What are time consuming back and front-end tasks that are important for a good solution?
Hi,
Interesting question. I will try and share my perspective about what actions can be performed to keep the live solution running smoothly for longer period of time.
1.
Configuration first approach
Standardize configuration first approach. This is not only for the developers but also for the customers. All parties must understand that more standard configuration you have, more supported, maintainable & stable system it will become. Even if some scenario cannot be achieved through out of the box configurable approaches the preference should be given to see if a requirement can be slightly tweaked to make scope for it. Coding should ideally be your last option to go to.
2. Timely upgrades
It is very important for the solution to be in latest state to keep providing optimal and modern ways of working.
The support team must proactively look for the upcoming upgrades from Microsoft and the early access dates. Then they must create copy of the UAT instance, upgrade it through early access and validate all business scenarios end to end. Document issues/impacts if any and address them like deprecated codes, new features impacting existing processes. Address the required impacts, update the documentation and apply the upgrades as soon as they become generally available.
Demo the new features to business and devise strategy for rolling them out.
3.
Use of Supported approaches only
Dynamics 365 customizations should follow supported customization methodologies. We should strictly avoid doing unsupported customizations. Unsupported customizations may lead to broken features out of nowhere as well as you wont get much support from the support team in this case.
4. Processes
You should have right set of processes to manage the development and enhancement cycles, releases to various SDLC environment's and a solid rollback plan in case of failures. The deployments can start with manual activity to semi automatic and then fully automatic as the confidence in processes grows.
SJ