Source Control & Automation for Acumatica Developers

For the third year in a row, Acumatica held a virtual developer conference. Here are my notes from the Source Control & Automation for Acumatica Developers session.

I created separate blog posts for each session.

Day 1

09:00am – Welcome & Kick-off – Ajoy & Mark

09:10am – xRP Framework Fundamentals & Best Practices – Sergey Marenich

10:20am – Application Solution Architecture – Dmitry Naumov

10:50am – Source Control & Automation for Acumatica Developers – Brendan Hennelly (this post)

11:30am – Reporting Tools, Tips, and Best Practices – Mikhail Reysev

12:40pm – Implementing Multi-Currency Support for Custom Solutions – Joshua van Hoesen

01:10pm – Unit Testing Framework – Andrew Boulanov

Day 2

09:00am – Database Schema Overview – Dmitry Naumov

09:30am – Application Certification – Ruslan Devyatko

10:10am – Modern Developer Practices – Stan Lesin

11:20am – Updating your Codebase with FBQL – Sharif Ahammad

11:50am – What to Expect from Acumatica’s Developer Community – Joe Jacob & Mark Franks

12:00pm – Developer Roadmap – Mike Chtchelkonogov

Next session "Source Code and Automation for Acumatica Developers" is by Brendan Hennelly – @While0Equals0 who is VERY active on StackOverflow #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/Z567bOhl8c
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Topics for this session #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/RACYpCn0xP
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Source Control in Acumatica is not direct, but via a local folder #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/b94LtnqpAK
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

What you need to include in source control. Including the CodeRepository folder will show you all of the core Acumatica code changes over time, helpful to see what core changes might impact your customizations #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/jqnjS4JATE
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

If you are customizing a Portal Instance, there is an additional .dll that you'll want to include. #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/FkKMFyMO7W
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

How you get changes into Acumatica from Source Control #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/b6VbUF0Yvl
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

The "DETECT MODIFIED FILES" button is needed to put the changes into the Customization Project within the Acumatica Instance #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/WJ7zAQqC9t
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Now for the fun part, taking all of those manual steps and automating them. These scripts are in GitHub and we'll get a link to it at the end of the presentation. #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/HwF9RoT4rM
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Brendan normally uses PowerShell when interacting with MSBuild.exe and PX.CommandLine.exe #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/QFduoHHRsD
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Brendan uses Post-build Events to move stuff around #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/ymobmrAM5C
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

You can even automate the import and publishing of an Acumatica Customization Project to apply it to an Acumatica Instance. Utilizes a command line tool and an Acumatica Web Service endpoint. #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/QnODdF5kWs
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Gotchas to be aware of: 1. Can't publish to multiple Tenants. 2. Doesn't handle errors. 3. Customization Plugin doesn't run. #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/lEaScI5oZ4
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

You can also automate the upgrade of an Acumatica Instance using AC.exe. If wonder if this is how the Acumatica SaaS team handles upgrades. #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/1OetkRmlqZ
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Clicking "Save Configuration" will give you a command line example #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/SgPLCWtTGS
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Might want to put your parameters into a text file #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/onPU6Suk34
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Now for working with multiple Acumatica version installation media at the same time without having to Uninstall/Reinstall #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/S9srYujA2j
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

One downside of this approach is that each folder takes up space on your hard drive #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/eNa4mVRu5I
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Here's an example of a PowerShell script running to automate some stuff #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/0E6OklWrJb
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Installing an Acumatica Instance via PowerShell #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/AUqn6sz8a9
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Recap of what we covered in this session, including this GitHub link to the sample code https://t.co/Qtg8xKC0LX #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/lpNqcGhivl
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019

Thanks Brendan – @While0Equals0 for a great session. You are a battle-tested Acumatica developer with a lot of great real-world insight. Stuff that is second nature to you is very helpful for the rest of us. #CloudxRPSummit pic.twitter.com/0W0Q4ZN2LG
— Tim Rodman (@TimRodman) June 19, 2019