Creating a System of Engagement with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

I hope everyone is doing well today, and your off to a great week so far! I wanted to point out I just posted my latest Microsoft Dynamics Community Article.: Creating a System of Engagement with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012



From the post.: "[T]o enable Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to truly become a System of Engagement the focus has to be placed on Workload and Role modeling as part of the implementation. Doing this, with an understanding that the end result is just not a new transactional system at go live - but more than that, the end result is to truly create an engaging, role based user experience - that makes use of all the technologies, and points I have mentioned in this post and more! In short, to create a system of engagement, that has to be the goal on the onset of a project. It has to be the focus of what is trying to be achieved."

I believe it's time we start thinking in terms of Microsoft Dynamics AX projects, as well more than new system of records, or transactional systems. The product is prime now, and ready for such a focus, now it's up to the Ecosystem to embrace the line of thinking and move forward . Some already have, others I've seen - not so much. As I stated in the post, I plan on continuing to build out this concept with a focus on real world examples. These include what we are already focusing on in the current post I've been doing here - as well as other community efforts from my fellow peers.

That's all I have time for today, but check back soon as more to come! Till next time!
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Dynamics AX OLAP Cube MSDN Walk throughs

With Dynamics AX 2009, some great boost came to the BI area of AX. I plan on covering BI from a higher level very soon, on how to select from all the options that exists, third party, base tools, office, etc.

Before I went into the higher level, I wanted to revisit three really good walk throughs on MSDN that anyone working with cubes in Dynamics AX 2009 will find very helpful.

The following are those three walk throughs.:

• Walkthrough: Creating a cube for Dynamics AX 2009


• Walkthrough: Defining KPI's for a Dynamics AX 2009 Cube


• Walkthrough: Analyzing Dynamics AX2009 Cube Data in Excel

I would recommend taking some time, and walking through the above, in the order given. With this we see the power, that exists right out of the box with creating perspective's, and using that to generate a BI project, and cube definition.

It's also worthy to note that in the first walk through, for creating a cube with Dynamics AX 2009, that the creation of the Master Company Reporting Currency Dimension is specifically laid out in exact order for enabling the display of KPIs for a cube in a Business Overview Web part in Enterprise Portal / Role Centers.

These walk throughs focus on the out of the box BI platform provided with Dynamics AX 2009, and can be used to create your own custom Cubes, KPI's, and report against the cubes from within Excel, as well as enabling your KPI's to be pushlished as Web Parts and placed as part of Role Center pages.

BI is a part of a Dynamics AX 2009 ERP deployment. It may be a later phase, but and more should be considered ar part of the early phases of a Dynamics AX 2009 deployment. With this in mind, it's important to understand the different aspects of what's offered out of the box with BI. That's why it's important to understand the above walkthroughs for understanding how one creates a cube for Dynamics AX 2009, for adding KPI's, and accessing that data.

I plan on referencing this post in future post, as I start to talk about BI solutions with Dynamics AX from a high level, with the goals to help decision makers in choosing what is BI for my company? What does it mean? And what is the best tools, suites, etc. to enable that for my Dynamics AX 2009 investment? How does this fit into the Vision Microsoft has for 'BI'?

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

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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 White Paper: Tracing Role Center KPIs

This week must be white paper week, because I have another post about a White Paper that was released just in Jan.

This one focusing in on Tracing Role Center KPIs. The direct link to this download can be found here.: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 White Paper: Tracing Role Center KPIs

Download Description.:
"The prominent place of key performance indicators (KPIs) on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Role Center pages has prompted questions about where the KPI data is drawn from. This document explains how to trace the data that is displayed in a KPI to its source in the Microsoft Dynamics AX online transaction processing (OLTP) database.

Microsoft Dynamics AX relies on Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services for its business intelligence processing. This white paper defines terms of importance for Analysis Services, and then provides a step-by-step example of how to trace the data for a KPI on a Role Center page."

I actually had access to this in beta form, when I was working last summer on tracing down KPI data actually. This is a VERY handy white paper, if you do anything with Role Centers, and plan to customize them for any client, or yourself.

This walk through works, and will give you the knowledge you need to trace down what a given KPI actually means on a Role Center, why it's showing a given number, and help trace down to the fields and tables used in the Dynamics AX Database itself, that the OLAP cubes pull from.

That's all for now, but I have some more great post coming. Including yet another white paper that was released just a few weeks ago. However this time, there were be several post off it. Also I will be getting back to WCF discussions soon, and have a wrap up post to bring that all together. See you next time!




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