Portal 365/Adxstudio portal deployment short review
This article reviews how
modern crm portals can be quickly copied or deployed for free. That is why
Scribe, Kingswaysoft, Cobalt and other toll services excluded from the review.
In the part one we talked about deployment of
on-prem and on-line portals. Since beginning of 2017 Adxstudio on premise
portals disappeared from MS price list. Although on-line portals are a single
option in the Dynamics 365 market now, on-prem portals still will be part of
the review.
Let’s see what changed since 2016
in portals deployment:
ALM Toolkit – gone
Webcopy tool – mostly gone. There is a couple of
enthusiasts trying to adopt it for portals 365.
Configuration Migration tool – still part
of Dynamics 365 tools, got some new feature.
Not much left but new OOB methods appeared.
OOB
deployment tools
1. Full copy in Dynamics 365 Admin
portal.
Copies environment bite to bite but has
one serious issue with Azure AD/ B2C authentication.
The synchronization between portal Contacts and User
Object in AD performed by entity External Identity which hosts reference to
User object in AD. Once we copy contacts and external identities from original
environment to target the reference will no match and login/change password
will fail. You can sync your AD instances using Graph API but it’s
not one project. I didn’t test the scenario with Facebook ant other providers
but logically it shills fail as well.
2. Minimal Copy in Dynamics 365
Admin portal.
Copies only schema to new instance. Two weak
points:
- no data left in the instance
- custom M:M not copied (tested with version 9.0.4)
Website Bindings, Settings, Site
Settings must be updated and Portal Application has to be re-configured for the
crm instance.
3. Configuration Migration Tool.
This tool still does the job.
Unfortunately, still low configurable. Deployment will override the whole set
of records of Entity selected for import, never mind if only part or records
needs changes and other need to be kept untouched.
Another issue with configuration
migration tool – it fails to copy Attachments of document type. Modern portals
keep styles, JavaScript and icons in Web Files attachments.
Portal migration tools
Portal Records Mover
by MsCRMtools (XrmToolBoox),
I have no chance
to test this XrmToolBox plugin. Adding to review without comments.
Tools using
Configuration Migration packages for “scaffolding” the migration process
Adoxio.Dynamics.DevOps
The project yet
have a wiki once I write the post. In short words it’s a set of Power Shell
commands to customize Configuration Migration tool schema xml file and data xml
file. Once file is changed use the schema to export data file with
Configuration Migration tool. If you are good in PowerShell you will
like it.
Data
Migration Manager 365 (DMM365)
by Vladimir Belomestnov and Michael Kalinovich.
open source: https://github.com/mkalinov/DMM365
This tool also use packages created by Configuration
Migration tool has three main modules implemented:
Saved View filter - provides to user
a mechanism to deploy only selected records based on Saved views in crm. User
exports full set of Crm records with Configuration Migration tool. The set may
contain tens and hundred thousands of records (cannot say unlimited). Then user
creates a view or views specifying criteria(s) to filter
records to move. DMM365 uses selected saved views to produce an edition of
Configuration Migration tool package that can directly imported into crm.
Data Duplicator – prepares a complete data
file with new IDs with respect to references. This type of copy mostly useful if
want to deploy same portal in parallel with existing one. The duplicate (after
proper bindings update) may use same data as its twin. Excellent way for
enterprise deployment: u may have a few different versions of portal in the
same crm instance and switch between them by changing bindings.
Portals 365 Sync module –
provides the follow options:
1. Attachment
copy based on data file.
Configuration Migration tool cannot copy attachments.
But, once you had exported the entities with Configuration
Migration tool and imported it target use DMM365 Attachment copy to same
data package. Choose source and target crm connection (wizard) and press copy.
Tool will copy attachments abandoned in source instance to target.
2. Process
settings
Allow to customer copy attachments of type 'document' only or all attachments
type.
Also, possible to keep list of copied attachments. If
customer not satisfied, he/she can use “Roll Back Attachments import” to
annihilate all imported.
3. Copy
Web Files attachments from Source to target and Sync Portal Site Settings - are two features independent from
Configuration Migration tool. The copy/synchronizes attachments and site
settings from on crm instance to another or to the same one base based on IDs
and/or names.
See (link) for details. Usage described in “Deployment with
DMM365: Portal duplication receipt” (link).
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