Are you dreaming about possibility to automatically “build” your NAV database after you commit changes to the objects to check if all could be compiled and to be able to run the automated tests? It could become reality for you!
Of course, you have many paths, but I will talk about the way, I have prepared using the PowerShell scripts + TFS Build server. After I have developed the template andscripts, I was informed, that something similar could be done using the FAKE (http://fsharp.github.io/FAKE/). But, who wants to learn F# when I just started to learn Powershell?
Whole build is using separate powershell scripts for these steps:
If you need to change something in this, you can only change the PS script and you are done. You do not need to change the Build template. And because you can do different things in the PS, you can unleash your imagination…
Mix it all, install on some HW (virtual or real), configure TFS for the TFS Build.
After you queue the build, it should be processed by the Build controller, assigned to the Build agent and started. You should monitor the process of the build to see if there are some problems. I assume that few builds will fail until you finish all needed settings, finetune some paths etc. If all goes well, in the Drop folder will be created folder with the Build definition name, and there will be FOB file in it.
If you want to customize some step, you can do two things:
If you want to change the build template, you can do that by opening the solution from the TFSBuildTemplate. Because the template is using custom actions from the https://tfsbuildextensions.codeplex.com/, follow their documentation how to set the Visual Studio to be able to use the extensions if there is some problem. After you commit the change of the template, the change will be automatically used by the build definitions.
I wish you happy NAV building!
Feedback is welcome! You can use the codeplex project issue tracking to share the problems, issues, feature requests…
Hi Erik, sorry for late respone, but have not seen the comment...
This post is really old, I was using XAML build definitions for TFS and some custom library to run PowerShell in the build. With TFS 2015 you have new Build agent with native PowerShell support, thus it is much easier to do all what is needed. Just look at the new articles I wrote... dynamicsuser.net/.../tfs-2015-build-system
Hi Kine,
Know you posted this a long time ago. In terms of NAV, this is a long time ago. NAV 2016 offers most of the features to export objects out of the box. But how does this effect creating builds using TFS in 2016?