Webcast of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 & Personal BI

Well I hope everyone is doing well this fine Tuesday. We are very close to the summer equinox and that means the longest day of the year! I love summer time, it's full of fun times, water activities as well as opining for the beach!

With that, I wanted to post a link to the recent webcast I lead via MSDynamicsWorld.com. The link to the web cast can be accessed from the following resource.: The Power of Personal BI with Dynamics AX 2012: PowerPivot and Power View



Now there is for sure one point that I need to clarify from this webcast. Specifically the question was asked around what version's of SharePoint & SQL Server are needed in order to enable specific aspects of what we reviewed during the webcast. When looking at this from a Microsoft Office Excel 2013 perspective, then the topic of SharePoint & SQL Server version for that matter in what was shown, is not relevant. Meaning, it does not affect what you can do with Excel 2013 in context to what was covered.



However when we look at enabling PowerView from SharePoint, launched within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 then we need to better understand what versions of software do impact what functionality. Thus we have the above pictured diagram from Microsoft. It shows that indeed we do need more than standard versions of MOSS & SQL Server for different levels of functionality, including that last part of the webcast around PowerView & SharePoint.

I hope that this is helpful to people. During the session we have a lot of great questions, and feedback. Keep in mind, this is not edited but is a full capture of the entire webcast itself. Finally, I encourage you to send me any questions around this and just think about how Personal BI can help craft a reporting story for your company! If you would like to know more, you can contact us here.: Sunrise Contact Page.

Well that is all for now. I know that I'm behind a bit in getting some of the previously targeted topics posted. It's a sign of the current times, with being busy. It's good to be busy, and so there will be plenty to cover soon. Til Next Time!


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AX 2012 R2 & The Power of Personal BI

I hope everyone finds themselves doing well this fine summer Friday. Always something about Friday's, and specifically those where the sun stays out and beckons us back to our childhood days. With that, I wanted to post today and bring to your reading attention an upcoming virtual event. It's free and you can attend right from your desk. This event is being hosted by MSDynamicsWorld.com a long time sponsor of this blog.



The event is next Friday, June 14th starting at 11:00 AM EST. The following is a description from the event.: (register here)
"The real value of business intelligence (BI) comes from crafting a story based on an organization's data. For the manager, analyst, or individual contributor, BI typically begins with desktop tools like Microsoft Excel. With the right skills and know-how, personal BI can become the gateway to a robust BI initiative at any organization.




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.

Join Microsoft Dynamics AX MVP and BI expert Brandon George of Sunrise Technologies for an examination of Microsoft PowerPivot & Power View with Dynamics AX 2012 R2. The webcast will look at how these tools can empower both functional and technical resources at the individual level to discover new insights and improve operational outcomes. Learn how to put data to work and further build towards organizational BI needs from personal BI artifacts."

The event represented above, is specifically around Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 & Personal BI. I've wrote a lot about this topic in the past, and so I think its very important to reference such resources in regard to this upcoming event. The following is such a list, that I think would be helpful to anyone who is wanting to attend, or already signed up to do so.

• Understanding the natural flow of the BI Semantic Model
• Why all the fuss around BI? - Data Ownership
• AX-OData Queries Home on CodePlex
• AX 2012 Personal BI - By Example - Customer Aging III
• From Power View to Cube and back again

With the above resources your well on the way to understanding what will be talked to and covered in this upcoming event. I would highly encourage you to attend it, as I'm planning for it to be engaging! Speaking of engaging, that is the whole goal we after. All of this, every bit of it builds to the point of creating a System of Engagement. Where we can truly help turn users, into fans!

Well that it's for now, I will be back to posting next week with some really interesting stuff. Anyone want to go on the wild ride of predictive analytic's? It's like stepping into a quantum time machine! Well it's really more about understanding & owning your companies data assets. That's whats coming soon, so check back next week and make sure to attend next Friday's virtual event!

