AX 2012 - Leveraging EDI Technology to Eliminate Unnecessary Platform Customizations

Here we are coming up on Convergence 2012, nearly a year since Steve Ballmer and Kiril Tatarinov delivered the message loud and clear that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is the ERP for everyone with its commitment to "simplicity". From installation through deployment, implementation, customization, user experience, and upgrade, this release’s design bares the mark of simplicity. And with Microsoft’s theme of power, agility and simplicity around this release, doesn’t it make perfect sense that Microsoft’s ISV partners follow suit?



When considering an upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, it’s best practice to work with your VAR and ISVs to analyze all customizations and create a precise plan to manage your code and data upgrades. It’s a given that some customizations will still be required in AX 2012, but when it comes to accommodating EDI, you can forget about customizations – it’s that simple. Customizations to handle EDI requirements are an unnecessary hassle and without them you can avoid EDI roadblocks that can potentially disrupt your business and delay your AX 2012 upgrade project.
While evaluating the code customizations currently required to accommodate your EDI mandates, it’s important to understand the three most frequent approaches to integrating EDI with Microsoft Dynamics AX:

• Customization – the client / partner has decided to develop a one-off, non-commercial solution using a tool such as BizTalk or Gentran with custom ERP code;


• Commercial solution within Microsoft Dynamics – (i.e. built inside Dynamics via customization by an Independent Software Vendor) – EDI solution is built within inside Microsoft Dynamics AX;


• ISV built outside Microsoft Dynamics – solution is built outside of Microsoft Dynamics but augments the native functionality and integration framework of the Dynamics AX platform.

The first approach has its challenges: understanding how to construct the solution to meet the challenges of an unpredictable environment; how you’ll cope with future service packs or even upgrades beyond AX 2012; who writes and manages the customization when trading partners change their requirements; and where is all the EDI information held that is passed back and forth, even if that information is not needed for internal requirements?

The second option – using a commercial ISV solution that is fully-built inside Microsoft Dynamics – can also run into challenges: how do you and the ISV manage patches, service packs, external mandates and AX version upgrades; how do they coexist with other solutions or customizations that are vital to your business?
Neither option provides a simple approach. By using a well architected solution that tightly integrates EDI without customization – you don’t have to worry about unpredictable costs in development and updating from one Microsoft Dynamics AX version to another. But beware – many companies claim integration without customization but very few actually deliver.

An EDI solution that seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, offers a non-embedded design and has XML data storage within SQL will deliver integration without customization, keeping EDI simple. As a result, organizations can be EDI-ready with AX 2012 in a matter of days, not weeks or months, with the ability to implement virtually any new compliance initiative without the need for costly AX customizations.

You can also check out a 3-minute demo video of their Vantage Point EDI solution.:


Microsoft has committed to simplifying their Dynamics AX platform and, in planning your upgrade, continue the simplification process by applying business case justification to customizations, applying them only when absolutely necessary. In the case of integrated EDI, AX code customizations can be eliminated when applying the right technology – one that supports EDI Made Simple®, from Data Masons, a proud sponsor of this blog.

That's all for this post, but check back soon as more to come! Till Next Time!

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AX 2012 - Working with Record Templates

I hope everyone is off to a great new work week this fine Monday. I wanted to take the time, and highlight in AX 2012, a few things around Working with Record Templates.



The screen shot you see above, is from the Released Products, extended details form. You will notice the creating a template is performed from the Ribbon, and not from the record info form.

With this pointed out, however, if you go to say the All Customers list page, and then click on the details of a specific customer to bring up the extended details form. Then right click, and left click on Record Info you will see that for most all other master record types this still lives within the record info form itself.



Both of these will create record templates, in which can either be system wide, or user specific. These can be managed from the Home > Setup > Record Templates form.



Launching this form is what gives you the ability, to manage existing record templates, including editing them, after they have been saved as such.



This is the location for the management of all record templates. Now to take this back to products, since they are a little different. I want to point out the fact, that you have a new Apply Template button on the Ribbon of the list page, that in fact has multiselect enabled for it.



