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.