AXUG Community Site - Collaborate, learn, share & more!

I hope everyone is doing well this fine Dynamics filled Thursday! There is a lot of great things taking place in the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem, so much in fact that it's easily to get lost in the noise at times. Enter the newly minted, and very active AXUG Community Site.



This site is well under way in adding value to the community at large, and helps further complete the knowledge story for our ever growing ecosystem. I know for example, I find myself deep into scoping engagement and project work. That is what pays the bills, but at the same time am needing new ways to stay informed connected and focused. I'm finding, personally, that there is a lot of great information and value with my recent use of the AXUG Community site.



There are several ways in which you can join into the conversations taking place. Further creating new blog entries and sharing information that you learn. Getting involved with the many targeted communities that are represented in the collaboration site and more.



You will find topics and tags that are trending right now. As you see in the screen shot about, Business Intelligence is a hot topic right now. This is one near and dear to me, being my new sole focus for the Dynamics Ecosystem.



Further, you can see from the above screen shot and resource link, that clicking on a specific topic can take you to very relevant information. This happens to be one of the sessions I was *not* able to lead at Convergence 2013 due to being out sick. However you can still gain access to my slide deck. This can be of help, and further looking forward to presenting on this for AXUG in the near future.

All-in-all, this post is all about highlighting the value the community site at AXUG brings to our ecosystem. It helps customers & partners connect in a way only AXUG can offer.

Well that is all for this highlight post. I hope that you take the time to join in the conversation and get the intended value that this resource brings! Til Next Time!
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"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Microsoft Opens the Door on Socl - Why I'm using it!

From time to time, I like to post and write about things that aren't specifically related to processes, and post that give you how-to's. Still these topics do have direct & indirect impact on the Dynamics Ecosystem at large. With this in mind, and understanding, I wanted to write about Microsoft Socl.



It's Microsoft's new social platform, that really engages and blends well with the other platforms out there. It's easy to create post, follow specific interest, and blend your other outlets. Obvious, there can be plenty of time looking at picture's, but my focus is more purely on the aspect of gaining valuable knowledge.

I see this as a social learning platform, and one where things can be easily pinned, and revisited later. If you like me, you read a lot! At times there are plenty of things that you would like to read, but don't have time for. With Socl, I'm finding it the best way to tag, and collect content that is important to me.

It is a place where I can pin & place the interest I have, and come back to an uncluttered view of the topics I care about. It's specific, and content focused with out a lot of noise that exists now within certain popular social platforms.



Creating a new post is easy, as you can see from the above image and my first post. Of course, I'm talking about what's hot on my mind for Dynamics, that being BI and more specifically Personal BI with OData Feeds from AX 2012 consumed in PowerPivot!

Sharing is easy as well, being able to tweet or post back to facebook. Further, linking your profiles across multiple platforms is easy as well with the settings for Socl.



I do think that Socl has a spot within the Social landscape, specifically for me around the use of learning, and managing my sources of information into a clean and easy to understand and useful space. The nature of how things are stored, tagged and collected seems like I'm creating little learning portals about specific topics. Further through tags and interest I'm able to find others who are posting and sharing about specific topics.

Some come along and make sure to join me on Socl, and start creating your learning portal's and post, or topics of interest that you care most about!



That's all for this post! I'm interesting to see how this can be used further when thinking in terms of engagement. That is a theme I focus on a lot, System's of Engagement - where user's become fans! I can see a lot of potential with Socl in this aspect. Maybe even being used in Gamification platforms? Till Next Time!
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VSLive Redmond - Metro Mania!

I hope everyone is having a great and productive Friday! We are for sure into the swing of summer, with a lot of the U.S. having been baked as of this year. Well to help you stay cool and focused, I suggest attending VSLive Redmond and the sessions that I've dubbed Metro Mania!



I wanted to point out a few sessions from the conference that I think are well worth attending, and wish I could be there myself to learn as well!

Windows 8/WinRT track
The new version of Microsoft’s flagship product brings the Metro user interface and Live Tiles to tablet/slate devices, laptops and even desktop PCs. Apps for Windows 8 can be written with HTML and JavaScript, or XAML and C#/VB .NET, among other options. Visual Studio Live! Redmond will prepare you to build Windows 8 Metro-style apps, and understand the finer points of WinRT that will make them great. This track includes coverage of the following:
• Metro-style apps for Silverlight Developers
• Windows 8 Metro-style enterprise apps
• WinRT for Web developers


Find out more about what you’ll learn during these sessions: http://bit.ly/VSRDWIN

Workshop: XAML UX Design
During this full-day post-conference workshop, Billy Hollis will show you fundamental design principles rooted in the human brain, new ways of storyboarding and prototyping user interfaces, and ways to combine left-brained analytical power with right-brained intuition and design. You’ll see examples of next generation applications, and do interactive exercises to start down the path of creating such applications yourselves.

Find out more about this workshop: http://bit.ly/XAMLUX

If you’re planning to attend Visual Studio Live! Redmond, you can save $400 off the Best Value Package rate! Register today with the code VSLRTU for your discount.

PLUS, Visual Studio Live is running a giveaway now through July 27th to win a conference proceedings workbook from the Redmond event! Find out how to enter here.

Well that's all for this post, I hope that everyone has a great weekend! Check back soon as a whole lot more to come. Till Next Time!

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"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Got AX 2012 Development Questions? Get 'em Answered!

So you tell me you have Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Questions? Having issues you can't get past? Design patterns that need to be understood? Stuck on how best to achieve some scope item? Well.... Ask the community!

You have until the end of day, this coming Friday the 13th! Make this Friday the 13th a lucky one, by getting your questions into the Community site! How you ask?



Simple.: Do You Have Development Questions about AX 2012? Get Your Answers Here!

