Dynamics AX
2012 R3 to Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operation, Enterprise edition – Code
upgrade
Got the task to migrate the Dynamics AX 2012 code
to Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operation, no need to look anywhere else, this
blog series will help you to migrate AX 2012 code to Dynamics 365. Although you
can find detailed documentation by Microsoft
on the upgrade process, I will cover all the basic steps that are needed for
code migration in summarized way.
In the first part of this series, we will look into
the steps to extract the model store from AX2012 R3 environment, setup and
configure VSTS and LCS project. Please note that this upgrade process currently
works for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 and its all cumulative updates (CUs),
so if you want to upgrade AX2012 R2 to Dynamics 365, you first have to update
it to R3 and then the code can be migrated to Dynamics 365.
Prerequisites:
Before starting the upgrade process, make sure you
have access to following.
- AX 2012 R3 environment with administrator
privilege.
- Access to Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle
Services (LCS).
- Access to Visual Studio team services (VSTS).
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and
Operations development environment (in our case we’ll be using VM deployed
on our local machine)
Steps:
1. Export model store file
First step is to export .axmodelstore file from the
AX2012 environment. Before exporting, make sure that AX2012 environment
contains all of the code on specific model and layer. Use the following command
to export .axmodelstore file on Microsoft Dynamics AX Management Shell (Run as
administrator).
Export-AXModelStore -File <FileInfo> [-Database
<String>] [-Details] [-Server <String>]
For example,
Export-AXModelStore -File
c:\DEMO2012Model.axmodelstore -Details -database DynamicsAX_DEMO_model -server
DEMO\DEMO2012
After this command is executed, you will find
‘DEMO2012Model.axmodelstore’ file in your C: drive root directory. The size of
.axmodelstore file is usually large (in GBs), so we have to compress it (.zip)
in order to upload it on LCS. To compress this file, we can use WinRAR or
WinZip or any other tool.
2. Setup VSTS project
Go to https://visualstudio.com and create a
free VSTS account. Do remember to use credentials that are linked with your
organization (same will be needed for LCS login).
Next, enter your VSTS site (use customer name),
choose Team Foundation Version Control option and click Continue.
In our case, VSTS site https://contoso365.visualstudio.com will be
created. It contains one default project called: MyFirstproject.
Now we will create a new VSTS project. Click on
‘New Project’, enter project information and click ‘Create’.
3. Create and configure a new LCS
project
Now you have to login to LCS and on main screen,
click on ‘+’ to create a new LCS project. LCS will then ask what is this
project for. Select ‘Migrate, create solutions and learn’.
Provide a name, and select the following values
from the next menu and click create.
Next you will see the following screen. Before
moving further, we first need to configure the new project with VSTS. Click on
‘Setup Visual Studio Team Services’ button.
Next you will see the following screen, enter VSTS
URL that we just created in previous steps and add personal access token.
Following link will guide you how to create a personal access token.
Next select the VSTS project that we just created
in previous step. Click continue and review and save the changes.
Now you have to authorize LCS project with the VSTS
project, on the main project screen, click Authorize.
On the next screen, click Accept. You’ve now
successfully configured VSTS project with your LCS project.
