Lifecycle services in the new D365 F&O

With Lifecycle Services (LCS) Microsoft has been changing the way that business software systems are implemented. Now, with the latest iteration, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, this trend has been taken to the next level.

LCS↗ is a Microsoft Azure-based collaboration portal that provides a unifying, collaborative environment to help customers manage the whole life cycle of their system from planning to implementation to ongoing support. The latest Dynamics 365 has taken best practices from enterprise management of mission-critical software. LCS has been extended with new methodologies and best practices driven toolsets for implementation, updates and support. Utilising the capabilities of cloud deployment, modifications and upgrades to the system are first promoted from the development system to the test system before being released to the production system.

Most of the modelling and validation takes place in LCS, before the system, or configuration data or master data, is even deployed. Updates are simplified and accelerated through predefined methodologies, automated testing and code merging. The traditional model of deployment would entail people coming on site, doing software installation and configuration, then tweaking the system. With much of this process possible through the cloud, operational disruption is kept to a minimum.

Ultimately, LCS is about getting your business management system up and running as quickly and efficiently as possible, while reducing the overall risk and interference to business processes.

Together with the new Azure-based telemetry and diagnostics, LCS in Dynamics 365 can provide pro-active monitoring and real-time insights that help to optimise system usage and streamline business processes, delivering faster time to value.