Spotlight: Top Reasons Companies Implement an Automated Data Collection Solution

Companies choose ADC because their industry demands it, either by regulation or voluntary standards compliance. With our research we found the top reasons companies choose an ADC solution:

Implement Industry Regulations – think of food and beverage traceability initiatives and Pharmaceutical ePedigree requirements:

• The recent Food Safety Modernization Act Section 204 is dedicated to enhancing tracking and tracing of food and recordkeeping
• PTI or the Produce Traceability Initiative is Voluntary. Tracing starts in the field, when the produce is removed from the field and put in the carton.
• One RF-SMART customer packages produce, they use RF-SMART to capture carton number in the field and throughout their entire process, satisfying the PTI.
• The ePedigree for pharmaceutical is a record in electronic form containing information regarding each transaction resulting in a change of ownership of the given prescription drug, including returns
• We have several Pharmaceutical customers coming to us to satisfy the new ePedigree requirements

Empower your Warehouse Team – We all like to be able to make decisions and be accountable, RF-SMART’s ADC will make you workers feel empowered
Reliable Information- Is everyone in your organization able to rely on information they pull from their ERP or do they worry that it is not accurate or timely Capture Metrics – Providing important Key Performance Indicators, such as Inventory Velocity by location and Picking Performance by worker is possible with ADC. Selection of an Automated Data Collection solution must use real time validation, and real time updates to the ERP system. If it is architected with a redundant database no one will know which system to believe. Soon everyone will be second guessing the system.

There is nothing that keeps a CFO awake at night like not knowing if the information they are relying on to make major decisions is valid, accurate and timely. For these reasons RF-SMART is architected to use only the Dynamics AX database so there is a single source of truth. All data resides in the AX database. RF-SMART leverage Dynamics AX business process to provide top-notch warehouse management functionality validating against AX in real-time and all updates occur at the point of the activity.



Touch it once. If I can capture at the point of activity I can trust the input the first time. For Example: Many times we find an as-is process like this: Print the pick list; distribute to the workers in the warehouse; the workers use the paper to find the items and then mark the quantities, batches, serial number, and locations. The paper is turned into the packing/staging station.

Some of you may not have considered Automated Data Collection as a tool that can be used to empower employees but it can do just that. By using RF-SMART workers can be guided through their daily task. An example is to guild a worker through the warehouse to pick sales orders. The worker can be guided, by highest priority, through an optimum route, to pick orders. And since RF-SMART offers real-time validation they will be notified if the data is valid, not only in content but in context. For example, the location is validated as a valid location for the warehouse and then the item is validated not only as a valid item but that it has inventory in the specified location. AX setup such as location blocking, optional dimension settings, batch dispositions, expiry dates etc. will be validate at the moment the worker touches the inventory, stopping the worker before a mistake happens.

Imagine how valuable preventing the use of expired or quarantined inventory for a Food and Beverage manufacturer is! Workers also can make decisions on the spot, because useful information is provided to them while they do their task. They can’t just write down what they have done and the pass the paperwork on, blaming someone else for mistakes. They are totally accountable. And that makes them feel good. They are autonomous!

Workers can review the progress of the transaction they are performing on mobile devices only when they need to, thereby keeping the mobile device screen crisp and clean unless they need to refresh their memory. To allow workers to make informed decisions at the point of activity, almost every field in RF-SMART has a lookup. And best of all, today you can let your workers BYOD (Bring your own device). Now instead of just texting on the smartphone, they could use it to do a quick inventory lookup or maybe you have a warehouse supervisor and a store manager that wants to work on their RF-SMART dashboard from their own device.



That is not a problem; good mobile solutions are not constrained by devices. RF-SMART is ahead of the trend, we are not constrained by device and we have many customers using multiple devices, such as an industrial device in the warehouse and a smartphone for a supervisor.



Now that is empowering a worker!

Reliable information is important and is probably one of the reasons that you have or are implementing AX. Why would you want to have business process that put the integrity of AX information at risk? It is important that your employees, whether in the warehouse or in the boardroom, trust the information they use.

