This is to notify you that due to a maintenance activity on underlying Azure services, the Monitoring and diagnostics features in Lifecycle Services (LCS) will be unavailable on Tuesday, March 6th, 2018 from 14:00 to 16:00 UTC.
Specifically, the Activity Monitoring and View Raw Logs pages that can be accessed from the Environment Monitoring link on the Environment details page will be unavailable.
The following features are either new or changed in on-premises deployments of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition 7.2 with platform update 12. This deployment option became available in March 2018.
For more resources about on-premises deployments, see the On-premises deployment landing page.
Improvements have been made to the setup and deployment process. These improvements significantly reduce the time that is required for deployment. Increased automation and multiple prerequisite validations have also been added to improve reliability. For more information, see Set up and deploy on-premises environments.
After your on-premises environment is deployed, you can now use Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) to apply platform and application updates that Microsoft releases. You can also apply code customizations. Therefore, customers can stay current with the latest set of fixes and take up new customizations without having to reconfigure an existing environment or redeploy the on-premises environment. Additionally, you can now roll back code changes if packages aren't successfully applied. For more information, see Apply updates to an on-premises deployment.
Note that the Reconfigure feature will remain available for environments that were deployed with platform update versions that are earlier than Platform update 12.
Hotfixes that will soon be available in LCS will provide additional features for your on-premises deployments of Platform update 12.
Today, a user can sign in to Lifecycle Services (LCS) using a Microsoft Account (MSA) (such as Live or Hotmail), and without purchasing a Support plan or subscription, create a Prospective presales project to try LCS features or set up demo environments. The Prospective presales project option is available for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, Dynamics CRM, and Dynamics NAV products.
Starting April 15, 2018, any new users who sign in to LCS using an MSA account that is not associated with a CustomerSource or PartnerSource support plan or not holding any subscriptions, will be unable to access LCS. Any existing users with previously created Prospective presales projects who also fall into this category, will not be able to sign in to these projects or LCS.
To avoid interruptions, we recommend that you sign in to LCS and download or transfer your project and project data to another user before April 15. After that date, you will not have access to the project or the data. Note that this only impacts users who sign in with a Microsoft account. If you are an Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) user, you can continue to view and create Prospective presales projects.
The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) team is happy to announce the immediate availability of the release notes for LCS (March 2018, release 2).
In this release of LCS, we have added the ability for customers to modify and delete any new phases that are appended to a methodology. This applies to methodologies in Implementation projects and Create and Learn projects. We have received feedback that new phases added to a methodology were locked and prevented users from making further changes to the phases. We addressed this issue by ensuring that any new phases that are added to a methodology are not locked by default, which means that you can continue to make edits.
With this release, we have improved the workflow of application upgrade requests. When the Microsoft Service Engineering (DSE) team completes the upgrade process, the service request status will change to Ready for Validation. The system is available to you at this stage. Customers will validate and then change the status of the service request to Validation Successful or Validation Failed.
This new workflow enables a rollback of the upgrade even after an upgrade is successfully completed by DSE. If the status is changed to Validation Failed, a rollback of the upgrade is initiated.
For more information on application upgrades, refer to scenario 3 in the topic, Process for moving to the latest update.
Solution packages with Global (restricted) scope allow users to:
This feature is available through Preview feature management. Click the Preview feature management tile to access the features available for preview.
Select the preview feature, SharedToolAsset - Solution package, and set Preview feature enabled to Yes.
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Dynamics 365 - Translation Service (DTS) introduced a new preview feature, Dynamics 365 Translation Service – Documentation Translation Support. When you enable this feature, you can submit a translation request for a Microsoft Word (.docx) file in DTS.
To enable this feature, go to LCS Preview feature management, select Dynamics 365 Translation Service - Documentation Translation Support, and set Preview feature enabled to Yes.
To create a new request, go to the DTS dashboard and select to create a new request. In the New translation request window, select Documentation in the File type field to proceed with a .docx file translation request.
After the request is submitted with source .docx files, DTS will generate the target language .docx files in a side-by-side text review format and the final output .docx in the source file format. You can review and edit the translations, and regenerate the files in the target language with your edits included.
A recent change is causing an Unexpected Client Error on the Environment details page in LCS. This error only occurs for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations on-premises environments. Although the error occurs, there is no impact on the on-premises environment or the features in LCS that allow you to interact with the on-premises environment. We are actively working on resolving this issue. We will update this blog post once the fix has been released.
