Form patterns report

Form pattern report can give you a lot of useful informations about how forms in Dynamics 365.

Create report from Visual Studio menu. It will iterate through all forms in AOT.

It will create CSV file type report. You can open it in Excel.

Let's describe columns:

Model - Model name where form belongs
Form - Form name
Style - Form style. You can find more here
Pattern - Top level pattern applied to that form
Controls - Indication how big form is
Covered controls - Number of covered controls by non custom pattern
Percent covered controls - Percent of covered controls by non custom pattern
Pattern Version - Pattern version
Unspecified count - Indicate how many controls doesn't have pattern applied
Custom count - How many controls do not fit to existing pattern

Based with this report you can track progress of work with your forms.

Deploying packaged in AX7

Today's plan is to move development between two enviroments. From development to test enviroments for example. We have two options. Using power shell and using LCS. Let's do this with power shell.

It's diffrent to we are used for. There are no XPO files. Now we have models and deployable packages.

To make things faster I have create new model dev7, create new class in that model.

Next thing is to create package.

 Select model from which package will created.

After Visual Studio will create package go to folder c:\Pckg in my case, where it was placed.
Extract zip file, run PowerShell as Administrator and start typing:

Get-ChildItem C:\Pckg\AXDeployablePackage_20161111_14_22_30 -recurse | Unblock-File -Confirm

This command will unblodck files. Now go to C:\Pckg\AXDeployablePackage_20161111_14_22_30  folder and perform steps.

Generation runbook. Following MSDN:

The runbook provides the sequence of steps that must be run to update the environment. The following illustration shows an example of a runbook file. Each step in a runbook is associated with an ID, a machine name, and step execution details.

.\AXUpdateInstaller.exe generate -runbookid="dev7_RB" -topologyfile="DefaultTopologyData.xml" -servicemodelfile="DefaultServiceModelData.xml" -runbookfile="dev7_RB.xml"

Import runbook into AX
.\AXUpdateInstaller.exe import -runbookfile="dev7_RB.xml" 

By this command you can check what runbooks you have imported and are ready to install
.\AXUpdateInstaller.exe list

Start importing to target enviroment
.\AXUpdateInstaller.exe execute -runbookid="dev7_RB"

Check runbook
.\AXUpdateInstaller.exe export -runbookid="dev7_RB" -runbookfile="dev7_RB.xml"

Below you can find more references about AX7 architecture.

References:
Design-Compile-Run Part1: 2012 Paradigms

Design-Compile-Run Part2: Design, Compile, Run in AX 2012

Design-Compile-Run Part3: Design, Compile, Run in AX7

Design-Compile-Run Part4: Paradigms in AX7

Install a deployable package