I would like to thank RF-Smart for being such a supporter of the Dynamics Community at large, and further being a sponsor of this blog. That's all for now but check back soon as I continue to add more post around Dynamics AX & BI. Til Next Time!
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Know thy Dynamics HashTags!

Understanding how to navigate the social landscape is a vital skill that help one stay on top of the latest news for Microsoft Dynamics, and further be a contributor to the community at large. Events like the upcoming Convergence 2013, being held in New Orleans can seem overwhelming, in trying to digest all the great news & happenings while there. Further, for those not able to attend, but wanting to learn as much as possible - navigating the social landscape is a must!



To help weed through the information, and further avoid things like "social saturation" understanding HashTag's that are used within the Microsoft Dynamics Community is a must! Enter Jon Rivers latest post on this topic.: 2013 #HASHTAG PREDICTIONS FOR MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ARE HERE!



You may recall Jon & Mark Polino's efforts in helping customers and partners entering into the social fray, with their joint authored book.: Social Media for Microsoft Dynamics Partners.



Jon continues his mastery of the social arts, with giving us a heads up for this years HashTag index. It's ever so important to understand the value of such HashTag's as #Conv13, #AXUGSummit and many more. Doing so, as I mentioned above, will give one the ability to stay on top of the information most important to you. Further, if your going to contribute to the ever growing community at large, then having the right HashTag's used associated with your efforts if vital.

I will say, sometimes there is a battle for HashTag dominance. Where competing events, or community actually land on using the same tag. I bring to mind the great battle when Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 was launched, and the same time the Anime Expo 2012 conference was being targeted. I believe the Dynamics Community won out right the use of #AX2012. However, this battle is far from over as we approach the year 2015. I predict, once again the Dynamics Community will face off against the Anime Expo crowd, when #AX2015 is the focus for the year 2015 and the release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2015.

Going back more to the serious side of this social skill set, Jon's efforts within the community are always helpful. With his post, we all have a quick reference to the HashTag's that should be targeted and used. Further, Jon will avoid *ME* direct messaging him, asking "Jon, what is the HashTag for [Insert event here]."

Many thanks Jon for all the efforts you do for the Dynamics Community at large. There should be an MVP Award from Microsoft that allows Jon to be awarded for his efforts across all the Dynamics Products, including his focus on mastering the social landscape.

That's all for this post, I hope that each and everyone of you have a great weekend, and find yourself being productive in our Dynamics World. Check back soon as more Dynamics & BI coverage to come. Further, as we approach Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2013, keep an eye here for total coverage, interviews and more! Till Next Time!
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AX 2012, SQL Server 2012 & NLB Reporting Services

Today I wanted to take the time, and give light to a specific topic, Network Load Balancing Reporting Services with AX 2012 & SQL Server 2012. As I have done in the past, to help shed light on this most important topic, I invited Matt Tortorice AX System Engineer for McWane, Inc. to give us some insights on this topic.



Matt, along with McWane, is currently implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for some of their divisions. Recently, I worked with Matt on the topic of clustering for reporting services, and he is here to help give valuable, customer based insight into the process.


Matt Tortorice LinkedIn Profile | @mtortorice

After following the “Configure a Report Server on a Network Load Balancing Cluster” article on TechNet, and generating my machine key from aspnetresources/machineKey I was able to apply the new Machine Key value to both of our load balanced Report Servers web.config file. In doing this, we ended up with a configuration that looks similar to what is pictured below.:



When first launching into the instance of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, that had three AOSes, users had no issues executing report. Users, that is, that where connected to the first AOS that has an Reporting Services configuration associated with it that is.

Those Users trying to run an SSRS Report when connected to the any other AOS instances (ax102, ax103) would get the following error message.: “The default Report Server Configuration ID could not be found in the SRSServers table.” This error message was presented in an infolog, similar to the one pictured below.:



To solve this problem, the answer was to create a Reporting Server Configuration for each AOS in the cluster by setting the Application Object Server Name to each AOS instance. In other words, 3 identical Server configurations except for the AOS Server name. Configuration ID 1 points to AX101, ID 2 points to AX102 and ID3 points to AX103 as seen below:



Once there was a Report Configuration for each AOS instance all of the reports SSRS Reports would generate when a client was connected to any AOS. All reports where able to execute, no matter what AOS a user was logged into. Further each of the report server configurations where pointing to the NLB, or Network Load Balancing server name.

