RapidStart experiment

As started planning out a new AX 2012 implementation, we wanted to give it a try on the RapidStart service , a free online tool offered by Microsoft to help configure and deploy Dynamics AX 2012. It's a new service, probably out there for several months. The whitepaper lays out all the great features and it looks like a great product that can be leveraged by any AX 2012 project. You can read more about the service from AX team blog.

Our experience with the RapidStart service wasn't pleasant. First it was a service registration issue. After we could log in and see the interface, we couldn't get the configuration completed in any of the ways described in the whitepaper. See screenshots below for the errors. We logged an support ticket with Microsoft and they confirmed the issues. Their support group is actively working on solutions. I'll give updates when I hear things back. 

No. of pending questions "-16"

Error at the end

Two small bugs in AX 2012 RTM image

Working on the AX 2012 RTM image today and found two bugs.
1. When to post and print PO proforma/confirmation, get the following error

To fix it, go to Procurement > Setup > Forms > Sorting parameters, remove UNKNOWN 

2. When to invoice PO, debugger pops up. Commenting out the assertion line in VendDocumentLineType - VendInvoiceInfoTable should do it.

AX 2012 Model Management

AX 2012 introduces a "model" concept to help manage different solutions in the same layer. It also provides a commond-line tool to manage models, AxUtil.exe. (Some of its functions can be achieve through Model Management Wizards under Tools in the development environment.)

• Default path to the command: <drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\Server\<InstanceName>\Bin
• To list all models: AxUtil.exe list
• To create a model: AxUtil.exe create /model:CONTOSO /layer:usr
• To edit a model version number: AxUtil.exe edit /model:CONTOSO /manifest:Version="2.0.0.0"
• To export a model: AxUtil.exe export /file:c:\ContosoModel.axmodel/model:CONTOSO
• To delete a model: AxUtil.exe delete /model:CONTOSO

See Models, Layers, and the Model Store on TechNet for more discussion on how to deploy customizations through different AX environments.

AX 2012 system architecture diagram

A nice and concise illustration of AX 2012 system architecture from MS

Or, a more comprehensive and detailed diagram from TechNet

AX 2012 system architecture from TechNet

AX 2012 Types of Reports

A nice summary and comparison from MS training manual.

AX 2012 Reporting tools

Or as described in the AX developer center (from a functionality perspective)

AX 2012 Types of Reports

Duplicate company in AX 2012

The Duplicate Company function in AX 2009 is deprecated in AX 2012, and the reason is "The organization model represents a paradigm shift in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012", said by Microsoft. To copy a company in AX 2012 for demo or test, now you'll have to

1. create a definition group
2. export the def group from old company
3. import the def group to the new company

When you create def group, go to Include table group tab and make sure you've selected the tables you want to bring into your new company. When you import, go to the Advanced tab and select/deselect the Include shared tables checkbox as it's needed. Microsoft has a very detailed tutorial on this process:

Use Microsoft Dynamics AX to transfer (export and import) data [AX 2012]

Error when launch AX 2012 in VM using non-admin user

If you've tried to launch AX 2012 RTM in the VM using one of the enabled regular users (instead of admin, you probably have seen the error message: Logon Failure: the user has not granted the requested logon type at this computer. Remember the OS in the provided image is Windows Server 2008. Of course it doesn't allow local access by a non-admin user! The workaround is to go to Active Directory Users and Computers, select the user, double click to bring up Properties, click Member Of tab, and assign Domain Admin to the user. You don't want to do this in a real world but good enough to get AX in the VM going.

Transfer order with misc charges

On a previous project, we discovered a way in AX 2009 to process transfer order between sites WITH MISC CHARGES such as freight. The standard transfer order function in AX doesn't provide the ability to record misc charges on transfer. But for some businesses, intracompany transfer freight could be very expensive and it must be captured for inventory cost. So, we tweaked the intercompany order function in AX a bit to serve for this intracompany transfer purpose, and it worked for us! Here is what we did.

There are frequent transfers of some heavy items between Site A and B, and freight cost must be entered into the inventory. Assume all regular parameters (e.g. site, warehouse, dimensions, etc.) are properly configured.

