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Corfu Navision 2016, Data, Development Tips, How To, Information, upgrade

Upgrading the Data in Navision 2016

October 23, 2015October 23, 2015 Ashwini Tripathi

Continuing from my earlier post Upgrading the Application Code in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016

At end of previous post we have imported the objects and compiled also resolved any conflicts and compilation error. In the same process we have got the list of objects which were having destructive table schema, means the objects which will be having the changes due to which we could lose some data. Scan the objects and if we wish to save those data then we will be requiring Data Upgrade codeunits to handle any such situation.

How to create you can refer to my earlier post Data Upgrade – in Navision 2015 this it still valid for 2016.

Now we have all the upgraded application objects and Data Upgrade codeunits if any required for the upgrade. So we are good to go with Upgrading Data for Old database.

We will follow below steps to continue, make sure you have followed the process for preparation/ converting of database as discussed in my earlier post Upgrade in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016

Import the application objects to the converted database

In the development environment, import all the application objects that you extracted in previous step as in my earlier post discussed above in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 database. This includes the FOB file that contains all the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 objects from the application code upgrade and upgrade toolkit objects if any.

When you import the FOB file, if you experience metadata conflicts, use the Import Worksheet to handle these conflicts.

Finally, on the dialog box for selecting the schema synchronization, set the Synchronize Schema option to Later.

If the upgrade toolkit objects are stored in a separate FOB file, then import the upgrade toolkit FOB file after the application objects are imported.

Run the schema synchronization to synchronize the new tables

To publish the data schema changes of the newly imported tables to the SQL tables, run the Sync. Schema For All Tables – With Validation option from the development environment.

If you are confident that any loss of data you are ok with same you can choose Force option which will drop the data for deleted fields, else use Upgrade Codeunit prepared for same as discussed above.

Or alternatively run the Sync-NavTenant cmdlet from the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 Administration Shell.

Sync-NAVTenant –ServerInstance UpgradedDBfrom2013R2 (My Server Instance Name)

Note this command runs in Administration Shell not in Development Shell as we used in our previous post.

Run the data upgrade process

A data upgrade runs the upgrade toolkit objects, such as upgrade codeunits and upgrade tables, to migrate business data from the old table structure to the new table structure. You can start the data upgrade from the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment.

Ooops………….

Or Alternatively Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 Administration Shell.

In the last phase of data upgrade, all companies will be initialized by running codeunit 2 Company Initialization. This is done automatically.

If you want to skip company initialization, then use the Start- NavDataUpgrade cmdlet and set the SkipCompanyIntitialization parameter.

Syntax:

Start-NAVDataUpgrade [-ServerInstance] <String> [[-Tenant] <TenantId> ] [[-FunctionExecutionMode] <FunctionExecutionModeValue> ] [[-ContinueOnError]] [-Force] [-Confirm] [-WhatIf] [ <CommonParameters>]

Parameters
-ContinueOnError

Specifies whether the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance continues to execute other upgrade functions when an error occurs while executing an upgrade function.

If you do not set this parameter, then when an error occurs, the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance will suspend the data upgrade process. It will cancel the execution of upgrade functions currently in progress and roll back any changes that were applied. Completed functions will not be rolled back.

The process remains in suspended state until you take one of the following actions:

– Fix the problems in the upgrade functions that failed, and then resume the process by using the Resume-NAVDataUpgrade cmdlet. You should not add new upgrade functions at this time because they will be ignored when you resume the process.

– Stop the data upgrade process by using the Stop-NAVDataUpgrade cmdlet. Stopping the process will not roll back changes made by upgrade functions that have already been executed.

If you set this parameter, then when an error occurs, the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance will continue executing other upgrade functions. At the end of the process, you can use the Get-NAVDataUpgrade cmdlet to see the list of failed upgrade functions. Changes that were applied by completed functions will not be rolled back.

When upgrading a large database, you should increase the SQL Command Timeout setting for the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance that connects to the database to avoid timeouts during schema synchronization. The default setting is 30 minutes

-ServerInstance<String>

Specifies the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance that the application database and the tenant database are mounted against, such as DynamicsNAV90.

You must include the name within single quotation marks.

-Tenant<TenantId>

Specifies the ID of the tenant that you want to synchronize with the application, such as Tenant1.

This parameter is required unless the specified service instance is not configured to run multiple tenants.

-Force

Forces the command to run without asking for user confirmation.
-FunctionExecutionMode<FunctionExecutionModeValue>
Specifies whether the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance executes upgrade functions in series or parallel.
-Confirm
Prompts you for confirmation before running the cmdlet.

-WhatIf

Shows what would happen if the cmdlet runs. The cmdlet is not run.

