How to Extend LS Central

Out of the box you are able to install LS Central and have it automatically updated. This section will describe how to add your customizations to the system and to include them in the installation and automatic updating.

This section will describe how to create new packages for your objects, .Net add-ins and a base database.

Overview

This overview will go through, in high level, how to use Update Service to set up and maintain POS installations of LS Central.

Note

A complete example of this howto can be downloaded from here.

Preparation

First, we imagine we have a customer with two stores and two different types of setup, which we want to use Update Service to setup and use to deploy updates:

We can break down each setup as following:

• Store Server
  • SQL Server
  • Dynamics 365 Business Central Server
  • LS Central Components
  • Customer Components
• Offline POS
  • SQL Server
  • Dynamics 365 Business Central Server
  • Dynamics 365 Business Central Windows Client
  • LS Central Components
  • Customer Components
• Online POS
  • Dynamics 365 Business Central Windows Client
  • LS Central Components
  • Customer Components

1. Download and install the Update Service server.
2. Get the LS Central packages to your server.
3. Create customization packages for the customer:
   • Database package
   • Object package
   • .Net Add-in package
   • License package
4. Define the needed setups:
5. And generate an installer executable:
6. Before deploying the setup to the store, try them out in your lab.

First Deployment

The next step is to deploy LS Central with the customer customizations to the store, this is achieved by taking the installer created in the steps above, to each POS and run the it and selecting appropriate setup.

When the installer has finished the set up, the Update Service Windows service will periodically check the server for updates.

Update Service does not offer any way for centralized deployment while the client is not installed on the system, this can however be achieved by remoting on the POSes (RDP or PowerShell) for first time deployment.

Deploy Updates (Customer changes)

Now after the first deployment, the customer has further customizations he wants to implement and deploy to the POSes:

1. Create new packages for the updated component(s) with a new greater version.
2. Update the setup to the new version.
3. Next time the Update Service clients as for update, they will download and install the software component(s).

Deploy Updates (New LS Central release)

Now there is a new version of LS Central the customer want to upgrade to.

1. Get the new LS Central packages to your server.
2. Create a new object package where your objects have been merged with the new LS Central objects and update the dependency to the new version.
   • You might also want to update your database package for new deployments.
3. Update the setup to the new version.