February release of Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services adds environment management, new roles

The Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services has announced the availability of the February release of Lifecycle Services. This release includes the full rollout of the reworked experience for managing projects. Although this is now the primary interface for all users, you can view the previous user interface by clicking the return to classic mode tile on the dashboard.

New features, as described by Microsoft, include:

• Several new features are being introduced in the cloud hosted environments:
  • Developer topologies for jumpstarting AX solution development in Azure.
  • Service accounts can now be customized.
  • Names of virtual machines can now be customized.
  • All topologies now default to D-series virtual machines.
• Business process modeler now enable you to better import library content by dragging and dropping.
• A new Environments section has been added to the dashboard so you can better manage your deployed AX systems.
• New roles have been added to split out managing environments, and performing operational tasks:
  • Environment manager - members of this role have access to all tools in Lifecycle Services and can manage cloud-hosted environments.
  • Operations user - members of this role have access to the following tools in Lifecycle Services: system diagnostics; issue search; cloud-powered support; updates and can manage cloud-hosted environments.

Additionally, the team announced it has deprecated and replaced some project functionality in Lifecycle Services.

On March 23rd, they'll be removing document tracking and project planning from the site and replacing it with SharePoint integration. ...