Continuous Integration for CRM

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Posted on by RahulGupta1307

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As a core CRM developer,I hate to implement .Net concepts in CRM.I consider that CRM cannot be considered as a .Net application.Its far ahead than .Net.One such concept of .Net is Continuous integration(deploying build daily to Test environment).As a CRM developer,I don't see any importance of CI in CRM as CRM solution deployment is straight forward using solution,but I'm always open for good suggestions.What does our CRM Experts think?

Note:I'm looking for CRM Expert advice and not .Net Expert advice.Personally for me CRM is different and more powerful.

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Bas van de Sande 4,383 on at

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Hi Rahul,

that's quite a bold statement * I like that! *

My opinion:

Have you ever been in product development as a part of a large team building advanced XRM solution products?

Then you'll discover what the joy is of CI --> automated testing! Does your code still work after some other developers have been adding functionality to the solution.

Furthermore, automated roll outs to different environments where testers can do their job.

Personally, I can't live without it :)

Bas

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RahulGupta1307 2,737 on at

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Hi Bas,

Thanks for reply.

I do understand the importance of CI for XRM solution products where you deploy build every day or very frequently.

But in the world of Agile where requirement changes every now and then, what is the use of deploying build every day. What about testers who are in the middle of their testing and next morning they will get new/changed functionality.

In one of my projects we used to do automated testing.I cannot deny the importance of unit tests but what about following points:

•It takes extra time to write the unit tests and prepare the data

•Unit tests have to be maintained and updated

•Unit tests were seen as non productive time the customer didn’t want to pay for.

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Bas van de Sande 4,383 on at

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Hi Rahul,

in an agile world project have usually a much much smaller scope. In these cases CI is often a major overkill. Instead of doing CI, I would opt and advise for a professional tester.

As you said: unit tests need to be maintained as well. Especially for smaller projects this can be a real burden. However you could write a couple of automated tests, that test the complete chain.

e.g. if I do an update on entity X, i expect entity Y to have this and that value. In that case you can be pretty sure that 80% of the functionality works without having to have a major test plan :)

Bas

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Community Member on at

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Looks like you didnt get the Agile and modern software development at all. To be able to deliver small ingrements of a product in a short cycle you should have a high level of automation (Testing, Deployment etc.). Everything that is done manually is prone to error and decreases the quality of the process.

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Adrian Begovich 1,027 Moderator on at

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Hi everyone,

Ben Hosking has written a great article on this topic. You may find it interesting.

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PranavShroti 4,510 on at

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Hi Rahul,
I have been using two different tools for this.

Build Management: Developer Toolkit

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DynamicsCRMPG.MicrosoftDynamicsCRMDeveloperToolkit

Release Management : xRM CI Framework

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=WaelHamze.xrm-ci-framework-build-tasks

Below image will be helpfull to understand the process better:

If found useful, please mark the answer as verified

Regards,

Pranav

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