User Experience: LCS users may have been unable to view their AX 2012 projects
Final Status: We determined that the authentication errors were triggered when the service responsible for viewing AX 2012 projects attempted to connect to a group of servers that were in an unhealthy state. We restarted the impacted servers, restoring functionality.
Update 1: After reviewing logs, we have identified authentication errors within a service responsible for viewing AX 2012 projects. We are investigating the cause of the authentication errors.
Incident Start Time: Thursday, March 29, 2018, 4:22 PM UTC
Incident End Time: Thursday, March 29, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC
Preliminary Root Cause: The service responsible for viewing AX 2012 projects experienced authentication errors when attempting to connect to unhealthy infrastructure.
Next Steps: We are reviewing telemetry and system logs from this incident to identify and resolve the cause of the unhealthy servers. In addition, we will implement monitoring for these types of authentication errors in order to take proactive mitigation steps prior to service impact.
This is the final update on the incident.
Today, we are happy to announce the availability of data integration capabilities for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations on-premises customers. To use the data integration capabilities in an on-premises environment, you need to be on the latest 7.2 and Platform Update 12 build (version 7.0.4709.41184). For information on how to use this feature for on-premises environments, see the topic, Data Management Package API. The latest 7.2 and Platform Update 12 build has now been made available through Lifecycle Services. In addition to the data integration capabilities, this new build also has other key features, including:
Going forward, for all new deployments that are triggered through LCS you will need to select the latest 7.2 and Platform Update 12 build (version AXCU12 7.0.4709.41184) in the Advanced Settings in the deployment flow. For existing customers that want to use data integration feature will need to delete and redeploy the environments to use this feature. If you want to use the data integration capabilities but do not want to delete and redeploy existing on-premises environments, we will be adding support for you in the next few days. We will also be making 7.3 and Platform Update 12 available for on-premises customers around the same time.
The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) team is happy to announce the immediate availability of the release notes for LCS (April 2018, release 1).
Download critical X++ updates
From our earlier release (February 2018, release 2), critical X++ updates can only be downloaded from online production environments, and we were going to remove the Critical X++ updates tile from pre-production and on-premises environments because the Critical X++ updates tile shows zero (0) in the pre-production or on-premises environments.
However, we've decided to keep the Critical X++ updates tile for online pre-production environments, and only remove it from on-premises environments.
Therefore, for all online environments of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, the critical X++ updates will be available in production environments, as well as pre-production environments.
The critical X++ updates are based on the telemetry data in your production environment. The count of the critical X++ updates in each of your environments is based on whether that environment has deployed the recommended critical X++ updates.
For example, if your production environments indicates 5 critical X++ updates, the Critical X++ updates tile in your production environment will show 5. In your pre-production environment, for example in the sandbox environment, will also show 5 if none of the critical X++ updates has been deployed in your sandbox environment. If your sandbox environment had deployed 1 of the critical X++ updates, it will show 4 on the Critical X++ updates tile.
Updates to project creation flows in LCS
Starting with this release, any new customer who has purchased licenses for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations will not be get an implementation project if they have not purchased the minimum licenses needed to use Finance and Operations. As per the licensing guide, a customer needs a minimum of 20 licenses (Enterprise or equivalent) to use Finance and Operations. Going forward, LCS will enforce this restriction during project creation. Only customers who have purchased 20 licenses (Enterprise or equivalent) are allowed to get an implementation project in LCS and deploy environments.
Updates to Environment monitoring view in LCS
In this release of LCS, we have updated the User activity section on the Environment monitoring page to improve the user experience as well as the performance of loading this page. The user will now need to select a user session in the User sessions grid to see a detailed list of interactions on the grid on the left. The following screenshot shows the new user interface.
We are excited to announce the release of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations 7.3 (on-premises)! This release includes all of the improvements available in Platform update 12 and the new features available in Finance and Operations Enterprise edition 7.3. Recurring integrations support is also available. The setup and servicing improvements made in the March release will also be available for Finance and Operations Enterprise edition 7.3.
More Info: Impacted users may have received an error message stating, “VOICE EXPIRED.”
Final Status: After further review of the error logs, we identified a configuration error that occurred after a recent deployment. We updated the affected infrastructure, restoring the ability to access AX 2012 projects.
Update 3: We are continuing to collect logs and review telemetry to determine the cause of this issue.
Update 2: Our refresh of front-end servers has completed successfully, and we have verified that there are no certification issues. We are continuing our investigation to determine the cause of this issue.
