Glossary

A

AI Insight

A plain-language explanation of Deterministic Comparison results, generated on request by ConfigAI. AI Insights can be produced for an overall comparison, per company, or per table; Deterministic Comparison remains the source of truth.

Alert

A notification generated when configured governance conditions are met. Alerts draw attention to comparison results or monitored changes requiring review.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)

One of the four pillars of ConfigCompare. ALM focuses on managing configuration as it progresses through the software delivery lifecycle (development, test, UAT, production). Typical scenarios include deployment validation, environment refresh verification, and release validation.

Approval Workflow

A sequence of approval steps required before a configuration change can proceed. Approval workflows account for risk level, urgency, and governance policy.

Assessment

The severity classification a Ruleset assigns to a comparison result, on an eight-level scale from Emergency (most severe) through Escalations, Exception, Deviation, Concern, Notice, and Insight to Ignore. Ignore suppresses a result from assessment output.

AXImprove

AXImprove Ltd, established 2010, is an Independent Software Vendor and Microsoft Dynamics specialist focused on ConfigCompare, Configuration Governance, Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management, Dynamics AX, architecture, performance optimisation, and analytics.

Azure Storage Account

An Azure storage resource used by ConfigCompare to store and organise platform artefacts such as Snapshot and comparison evidence. Base ConfigCompare setup requires at least one Azure Storage Account, with additional accounts optional depending on filing, retention, tenant, customer, or environment separation requirements.

Azure Store synchronisation

The mechanism that updates a nominated environment with the list of Snapshots captured across environments and held in a shared Azure Storage Account, making Snapshots from a whole estate available for comparison in one place. Synchronize with Azure Store can run as a batch job.

Azure tables

Cloud-based storage tables used by ConfigAudit. Azure tables hold the complete audit history without time limits, supporting long-term retention and external analysis.

B

Binary (BLOB) configuration

Configuration stored as a binary object rather than as individual fields; approval workflow definitions are a common example. Binary configuration is compared by content signature: a change is detected deterministically, but the contents are not decoded.

C

Central Command Center

A platform component that orchestrates Snapshots and comparisons across multiple ConfigCompare installations or D365 F&SCM instances using APIs. Central Command Center delivers the Cross-Tenant capability.

Change Task

Work that must happen as part of a configuration change event. A single event may spawn multiple tasks across different environments or assigned to different teams.

Company

A legal entity within an ERP system. ConfigCompare can compare configuration between companies to validate consistency across organisations operating similar business processes.

Company Comparison

A capability providing comparison of configuration across companies (legal entities), including N:1 comparison against approved template companies.

Comparison result values

The result vocabulary of Deterministic Comparison:

• Same AB: present in both Snapshots and identical (a Match).
• Diff AB: present in both Snapshots but different (a Difference).
• Only A: present only in Snapshot A.
• Only B: present only in Snapshot B.
• Not present: absent from both Snapshots.

ConfigAI

A platform component providing AI-assisted explanation of Deterministic Comparison results. ConfigAI generates AI Insights on request; it performs no comparison logic.

ConfigAudit

A platform component that captures create, update and delete events on designated Data Entities, maintaining a granular, event-level audit trail of changes to critical configuration areas without bloating the ERP transactional database. Read operations are not captured.

ConfigCompare

A Configuration Governance Platform for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management that captures Snapshots and compares them deterministically to support governance, audit, testing, support, and upgrade analysis.

ConfigLegacyAx

A platform component providing legacy Dynamics AX and AX 2012 Snapshot and readiness capability, supporting AX 2012 to D365 F&SCM upgrade path analysis.

ConfigMigrate

A platform component providing controlled movement of supported ERP configuration between environments. ConfigMigrate delivers the Configuration Movement capability.

ConfigSnap

A platform component responsible for capturing point-in-time representations of ERP configuration that can later be compared, archived, and analysed.

ConfigTrack

A platform component that provides structured governance and change management for configuration changes. ConfigTrack enables organisations to define, manage, and track configuration changes through customised event workflows with risk assessment, role-based approvals, and audit trails.

ConfigUpgrade

A platform component that provides pre-upgrade and post-upgrade configuration and metadata analysis, identifying structural changes introduced by Microsoft updates and assessing impact on customisations, integrations, reporting, and business processes. ConfigUpgrade delivers the Upgrade Analysis capability.

Configuration Catalogue

A curated list of D365 F&SCM tables and Data Entities selected for configuration capture and comparison. ConfigCompare’s starter catalogue currently includes approximately 1,930 configuration tables and 200 Data Entities, out of approximately 14,000 D365 F&SCM tables, and can be extended for ISV solutions, bespoke development, and customer-specific governance requirements.