So make sure and get those questions in! Till Next Time!
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"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

The Power of the Dynamics Community

I wanted to kick off this weeks series of post, with a focus around the Microsoft Dynamics Community and the power and value it brings. We have a really awesome example of how all of us involved in the community, work together to drive value that helps us all.



Recently I took a lead, from Palle Agermark with his post that focused on the new ability in AX 2012 X++, in which certain keywords, while coding, can have code snippets added. In that highlight post, in which I exposed the xppSource class and it's use, I built upon what Palle had started in his post.



This, then having a specific topic, had two bloggers and active Dynamics Community members in helping give a combined value that the two articles, by themselves, could not achieve. Well taking this a step further, fellow peer and blogger Joris de Gruyter continued to add to the value of this topic by diving deeper into a great example of using code snippets: Code Snippets in AX 2012



Joris gives us a great example, in his further dive into this topic, with adding real value in creating your own code templates that can speed up your development needs an process. He further, correctly explains, that the concept is not new to AX, but the use of xppSource for enabling this is.

I just thought this was a perfect time to point out, that working together in the Dynamics Ecosystem like this, building upon each others knowledge is what sets us apart from other communities. Being able to work towards a common goal and helping the general Dynamics users, be that Partner or Customer, is just really awesome. Many thanks for Palle and Joris in helping show of we all add, and can work together to build out this Dynamics community that belongs to each of us.

That's all for this post, but check back soon as I have a lot of post ready to be released, covering Conv12, BI, AX 2012 Upgrades and of course looking towards that bright Dynamics future! Till next time!

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"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

AX 2012 - Upgrade Questions Answered

Recently, I took part in a community effort, in order to drive awareness, as well as social connections for the Dynamics Community. This experiment, was focused around the Microsoft Community Site, hosted a set of questions around AX 2012 Upgrades.

Several people took part in this, for submitting questions, and giving answers. The following link, will guide you to this first iteration of such an effort: Microsoft Dynamics Community: Dynamics AX 2012 Upgrade Questions……Answered!

An Example, from this post, can be seen here:
"Community Question #1

First of all I want to say I love the initiative! Great to see that Microsoft is working pro-active! My question is related to the licenses. There will be different type of roles which will play a part in the license value for a given customer. Image I have a lot of project manager which will be functional roles. Are there any limitations regarding availability of different legal entities? With other words, can a functional user use/see all the legal entities deployed in an AX2012 application?

What about custom security roles made by the partners? How will they fit into the license layout..."

And the answer I provided:
"First, lets address the fact that AX 2012 License model has changed a lot actually. It's for sure a much simpler approach, and closer to how Microsoft license it's other products for use. The best source, to help understand the new license model, in full can be found from the following PDF, white paper guide: Download Whitepaper

With this in mind, it's very clear that the mappings of named user types, to menu functions, and therefore roles will have to be updated. For example, currently, if you basically touch anything with a journal, for updating say, then your user will be marked as an Enterprise Named User License. This is not the vision Microsoft had for this, so there is a planned revisit to get the menu functions, and therefore ultimate mapping of users to Named User Types updated.

With that knowledge in hand, lets move to the more direct question, is the ability to cross legal entities for performing work. This is clearly stated as a goal, if a user is meant to cross legal entities they will be considered an Enterprise Named User. That make sense, in that, if your crossing legal entities, you are no longer a Functional or Task user, because you are truly doing functions at the enterprise level.

Finally, lets address your question around custom roles and security. In terms of reference to the Named User types, when custom menu functions, and business logic is created, either via an ISV, or the customer itself, the Microsoft Named User license count is not affected. If you look, for example, and create a custom menu item, which is how the Named User counts are tallied and linked, you will notice that None is set, instead of Functional, Task, Enterprise, etc. To the license point for ISV there is a different license model that ISV's can use, that for a customer will have to maintain that either through their VAR, or through a direct relationship with the ISV who is providing you service.

One note, I will make about this, is around AX in the cloud. When this is the approach, and the Partner Hosted model is in place, you pay by month, per user. The named user license still can come into play, however you only upcharge, if you will, when you add another user. So for example, if your implementing AX, via the cloud, and only need 5 users at first to get the implementation going, that's all you will be billed for, in the months those five users access your instance. When the next month rolls around, and say you add a cost accountant, for working in your AX implementation. Then this will add a sixth user license count and from that month forward is when you will pay the difference added to your bill for that use."

I would like to thank Andy, and the team at Microsoft for allowing me to take part in this effort. I look forward to such future engagements, as I believe this really helps connect the community. Using the power of social media, to get real world questions, answers and the sharing of knowledge.

If you have a burning question, feel free to leave me a comment on my blog, email me, and of course let Andy at the Microsoft Community Know. It could help shape the next topic, for when we do such an effort in the future.

That's all for now, but check back soon as more to come! Till Next time!

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"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Community Article: To my Brothers and Sisters in Arms

I just posted my latest Dynamics Community article. In this months post, I thought that I would use my time to dedicate that post to my Brothers & Sisters in Arms.

I hope that you all enjoy it, and that you have a wonderful holiday Season!

Till next time... which is tomorrow, with a new great post, on continued dive into Dynamics AX 2012.

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Public Sector for Dynamics AX - LinkedIn group Created

Since we are talking about Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and the Public Sector news today, I thought it was fitting to create a group on LinkedIn, specifically for this focus. So here you are.: Public Sector for Dynamics AX

The idea, is to give a place for Microsoft, Customers & Partners to connect, share, dicuss and foster growth for information, and knowledge around the Public Sector for Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The primary focus will be around Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for a while, but hopefully this can grow as the AX product, and the public sector offerings do.

Feel free to join, and check back soon as more to come!

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"