Configuration Packages
Read this info from Microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/dynamics365/business-central/admin-how-to-prepare-a-configuration-package
Some additional notes:
We use Configuration Packages to import and / or edit large numbers of data quickly.
Packages can be exported / saved / imported as
1. .rapidstart files:
2. EXCEL files:
Exporting as EXCEL is the most common way: we tell the system what data we want to be included in the package, we then export it, manipulate it in EXCEL and then re-import again.
Go into “Configuration Packages” page in PrintVis to see the existing ones and create new ones.
For example:
Let's say we want to export all Customer companies that are in California and assign them all to one salesperson.
1. Open the “Configuration Packages” page and hit “New”:
2. A new Package Card opens. Enter the Code (Max. 10 characters, preferably no spaces and no special characters) and the descriptive package name:
3. On the top blank line, click this “Table ID” search assist button to open the data tables:
Search for a table “Customer” (table ID 18). Select and click “OK”:
Since you are working in the browser (Web Client), hit F5 to refresh the screen at this point.
Depending on the table you want to work with, PrintVis may ask you to consider more data from other related table, just agree to whatever it suggests:
Here is what we will see:
A – the number of all data fields available for us to manipulate
B - the number of all data fields currently included in the package (100% of the fields are included – we will choose what we want to exclude. We hardly ever need every single data field to work with.)
C – the number of fields that are set to be “validated” by PrintVis. “Validation” is what the system will do to make sure that any codes you’ve entered in the package actually exist in the database.
For example, if you want to assign a Customer to a Salesperson Code “BOB”, PrintVis will check whether the salesperson code “BOB” already exists in the system. If not, you will be given an error message.
Certain text fields like emails, street addresses, etc. do not really need to be validated, so it is better to turn the validation “off” for such fields. The more fields are being validated, the slower the process will be.
D – the current number of records in the table. For example, we currently have 77 Customer records.
4. Now, we are only interested in Customers located in California, so we will need to place an extra “filter” – tell PrintVis to only pick the Customers assigned to state “CA”.Z
One of the quirks of the system as you discover is that some tables have different names and captions.
For example, even though Customer Card shows the data field with the caption “State”, the data table has a name of “County” ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8P_xTBpAcY 😊
We will select the line and set our extra filter:
New page opens, click on “edit assist” again – to find the data field called “County”:
Once we’ve selected what field to filter by, we need to carefully TYPE the criteria (state code CA in this case).
There are no dropdowns here, so make sure you type the codes correctly - otherwise filter will not work. Close the page when done.
5. Now, let’s export and edit a few fields only. All we need is the Customer number, name and the salesperson code.
Click on this link:
New page opens, with every fields “included”. Since all we need is 3 fields, fastest way is to “exclude” all and then re-select the ones we want.
Hit “Edit List” and then select the “Name”:
Then do a search for “Salesperson” and select “Salesperson Code” checkboxes:
I am choosing to validate all 3 fields in this case, so both “include” and “validate” checkboxes are selected.
Nothing else is needed here, so close the page.
Hit “F5” again on your keyboard to refresh the view. See this:
We are now to ready to export the package.
6. Go to “Package” – “Export to Excel”:
Confirm this box:
An EXCEL downloads:
Open the EXCEL. You will see that out of 77 customers, only 4 fit our “California” criteria:
With only 4 results, we could have done the work manually in the system, but who knew we are doing so badly in California, eh?
Now “SAVE AS” the copy of this EXCEL on your desktop.
We are going to assign Amy to these Customers:
Save and close the EXCEL. You cannot have it open and try to import from it – it needs to be closed.
Go get coffee, I will wait.
Back to it.
In PrintVis, open the configuration package we were working with.
Select “import from Excel”:
Find your Excel on the desktop and hit “Open”:
Confirm that you want to Import (click on "Import" button, not on "Close"):
The window above will disappear and import will automatically start.
Large packages will take longer (a few minutes), small ones – milliseconds.
Once import is done, choose to “Validate”:
Agree and confirm when validation is done.
If there are any validation errors, they will be shown to you so that you can fix them.
Let’s assume you are lucky and there are no errors.
Then choose to “Apply Package”:
Confirm and see this result:
Hit OK.
Test: go into “Customers” page, all Californian customers and see that they are all now assigned to AMY:
Yay.