Configuration Comparison

Analysis of ERP configuration captured within Snapshots. Configuration Comparison supports the Application Lifecycle Management, Governance & Audit, Testing & Support and Upgrades pillars.

Configuration Drift

Uncontrolled or undocumented divergence of configuration from an expected, approved, or baseline state. Configuration Drift commonly arises through planned changes, unplanned changes, manual intervention, software deployments, environment refreshes, Microsoft One Version updates, and operational support activities.

Configuration Event

A structured record of a planned or observed configuration change, including context, rationale, risk assessment, approvals, and business impact. Events provide the primary organisational unit for change management in ConfigTrack.

Configuration Governance

The process of understanding, validating, monitoring, and controlling ERP configuration throughout the application lifecycle. Configuration Governance ensures that configuration changes are visible, explainable, appropriately governed, and aligned with organisational policies.

Configuration Movement

A capability providing movement of supported configuration between environments, delivered by ConfigMigrate.

Control Environment

A nominated environment (UAT, GOLD, or a purpose-built governance environment) where comparisons run across Snapshots gathered from a whole estate. Comparisons do not need to run in Production or in the environment where a Snapshot was captured.

Cross-Tenant

A capability providing Configuration Governance across multiple Dynamics 365 instances and Microsoft tenants, delivered by Central Command Center.

CRUD

Create, Read, Update, Delete. The four basic operations that can be performed on data. ConfigAudit captures create, update and delete events on designated Data Entities; Read operations are not captured.

D

D365

Abbreviation for Microsoft Dynamics 365. In this context, refers to Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management.

D365 F&O

A former name for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (D365 F&SCM). This reference uses Finance & Supply Chain Management throughout.

Data Entity

A standardised, semantic representation of business data in Dynamics 365. Data Entities represent logical business concepts and are the standard integration layer. ConfigCompare supports both Tables and Data Entities for configuration capture.

Data initialisation

The upgrade-time classification of configuration tables that receive new fields, showing whether the upgrade wrote values into existing records: Inert, Active, Effective default, or Meaning change. See Chapter 16: Upgrades.

Data Management Framework (DMF)

The standard Dynamics 365 F&SCM framework for importing and exporting data through Data Entities. ConfigCompare can export to DMF packages for supported Data Entity scenarios.

Deterministic Comparison

A comparison method that, given the same two Snapshots, always produces the same result. Deterministic Comparison provides repeatable, evidence-based analysis that can be trusted throughout implementation, support, governance, and audit activities.

Difference

A detected variation in configuration between two Snapshots. Differences are factual evidence but do not, by themselves, indicate whether something is wrong.

E

Enterprise Orchestration

Coordination of governance activities across multiple ConfigCompare installations, environments, regions, or Microsoft tenants.

Environment

A deployed instance of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management. Common environments include DEV (development), TEST, UAT (user acceptance testing), GOLD (reference/golden), PROD (production), and SANDBOX.

F

Fraud Detection

ConfigAudit’s capture of the complete change history that exposes intentional misconduct, such as a vendor bank account changed, used for a payment, and reverted before the next Snapshot. ConfigAudit records the evidence; detection and judgement rest with reviewers and controls.

F&SCM

Finance & Supply Chain Management. Abbreviation for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management.

G

Golden Template (GOLD)

An approved reference configuration used as a baseline for comparison. Golden templates ensure consistency across regions, business units, or implementations.

Governance & Audit

One of the four pillars of ConfigCompare. Governance & Audit focuses on maintaining confidence in live ERP environments by providing visibility into configuration changes, detecting drift, and supporting compliance requirements.

Governance (capability)

A capability providing production monitoring, Configuration Drift detection, change governance, and monitoring of critical configuration areas. It is delivered by ConfigCompare, ConfigTrack, and ConfigAudit.

H

Hypercare

The intensive support period immediately after go-live or a major release, during which monitoring is typically increased.

I

Instant Comparison

A Snapshot capture option that automatically pairs the new Snapshot with the previous Snapshot from the same environment with the same description and compares the two, applying a nominated Ruleset and severity threshold in the same operation.

J

J-SOX

Japanese Sarbanes-Oxley. A Japanese regulatory framework requiring internal controls over financial reporting.

M

Match

A Match is configuration that is identical between the two Snapshots being compared. Matches are as important as Differences in governance: some Matches represent correct alignment, while others (such as production endpoints in UAT) indicate configuration that should differ.