Having done this, we where able to take full advantage of SQL Server 2012, with a scaled out, load balanced reporting servers that better meets are reporting needs. This will further enable, as needed, future scale as our users demand more, and more reports from our Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 instance.

I would like to thank Matt for taking the time to share with us, about this topic. Giving us insight into the trenches of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and how the stack is helping him realize real value for his company needs.

Further, the following is more information about Matt and his blog, where he plans to continue his journey, and helping all of us along the way.:

With a Background in .Net Development, SQL Server Management and Microsoft Server Administration I began my unexpected adventure in Dynamics AX in late 2012 when I was tasked with setting up 3 Dynamics AX 2012 CU3 Single Server Environments using SQL Server 2012, and a 9 Server Production installation of Dynamics AX with 3 AOS Servers, 2 SharePoint EP Servers, 1 SharePoint Search Server, 2 SQL Server 2012 Servers in a High Availability Group and 1 Help/FileServer. I will continue to blog about my experiences and answer any questions I get at http://blog.thedeprecated.com

That's all for this post, check back soon as I will continue the focus of valued added content. We will dive further into the Dynamics based world, with more coverage of BI, Reporting, Services and more! Till Next Time!
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Workflow Wizard's for Dynamics AX 2012

I wanted to write today about Workflows in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Specifically around the Wizard's that now exists for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack and beyond. There are several wizard's that help you create the needed artifacts and elements that make up a workflow.



Before getting into the Wizard's, I think it's very important that we look into some very good resources on this topic. So the following is my hot list of resources, I make use of when looking to work with workflow's and create custom workflow's for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

• What's New: Workflow [AX 2012]
• Workflow concepts [AX 2012]
• About Workflow Development [AX 2012]
• Creating Custom Workflows (By Murray Fife)
• My own past post about Workflows & AX 2012

Now with those resource's one should have plenty of information to focus in and get started with the wonderful concept and power workflows bring's to a Dynamics AX 2012 instance.

One area that is new with the release of the Feature Pack for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and beyond is the amount of Wizard's that Microsoft has delivered. We have several actually, and each has their own value point. The idea is around to help decrease your time to value for enabling workflows.



The focus for the wizard's that are delivered is around.: Approvals, Task & Workflow Types. These are each accessed by highlighting the specific type of artifact desired, right clicking, highlighting add-in's, and then selecting the Wizard option from there.



Each will ask a series of question's that will then be used to generate workflow artifacts that relate to specific workflow document classes, and types. This means having the workflow types & categories in place is a must. After understanding this, one can then jump start creating artifacts that fully help model and instance of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for their specific needs.

I will end with this fact, don't under estimate the amount of work that might be required to fully enable a workflow. Depending on the nature of the workflow, and what is required. What should always be the first thing that is done to help with this fact? Solid Functional Design Documents that clearly give finalize & finite scope to the deliverable's that are being targeted.

Well that's all for this post. Check back soon as more to come! Till Next Time!


Visit Hillstar Business Intelligence (www.HillstarBI.com) in order to truly unlock your data trapped in your Microsoft Dynamics investment. With our value driven business intelligence strategy Hillstar help you transform into a data informed company.


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Microsoft Dynamics Help & Resources Spotlight

While at AXUG Summit this year, one of the more interesting fact that I realized was the lack of knowledge about resources like InformationSource. Further I meet with the Dynamics Content team, including Mark & Margo from Microsoft. In visiting with them a very handy guide was presented, and I understand now Margo presented at the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Technical Conference that is taking place right now.

I wanted to make sure and get this information about, and to help with this the content team put together a great white paper that helps guide one through the resources that are available. You can access the great white paper from the following location.: Help and Resources Datasheet for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012



We can see that the sites published and coming together from the content team, are split into different phase's, and use's. How each is meant to enable the total spectrum of needed content, how-to's, help and more.

