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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived) / when to use Overlayeri...
Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived)

when to use Overlayering Development approach in AX7 ?

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Posted on by San Artham 3,177

Hi,  Is there any case or scenario where we have no option but to use Overlayering development approach ?

could you please let me know such scenarios where we have to use Overlayering development approach and not Extension approach.

Thank you

Santosh.

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  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at

    When you cannot use the extension approach.

    Basically you want do this:

    1 Extension Approach

    2. Over-layer using delegates (Minimizing customization code).

    3 Full customization.(Bad idea )

  • Verified answer
    André Arnaud de Calavon Profile Picture
    André Arnaud de Cal... 305,810 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

    Hi Santosh,

    There are some parts of the AOT where overlayering is not possible. E.g. you cannot extend Enums which are not set to 'IsExtensible'. Also you cannot change an existing index in an extensions model. These are for sure customizations as overlayering.

  • Verified answer
    Joris dG Profile Picture
    Joris dG 17,782 on at

    Beyond a few technical reasons (like Andre mentioned), typically there are more functional reasons. If you want to CHANGE some code, of course you have to over-layer. If you wish to add code somewhere in the middle of existing code, you need to over-layer (hopefully by adding a delegate in the over-layer, then subscribe to the delegate from an extension package). The over-layering is usually more code related, although it typically means they are more aggressive customizations. Sometimes your extensions may need access to some protected or private member variables of a class -  you can potentially over-layer the class to expose the variable through a parm() method or something. Those are typical scenarios I've seen.

    Also note that you want extensions in a separate, new package. Beyond some potential upgrade benefits over over-layering, adding an extension in a model in the same package doesn't buy you many of the advantages of extensions.

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