Overview of Lifecycle Services

To use Lifecycle Services, go to https://lcs.dynamics.com and sign in with your Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) credentials.​

For cloud-based solutions, Lifecycle Services has a tool named Cloud-hosted environments. This tool can be used to deploy your finance and operations environments on Azure AD. You can use the tool to select the type of environment that you want to deploy: Demo, Developer, or Test. Based on your selection, the tool provisions the appropriate number of virtual machines in Azure AD with all the needed prerequisites installed on them.​

For on-premises implementations of finance and operations, you will need to set up an on-premises project in Lifecycle Services. In your Lifecycle Services project, go to Environment > Sandbox > Configure. In the primary domain controller virtual machine, you will need to run this script in the PowerShell:​

.\Get-DeploymentSettings.ps1 -ConfigurationFilePath .\ConfigTemplate.xml​

For new deployments, select your environment topology, and complete the wizard to start the deployment of your environment.​

Lifecycle Services also has tools to maintain your environment and implementation of finance and operations apps and Finance + Operations (on-premises), such as the following:​

  • Projects and methodologies that track tasks and milestones that are required to receive a production environment.​
  • You can use Lifecycle Services to estimate the number of licenses that you will need.​
  • You can monitor the status of environments from the Detailed environment page.​
  • There is an issue search to find existing workarounds and solutions for common problems.​
  • All upgrades and updates are scheduled through Lifecycle Services.​
  • You can use Lifecycle Services to copy data from one environment to another.​