March 2016 release notes
The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services team is happy to announce the immediate availability of the March release of Lifecycle Services.
NEW FEATURES
Asset library improvements
This is the first wave of updates where we will be enabling multi-select support for a set of operations in the Asset library. At this time, we support multi-select for most of the operations in asset library including Delete, Save to my library, and Mark as release candidate.
Starting with this update, you can provide descriptions for all the assets in the Asset library and the descriptions will be available to all users in LCS who are using the asset you upload.
Performance improvements
With the March update, we have made significant performance improvements to the LCS.
Business Process Modeler (BPM) Localization
Export a BPM library for localization
Functionality now enables the localization (translation) of business process lines and task guide steps associated with business process lines.
- You can access this functionality by clicking on the Localization button in the Author and Edit view of you BPM library.
This will open the Localization Center.
From there you can export your BPM library. After the export process is complete, and the status shows as Completed, you can download and extract the .zip file containing the localizable resources.
The extracted .zip file contains one folder for every locale. If this is the first localization export of this library, you will start with one locale, en-us.
The locale folder will have one folder for every business process (BP) line in your library which is represented by a numerical identifier. Within the BP line folder you will find the localizable resource files line.xml and recording_resources.xml.
- Line.xml contains the BP line localizable strings.
- Recording.xml contains the task recording text.
- Recording_resources.xml contains the localizable strings of a task recording associated with the current BP line.
In order to navigate more easily to the desired folder in the BPM library, open the hiearchymap.html file in a web browser.
Import BPM localizations
When you complete your localization activities:
- Update the localization.xml file with a new <localization> entry for every language you added.
- Zip the localization folder and import it back into LCS using the import button in the Localization Center.
If you have edited the title or description of your line after your last export, the import process will show a conflict in the import report and the conflicting lines will not be imported. You can override this behavior and force an import by modifying the <ModifiedDate> of the line in the _manifest.xml file to a future date.
Work in progress
After importing BPM localizations, a Dynamics AX client connected to your LCS project will be able to render task guides in the Dynamics AX user interface language. However, the LCS BPM portal does not have this functionality yet.
Import functionality is still not available for AX2012 projects.
Solution creation
Solution creation partners can now create a process data package directly from the Asset library. To start solution creation, click +, enter the name and description, and then click confirm.
You can now consume a process data package directly from the Asset library. To start the consume process, click Consume.
Methodology improvements
You can clone, or create copies of, an existing phase and the related tasks.
Select the phase that you want to clone and click Clone selected phase.
This will create a copy of the selected phase and it’s associated tasks.
Content release
We have shipped 2 new BPM libraries for the new Dynamics AX.
- (February 2016) Getting started
- (Feb 2016) APQC Unified Library for Microsoft Dynamics AX
The (February 2016) Getting started library is for key Dynamics AX trial getting started scenarios and includes task guides that provide guidance with getting started.
The (February 2016) APQC Unified Library for Microsoft Dynamics AX , is the new cross-industry library that includes over 500 business process task guides.
New GER files
Microsoft-owned configurations have been added under the GER configuration asset type in the Shared asset library. They replaced the GER configurations released in January for the Dynamics AX CTP8 release. GER provides one common way, through LCS Asset library, for Microsoft and partners to distribute electronic document configurations to other partners and customers. GER also makes it easier for partners and customers to customize, upgrade, and distribute electronic document formats for their specific business requirements.
New data packages
New industry-specific data packages are also available in this release.
To import these data packages to the project, in your LCS project go to Asset library, select Process data package, and then click Import.
Select the process data packages for your industry from the list and import them into the project.
During import, the status will be shown as Publishing. After import has completed successfully, the status will update to Published. After the data packages have published successfully, you will see all of the data packages under Data package in the Asset library.
