Skip to main content

Notifications

Announcements

No record found.

Community site session details

Community site session details

Session Id :
Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
Suggested answer

How do you manage your development objects?

(0) ShareShare
ReportReport
Posted on by 100

I came from a WinForms development background so developing objects in NAV was a bit strange to me, initially, but I soon fell in love with it.  At first, I was using an Excel sheet to keep track of what I changed and what's pending transfer to the Test/Live environments.  This became unreliable as I started working on more objects so I began using the Version List as a way to keep track.  I understand that we use it to track what we modified but it became quite useful because we can filter by it in the IDE.  If I made a change to the Purchase Header table and the Purchase Invoice page, I typically put a value like TP0 to indicate that it's under development.  Once it's ready for test, I can easily tell which objects are under development and needs to be transferred to Test/Live by filtering for TP0.  I then export it to a single FOB file and import it into the Test/Live environment.  Only when it's been transferred to Live will I change the value from TP0 to just TP, to signify that I've made modifications to the object but, at the same time, the modifications have been moved to Live.  Occasionally, I will forget to update the version list, so this isn't perfect.  The alternative was to also rely on the Modified date.  This is easy when it's just me but when there are other developers working on the system at the same time, that's a whole different ballgame!

I'm interested in knowing how others are going about this.  Will you share your experience or expertise?

  • Suggested answer
    THE Italian Profile Picture
    on at
    RE: How do you manage your development objects?

    If you are still using C/AL then there is not a native SCM (Source Control Management) integrated and you have to rely on text files object export and semi-automated (powershell) merging process and a complex integration with TFS. IMHO it does not worth the time spent. Not at this time, at least.

    If you move your private IP from C/AL to AL (and NAV to Business Central) then you have for free and out of the box SCM through git. You could then easily create your own simple to more complex strategy using Azure DevOps.

  • Tony.Phan Profile Picture
    100 on at
    RE: How do you manage your development objects?

    Thank you for sharing your experience!  I completely forgot about saving the different versions.  I use TFS for WinForms development but never really thought about using it for NAV.  Generally speaking, I was taught to denote my changes within the codes itself and codes weren't deleted but, rather, gets commented out hence there wasn't ever a need for going back to TFS to extract anything.  Besides, from what I can recall, extracting, importing, merging the codes was a pretty tedious task on TFS due to all the manual things we must do, not like how it is in Visual Studio.  I don't think it's much different with github based on your comment?

  • Suggested answer
    Teddy Herryanto (That NAV Guy) Profile Picture
    13,637 Moderator on at
    RE: How do you manage your development objects?

    There are lots of different way of doing the version because there is no standard in NAV. Every dev will have their own ways of doing this.

    One way of doing this is to extract all the objects in text. Then do github to store and manage your modification.

Under review

Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.

Helpful resources

Quick Links

🌸 Community Spring Festival 2025 Challenge Winners! 🌸

Congratulations to all our community participants!

Adis Hodzic – Community Spotlight

We are honored to recognize Adis Hodzic as our May 2025 Community…

Kudos to the April Top 10 Community Stars!

Thanks for all your good work in the Community!

Leaderboard > Small and medium business | Business Central, NAV, RMS

#1
YUN ZHU Profile Picture

YUN ZHU 499 Super User 2025 Season 1

#2
Sagar Dangar, MCP Profile Picture

Sagar Dangar, MCP 373

#3
Mansi Soni Profile Picture

Mansi Soni 327

Overall leaderboard

Featured topics

Product updates

Dynamics 365 release plans