Few Examples of Usage:

[1] PS C:\> Start-NAVDataUpgrade -ServerInstance DynamicsNAV90 –Force

[2] PS C:\> Start-NAVDataUpgrade -ServerInstance DynamicsNAV90 -ContinueOnError –Force

[3] PS C:\> Start-NAVDataUpgrade -ServerInstance DynamicsNAV90 -FunctionExecutionMode Serial –Force

Start-NAVDataUpgrade -ServerInstance UpgradedDBfrom2013R2 –Force

Ooops………….

Now what to do?

To learn how to Create Data Upgrade Codeunits you can see my earlier posts:

Data Upgrade Codeunit in Navision 2015 – Part -1

Data Upgrade Codeunit in Navision 2015 – Part -2

These posts are still valid for 2016, you can follow to get you task done at this step resolution to above error.

To resolve above issue I have followed the instruction as suggested in error message, but in real scenario you will definitely will be having such codeunits. Since I have taken the 2013-R2 Std. Database I am having this issue. I have created on Upgrade codeunit with an empty upgrade function as below:

Let us run the above process again.

This time I was able to complete the process successfully.

Delete the upgrade objects

At this point, you have upgraded the database to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016. Now, you can delete the upgrade codeunits and upgrade table objects that you imported in above step.

When you delete tables, on the Delete dialog box, set the Synchronize Schema option to Force.

Import upgraded permission sets and permissions by using the Roles and Permissions XMLports

You import the permission sets and permissions XML files according to the following procedure.

To import the permission sets and permissions

Delete all permission sets in the database except the SUPER permission set.

In Object Designer, run page 9802 Permission Sets, and then delete the permission sets.

Run XMLport 9171 Import/Export Permission Sets to import the permission sets XML file,

In the request page for the XMLport, in the Direction field, choose Import, choose the OK button, and then specify the permission sets XML file.

Run XMLport 9172 Import/Export Permissions to import the permission XML file.

In the request page for the XMLport, in the Direction field, choose Import, choose the OK button, and then specify the permissions XML file.

Set the language of the customer database

In the development environment, choose Tools, choose Language, and then select the language of the original customer database.

Add new control add-ins

The database is now fully upgraded and is ready for use. However, you may want to add the new client control add-ins that are included in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016. These are not added by the upgrade process. The following client control add-ins are available from the Microsoft Dynamics NAV product media:

Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Client.BusinessChart
Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Client.PageReady
Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Client.PingPong
Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Client.VideoPlayer
Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Client.SocialListening

You can add control add-ins in the Control Add-ins window in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Windows client.

I will come up with more details on this topic in my upcoming posts.

Corfu Navision 2016, Development Tips, How To, Information, upgrade

Upgrading the Application Code in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016

October 21, 2015October 21, 2015 Ashwini Tripathi

Continuing from my earlier post Upgrade in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016

No doubt typically, customers want all the customizations that have been implemented in their existing Microsoft Dynamics NAV databases to be migrated to their new Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 databases.

Depending on the version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV that a database is being upgraded from, the amount of code changes between the two versions is large or small.

To upgrade the application code, you must merge code from different versions of the application. This merge process is known as a code upgrade or application upgrade.

You must upgrade the application before you upgrade the data.

Application Upgrade Overview

You must analyze and process code changes by comparing and evaluating three separate versions of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV database:

Version	Description
Original version	This is the baseline version of the solution that you want to upgrade, such as the original release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013.
Modified version	This is the version that you want to upgrade, such as a customer’s database with customizations and add-on solutions.
Target version	This is the target of the merge process that you want to upgrade your application to, such as the standard version of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 database.

When you merge the application objects from these three versions, you can import the result into a new Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 database that then contains the upgraded application.

At the end of the process, you export the merged Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 objects from this database to a .fob file that you will use during the data upgrade.

The following list describes the main steps of upgrading the application code:

Prepare the application object text files.
Merge versions.
Resolve conflicts
Import and compile the merged application objects.
Export all objects.

To begin, create five folders on the computer and name them as follows:

In my example, the UpgradeDemo folder on the C drive contains five folders: ORIGINAL, MODIFIED, TARGET, DELTA, and RESULT. The DELTA and RESULT folders are empty. The ORIGINAL, MODIFIED, and TARGET folders contains one or more text files that contain application objects.

Preparing the Text Files

The Microsoft Dynamics NAV cmdlets take text files as input. You must prepare three sets of text files that contain application objects as describes in the list above. You can export application objects to text files from the development environment, or by running the ExportObjects command. The following list describes the main steps of preparing the text files that you must provide as input for the application merge process.

First, export all application objects from the original version, such as the original Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 database. Do not export system tables. Name the file OldBaseVersion.txt, and then save the file in the ORIGINAL folder that you created earlier. For example, the Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Model.Tools.psd1 module includes a function, Export-NAVApplicationObject, that runs the ExportObjects command. This means that you can run a command such as the following:

Export-NAVApplicationObject –DatabaseServer MyServer –DatabaseName “Demo Database NAV (7-1)” –Path C:\Upgrade\ORIGINAL\OldBaseVersion.txt

Next, export all relevant application objects from the modified version, such as the customized Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 database. Do not export system tables. Name the file OldCustomVersion.txt, and then save the file in the MODIFIED folder that you created earlier.
Finally, export all application objects from the new base version, such as the original Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 database. Do not export system tables. Name the file NewBaseVersion.txt, and then save the file in the TARGET folder that you created earlier.

