In Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Commerce, there are three or four installer files that you typically work with. These installers are often referred to as self-service packages. In the past, in order to deploy commerce self-service packages in D365, you needed to apply a retail deployable package in LCS. (Life Cycle Services). This required the environment be temporarily taken down as this update took place. Now, that is no longer the case. In the following article I will show you how you can deploy commerce self-service packages in D365 a much faster and easier way than ever before.
Self-Service Packages Explained
First lets look at what self-service packages we are working with. To allow the Retail Point of Sale system to work with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, there are some additional components that need to be installed. Those components are as follows.
Point Of Sale Installers
- MPOS – This is short for Modern POS, or Modern Point of Sale. After deployment, download this installer from within D365, on the Devices form. Then installed on a register. Use this windows application to perform store operations.
- MPOS Offline – This installer is essentially a copy of the MPOS installer. However it also includes an offline database. This is useful so that the register can continue to work, even if the application loses connectively to the store database. Also known as the channel database.
Hardware Station Installer
Hardware Station – Install the hardware station on a machine that resides in the store. This machine will have peripherals connected such as a cash drawer, payment terminal, or receipt printer. The Cloud POS cannot have peripherals attached to it because it runs in a browser. However the Cloud POS can send messages to the hardware station to print to the attached peripherals. This is very useful.
The MPOS can also print to a shared hardware station. However because it is an installed windows application, it usually has the peripherals installed on the same machine.
Note: If you use all MPOS registers, the hardware station is optional.
Store System Setup
Store System Setup – This installs the channel database in the local store. As well as a local copy of the retail server website. The website contains the business logic code for running the application and handling communication between the registers and the database. This component is often reference to as the ‘Commerce Scale Unit’ or CSU. If reliable network connectivity is a concern, having this installed locally is very helpful.
Store Scale Unit Versus Cloud Scale Unit
It is very common now to not install the Store System Setup in each and every store. However now this functionality can be installed and run on a server running in Azure. Many registers and stores can talk to this single more powerful machine. And the performance of this server running in the cloud can be scaled as needed. And/or deploy multiple CSU units in the cloud, depending on how many registers are communicating with this server. This approach simplifies the deployment and updates to this component. However it does require a reliable internet connection.
Synchronize Self-Service Packages
In the past, a user would need to upload a Retail Deployable Package to the ‘Software deployable package’ tab of Asset library in LCS. Then the user would apply that package to an environment. The environment would be unavailable while the package is applied. Now, there is a better way.
Now, upload the self-service package installers to ‘Retail Self-service package’ tab of the Asset library in LCS.
After uploading the installer, login to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Commerce. Go to Retail and Commerce > Headquarters setup > Parameters > Commerce parameters.
After that, navigate to the Channel deployment tab. Click on the ‘Check for package updates‘ button. This will perform a synchronization with the installer files in the LCS asset library.
Next, use the drop downs on the tab to select the new version of the installer values.
Now, when a user goes to either the Devices form, the Hardware station form, or the self-service form, and they click the Download buttons, the latest version of the installer will be downloaded.
For additional information you can view Microsoft’s document on how to Synchronize installers in Dynamics 365 Headquarters.
Conclusion
Microsoft has greatly improved the deployment of the self-service packages. Now it is very simple to deploy updated installers to many different environment. No down time is required. Please see my other articles for details on updating other Commerce components.
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