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Extensibility (HQ, POS, CRT)

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Important

This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 product documentation. For the latest release plans, see Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.

Note

These release notes describe functionality that may not have been released yet. To see when this functionality is planned to release, please review Summary of what’s new. Delivery timelines and projected functionality may change or may not ship (see Microsoft policy).

Most customers customize our product to support their business process. We made major enhancements in our retail extensibility framework to simplify the customization model, introducing a metadata and configuration-driven development experience and more advanced APIs. This new framework reduces the lines of code that need to be written and the time spent to do customizations. By using the framework, business users or power users can do simple customizations without writing any code.

We also introduced a new independent packaging model so that extensions can be packaged separately. With the new extension framework and independent packaging model, extensions can be created independently from the core app. They can then be packaged and published to AppSource or the marketplace seamlessly, and then loaded at runtime. This seamless extension model helps easily plug and unplug any new extension, app, or extension to an existing business process model. Extensions can also be serviced seamlessly without any change to the core app model. With this new model, ISVs and partners can independently develop extensions and deploy them seamlessly. POS can also load multiple extensions independently.

We are continuously enhancing the Dev Application Lifecycle Management and the extensibility framework to add more new extension features and APIs to simplify the development process and reduce the effort required for servicing the extensions.

Some new extensibility capabilities include:

  • Dev Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) – Developer tools were added to simplify the developer experience. Many new code samples and docs were published to help with development scenarios. The samples will help customers complete their customizations more efficiently by copying and pasting the code and making minor changes.

  • Packaging – With the independent extension packaging model and framework, customers can package extensions separately from POS, load multiple extensions, and plug or unplug individual extensions.

  • POS UI and API extension - We are continuously enhancing the POS framework to expose new POS APIs and user interface (UI) extension points, such as metadata-driven extensions and custom controls. With these enhancements, customers can modify their POS layout to add or change UI workflow or elements.

  • POS overridable requests and triggers - Overridable requests were added in POS to override the POS workflow or POS business logic and add custom logic and validation. The POS triggers framework helps run custom logic before or after core POS logic. With this new pattern, any workflow in POS can be modified.

  • Search extensions – We enhanced the search framework to support searching any external system. Customers can modify Search by using their own custom fields or logic.

  • Commerce runtime (business logic layer) – With our enhanced framework, business logic can be added and core logic can be modified to support custom extension scenarios. Extensions are supported in both the business logic layer and the data layer.

  • Payment SDK – With the enhanced Payment SDK, any payment device or third-party payment provider can be integrated.

  • Hardware station and peripherals – Enhancements in the hardware layer support existing device extensions, such as printers or line displays. Almost any new device can be integrated.

A screenshot showing a retail point of sale extensibility example

Extensibility example in Point of Sale