CRM Developers Blog by Purely CRM: Understanding Solution Versioning in Dynamics 365: Managing Patches and Build Cycles

Solution versioning in Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM plays a critical role in maintaining clarity, traceability, and control across development, deployment, and support lifecycles. For IT departments and CRM consultants, version numbers are not just identifiers—they are essential for tracking changes, isolating issues, and ensuring environments remain in sync across dev, test, UAT, and production.

But what happens when urgent fixes are needed mid-sprint? This is where patch solutions come into play.

Why Use Patch Solutions in Dynamics 365?

In real-world implementations, it’s common for issues to surface in production environments while new features are still in development. Rather than interrupting your feature sprint or prematurely deploying an incomplete solution, patch solutions offer a targeted mechanism for deploying bug fixes without affecting in-flight development work.

• Patch solutions enable a parallel release strategy, giving teams the flexibility to:
• Deploy critical fixes independently of ongoing builds
• Avoid the risks of merging incomplete functionality
• Maintain a consistent and reliable release cadence

For agile teams managing large Dynamics 365 CRM environments, patching becomes a core practice for minimizing downtime and maintaining system stability.

Patch vs. Hotfix: What’s the Difference?

The terms patch and hotfix are sometimes used interchangeably, but they serve different purposes in a CRM context:

• Hotfix: A rapid, targeted fix for a critical issue affecting system functionality or user experience. Typically isolated and urgent in nature.
• Patch: A broader update package that may include multiple bug fixes or minor improvements. While not always urgent, patches are useful for bundling several updates in a single release cycle.

Dynamics 365 solution versions follow the standard four-part format:

• Major.Minor.Build.Revision (e.g., 1.2.3.4)

Here’s how versioning typically breaks down:

• Major: Incremented for significant solution overhauls or major releases
• Minor: Used for feature releases that don’t introduce breaking changes
• Build: Internal use—tracks builds within a given development cycle
• Revision: Used for patch releases (i.e., targeted fixes within an active build)

Best Practice: When deploying a patch for an unmanaged solution, increment only the Revision number.

For example:

Base solution: 1.0.0.0

After patch: 1.0.0.1

This makes it immediately clear that the deployed change is a non-breaking fix related to the current build.

Reconciling New Features with Critical Bug Fixes

Suppose your sprint ends with a feature-ready solution, but there’s also a critical patch already deployed in production. How do you ensure that your final release includes both?

Use the Clone to Solution functionality. This merges the patch into your main solution, consolidating changes while ensuring version continuity.

When you merge a patch back into the main solution:

The Minor version is incremented

For example:

Patch version: 1.0.0.1

Merged solution: 1.1.0.0

This provides a clean version history and ensures your production deployment contains all critical updates and completed features.

Final Thoughts for CRM Consultants and IT Teams

Effective solution versioning is more than a formality—it’s foundational to robust ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) practices in Dynamics 365. By using patches strategically, consultants and IT departments can balance agility with control, minimize regression risk, and deliver a more stable user experience.

Whether you’re mid-sprint, managing CI/CD pipelines, or responding to production issues, understanding how patches interact with solution versioning is key to delivering high-quality CRM solutions at scale.

About Purely CRM  

For close to a decade, our Purely CRM team has been laser-like focused on delivering CRM solutions built solely on Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, combined with Power Apps and the Microsoft Power Platform along with recent innovations in Microsoft Copilot. 

We’ve expanded our team immensely in recent years to help better serve our clients and partners. Back in 2023, the founders of Purely CRM merged with Endeavour Solutions, a top Microsoft ERP, CRM and Cloud consulting firm to further expand our talented team of CRM consultants. We’re now one large interconnected family dedicated to client success.

March 2025: We’re excited to announce that Endeavour has acquired a Microsoft partner in the United States, Express Info, bringing additional Microsoft consultants to our team from San Antonio, Texas. Press Release

Our core-focus is on large mid-market and enterprise CRM Design & Development projects, Staff Augmentation, and CRM Support. When needed ,we can also tap upon our peers at Endeavour for Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP to provide an All-in-one Microsoft Cloud ERP-CRM.

We provide services to clients Coast to Coast across the United States and Canada using our internal employees and a few contractors for expanded capacity. We do not use resources overseas for any of our large-scale projects.

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