1. Create two special customers A and B

• Assign a special customer group where you'll set up postings for intracompany transfers.
• Check checkboxes for intercompany customer (Setup tab - Autocreate intercompany order, Direct delivery), if you want a sales order auto created when a PO is created or direct delivery to a real customer. 
• Make sure you enter a default site and warehouse under the Sales Order tab. 
• Click Setup button - External code and create an external code. Because customers and vendors are in two different tables, you have to link them through an external code. 

Customer External Code

2. Create two special vendors A and B, as the previous step. 

3. Go to Basic > Setup > AIF > End points, create and configure an intracompany transfer end point. Make sure Company under General tab is set to the current company. Put your special customers and vendors as the Constraints. 

 
4. Still on the end point form, Click Action Policies. Out of the box, you should have two policies, PurchaseRequisition and SalesOrder. 

 

Action Policies

5. Click Setup tab for each policy and configure the parameters as you wanted. Note, if you want the price editable from the derived order, you want to make sure the "Allow price edit" checkbox is checked. 

6. On each policy, click Configure button. Since this is for transfers within a company, I recommend to select Our for all mappings except Vendor, Customer and Misc Charges which should be External. Same as vendors and customers, an external code should be entered for misc charges (AR/AP - Setup - Misc charges code).

Configure value mapping

That's it for intracompany transfer order settings. Now, you can create your transfer order with misc charges from either sales or purchase order, and verify if misc charges are allocated to your inventory.

Only able to select companies in the domain

Here is a security tip I learned from a previous project. After company domains are all properly configured, it's natural you want users only to be able to select companies that they belong to. If you grant access to Admin - Open domain access, it'll open up all companies in AX for the user to select, although he can't do or see anything in the companies that he doesn't belong to. What's even annoying is he can't click company link and go to the other companies and gets stuck in the wrong company unless restarts AX.

A very simple workaround. Create a separate user group for each domain for company selection. In this group, DON'T give access to "Open domain access", but give access to Admin - Tables - Company data. Remove company access from all the other user groups and add this special group to the group collection. Here you go. Only able to see companies in the domain.

Out-of-the-box connector between Dynamics CRM and AX

Today, Microsoft announced it's building an out-of-the-box connector between CRM and AX and data migration assistant for moving from Oracle db to SQL. New Microsoft Dynamics ERP Resources Save Customers Time and Money

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) today announced new resources to help improve productivity and save Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) customers time and money through new interoperable Microsoft technologies. The new resources include an out-of-the-box connector between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics AX and a Data Migration Assistant for Microsoft Dynamics AX customers moving from an Oracle database to Microsoft SQL Server.

The connector is available between either Dynamics CRM online or on-premise and Dynamics AX. Having been able to work with both Dynamics CRM and AX, I think this is a great move by Microsoft. From time to time, customers ask me what's the difference between Dynamics CRM and CRM in AX, or why Dynamics CRM can't talk to AX easily - they're both Microsoft product right? My response normally would be "uhh..." I don't want to tell customer that the foundation of current AX isn't truly Microsoft-based which makes integration harder. With no doubt, there are tremendous demands on combining the full ERP spectrum of AX with the great mobility/flexibility of CRM and working seamlessly together. It looks like the time has come now. Let's see when the tool will be ready for the community to play.

Over-a-year workflow issue finally gets closed!!

It's a big day in the history of my AX life. After over-a-year battle with Microsoft on a workflow issue, today we've officially got the issue closed!!! I'm not sure if this is the longest-open case in Microsoft AX history so far, but I've almost got thrown up on this marathon.
The client has AX 2009 SP1 on two AOSs. Business connector, IIS and AX settings were all configured. However, the following error got thrown randomly every other days and got completed workflow strandered. "Stopped (error): Failed to find workflow instance. Failed to find workflow instance."

There are several unique issues that make this workflow problem hard to solve:

• Error throws after workflow is completed.
• It seems errors randomly occurred. When there are a large number of workflows (> 50) being processed, errors are likely to be thrown.
• Hard to repro the error or test solutions. We had to accumulate enough workflows in the queue in order to trigger the error. It was a real pain by doing this all manually. Later, we wrote a script to simulate the submission process and it's much better.
• We have custom workflow templates.