Finally, if you would like to know more about putting your companies data to work for you. Then make sure to reach out, and contact Sunrise Technologies so we can help craft a BI & reporting story for you! Til 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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AX 2012 R2 and PowerView - Part II Extending

What a great day to be alive! I know for a lot of people, including myself, today has special meaning. It's about faith, and remembering that we are finite and need our Creators grace & mercy. So I must first hope that everyone has a blessed good Friday, and you find yourselves doing well. Further, today I wanted to continue the series I started yesterday around Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 & PowerView.

For those that are just reading this post, you can go to Part I of this series located here.: AX 2012 R2 and PowerView - Part I. Having the knowledge gained from that post, we can now continue with extending PowerView for AX 2012 R2 with our own custom cube!.



We start this journey by focusing on where the PowerView data connections and artifacts are stored within Enterprise Portal. You can see this location in the above screen shot from the demo image I'm using as my target. This is located in.: 'http://[site]/sites/DynamicsAX/Power View Reports/'.



Having the location open, we can then target creating a new data source that we will want PowerView to consume. As we can see in the above image, we target a new data source by simply adding one to the document library. Further what's important to not, as seen in the below image, is the connection type and the connection string.



You will not that we have a connection type that is very specific to enabling PowerView artifact creation. This type is called.: Microsoft BI Semantic Model for Power View. Further the connection string is very important as well. This happens to be pointing to a custom SSAS Cube Database and further a custom SSAS cube.



These where both created from the BI Project wizard within Dynamics AX 2012 R2, from a perspective representing the Measures & Dimensions desired. The following is an example connection string that is valid, that you can easily adjust for your own needs.

Provider=MSOLAP.5;Integrated Security=SSPI;Persist Security Info=True;Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=sunSalesAnalysis initial;Cube=Sales Analysis

Now having this in place, we can test our connection and save the new data source for PowerView usage. This is the default library where the PowerView managed code looks for data sources to make use of. Going back to the information in the first post on this topic, that means that when an action menu item passing in a data source name as the parameter, it is in reference to the data sources living in this specific document library on Enterprise Portal.



Having done a successful save of the data source, you should see something very similar to the above screen shot. This means that we are ready to move back into Dynamics AX 2012 R2 for completing our extending of PowerView. Like all things in Dynamics AX, this extension should remain within an AOT project.



What we see in the above screen shot is that project, including having highlighted the custom action menu item that will launch our PowerView design process. You will notice that I'm targeting the name given to the data source that lives in the document library on EP. That is the parameter value that will launch PowerView to target the specific custom cube.



Having created the menu item, and launching it, we see in the above image a field list from the custom cube I created from the above mentioned perspective.



This literally took under two hours to complete, from cube to launching into the design space. To further bring home the point that this is a separate cube database, and cube, please reference the below image.



You can see that I have a new cube catalog, or database as well as a custom cube called Sales Analysis. Further you can see in the above image the dimension structure in which we can slice our measure via. Again, this was 100% generated from a perspective within the AOT. Having completed this, we can now create compelling visualizations with PowerView based on the custom cube.



Further having completing such visualizations, saving these to the 'Power View Reports' document library we can surface these and execute them as web parts, or full screen mode.



The above knowledge, mixed with the first post of this series, should enable you to start easily taking full advantage of Power View, well beyond the out-of-the-box cubes. Having these powerful visualizations that allow power users to help complete a BI story for a customer is the icing on-top of the BI cake represented by the Microsoft Stack. This will truly help you to engage your user base and help you down the continue journey of Creating a System of Engagement!

That's all I have for this post. Feel free to comment or leave me any questions you might have. Further, I will back into the cube creation process behind this in a new post, so that there is a complete story from end-to-end for you. Keep in mind, this would work for *any* cube. This does not have to be just the Dynamics AX cubes. Further you can start to see how this can be placed throughout the Dynamics AX forms and user experience. Til Next Time!
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AX 2012 R2 and PowerView - Part I

Well here we find ourselves well into spring and I must say it's a cold one thus far. I'm for sure ready for long, warm sunny days and all the fun that comes with it. That being said, and my battle with the norovirus behind me I wanted to start my writings back to you with a focus around Dynamics AX 2012 & PowerView.


