Business Central and Source Code Control
Recently, I published a blog post and white paper titled The Multi-Partner Advantage: Assembling Your Business Central Dream Team on Speaking Business Central. While this in-depth white paper covers a lot of ground, the central backdrop is that over the past several years Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central has been transformed. This transformation includes everything from product features to the technology platform, and then extends to the partners and community that help support the companies running Business Central.
With all this change, it is now more important than ever that every company running Business Central retains full control of the source code related to their Business Central customizations.
Based on my own anecdotal evidence, it seems that many organizations are not clear on where all their source code is being maintained. Even worse, many are not clear about whether they own the rights to their source code for the customizations that have been developed and deployed within Business Central on their behalf.
Therefore, I decided to address this topic with a new blog post that would dive into the details of Business Central source code control. The goal would be to help convey to Business Central owners what is at stake when it comes to managing their Business Central source code.
This new post would include an overview of what is meant by “source code control,” list the many reasons why it is important to establish and maintain full control over the source code in the modern Business Central environment, and address the fact that it may be possible that they do not even own the rights to their own source code.
So, in preparation, I did some research, and what I discovered was that my article had already written! Just over a year ago, Matt Traxinger published a post titled Source Control Isn't Just a Tech Problem, It's a Business One.
As I read this post, I first found myself silently nodding my head in agreement, then whispering “Yes,” and by the end bellowing “Heck Yeah!” (this post is suitable for all ages). This blog post was everything that had been circling around in my head. I quickly concluded that it would be foolish to try to replicate what had already been stated so clearly and so eloquently.
So instead of re-hashing everything, I humbly submit two requests:
1) Read Matt’s post. Maintaining full control of your Business Central source code will establish a new level of confidence, strength, and freedom that you may not have even realized was missing. Each company has the responsibility to ensure that they are the ones controlling the keys to their future.
2) Get started today, (if you do not already have full control of your source code - and "Congratulations!" if you do). It is likely that the source code for your customizations is already being managed on someone else’s GitHub or DevOps environment.
The task is simple: move these files to your own tenant.
Cost should not be a concern: Microsoft offers any organization with a Microsoft account a free tier of Azure DevOps that includes up to 5 users (plus unlimited Stakeholder users) and an unlimited number or Repos (these are the repositories that are typically used to manage BC extensions).
To implement this plan, there are three steps:
1. Create your new DevOps (or GitHub) environment and required users.
If you are technical and/or would like to learn more about the features and capabilities of Azure DevOps, start here: What is Azure DevOps?
If you are ready to get started with creating your Azure DevOps environment, start here: Sign Up for Azure DevOps
2. Request that the source code for all existing Business Central extensions (apps) be copied to this new environment. This is a perfectly normal request, since it is a standard checklist item with most technology and cybersecurity audits.
3. Verify that your development team agrees that all new extensions (and all new versions of existing extensions) will be maintained in this new environment. There should be minimal to no additional cost resulting from this requirement, but any cost at all is well worth it.
As Matt so succinctly summarizes: “Source Code Isn’t Just a Tech Problem… it’s a Business One.”
Cheers to that!
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