DEV Instance Update - AX 2012 - TEST 2 DEV update

 In the development life cycle, on large projects, you will find that it is rather cumbersome to perform a Sync with force once the number of objects in TFS goes over a certain limit. Actually we can rephrase that: do not perform a Sync with force when you have like couple hundreds + objects changed / added (and to top that some of them are complex views, tables, queries) - if you do this it is likely the sync process will fail. So, with that in mind, another simple approach to update your development  environment is to take an easier path.


 The only prerequisite to this is to either 1) have the new model from the latest build or 2) to have the latest set of backup from the TEST server (assuming that has already received the new model).
 Armed with these you can take the next approach:

 1. Stop the AOS on your development machine;
 2. Restore the backups over the data and model databases (here you can wonder upon restoring both databases or only the model; in case you go for the model your settings will be kept, but you must be sure that the tables IDs are the same in the data db and the new model db);
 3. MAKE sure you are updating all the 3rd party dlls the model might be using (better double check by asking your admin / deployment manager for this);
 4. Start the AOS;
 5. Perform:
 - a full compile (only if you either imported the model or the database's backups were not fully compiled);
 - a full CIL generation;
 - a database synchronization (if you only restored the model database);
 6. In case you have restored the data database as well, change the settings for:
 - EP web site;
 - Batch server;
 - Workflow batch jobs;
 - Report server;
 7. Setup your TFS settings in AX; you can use the previous defined workspace repository or create  a new one; do Enable your TF source control in AX; 
 8. Go to Visual Studio, open Source Control, select the workspace which points to the repository folder you've just used in the setup at step 7 (you can see which one is it by inspecting the path used by the workspace) and perform a Get specific version with both checkboxes checked on the update form (get latest version and overwrite everything);


 9. You can start coding. DO NOT forget to get latest on the objects you are checking out (because you might - just might) have a new version in TFS of the object in the meantime. If you cannot get latest of the object using Get latest from AX, you can also choose to import the .xpo file from the repository folder.