PowerView Design Surface

Without a doubt this topic deserves a good bit of coverage as this truly is a powerful, personal BI enabling technology. Let me states now, as I have in the past, BI is not about a tool. True business insights & intelligence is about owning your data and turning into a true asset. That stated, we must understand the tools that help us yield forth value added insights. Enter now, the focus on Microsoft PowerView and how's it's fired, used and managed within the context of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2.

For starters, let me give you a great reference resource. It's the official home page for PowerView.: Microsoft Business Intelligence - PowerView.



I think without a doubt, the above referenced resource page has some really interesting demos that showcase the power or PowerView. Further there are plenty of resources on the web, that can take one through the design and usage of PowerView. Before getting into some real examples of how this can be used, I think it's very important to understand how PowerView is targeted to be fired and consume data from Dynamics AX 2012 R2. Therefore, the goal of this post is to do just that. Infer the knowledge of how PowerView works with Dynamics AX, and how it's fired out-of-the-box. After having this knowledge we can then proceed together down a path of examples for how this can be used, and further extended.



The first thing to learn is how to fire PowerView from within Dynamics AX 2012 R2. Throughout different sections of the product, you will find a new icon as pictured above called "Analyze Data - Reporting". This button, is tied to specific action menu items, depending on what focused module of Dynamics AX you happen to be in. As-is, there are three focuses for such PowerView artifact creation, based on these action menu items of.: CreatePowerViewReport *CustCube, *LedgerCube, *VendCube.



Each of these action menu items points to a single class within the AOT named PowerViewReporting. This class takes specific parameters for which targeted OLAP cube should be used for creating ad-hoc or personal BI artifacts.



Looking into the main method of the PowerViewReporting class, we find that this further calls into another class, passing in the datasource of focus. The cube for the specific area of Dynamics AX that you happen to be in. This other class is the SrsReportHelper class. It has a brand new method called: getPowerViewDataSourceUrlClient().



Within the call of this method, exists a new managed code element understood as: Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.Portal.Deployment.PowerViewDeploymentHelper

Now we understand when we are on the Purchase Orders form, and we see the Analyze Data icon that the data we are about to tackle is based on the VendCube. The VendCube field list of measures & dimensions is then what you see rendered in the right hand screen of the PowerView design space.


VendCube Field List in PowerView

Well that's all for this first post around PowerView. I hope this helps the understanding of this great new tool and how it interacts with Dynamics AX 2012 R2 out-of-the-box. Next post, I will create a brand new cube with Dynamics AX 2012 R2, and show you how to extend the PowerView framework for Dynamics AX to target that cube for Analysis. Thanks for reading, and check back soon! Til Next Time!
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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 - VM CTP Released

Welcome everyone to another great day in the Dynamics Ecosystem. Either your starting your day, half way through, or well into wrapping it up! Either way I hope it's filled with value added specifics around Microsoft Dynamics!

For those of you who where not able to attend the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Technical Conference you maybe wondering where you can get your hands on this soon to be released on Dec 1st version of AX? Where can you experience all the great things being discussed, like I pointed to a few items in my highlight post here.: AX 2012 R2 & Data Migration Framework Updates.



Well now if you have access to InformationSource then you now have access to a VM image of AX 2012 R2!



This VM of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 containes SQL Server 2012, SharePoint 2010, Office 2010, and has retail turned on and ready for use. With it you can experience and work with some of the items being highlighted, like PowerView native web parts that can mash together internal to AX and external to AX datasources. Further, you can take the new AX 2012 R2 LINQ provider for a spin and see it's value and use with your own specific needs.

I highly recommend downloading this. It's the first option under Services when you launch into InformationSource.

Well that is all for this highlight. Make sure to check back soon, including tomorrow, as well step back into Freaky Tech Friday!Till Next Time!
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