A Short Reference about the Author

Alex Thompson is a highly qualified IT service professional with extensive experience in managed IT solutions, specializing in driving efficiency and security for businesses through innovative technologies.

Introduction

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, organizations face an increasing need to streamline operations, reduce costs, and enhance their overall security posture. Managed IT services have emerged as a vital solution for businesses aiming to remain agile, secure, and cost-effective. This article delves into the concept of managed solutions, exploring their components, deployment strategies, and testing mechanisms, providing valuable insights for organizations in Brisbane and beyond.

Understanding Managed and Unmanaged Solutions

Within Microsoft Dynamics 365, solutions act as packages that house various components essential for customizing or configuring systems. These components can include entities, forms, plugins, workflows, and more. The distinction between managed and unmanaged solutions is crucial for proper deployment and distribution.

Managed Solutions Explained

A managed solution represents a finalized, deployable version of a solution, designed for installation across different environments. This type of solution is essential for distributing applications, customizations, or enhancements while maintaining control over the individual components.

One of the defining features of a managed solution is that its components cannot be edited or deleted directly within the target environment. Furthermore, managed solutions support versioning, allowing organizations to efficiently track updates and changes. They can be layered on top of other managed or unmanaged solutions, maintaining a clear customization priority through this layering process. Importantly, deleting a managed solution removes all of its components from the target environment.

Unmanaged Solutions Insights

In contrast, an unmanaged solution represents a more fluid iteration of a solution that remains editable and is often used during the development stage. This allows for modifications and extensive testing prior to final deployment. Once refined, an unmanaged solution can be exported or packaged as a managed solution, with changes made to its components merging into the default solution.

When an unmanaged solution is deleted, only the solution container is removed, leaving the components intact in the environment, providing flexibility for ongoing development.

Layering in Managed Solutions

Layering managed solutions introduces complexity when different solutions define the same components. Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, for instance, employs two primary strategies for conflict resolution: Merge and Top Wins.

Merging Components

In the case of user interface components, such as command bars, ribbons, forms, and site maps, a merging strategy applies. This approach recalibrates solution components from the lowest to the highest level, ensuring that any customizations made at the organizational level are effectively applied last.

Top Wins Strategy

For all other solution components, the last applied customization typically prevails. For managed solutions, this presents a unique scenario wherein an update to a managed solution may become the latest applicable element following its installation. Understanding these strategies is essential for managing solution conflicts effectively.

Versioning Managed Solutions

Effective version control is foundational in managed solutions, represented by a format of major.minor.build.revision. For example, a base solution might be denoted as version 3.1.5.7, with subsequent updates needing to display higher numbers in any of these categories.

With the introduction of the Make PowerApps interface, version incrementing occurs automatically when exporting a managed solution, alleviating manual oversight. Nevertheless, if a solution import fails, reverting the version manually may be necessary prior to re-export.

Managed Solution Patches

When adding entities to a solution and exporting, the entire entity and all related assets, including attributes, forms, views, and visualizations, are included. Such all-encompassing exports can inadvertently modify elements within the target deployment or carry over unintended dependencies.

To mitigate this, creating and publishing solution patches can be beneficial. These patches contain only subcomponents of entities, allowing for more controlled modifications and merging them later into an updated solution for replacement in the Dynamics 365 environment.

Deployment, Testing, and Release Processes

When deploying to upper-level environments, leveraging a managed solution is generally prudent. Unmanaged solutions might be deployed in developmental environments, yet the standard practice signifies the importance of using managed solutions for stability and security.

The Release Process

All customizations should be implemented in a Dev environment and then systematically deployed to other environments using managed solutions during the release process, ensuring that direct customizations to upper-level environments remain exceptions.

In the event of necessary direct customizations, tracking and manually removing any resulting unmanaged layers becomes vital after the next scheduled release to promote consistency.

Components Segmentation and Deployment Sequence

Segmentation of Application Core

The application core consists of:

• Model Driven Apps
• Site Maps
• Tables (Entities) with all assets, including fields, views, and business rules
• Global Option Sets
• Web Resources (e.g., Images, JavaScripts)
• Dashboards (optional)

Security Components

This includes:

• Security Roles
• Column Security Profiles

Plugins

This encompasses:

• Plug-in Assemblies
• Plug-in Steps
• Plug-in Packages
• Custom APIs

Automation Frameworks

Including:

• Cloud Flows
• Workflows

Fix Solutions

Temporary fix solutions allow for rapid bug fixes or exceptional feature releases at client requests, although such solutions should be done cautiously and removed promptly after more substantial updates.

The Release Documentation and Distribution

Each release should ideally be accompanied by:

1. Release Notes: A brief summary of changes implemented in the current release.
2. Test Cases: Documented cases reflecting the intended functionality.
3. Release Log: A record of past releases for reference.

Summarizing the Importance of Managed Solutions

Managed solutions play a pivotal role in contemporary business and IT environments. They offer pre-built, tested, and optimized tools that drastically reduce the time required for implementation and maintenance. By employing professional management and technical expertise, they ensure smooth operations without necessitating extensive in-house resources.

Moreover, managed solutions are designed for scalability, allowing businesses to adapt swiftly to changing requirements without overhauling existing infrastructures. Rather than committing substantial resources for upfront investments, organizations can opt for managed solutions as a service, thereby lowering initial costs and ensuring they stay updated with the latest features and security patches.

For more detailed information on how managed solutions can benefit your organization, please feel free to explore our resources on managed IT service Brisbane.

If you have questions about managed solutions or if you would like to schedule a consultation or a demo, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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