Dynamics 365 Business Central Development Quick Start Guide

Book description

Understanding the new Microsoft Extension model for development

Key Features

  • Develop solutions for Dynamics 365 Business Central
  • Orient yourself with the new Microsoft Extension model for development
  • Learn modern ways to develop with Dynamics 365 Business Central

Book Description

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the new SaaS ERP proposition from Microsoft. This latest version has many exciting features guaranteed to make your life easier. This book is an ideal guide to Dynamics 365 Business Central and will help you get started with implementing and designing solutions for real-world scenarios.

This book will take you through the fundamental topics for implementing solutions based on Dynamics 365 Business Central (on-premise and SaaS). We'll see the core topics of the new development model (based on extensions) and we'll see how to create applications with the new Microsoft ERP proposition.

The book begins by explaining the basics of Dynamics 365 Business Central and the Microsoft ERP proposition. We will then cover topics such as extensions, the new modern development model of Visual studio code, sandboxes, Docker, and many others.

By the end of the book, you will have learned how to debug and compile extensions and to deploy them to the cloud and on-premise.You will also have learned how to create serverless business processes for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

What you will learn

  • Develop solutions for Dynamics 365 Business Central
  • Create a sandbox for extensions development (local or on cloud)
  • Use Docker with Dynamics 365 Business Central
  • Create extensions for Dynamics 365 Business Central
  • Handle dependencies, translations and reporting
  • Deploy extensions on-premise and to the cloud
  • Create serverless processes with Dynamics 365 Business Central
  • Understand source code management for AL

Who this book is for

This book is for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central solution developers and architects that needs to implement solutions based on the Microsoft's ERP (on-premise and SaaS).

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright and Credits
    1. Dynamics 365 Business Central Development Quick Start Guide
  3. Packt Upsell
    1. Why subscribe?
    2. PacktPub.com
  4. Contributors
    1. About the authors
    2. About the reviewers
    3. Packt is searching for authors like you
  5. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
      1. Download the example code files
      2. Download the color images
      3. Conventions used
    4. Get in touch
      1. Reviews
  6. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Overview
    1. Introducing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
      1. A brief history of the Microsoft Dynamics cloud-based ERP SMB product
      2. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Architecture
      3. On-premises versus cloud-based deployment
        1. Infrastructure costs, maintenance, and availability
        2. Security
        3. Performances
        4. Scalability
        5. Upgrades
        6. Customizations
        7. User experience
    2. Summary 
  7. The New Extension Model
    1. Traditional Microsoft Dynamics NAV customizations
      1. Triggers versus Events
      2. The new Extensions 2.0 model
      3. Running C/SIDE and AL side by side
      4. Scalable and SaaS-ready solutions
    2. Summary
  8. Modern Development Environment Overview
    1. Modern versus classic development environments
      1. Characteristics and advantages of CSIDE
      2. Characteristics and advantages of Visual Studio Code
      3. Anatomy of Visual Studio Code workspace
        1. Menu bar
        2. View bar
        3. Sidebar
        4. Code editor
        5. Status bar
      4. Tips to work efficiently in Visual Studio Code
    2. The AL Extension
      1. Comparison of capabilities supported by CSIDE and Visual Studio Code
      2. Getting started with AL language
      3. Developing your first extension with AL language
      4. HelloWorld.al sample
    3. AL snippets
      1. Creating our own snippets
    4. Native AL source-code management with Git
      1. Visual Studio Code support to Git
    5. Summary
  9. Creating Your Development Sandbox
    1. What is a sandbox?
    2. Online sandbox
    3. Azure-hosted sandbox
    4. Local-hosted sandbox
    5. Manually creating a sandbox based on Docker
      1. Steps for manually creating a locally hosted Dynamics 365 Business Central sandbox
      2. Steps for manually creating an Azure Container Instance-based Dynamics 365 Business Central sandbox
    6. Summary
  10. Developing an Extension with AL and VS Code
    1. The business case
    2. Developing the extension
      1. Creating the new tables
      2. Creating the pages for the new tables
      3. Extending standard Dynamics 365 Business Central objects (tables and pages)
      4. Writing the custom business logic (Codeunit)
    3. Handling translations with XLIFF files
    4. Customizing the Headline
    5. Developing a custom report for our extension
    6. Extension dependency
    7. Installing and upgrading codeunits
    8. Summary
  11. Deploying Extensions
    1. What does extension deployment mean?
      1. Automatic deployment
      2. Semi-automatic deployment
        1. Publishing
        2. Syncronizing
        3. Installing
      3. Manual deployment
    2. AL debugger
    3. AL CodeCop
    4. Summary
  12. Integration and Serverless Processing
    1. Dynamics 365 Business Central web services
    2. Dynamics 365 Business Central REST APIs
    3. DotNet variables
    4. Azure Functions
    5. Microsoft Flow
    6. Microsoft PowerApps
    7. Summary
  13. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Product information

  • Title: Dynamics 365 Business Central Development Quick Start Guide
  • Author(s): Stefano Demiliani, Duilio Tacconi
  • Release date: August 2018
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781789347463