Materialised Read Model

One of multiple denormalised copies of audit data, each optimised for a specific query perspective (for example by date, by Data Entity, by user, or by column). Materialised read models eliminate the need for custom queries and aggregations.

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

An orchestration and access layer being added to the platform for AI-assisted scenarios. MCP routes and sequences requests against the platform’s APIs; it adds no comparison logic, and Deterministic Comparison remains the source of truth.

Metadata

Application structure data such as tables, columns, data types, field lengths, labels, schema, relationships, and indexes.

Metadata Comparison

Comparison of application structure (metadata) rather than business configuration. Metadata comparison examines every persisted table in the application to identify structural changes introduced by Microsoft updates.

Monitor

A configured governance process that observes selected areas of ERP configuration over time, typically combining Scheduled Snapshots, Scheduled Comparisons, Rulesets, Alerts, and Notifications.

Monitoring & Alerts

Continuous governance through Scheduled Comparisons, alerts triggered by comparison results, and notifications sent to responsible parties.

N

N:1 Comparison

A comparison pattern where many companies are compared against one approved reference company or template. N:1 comparison supports organisations with many legal entities that are expected to conform to a common configuration standard.

O

OData Update

A Feature providing direct API-based configuration updates in supported scenarios.

One Version

Microsoft’s continuous update model for Dynamics 365. One Version updates are released regularly, requiring organisations to understand configuration and metadata changes.

P

Partner Managed Services

Recurring governance services that partners operate on ConfigCompare for their customers; a services offering rather than a licensed capability. See Chapter 20: Partner Managed Services.

R

RACI

Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed. A matrix defining roles in configuration change governance. ConfigTrack uses RACI matrices to define clear accountability in change management.

Remote Snapshot

A Snapshot captured in another environment through an API call, without returning the underlying data to the caller. Remote Snapshots allow Snapshots from all environments to become available for comparison together, typically in a control environment.

Responsibility

A freetext field identifying the individual, team, or group accountable for reviewing or responding to a comparison result or change event. Responsibility is assigned through Rulesets and ensures results reach the right stakeholders.

Risk Assessment

Evaluation of configuration change risk across multiple dimensions: complexity, user impact, process impact, and likelihood of issues. ConfigTrack assesses risk to determine approval requirements and escalation rules.

Ruleset

A policy layer that controls how comparison results are reported, classified, assigned to responsible parties, suppressed, or escalated. Rulesets determine which Differences and Matches require attention based on organisational governance policies.

S

Scheduled Comparison

A Feature that compares Snapshots automatically on a defined schedule.

Scheduled Snapshot

A Feature that captures Snapshots automatically on a defined schedule.

Snapshot

A point-in-time capture of ERP configuration or metadata from a specific environment, company, or point in time. Snapshots are immutable once captured and form the factual basis for Deterministic Comparison.

Snapshot Blind Spot

Configuration changes that occur between Snapshots and are then reverted. ConfigCompare would show no Difference (configuration reverted to original state), but ConfigAudit captures the complete change history.

SOX

Sarbanes-Oxley. A regulatory framework for internal controls over financial reporting, requiring organisations to maintain evidence of configuration controls.

T

Table

A physical database structure in Dynamics 365 containing configuration or operational data. Tables are the only first-class representation of configuration data in D365 F&SCM: views, Data Entities, and forms are curations of subsets of the data held in tables. ConfigCompare supports comparison of configuration stored in both Tables and Data Entities.

Testing & Support

One of the four pillars of ConfigCompare. Testing & Support focuses on understanding configuration Differences that affect testing, issue investigation, and operational support. Typical scenarios include failed UAT, regression testing, root cause analysis, and support triage.

Transient Change

A configuration change that is made and then reverted before the next Snapshot. ConfigCompare cannot detect transient changes; ConfigAudit captures the complete change history.

U

UAT

User Acceptance Testing. An environment where business users validate that the system meets requirements before production deployment.

Upgrade Analysis

The capability that supports the Upgrades pillar. Upgrade Analysis provides pre-upgrade and post-upgrade configuration and metadata comparison for Microsoft One Version updates, releases of internal development, new releases of ISV solutions, and ERP modernisation projects.

Upgrades

One of the four pillars of ConfigCompare. The Upgrades pillar covers changes to the application itself, including Microsoft One Version updates, releases of internal development, new releases of ISV solutions, and ERP modernisation projects. It is supported by the Upgrade Analysis capability.

Utilities

Additional tools shipped with the ConfigCompare Platform that address specialised scenarios and are not always directly linked to Comparison, for example user access footprint analysis. See Chapter 21: Utilities.