Update 1: After investigation, it was discovered that calls to the server may be failing for impacted users. We are currently in the process of restarting front-end servers and monitoring service health. Concurrently, we are reviewing certificates to determine if there is any issue with authentication.
Incident Start Time: Sunday, April 15, 2018, 9:59 AM UTC
Incident End Time: Monday, April 16, 2018, 13:55 PM UTC
Preliminary Root Cause: After a recent deployment, we identified a misconfiguration on the infrastructure responsible for accessing AX 2012 projects.
Next Steps: We're reviewing our deployment and provisioning procedures to help prevent similar problems in the future.
This is the final update on the incident.
As of April 13th, 2018, all LCS email updates regarding creating projects, servicing operations, etc. will be sent using the email address 'lcsteam@microsoft.com' instead of 'axse@microsoft.com'.
We ask that customers and partners whitelist this email address so that any emails sent by LCS using this new account are not inadvertently sent to a Junk or Spam folder. If you do not whitelist lcsteam@microsoft.com, you could miss critical updates sent by LCS regarding operations performed on your environment.
On April 23 2018 17:00:00 UTC, the SSL certificate on one-box environments that are under your subscription and not managed by Microsoft, will expire. Project owners or Environment managers can rotate the certificate from LCS.
If you do not rotate the certificate, when you try to use Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations or Dynamics 365 for Retail, you will receive an error that your certificate is not valid.
To rotate the certificate, complete the following steps on each Environment page in LCS.
Note: Complete these steps only on environments that are under your subscription.
On April 22 2018, we released a feature in LCS that enabled Project owners and Environment managers to rotate the SSL certificate on the one-box environments deployed in their own subscription using the Rotate secrets feature. Since then we have had customers ask questions as well as report some issues.
This post will continue to be updated on the issues that the team is currently tracking along with potential workarounds.
Answer: Check if VS is running on the machine. If so, close it, stop and start the environment from LCS and once the environment goes to Deployed status, trigger Rotate secrets action.
Resolution Status: Investigation in progress.
Answer: The Rotate secrets option is available to users that are logged in as Project owners or Environment managers for one-box Demo/DevTest environments that are in the Deployed state in customer/partner subscription (not managed by Microsoft). If your environment is in the Stopped state, the Rotate secrets option will not be available. If the above conditions are met and the Rotate secrets option is still not available, open a support incident.
Answer: We have found an issue in LCS that is causing the environment history to not be updated in a timely manner. There is a significant delay between the operation completing and the environment history being updated. We are investigating this issue. However, even if the environment history is not updated, the environment is safe to use.
Resolution Status: Investigation in progress.
Answer: We have found a sync issue between LCS and the machine. The issue is causing the warning message to show even though the certification rotation operation completed successfully. If the certificate rotation is complete, you can ignore the warning and use the environment.
Resolution status: Investigation in progress.
Answer: We are investigating the root cause for this issue. However, as a workaround to fix the environment state issue, first confirm if the certificate rotation completed successfully. To do that, complete the following steps. After you have confirmed that certificate rotation has completed successfully, you can start and stop the environment from LCS to fix the environment state. If there are specific services started on the machine, you must restart those services.
To rotate certificates on machines created from the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations downloadable VHD, complete the following steps for each certificate. Sample PowerShell scripts are provided where applicable.
1. Identify which certificates will expire in the next two months.
Get-ChildItem -path Cert:\LocalMachine\My | Where {$_.NotAfter -lt $(get-date).AddMonths(2)} | Sort NotAfter | Format-Table Subject, Thumbprint, NotAfter
2. Record the thumbprint of the certificate that needs to be replaced. You will need this in the next step.
3. Obtain a new certificate for the expired certificate.
Set-Location -Path "cert:\LocalMachine\My"
$OldCert = (Get-ChildItem -Path )
New-SelfSignedCertificate -CloneCert $OldCert
Note: The thumbprint must be entered without spaces. For more information and an example, see the New-SelfSignedCertificate Powershell documentation.
4. Find and replace all references to the thumbprint of the expired certificate with the thumbprint of the newly created certificate in the configuration files below. These files can be found under C:\AOSService\webroot.
web.config
wif.config
wif.services.config
5. Restart the IIS.
iisreset
The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) team is happy to announce the immediate availability of the release notes for LCS (April 2018, release 2).