The hotfix number is 2398999 in case you're seeing this error and don't want to spend another year on finding the solution :)

Production variance reval by inv close

In AX 2009, as a new feature, at the last step of an inventory close after settlement, it'll revalue production variances for ended work orders. This is the method that does the actual job: Class InventCostHelp > updateLedgerPosting, and I stripped the method comments:

Controls the last stage of the inventory closing.
In this stage the following things will be done:
- Production variances for ended production orders
- Indirect cost for open production orders
- ledger postings
- Creation of the inventCostTransSum records
- Final check against the prodTable

If you want to analyze the variances from the closing voucher, e.g. which prod orders generated the variances, you'll have to dig into the InventCostTrans and InventCostTransVariance tables, or check the IM>Inquiries>Standard cost transactions form.
A comprehensive digest of inv close in AX can be found at Denis Fedotenko's blog on Costing and Inv Closing

Update item cost price to on-hand cost in AX 2009

A common request from the client is to update their item costs under costing version (Item master > Price button) to the latest on-hand cost. I think it’s common because on-hand cost could change quite a bit from the original go-live cost price as time goes by, and this is especially true for weighted average items. As many of you know, the cost price from costing version is used in many places for calc invent cost, e.g. counting/PL journal, std cost rollup, etc. Though inven adjustment and close could rectify this problem (to some extent), you’ll have to live with the incorrect financial reports throughout the time and remember to adjust the cost again on next inv close. There is a checkbox on the item master – “Latest cost price” which saves the latest cost price to the costing version. However, I found it doesn’t work properly in a multi site environment. VersionID is always empty.
I couldn’t find an out-of-the-box function in AX to address this issue, so decided to do customization. On the costing version form, I added a button “update cost to on-hand cost”. On the new form, you can select which items you want to update, and then click ok. That’s it. Here are some highlights:

• To update item cost price (Items > Price button > Costing versions) to its on-hand average cost.
• Added a field CopiedFromOnHand to the CostingVersion table, so those pending costs added by this script can be easily identified when to be activated
• Assume each operational site only has one main warehouse
• Only the item that has physical inventory for the warehouse gets updated.

SharedProject_UpdateCostPriceToOnHand.xpo

Microsoft Dynamics AX Tech Conf 2011 Part II

New Way of Configuring Products – Constraint-based Approach

• Dev license is no longer needed for configuring products
• Can be used to configure both item and service
• All levels of the model can be viewed on the same form
• It’s based on a Constraint Solver – delivered by the MS Solver Foundation
• Constraint-based approach is a declarative language of natural rule formalization. Compared to rule-based, more efficient and no more nested if-else statements needed.
• Configurator components include: Attributes, Constrainnts (table and expression), Sub components, User requirements, BOM lines, Route operations
• Rule-based configuration is still supported but not recommended.
• Shipped with a configurator API
• Limitations: no support on intercompany sales due company-specific BOM’s; re-generate configuration id each time even when the same attributes are selected

Developing Adv Reports: Deep Dive

• Underlying message: MorphX report is still supported by AX 2012 but not recommended an will be eventually replaced by SSRS

Upgrade Tools for Developers & Admin

• Tool: Preprocessing Upgrade Checklist
• Support upgrade from 4.0 and 2009 to AX 2012
• Upgrade procedure is as follows:
• Upgrade readiness: checks if there is any upgrade conflict or issue
• Preprocessing: converts data and puts into shadow tables. There are some out-of-box classes that can handle data conversion to adapt differences between the old versions and AX 2012. e.g. financial dimensions, products, etc. In fact, I think this is a good reference/overview of what’s new in AX 2012.
• Delta preprocessing: only preprocesses data that has been updated since last preprocessing. Makes upgrade more efficient.
• Actual upgrade
• Preprocessing consists 80% of the upgrade and it doesn’t affect the system availability. Only the last step requires downtime.
• Preprocessing tasks can run in parallel and workload can be controlled based on the traffic in the system

App Integration Framework Enhancements

• Simplified config: the number of AIF config menu items are reduced to very few; “End points” are replaced by “Ports”
• Support non-XML input files: non-XML is auto converted to XML format in AX
  Purchasing Process Drill-down
• Procurement category: managed in a structured hierarchy and can be imported from files. Allows purchasing without an item number!
• Procurement catalog: internal procurement catalog and external vendor catalog. External vendor catalog allows user purchasing from a vendor’s website.
• Procurement policies: act as validation rules on purchasing
• Purchase req’s with the same vendor id can be combined and converted to one PO.
• 17 out-0f-box procurement workflows, e.g. purch order, purch line, etc.

