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Plug-in Package Ignores New Assemblies
Add a plugin assembly to an existing Dataverse plug-in package and it is never registered. Create the plugin assembly record yourself, then update the package.
Writing
One post a week, on Sunday. Dataverse, .NET, and whether the tools we rely on still deserve to be there. The email version is called Earns Its Keep.
Why I Built Flowline, a Dataverse ALM CLI
Flowline is a free, open source Dataverse ALM CLI: attribute-driven plugin registration, auto-wired web resources, orphan cleanup. In public preview.
You Don’t Need a Solution Mapping File
A solution mapping file lets pac solution pack ship a DLL nobody tested. Three defenses of --map, answered in full, and why two of them don't hold.
Compound Engineering Has What HVE Lacks
Compound Engineering and Microsoft's HVE both promise faster AI-assisted delivery, but only one compounds. HVE skips the step that teaches the next loop.
What ‘pac solution pack’ Ships to Production
pac solution pack can ship a DLL that never ran in your dev environment. My dev flow makes deploy promote only what I actually tested.
Source-Centric on Dataverse Is a Story You Tell Yourself
If your unpacked solution came out of an environment, your Dataverse ALM is environment-centric with git in the middle. Production has state git can't rebuild.
Migrations Used to Be the Hard Part
AI is making CRM and ERP migration cheaper and faster. Vendors are responding with API policies that ban the tools that could help you leave.
I Left Taplio, Lost My Analytics, and Built a Replacement with AI in a Day
I replaced Taplio with Typefully and built my own LinkedIn analytics dashboard with Claude, from LinkedIn's free export. No new subscription needed.
I don’t want AI to write my code
AI pair programming is more useful than AI code generation. It pushes back on my designs, and that changes how I make architecture decisions.
Power Automate Connectors Were Always Training Wheels
Power Automate connectors solved a real problem. AI solves the same problem without them, which changes what your automation skills are worth.
Stop Catching Exceptions You Cannot Handle
Catching exceptions is not the same as handling them. Crash fast, handle errors once in a global handler, and use try...catch only where you can recover.
We Built Tools for Developers. AI Doesn’t Need Them.
I spend maybe 10 to 20% of my time coding now, and I don't miss it. AI moved the job from writing code to deciding what is worth building in the first place.
The TypeScript Type Trap in Dynamics 365
Generated TypeScript form types in Dynamics 365 promise safety and need regenerating every time a form changes. I check whether the field exists and move on.
Building a ServiceClient Factory for Multi-Tenant Dynamics 365 / Dataverse Apps
One app, many customer Dataverse environments, same credentials. A new ServiceClient per request is too slow, so I cache them in a factory instead.
External authentication with Dataverse ServiceClient
The Dataverse ServiceClient in a desktop app, with no secrets stored on the machine: pass it your own MSAL access tokens through ConnectionOptions.
Everyone got ALM wrong in Dynamics 365 / Dataverse
We treated the dev environment, then the golden environment, as the master branch in Dataverse ALM. Production is the master branch. Branch from a copy of it.
Early-Bound Classes for .NET 4.6.2 and 6.0
Plugins need early-bound classes on .NET 4.6.2, Azure Functions run on .NET 6. I multi-target one entities project with MSBuild conditions to serve both.
WordPress Blocks Post using the REST API
Posts made through the WordPress REST API land in the Classic Block, which broke my RSS emails. Wrapping each paragraph in wp:paragraph comments fixed it.
Form Data OnLoad
Don't fire Form OnLoad twice to rerun logic after a save. Dynamics 365 has a Data OnLoad event for that. One-time setup goes in OnLoad, the rest in Data OnLoad.
Who is the target audience for Power Pages
Power Pages pricing only beats Wix or WordPress for a handful of people. Past 15 users or 175 visitors a month, it gets expensive. So who is it actually for?
Hiring a car in Bali
You can drive yourself in Bali. I wouldn't. A car with a driver costs about 35 euro a day, and the driver knows the roads, finds parking and takes the blame.
The Unwritten Bali Traffic Rules
Bali traffic looks like chaos and runs on unwritten rules: what's ahead of you is yours, honk before you overtake, claim your gap, and don't take it personally.
Power Pages Secure?
Power Pages is sold as secure out of the box. Its security is an add-on for contacts on top of Dataverse, and one misconfiguration exposes your internal data.
Improving the Form Switcher
Switching Dynamics 365 forms by record type: map a choice value to a form ID, clear the required fields that block navigation, and hide the form selector.
How to use Environment Variables in your plugins
Replace the settings table with Dataverse environment variables, then read them from a C# plugin in one query that falls back to the default value.
The attribute was not found in the MetadataCache
Solution export fails with a Query Builder Error after you delete a field. The cause is an orphaned solution component. Find it with FetchXML and clear it.
Also 173 shorter notes going back to 2022, on Dataverse, .NET and whatever else came up that week.