With this release of LCS, you can now deploy demo data when you deploy Dynamics 365 for Talent by using LCS. If you select to deploy the demo data, an environment will be provisioned which contains the same demo data set that is used in the Talent Test Drive experience. This can be beneficial for long-term demo or training environments. Note, you must select the Include demo data option when you begin a deployment. You cannnot update an existing deployment.
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With this release of LCS, you can now access additional Dynamics 365 Translation Service (DTS) service documentation which provides a service overview and additional help topics. To access the service documentation, on the Service dashboard, click the Help icon, and then select Service documentation.
We are aware an issue in LCS that is causing DevTest and Build environment deployments that were started in Implementation (customer) and Partner Projects to fail with an unknown exception.
Do not schedule any deployments for these topologies until this issue is resolved. The engineering team is working on releasing a hotfix. This issue also impacts all current requests for environment deployments for DevTest or Build topologies in customer implementation projects. Those deployments will resume after this issue is resolved.
This blog post will be updated when the issue is resolved.
For environments deployed in your subscription that are not managed by Microsoft, the WinRM SSL certificate will expire one year from the date the environment was deployed. If your WinRM SSL certificate has expired, you will see the following error message when rotating secrets using the Maintain > Rotate Secrets through Lifecycle Services.
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You can also log in to the environment, type certmgr to open the Certificate Manager and navigate to Local Machine / Personal / Certificates to check the expiration date on the certificate. The certificate name will be the same as the name of the VM deployed.
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To renew this certificate, follow the steps listed below:
To confirm that the certificate was rotated correctly, log in to the environment, type certmgr to open the Certificate Manager and navigate to Local Machine / Personal / Certificates to check the expiration date on the certificate with the same name as the VM name.
The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) team is happy to announce the immediate availability of the release notes for LCS (May 2018, release 1).
Improvements in the reliability of the emails sent from LCS have been made in this release of LCS. We have also made performance improvements to the update tiles shown on the Environment details page.
You can now filter on the environments that are deployed in your subscription and not managed by Microsoft. On the Cloud-hosted environments page, there is a new filter that you can use based on Environment Name, Topology Type, Deployed By, and Deployment Status. To use this new functionality, from the project, go to the Cloud-hosted environments page, enter a value in the filter, and then select the field that you want to filter on.
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As announced in the March 14, 2018 blog post, with this release, only Azure Active Directory users are allowed to create Prospective presales projects in LCS. This also means that any new users who sign in to LCS using an Microsoft account that is not associated with a CustomerSource or PartnerSource support plan or not holding any subscriptions, will be unable to access LCS. Any existing users who previously created Prospective presales projects who also fall into this category, will not be able to sign in to these projects or LCS.
The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) team is happy to announce the immediate availability of the release notes for LCS (May 2018, release 2).
In this release of LCS we have made performance improvements to the Cloud hosted environments page. We have also addressed feedback on improving the load times for the Update tiles and Issue search features.
As an Organization admin, when you delete a user from the Organization users page, it is now a soft delete. The line in the grid will be color-coded to show that the delete was a soft delete. The user details are saved in LCS to ensure that there is an audit trail of the actions taken by the user.
Currently, under Software deployable packages in the Shared asset library in Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS), multiple platform update packages (Platform Update 2 through Platform Update 12) are available in the global scope for customers to download and apply. The platform update packages were uploaded to the Shared asset library so that customers and partners can update only the platform for their environment, without taking any of the application updates.
About six months ago, we added the Platform update tile to the Environment details page. This tile shows the applicable platform update for your environment, based on the deployed version. For example, if a new version of the platform is released, and then a hotfix for an issue in the platform is released, the Platform update tile will provide the latest version that includes the platform update that has the hotfix. However, the package in the Shared asset library might not get the update when the hotfix is released.
Customers and partners should always use the Platform update tile to get the latest version of the platform when you want to update an environment that is deployed through LCS. This approach will help guarantee that you get the latest set of performance and critical updates that we have made in the platform to improve the overall quality of your service. This approach also aligns with our recent changes to push the platform updates so that customers are always running on the latest platform. If you want to update just a local virtual hard disk (VHD) deployment, you can still use the package that is available in the Shared asset library.
Going forward, we will keep only the latest platform update packages in the Shared asset library and will remove all other platform update packages. This does not impact packages imported into the Project Asset Library. Therefore, only the Platform Update 12 packages will be available in the Shared asset library. When Platform Update 15 becomes generally available, the package for it will replace the Platform Update 12 package in the Shared asset library. For details about how to use the Platform update tile to update the platform for your environment, see Apply the latest platform to your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations environment.