Microsoft Dynamics AX Tech Conf 2011 Part I

I was thrilled to attend the DAX tech conf 2011 last week. It was a great 4-day event, because not only I had the chance to have a very refresh look of the new AX release – AX 2012, but also I was surprised and encouraged by the number of attendees – over 1200, doubling MS expectations. It’s great to see such tremendous interests in the market. Without any doubt, I think AX 2012 is a big improvement over the previous versions. Here is a summary of the sessions I went.

Financial Data Architecture

• Shared COA, currencies, calendars and dimensions
• Unlimited # of dimensions
• Dimension can be created based on user’s custom list, e.g. site, campaign, etc.
  Global Address Book
• To reduce data redundancy, addresses are ONLY stored in the address table and not populated in other related tables, e.g. salestable, purchtable.
• Unlimited # of addresses: 1 type of address can have multiple addresses.
• Addresses can be selected on the go.
• Security on GAB controlled by “policies”: creat a team and assign the team to GAB to restrict access on related records.

Patterns in Building Forms for Usability (2 sessions)

• Form layout has changed. It has nav pane, action pane (replacing buttons on the RHS), filter view, grid view, description pane, and fact box.
• When design a form, can select from Styple, e.g. list page, detail form, etc.
• Grid view is grouped by fast tabs instead of tabs
• Form has Edit and View modes, to prevent user accidentally deleting/editing records
• Same form can be published for EP use. Simple like that! This is controlled by a new form property “Display Target”, i.e. auto, form, EP
• Parts (like widget). Can be reused on any form. E.g. fact box, description pane.
• Fact boxes display a collection of related records to the current record, e.g. customer, sales orders for this customer.
• AX wizard tool for validating form style. Inconsistencies can be fixed by either auto fix or user manual change.
• Menu item has a region/country property. In each company, it only shows menu items matching the country code.

Role-based Security (2 sessions)

• Roles (80): a collection of business duties, more like business title e.g. AP clerk, sales manager, etc.
• Duties (767): job functions and can be categories by process cycles, e.g. cutting cheques, sales order entry, etc.
• Priviledges (5777): a group of entry points for specific tasks i.e. menu accesses, e.g. create AP payment journal, create sales order, etc.
• Permissions (20k+): security on objects, e.g. CREATE ledgerjournaltable, CREATE ledgerjournaltrans, etc.
• Out-of-box roles can be categorized by functional (AP clerk), org title (CFO), app role (system user)
• Can dynamically assign roles to users based on user defined query, e.g. based on job title
• Role hierarchy is supported, e.g. acct mgr could include acct clerk role.
• Duties can be categorized as Enable, Maintain, Inquire, Record, Verify, etc.
• Duties should may need to customize to represent business domains, and should stay relatively stable over release.
• New security access to standard AX objects should rarely go below the Duties level, meaning adding/editing roles and duties should be good enough to meet business security requirements.
• Dont need to maintain security for different domains. Can select which company user should get the role when do role assignment. Can assign to companies across domains!!
• Can assign user either roles or duties or priviledges
• Duty segregation: to avoid security conflict, can set up segregation rules so whenever a conflict occurs AX will alert for proper resolution.
• XDS (extended Data Security) framework: allows to define “policies” to restrict views on linked tables. e.g. Primary table (custtable) – constrained tables (custtrans, saels table, projtable), and a policy defines a query that the user shouldn’t see any records from certain customers.
• Out of box AX 2012 has 11 predefined policies
• Ax users don’t have to in the AD. Easier to manager external users.
• Security key is no longer needed

Product Master Data

• Add in a new concept “Product” on the top. It is shared across all companies.
• “Items” are replaced by “Released Products”. Items can’t be used till products are released
• Item can be directly created without first going through product master, and a product master will be created correspondingly.
• “Inventory dimension” is replaced by “proudct dimension”, “storage dimension” and “tracking dimension”.
• Items can be shared across different companies when they’re released
• Product dimensions, storage dimensions and prod attributes are shared
• Product type: Item, Service
• BOM is not shared
• Product can have different “product variants” based on combination of dims. Each prod variant can be released as an item.
• Item model group has added a checkbox for stock or non stock items. Item item with non-stock (e.g. expense items)- inventtrans but no inventsum.

To be continued.