Overview of Lifecycle Services

  • 10 minutes

Lifecycle Services is a tool that aids developers in managing the lifecycle of finance and operations implementations. To use Lifecycle Services, go to https://lcs.dynamics.com and sign in with your Microsoft Entra ID credentials. Lifecycle Services provides several tools that you can use to deploy and maintain your cloud-based or on-premises environments.

For cloud-based solutions, Lifecycle Services has a tool named Cloud-hosted environments. This tool can be used to deploy your finance and operations environments on Microsoft Entra ID. You can use the tool to select the type of environment that you want to deploy: Demo, Developer, or Test. Based on your selection, the tool provisions the appropriate number of virtual machines in Microsoft Entra ID with all the needed prerequisites installed on them.

For on-premises implementations of finance and operations, you will need to set up an on-premises project in Lifecycle Services. In your Lifecycle Services project, go to Environment > Sandbox > Configure. In the primary domain controller virtual machine, you will need to run this script in the PowerShell:

.\Get-DeploymentSettings.ps1 -ConfigurationFilePath .\ConfigTemplate.xml

For new deployments, select your environment topology, and complete the wizard to start the deployment of your environment.

To deploy code to on-premises environments, follow these steps:

  1. Upload a deployable package to the Lifecycle Services Asset Library by going to the Software deployable package tab and selecting the plus (+) button.
  2. In your Lifecycle Services project, select either the sandbox or production environment.
  3. Select Configure.
  4. In the deployment tool, enter the environment name.
  5. Select Advanced settings.
  6. Select the Customize solution assets tab.
  7. In the Select the AOT packages to be deployed field, select the deployable package.
  8. Select Done.
  9. Redeploy the environment.

Lifecycle Services also has tools to maintain your environment and implementation of finance and operations apps and Finance + Operations (on-premises), such as the following:

  • Projects and methodologies that track tasks and milestones that are required to receive a production environment.
  • You can use Lifecycle Services to estimate the number of licenses that you will need.
  • You can monitor the status of environments from the Detailed environment page.
  • There is an issue search to find existing workarounds and solutions for common problems.
  • All upgrades and updates are scheduled through Lifecycle Services.
  • You can use Lifecycle Services to copy data from one environment to another.