Van Vugt's dynamiXs

In the 1st edition of my book Automated Testing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central I discussed the testability framework, that resides in the Business Central platform, by means of 5 pillars. In the 2nd edition I wanted to add a 6th pillar: test permissions. I did write the text, but eventually decided not to add it to the book, because of two reasons: (1) it seems not to work well on BC18 and older versions (2) with the new updated test runners in - what will probably be released and…

For a long while, ever since NAV 2016, the Test Tool has been part of the application, which is in a way is somewhat strange as a Test Tool is typically something you don't want to be present in a production environment. Among other - more - important reasons, Microsoft introduced the AL Test Tool in the time of BC15, which resides in it's own extension called Test Runner . This does not reside in a CRONUS database, and thus typically needs to be installed before you can use it. To discriminate…

I reckon that any of us using a computer has the experience that the applications you’re using do not always act the way you expect it to do. This might be a matter of ignorance, i.e. simply not knowing how it works, but it also could be that they are not behaving as intended. The latter is what we call a bug. In the words of Wikipedia : A bug is an error, flaw or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways…

Another note to myself, but might probably be of help to all those that are building tests apps and make use of (some) MS test related apps. Every once in a while I get asked questions that relate to this. like... What dependencies do I need? What are, or where can I find, the details of each test app? Find listed, in app.json dependencies format, all current MS apps that relate to test automation, being test library apps, test apps and test runner. Note that I have set the version…

Frost has hit the night. Sitting in our Finnish fireplace heated kitchen, looking at our garden wall, Wheather Report humming in the back, and having done my preps last week, I am ready to start writing another post on test automation. Being a protagonist of using standard tests and their associated libraries many have asked me: "Luc, what is the best way to find and use useful test helper functions?" So, that will be today's topic: how to find and use standard test helper functions . As the saying…

In my post How-to: Create Notifications – Steps to Take I introduced a step-by-step recipe that can help you to efficiently create a (non-intrusive) notification. I gladly used the YouTube video Develop SAAS user experiences for Dynamics 365 Business Central by Daniel Rimmelzwaan to illustrate this. Doing this I stuck to his example without adding anything, but the step-by-step approach. In this post I would like to extend the example allowing you to add your notification to My Notifications and…

In a recent VSCode/AL update training the topic notifications , as part of SaaSifying your solution , was tackled. After a short introduction of what these notifications (functionally) are about I explained and demoed how to develop them. Inviting the attendees thereafter to pose their questions, one of them, a seasoned C/SIDE developer whom I will call Bogdan, marked that he had been implementing them a couple of times and still had issues with the different parts that have to be developed. He…

As more people are starting to get into test automation, my book is being used more and more. And as time is moving on it gets outdated more and more, unfortunately. Because of this I have asked my publisher almost a year ago to update the content to be fully in sync with the current state of the product. To no avail (so far). As part of an internal project at one of the Dutch Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC partners I will be training their developers on this topic and for that have provided them…

You might know that I have been (and still am) a fan of Statical Prism . But now that we moved into the AL world this is becoming obsolete as it only handles C/AL code. Christin Clausen and his stati-cal team have been working hard on the AL version of the tool. Last week they released a preview version of Prism for AL to the community and they asked me to review it. Unfortunately I did not find enough time yet to that, but had a quick look and thought it very promising. And as such worthwhile…

CODE COMPLETE! Yesss. This was waiting somewhat too long on my desk to be completed, but this morning I finally did: Extended Text on Assembly Documents . This example extends the standard Extended Text feature in Business Central to assembly documents. As with the previous two completed examples ( Blocking Deletion of Warehouse Shipment Lines and Automatically Set Posting Period on GL Setup and User ) you will find a full collection of ATDD scenarios in Excel and PowerShell files, that were…

A couple of months ago I introduced here my GitHub project Test Automation Examples when I had just finished the first example as a spinoff of my new online course. And around that time I started with example 2 . Test wise this one was a bit too ambitious and as a consequence it is still waiting to be completed. Hopefully somewhere during my long summer recess I get it done. Meanwhile, at my major employer, I designed a nice new feature with a bit more restricted scope than example 2 which this…

Sunday morning, sun softly touching me while I am sitting behind my laptop at the other end of our kitchen table. Time to write the post that has been on my mind for quite a while. A topic partly born out of amazement. An amazement triggered every once in a while when hearing fellow professionals saying that it does not make sense to run the standard tests [1] on your solution. Our daily practice shows different for already more than three years. That's what I would like to share with you below…