Being a long standing contributor to the body knowledge that is represented in the Dynamics Ecosystem,it's a night & day difference from Microsoft on valid, valuable content. When I first started writing about Microsoft Dynamics AX (Axapta) there was not a lot out there. Now we have a very dynamic, excuse the pun, set of resources that truly help us enable value added, and timely answers to those burning project questions.

Make sure to check out each site, noting their purpose and expected level of content. If you have never, for example visited InformationSource, add it to your to do list for today! Well that's all I have for this post, check back soon as we continue to focus on BI - creating Systems of Engagement with Microsoft Dynamics AX, AX 2012 R2 and more! Till Next Time!
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AX 2012 R2 & Data Migration Framework Updates

Well I hope that this post finds everyone well rested from last weeks event, knee deep into the AX 2012 R2 Technical conference, and working on Dynamics AX projects! There is a lot to talk about this week, so I thought I would do a kick off post around Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 as well as the newly updated Data Migration Framework.



First up lets focus on the latter and move into the great new improvements coming as part of AX 2012 R2. There is a great write up from Microsoft on the newly released DMF, which can be found here.: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Data Migration Framework Beta 2.0 is now available on Information source

From the post.:
"Besides the already rich feature set, some of the key new features which have been added in this release are below -

• ODBC as Source – with this it is possible to import data using ODBC.
• AX as Source – It supports export/import , copy company for Data migration Framework entities.
• New entity types – Direct Table and Composite Entity.
• Parallel execution support from Staging to Target.
• Service Interface – DMF can be executed by external applications.
• Error handling enhancements – skipping error rows, and detailed logs.
• Number sequence support.
• Removed requirement to install SSIS on AOS.

"

We can see with the above that the DMF has really increased in it's level of usability. Microsoft is obviously listening to the feedback from those that have tried their respective hands and dove into the current release, building up to what we now see out on InformationSource.

I will cover as more updates are released, including walking through the new version soon myself. Moving right along lets focus now on the on-going Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Tech Conference happening all this week.

I'm actually not able to attend, but have been looking and working with AX 2012 R2 for the past few months now. The following is a list of architecture, technical and BI related updates that I would like to give highlights of.:
Data Partitioning in AX 2012 R2 - This is a very interesting move, and one that will further add for support of options when thinking in terms of scale for larger organizations. In short this new concept works as another container option, or segregation option for legal entities. You can now have a spectrum of single instance, to single instance with partitioning, to multiple instance options. Each bringing their own pro's & con's to the table. A great write up already exist about this concept which can be found here.: To share or not to share… Data Partitioning in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2



LINQ Provider for AX 2012 R2 - Here we see Microsoft enabling deeper native access to AX, and the Entity Data Model concept with giving us a managed code LINQ provider for AX 2012 R2. This will further enable and allow the consumption of AX 2012 Business Logic and Entity's (think abstraction of tables here) for greater use from the outside world. A great write up on this topic can be found here.: Code Example: LINQ to AX from C# [AX 2012]



Business Intelligence Improvements for AX 2012 R2 - Microsoft has further made improvements around it's stack offering, the BI elements out-of-the-box with AX 2012 R2. As I pointed out, AX 2012 means you have a BI solution. This is further enabled through the usage of native web parts for PowerView elements, to be placed and used on Role Center pages with the release of AX 2012 R2. Further improvements around BI is more built in KPI's, as well as three new cubes. One of those being that of a new Inventory Cube.

All-in-all there is a lot to cover, dive into and talk about with this new update. What I list above is just the tip of the iceberg. There is deep functional net gains across the board, more localization's like China, as well as very deep functional offerings for Human Capital Management (HCM) for everyone!

That's all I have for this post, check back soon as we dive deeper into these new offerings, and cover the details coming out of the on-going tech conference. Till Next Time!


Visit Hillstar Business Intelligence (www.HillstarBI.com) in order to truly unlock your data trapped in your Microsoft Dynamics investment. With our value driven business intelligence strategy Hillstar help you transform into a data informed company.


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