Dynamics AX Version Control

While at the Convergence conference a while back I bumped into Michael Fruergaard Pontoppidan (Principal SDE) and Morten Jensen (Program Manager) from the Dynamics AX team.  Both Michael and Morten are based at the Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen (MDCC)  and have worked on Dynamics AX since the first release.

Morten and Michael worked on the version control feature in Dynamics AX.  I more or less dragged them over to a table at the conference and grilled them on how it all works.

In AX 4 we first introduced version control with integration to SourceSafe.  In AX 2009, we introduced Team Foundation Server (TFS) support as well as a MorphX VCS a low –end home-brew version control.  Michael walks us through the MorphX VCS feature showing how it integrates Check In/Check Out functionality directly into AX environment.  MorphX VCS is included with Dynamics AX.  The target for this low-end VCS is VARs maintaining numerous client system customizations on the same code base.

Version Control is just one leg of the Dynamics AX team’s commitment to Engineering Excellence.  They’ve also integrated unit testing and best practices policy enforcement.  The Dynamics AX team uses this integration themselves integrating with Source Depot (an internal Microsoft versioning system).  They are looking at moving to TFS.