AX 2012 - Procurement Catalogs Explained

Well I hope everyone is having a great Friday! Man what a week for Microsoft Dynamics news, with so much great coverage from around the community. There is so much interest in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, and you can just feel the momentum that started at Convergence keep surging through the Ecosystem.

Today I wanted to focus in on some great features around the Enterprise Portal in AX 2012, and specifically around Employee Procurement. Microsoft really has listened to the client base in this area, and has shown that AX 2012 is truly powerful platform. One pain point for a lot of companies has revolved around the procurement process for employee's. With the release of AX 2012, and further the improvements from the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack the ability for companies to have multiple types of procurement catalog's helps to ease this area from a pain point, to a value add.



There are three different types of Procurement catalog's that can be created, for a Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 instance. Those include: Procurement catalogs, Vendor catalogs & External catalogs.



You can have multiple of these types of catalog's, and can enable them by legal entity. This means that you can shape the catalog ordering experience by legal entity and role even. Take this further, a Procurement Catalog is made up of internal products, with specific formatting, images, descriptions, and a hierarchy.



Next option, is around the Vendor Catalogs, which can be setup through an import & mapping process. Further, you can create rules for automated approval's of new products, release options and what legal entities that the specific imported vendor catalog's are enabled for. Finally, you can - as would be expected - setup vendor catalog import parameters for root folder, upload size as well as files to process.



Our third and final option for procurement catalog management, is External catalogs. This has some really neat feature offers, but there is also a bit of technical understanding, and working with your external vendors for getting this setup.



You will notice, in looking at the demo data version of this setup, for the "Zones-Test Catalog" that there are several things that need to be understood when enabling this. First the site settings, in what can of call method, content type and return URL Key. Further there are session specific properties, as well as destination, return URL options & Shopping Protocol.

On the topic of the Shopping Protocol, you will notice that the listed method for the demo is OCI_HTML. This represents a sample class by the name of Sample_Code_CatMessageFormatterOCI40HTML. This class enables the implementation of the OCI 4.0, or Open Catalog Interface, which you can find out more about from the following resource link.: Wikipedia - Open Catalog Interface



You can find out more details about the setup and overview of the external vendor catalogs, from the following resource on MSDN: External vendor catalogs overview [AX 2012]

From the resource page.:
"If you rely on your vendors to host procurement catalog data for you, you can configure access to the vendor’s external catalog site in Microsoft Dynamics AX so that users can access the vendor’s external catalog directly. You receive the remote access settings from your vendor, and then set up the required configurations in Microsoft Dynamics AX using the Maintain details for an external catalog form."

With all of these great options for Procurement Catalogs, the pain points of employee procurement that existed in the past are now value add solutions out-of-the-box. This mixed, with a host of great features around request for new items, vendors, and enabling workflow's to control all of these processes truly make the tag line Powerfully Simple a reality.

Well that's all for this week, I hope everyone has a blessed & wonderful Easter weekend! Make sure to check back soon as there is a whole lot more to come. Till Next Time!
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Adopt the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack - a must have

Recently, in February of this year Microsoft released the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 feature pack. You can access the latest Dynamics AX ISO, which includes the feature pack, from the following location on PartnerSource: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack Release.

From the release notes: "Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack is the Microsoft ERP solution for enterprises that empowers your people to anticipate and embrace change so your business can thrive. It constitutes our biggest releases that target five key industries: Manufacturing, Distribution, Services Industries, Public Sector, and Retail. This release also incorporates Microsoft Dynamics ERP RapidStart Services.

All of the industry solutions, Process Industries, Public Sector, Retail, and Service Industries, are now incorporated into the product and are installed the same way as other Microsoft Dynamics AX modules. Customers can enable or disable features by using configuration keys and can use features from multiple industry solutions. For example, a Public Sector organization can use the Retail POS capabilities, a pharmaceutical company involved in drug discovery and trials can use Service Industries and Process Manufacturing capabilities, or a wholesale distributor can use the Retail merchandising features."

Further, Microsoft just recently as of three days ago posted the following link on PartnerSource stating: "We strongly recommend that all Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 implementations move to using the Feature Pack"

The Resource Page.: The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack—Why You Should Adopt it Moving Forward

There are several reasons to make sure that the feature pack is the focus now and moving forward from all the updates to specific industry solutions adding retail, if desired, as well as having now support for 25 Countries. Further, Microsoft points out that: "When Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 is released in H1 Calendar Year 2013 it will automatically install the remaining Microsoft provided country localizations (Asia, South America, Eastern Europe, etc.); so that we maintain the single consistent Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 code base."

This then suggest, that in order to go to R2 - with the least time needed for deployment, having what resides in the feature pack for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is a critical step. Further, applying and using the feature pack as the target version for any and all current AX 2012 instances, gives you the same build as CU2. Bringing your Microsoft Dynamics AX investment to the latest and most stable build. Even if you have applied CU2, you should look towards the feature pack, as it's clear through the message it's a stepping stone towards R2 that will be release first half of 2013.

Well that's all for now, check back soon though as a whole lot more to come. Till Next Time!
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"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"