Know what changed before production, and have a consultant tell your owners what it means.
Microsoft's release notes tell you what's new. They don't tell you what changed in your environment. ReleaseGuard™ is a consultant-led regression-assurance service for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. In the window between your sandbox update and production, a DES consultant shows you what the update changed in your configuration and what it means for how you run, and gives your process owners one acceptance pack to review and sign off.
In our experience, it takes one to two weeks of IT and business time per update, and every update can mean pulling people off their real jobs to test it. Your process owners review the results and sign off.
What you receive each update cycle
Configuration comparison
A read-only comparison of your sandbox configuration before and after the update: what changed in the setup areas we read, and which areas we could not read. It reads configured setup data. It does not read transactional data, code, forms or workflows.
Consultant findings
Your DES consultant works through the changes with your team to find out why, and what each one means for how you run.
Test library from your documents
During onboarding your DES consultant builds a test library from your own design documents, and updates it as those documents change.
Acceptance pack and review call
One document per cycle for your named process owners, with each change line pointing to the captured evidence, walked through on a call with your DES consultant before production.
Optional add-on: scenario execution. We run up to 10 of your critical processes as scripted tests in your sandbox each cycle and give you the results with that cycle's deliverables. Your people still test what falls outside those processes. It needs your administrator to turn on access and may incur Microsoft usage charges on your tenant, depending on your licences; we confirm both before you buy it.
How it works
Onboarding
We ingest your design documents and existing test scripts, build the first library and capture your configuration baseline.
In the window
Post-update comparison and consultant findings, then the acceptance pack and review call, between your sandbox update and production.
Stays current
Your documents sit in a shared folder we re-sync from. When they change, your consultant updates the library.
Consultant-led
A DES consultant works through each comparison with your team. Our team reviews every deliverable before it reaches you.
When Microsoft applies an update automatically, it updates your sandbox seven days before production. You can update a sandbox earlier and choose your production date.
The failures we look for
Four failures that often show up after an update, and that we look for:
- Production or batch orders marked finished while the work-in-process balance never zeroes out, so finance cannot close the period without a manual adjustment.
- License plates or work stuck locked to a user or device, so the floor waits on a manual unlock.
- Master planning output nobody trusts, so people start overriding the system by hand.
- Interfaces to warehouse, label or transport systems that fail with no error and no completion notice.
The comparison shows setup changes in the areas behind these, for the areas we read. The scenario execution add-on tests them directly when your critical scenarios cover them. We do not claim to catch every failure.
What is not included
- Fixing what a cycle finds. Remediation is change work, scoped separately.
- Customizations, ISV solutions, integrations and custom code that deviate from standard functionality: scoped separately.
- Processes beyond the standard scope agreed with you: scoped to fit your environment.
- Replacing RSAT. ReleaseGuard™ is a separate service that works whether or not you use RSAT.
What we need from you
- Cloud Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations on Microsoft's update cadence.
- A Tier-2 or higher sandbox.
- Your design documents and existing test scripts in a shared folder.
- Read-only access, set up during onboarding.
- Named process owners for the review call each cycle.
Common questions
Do we need Copilot?
No. ReleaseGuard™ requires no Copilot licensing on your tenant.
What happens to our existing test scripts?
Onboarding ingests them with your design documents and configuration workbooks to build the first library. Nothing is discarded.
Is it safe for production?
The configuration comparison is read-only: it reads your environment and changes nothing in it. Scenario execution is separate; if you add it, it runs in your sandbox only.
Is this software we run ourselves?
No. It is a service led by a DES consultant. The technology behind it, DES-Core™, is our proprietary intelligence engine; our team reviews and finalizes everything before it reaches you.
See if it fits your update calendar.
Tell us which update you are planning for and we will talk through scope and fees on a call.
Talk with DES