Month: October 2016

I got a response from Microsoft from my first step.

Thank you for submitting your app for consideration to be listed on AppSource.

Once we have had the opportunity to review your app, you will receive a follow up within 1-2 weeks or earlier with a status regarding your submission and next steps as relevant.

Where you are in the process:

Request ID#: 835

Thank you,

The Microsoft AppSource team

This message from Microsoft is an important part of a program, service, or product that you or your company purchased or participate in.

From hereon I get out of sync with the steps on PartnerSource:

Step 3: Build your app

Find more information on how to build an extension in our learning plan on the Dynamics Learning Portal (DLP) (coming soon).

Refer to the Technical Validation Guidelines for Dynamics 365 for Financials (coming soon) to get insight into app technical requirements and recommendations.

To build the app I need to go through many steps.  You are building experience, not a solution.  Therefore we must make sure to have;

• ToolTip for every field and every action
• Correct value for ApplicationArea
• Permission Set(s)
• Friendly notifications
• Assisted Setup
• Help web page(s)
• Help video(s)

I will go through this list in later blog posts.

Now for the main topic in this post.  Dynamics 365 requires all extension packages to be signed with a code signing certificate.  Microsoft says:

To sign an extension package

To help validate the authenticity of an extension package (the .navx file), we recommend that you have it signed. Code signing is a common practice for many applications. For more information about code signing, see Authenticode and Introduction to Code Signing in the MSDN Library.

So, if you want to publish to Microsoft AppSource get your self a valid code signing certificate.  There are number of vendors that can sell a code signing certificate.  Bing delivers this list.

• DigiCert Code Signing Certificate
• Microsoft Code Signing Certificate
• Comodo Code Signing Certificate
• Verisign Code Signing Certificate
• GoDaddy Code Signing Certificate

I was allowed to quote one of Microsoft employees:

“I would only suggest using a self-signed certificate for testing and development purposes. If you plan to submit the extension as an app for Dynamics 365 for Financials, you will need to use a certificate from a trusted third party certification authority.

Every version of the extension doesn’t need to be signed using the same certificate. A new version could be signed with a different/new certificate.”

If you don’t already have the SignTool installed you can download it here for windows 7 and 8 and here for windows 10.  On Windows 10 all you need to select in the install process is the Windows Software Developement Kit.

When the installation finishes you will find the SignTool.exe in the folders:

• x86 -> C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x86
• x64 -> C\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x64\

When I create the application package (navx file) I check for my code signing certificate and if not found I create one.  Now, of course this is done in PowerShell.

$BaseFolder = (Get-Item $psISE.CurrentFile.FullPath).Directory
. (Join-Path $BaseFolder 'AppPackageSettings.ps1')

Get-NAVAppManifest `
-Path $AppManifestFileName `
| New-NAVAppPackage -Verbose `
-Path $AppPackageFileName `
-SourcePath $ResourceFolder `
-Force

if (!(Test-Path -Path $CodeSigningCertificate))
{
$SecurePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString -String $CodeSigningCertificatePassword -AsPlainText -Force
New-SelfSignedCertificate –Type CodeSigningCert –Subject "CN=ExtensionTest" -CertStoreLocation Cert:\LocalMachine\My
Get-ChildItem -Path Cert:\LocalMachine\My | Where-Object {$_.Subject -eq "CN=ExtensionTest"} | Export-PfxCertificate -FilePath $CodeSigningCertificate -Password $SecurePassword -Force
Import-PfxCertificate -CertStoreLocation Cert:\LocalMachine\Root -Password $SecurePassword -FilePath $CodeSigningCertificate
}

& $SigToolExecutable sign /t http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timestamp.dll /f $CodeSigningCertificate /p $CodeSigningCertificatePassword $AppPackageFileName

The first two lines are used to import modules and parameters from the AppPackageSettings file (below).  Lines four to nine create the application package (navx file), Lines eleven to seventeen check if the certificate selected in my AppPackageSettings is present, and if not it will be created in the certificate store and exported to a file.  For this to work this script has be executed in elevated mode (Run as Administrator).

Last line uses the SignTool to sign the application package (navx file).

My AppPackageSettings file looks like this

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Import-Module 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100\Service\NavAdminTool.ps1' | Out-Null

$NavIde = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100\RoleTailored Client\finsql.exe'
$NavModelTools = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100\RoleTailored Client\NavModelTools.ps1'
. $NavModelTools $NavIde | Out-Null

$ServerInstance = 'DynamicsNAV100'
$Tenants = @('Default')

#[System.Guid]::NewGuid().toString()

$AppId = '263f2b5c-4580-41cd-9eea-d1093519adc4'
$AppManifestName = 'GLSourceNames'
$AppManifestPublisher = 'Kappi ehf.'
$AppManifestVersion = '1.0.0.0'
$AppManifestDescription = 'G/L Source Names'
$PermissionSets = ('GL SOURCE NAMES')

$AppManifestFileName = (Join-Path $BaseFolder 'AppManifest.xml')
$AppPackageFileName = (Join-Path $BaseFolder 'AppPackage.navx')
$ResourceFolder = (Join-Path $BaseFolder 'Resources')
$SourceName = (Join-Path $BaseFolder 'Original.txt');
$ModifiedName = (Join-Path $BaseFolder 'Modified.txt');
$PermissionSetFilePath = (Join-Path $ResourceFolder 'AppPermissionSet-%1.xml')

$SigToolExecutable = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x64\signtool.exe'
$CodeSigningCertificate = (Join-Path $BaseFolder 'MyCodeSigningCertificate.pfx')
$CodeSigningCertificatePassword = 'codesignaturepassword'

Don’t worry, I will share the whole script package when the time is right.

When I have the correct code signing certificate I update the two last lines in the settings file and point to my brand new certificate.

In next step we will start coding in C/AL – stay tuned.