-service deployment option. Maintenance mode is a configuration in Finance and Operations that allows system administrators to make system-wide configuration changes without much disruption. Once the system is in maintenance mode, only the system administrator can sign in and make the change. To use this feature, in LCS got to the Tier 2 and above Environment details page. Under Maintain, there is a new option called Enable maintenance mode. Select Enable maintenance mode to put your system in maintenance mode. After you are done making changes, the menu item under Maintain will have the option to Disable maintenance mode. Selecting this option will take the system out of maintenance mode. The environment history is updated on completion of this operation.

Database movement operations: Import and point-in-time restore

Database movement operations are a suite of self-service actions that can be used as part of Data Application Lifecycle Management (also referred to as DataALM). These actions provide structured processes for common implementation scenarios such as golden configuration promotion, debugging/diagnostics, destructive testing, and general refresh for training purposes.

In this release of LCS, the following operations are generally available for use on your Sandbox environments.

  • Import database

To import a database prepared from a developer environment to a standard user acceptance test (UAT), or a database previously exported from a UAT environment, follow the steps outlined below:

      1. Go to your target sandbox Environment Details page, and select Maintain > Move database.
      2. Select the Import database option and choose your source database backup (.bacpac format) file from the Asset library.
      3. Note the warnings. Review the list of data elements that are cleaned up from the backup file.
      4. The import operation will begin immediately.
      5. After the import operation is completed, you must sign off on the operation before you can perform another servicing operation, such as package deployment, database movement, or upgrade.
  • Database point-in-time restore (PITR)

To restore the database of a standard user acceptance test (UAT) environment to a previous point-in-time, follow the steps outlined below:

      1. Go to your target sandbox Environment Details page, and select Maintain > Move database.
      2. Select the Point-in-time restore option and choose a point-in-time.
      3. Note the warnings. Review the list of data elements that are not copied from the previous point-in-time.
      4. The restore operation will begin immediately.
      5. After the restore operation is completed, you must sign off on the operation before you can perform another servicing operation, such as package deployment, database movement, or upgrade.

Production point-in-time restore service request

For customers performing destructive testing in their Production environment as part of a ‘mock go live’ activity, the ability to roll back to a prior point in time has been made available via a service request.  To create this request, go to the Service Requests page from your Implementation project and find the Production Point-in-time restore type.

This is only for customers who are not yet live. If you are already live and need a point-in-time restore of your Production environment, it is advised to create a Support ticket.

Data upgrade preview package available for Dynamics365 for Finance and Operations version 10.0

Along with the previous announcement of version 10.0 (Preview), we have made data upgrade packages available in the Shared asset library.

These packages can be used on your DevTest environments to validate the data upgrade process from 7.x or AX 2012 respectively.  The ability to upgrade a Sandbox environment to 10.0 will become available when the 10.0 version is out of preview.

Validation for Financial Reporting Binaries on Database Refresh

One of the most common reasons for database refresh to fail has been that the binary versions of Financial Reporter are different between the source and target environments.  We now have added validation in LCS that will detect this scenario and prevent the refresh.

For instructions on how to correct the version incompatibility, please visit our documentation article:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/unified-operations/dev-itpro/database/database-refresh#incompatible-version-of-financial-reporting-between-source-and-target-environments

Dynamics Lifecycle Services Communication

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