D365 reality: the Price You Pay for a Bug2 min read

We have already covered some of the insights on how to f*ck up the project during Microsoft Application Update for you D365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management. To make things clear, here is another headache you will get if Application Update is not done right – time. By “time”, we do mean money, of course.

So. How much time does it take to fix the bug since one found in production? Based on some back-of-the-envelope calculations, teams spend 8-13 hours to fix a minor bug. Hence, if you guys have found an issue with your system at the beginning of the day (let’s say 9 am) – the day is wasted.

People got used to AX2012 and it’s freedom for a developer to head straight to the production environment and fix the code. Of course, there was a chance to crash a server or else – but if implementation had to be on the fly – it did the trick.

But D365 changed everything. Production is closed. To fix something or to develop a script that would do fixing – you need to follow the route:

  • 9 am – someone in the organization has found a bug and reached out to dev team.
  • Even if it’s an obvious one – it will take 30-60 min for a developer to reproduce and fix the bug.
  • Once done, it should be wrapped in a deployable package and move to UAT – another 90 min.
  • Finally, the developer marks the package as a release candidate, and only then it can be scheduled to the production environment. It takes up to 5h lead time for Microsoft to accomplish the schedule. And another 5h for downtime to install the package.

Lifehack* – raise a ticket and ask Microsoft team to install the package as soon possible – should help to make the lead time in 1h instead of 5h.

If you found a bug at 9 am the one will be fixed at 4 pm under the best circumstances. It shudders to think what it takes at worst. So better do application updates right from scratch – otherwise, you risk paying twice.