Optionally, you can use the Split-NAVApplicationObjectFile cmdlet to split each text file into separate text files for each application object. This can make it easier to keep track of the process. The end result at this stage is three folders with one or more text files that contain the three sets of application objects that you want to merge.

To compare two sets of application objects

Open the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 Development Shell in administrator mode.
Navigate to the location of your folders by typing a command such as the following:

cd c:\UserData\UpgradeDemo (in my case)

To run the cmdlet to compare all application objects in the ORIGINAL folder to the application objects in the MODIFIED folder, type the following command:

Compare-NAVApplicationObject -OriginalPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Original’ -ModifiedPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Modified’ -DeltaPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Delta’

This generates a number of DELTA files that describe the difference between ORIGINAL and MODIFIED. You can open the DELTA files in text editors such as Notepad. The following example illustrates how a DELTA file identifies the difference between ORIGINAL and MODIFIED.

Let us understand how the changes are reported when we compare the objects.

You can apply those differences to TARGET by using the Update-NAVApplicationObject cmdlet.

To apply DELTA files to application objects

Open the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 Development Shell in administrator mode.
Navigate to the location of your folders by typing a command such as the following:

cd c:\UserData\UpgradeDemo (in my case)

In this example, the folder structure is the same as described above procedure. You can now run the cmdlet.

To run the cmdlet to apply the differences that are stored in the DELTA folder to the application objects in the TARGET folder, type the following command:

Update-NAVApplicationObject –DeltaPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Delta’ -TargetPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Target’ -ResultPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Result’

This merges the difference between ORIGINAL and MODIFIED with the target solution and puts the resulting solution in the RESULT folder.

You can now import the merged objects into a Microsoft Dynamics NAV database.

Merging Versions

Alternatively to above process you can merge the three sets of application objects to create the application for the new database.

You can use the Merge-NAVApplicationObject cmdlet to merge the three sets of application objects.

The following example illustrates the type of command that you can run.

Merge-NAVApplicationObject -OriginalPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Original’ -TargetPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Target’ -ModifiedPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Modified’ -ResultPath ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Result’

Depending on the number of objects that you are merging and the number of differences found, this can take a few seconds, a few minutes, or longer.

The RESULT folder will contain a text file for each application object. The result of the merge is shown when the cmdlet completes, including a description of any application objects with conflicting code.

These conflicts are stored in .CONFLICT files in the RESULT folder. You can import all objects in the RESULT folder into the new Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 database, or you can analyze the conflicts before you import the objects.

Handling Conflicts

Depending on the application that you are upgrading, you can choose to analyze the conflicting code before you import the merged objects into the development environment.

The conflicts are shown in the merged text files but are also identified in .CONFLICT files in the RESULT folder. Subfolders then contain copies of the source files from the versions that have conflicting code.

You can analyze the conflicts in any tool, make the relevant changes, and then run the merge operation again. Alternatively, you can import the merged files into the development environment, and resolve the conflicts there.

Importing and Compiling Merged Objects

After you have completed the merge, import the new custom version into the new Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 database, and then compile all objects. You must resolve any compilation errors before you can continue.

The text files with the merged application objects include successfully merged code, and code that is partially merged. You can import the partially merged objects into the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 development environment and resolve the conflicts there.

You can use Import-NAVApplicationObject, that runs the ImportObjects command.

This means that you can run a command such as the following:

Join-NAVApplicationObjectFile -Source ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\Result\*.txt’ -Destination ‘C:\UserData\Upgrade Demo\FinalMergedObjects\all-merged.txt’

First we will join the many text files into a single file using above command and as a result we get all-merged.txt file which we will import in database using below command.

Import-NAVApplicationObject –DatabaseServer MyServer –DatabaseName “My Upgraded App” –Path C:\Upgrade\all-merged.txt

Now we import objects obtained from previous step into an existing, empty database.

When you compile the objects, an error is thrown for each code conflict, and you can use the tools that are available in the development environment to resolve the conflicts.

You now have a new database with a fully upgraded application.

Exporting All Objects

Now, you must export all objects to an objects.fob file so that you can import them when performing the data upgrade. The export must include customized objects, upgraded reports, and all other Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 objects.

This completes the upgrade of the application code. Next, you must upgrade the data in the database.

However you are free to do object merge and upgrade as you do earlier, here I concentrated using Dynamics Navision 2016 Development Shell. As this is the new way also much faster than what we used to do earlier.

We can use this in identifying the Objects under different categories like Modified, having conflicts and New Objects which can help in estimating also and planning the action in advance.

I will come up with further step and more details in my upcoming posts.

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