Code Compass

Introduction When working on big projects, it can be hard to quickly find classes, methods, or properties spread across different libraries. Searching through files one by one takes too much time. This is where metadata search in Visual Studio helps. It lets you explore and navigate types from external libraries (like .NET assemblies or NuGet packages) even if you don’t have the source code. Visual Studio creates a readable view of the compiled metadata, so you can instantly see definitions and details, almost like built-in documentation. References Metadata search - Visual Studio Usage In Visual Studio, go to Dynamics 365 > Metadata Search  OR  Ctrl + R, Ctrl + S . Start typing the name of the element you are looking for. Results appear as you type. Double-click a result to go directly to that metadata or code. You can also right-click to add items to your project. You can filter via the follow criteria: Name : Search by element name (default).  Type : Limit by type, ...

Introduction Working with Lifecycle Services (LCS) may feel a bit outdated as we prepare for its eventual phase-out, but the reality is that many businesses still rely on it daily. Recently, I encountered an issue while deploying to a new environment after a long break; it kept failing without a clear cause.   After investigating, I discovered the SSL certificate was the culprit, which I’d run into before (I’ve shared that experience in a previous post). Naturally, I tried rotating the secrets from LCS, but it failed repeatedly without any error message or explanation.   I was ready to raise a ticket with Microsoft when Copilot stepped in with a suggestion that helped me quickly resolve the problem. Here's what happened and how you can fix it if you face the same issue. What to do: Go into your development VM and search for certificates. You'll see there's a certificate with the same name as your VM and if you observe the "Expiration Date" it is past your current ...

Introduction In Finance and Operations development, it's common for the same object to be referenced across multiple projects for different purposes. For example, one developer might have created the object in Project A, another could be using it with slight modifications in Project B, and yet another might be working on bug fixes for the same object in Project C. In such cases, the original logical grouping of the object—essentially the reason for creating a project—can become unclear. Unfortunately, Visual Studio does not provide a built-in method to identify all the projects an element belongs to. In this blog, we'll explore how to determine the projects associated with a specific element. Reference Stackover Flow - Find all projects a file belongs to MS Learn - Find Str Steps 1. Go to the root of your projects folder in File Explorer. This will generally be the  " C:\Users\<Username>\source\repos " folder. 2. Open a command prompt from this window by typing ...

Introduction  Have you ever encountered the error: "The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel" while deploying from Visual Studio to Finance and Operations. This error is often linked to an expired or invalid SSL certificate in your environment.  This also shows up as an expired SSL Certificate warning when you open your Finance and Operations environment from the browser. Certificates are critical for securing communication channels, and an expired certificate can disrupt services and integrations. In this blog, we’ll explore the cause of the error and provide steps to resolve it. References Eugene Dmytriienko - Onpremise Certificate Rotation Said Nikjou - Rotate Secrets via LCS MS Docs - Certificate Rotation Configuration In a new cloud hosted environment, the SSL Certificate stays valid for one year by default. Post that, it expires at which point it is essential to renew the SSL Certificate. For Cloud Hoste...

Introduction Integrating Shopify with Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (FnO) requires structured data management and seamless automation.  This blog covers how to create a setup table and page in FnO to securely store API credentials and endpoints.  In the next blog, we’ll create an automated batch job to push product data from FnO to Shopify, automating product creation on the e-commerce platform. If you are new to this series, you can refer to my blog here for setting up the necessary Shopify components for getting started. Pre-requisites Shopify API credentials (API Key, API Secret, Auth Token) Access to the development environment in Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. References MS Docs - Create a table MS Docs - Create a form Configuration Step 1: Create the model and project I'm going to be starting from scratch so I'll create a new model for this. If you already have a model you'll be using, you can skip this part. Open Visual Studio and click on Continue withou...