Working with record templates in Microsoft Dynamics AX is nothing new, however where this is managed, and for products, how these can be applied and even created have changed. This still is a very valuable concept, that companies should look at to help them in maintaining their data.

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

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AX 2012 - Security Tools Review

I hope everyone is doing well this week, and finding yourself in a very productive mood, diving deeper and deeper into your AX projects. I wanted to take the time, and highlight an Context Menu Add-in, for AX 2012, specifically the Security Tools that appear when highlighting certain objects in the AOT.



When talking about security in AX 2012, it's important to understand what securable objects within the application are related to what Duties, Roles and more.



To help us understand how the secureable objects in AX 2012, are related to specific privileges, through duties and roles, Microsoft comes with out-of-the-box offerings, that help us in this effort. This is what we see in the first image of this post, showing where, highlighting for example, the SalesTable table object, right clicking and then highlighting security tools, and finally clicking on the View related security roles. In doing this action, a similar screen as shown below is displayed.



There are many fields in this, for helping us understand how the specific element we have highlighted, related back up through the security model in AX 2012. As the following screen shot, further shows even more of the helpful information, for understanding the securable objects relations.



You can see, that like any other form in AX, that has a grid control, you can filter by grid, to get to needed specific information, like type of security, if it's related to form controls, etc. What's also great, and this is again throughout the AX application, the ability to take the data within the specific grid control, and easily export that to Excel, for further analysis and reporting.



Clicking on the export to excel, and we can see quickly and start working with the security related information for the element.



This then, helps in the design phases, as well as post development, within the operation of AX, to understand and glimpse into the current setup from the Role, down to the duty level of the security artifacts that exsit now as part of any AX 2012 instance. This again is powered, out-of-the-box, through the content menu. You can better understand what other functions exists as part of these Security Tools context menu in AX 2012, by going to the Menu's node, in the AOT tree. From there navigate to the SysContextMenu element, and expand the Security Tools node.



With this information, understanding what exist around security for specific elements of AX, be that out-of-the-box or custom, becomes a lot easier. This translate further, into helping make the term, powerfully simple, a true one. To add more value to this topic, if your interested in understanding more about how to work, and add your own scope to the context menu in AX, I recommend checking out the following resource page on MSDN: How to: Add Items to the AOT Add-Ins Menu [AX 2012]

Well, that's all for this post, check back soon as I have a lot more coming, including the continue dive into AX 2012, BI, Data Management, Services, Ecosystem and a whole lot more! Till next time!

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Official Launch of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Today!

Today is the day, that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 officially launches!



There has been so much building up to this day, and there are some many customers already well into AX 2012 implementations, as well as live customers using AX 2012 today.

Sunrise Technologies, Inc. the wonderful VAR I'm a part of, along with FullScope, as well as several other partners, are hosting today physical launch events all across the U.S. These events will be streaming the virtual launch, as well as doing deeper dives into the AX 2012 product.

This is not just a marketing & sales effort either, there will be real meat to these demo, real things for new to chew on, and some interesting news that will be coming out of the event. Stay tuned for coverage of that, as the information is officially released.

So, if you did not have a chance to physically attend a launch event near you, then I still highly recommend that you attend from your desk and watch the live event, virtually.

The community at large will be covering the different aspects, news, and related items throughout the day, and into the end of this week. We have so much to talk about, from so many different levels, in regard to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

So here's a big Congrats! To Microsoft, their Tap Partners and Customers, their support staff, sales, marketing, everyone that has made this day help become a successful reality!



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Physically attend an AX 2012 Launch event near you!

The official release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, is happening a week from today! In this launch, Microsoft itself is streaming a virtual launch event, in which top key executives, including Steve Ballmer will be speaking about AX 2012.

You don't have to be alone, sitting behind your desk however to watch this event. Instead, go visit DynamicsAX2012Launch.com which is being hosted by Sunrise Technologies, Inc. and Edgewater Fullscope.

I interviewed both John's from Sunrise and Fullscope, which you can read here, if you haven't already: Insights from Top Partners on the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Launch on Sept. 8th

There is going to be some great content presented at this real live launch events, including streaming coverage of the official virtual launch as well. The powerfully simple, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will be shown off in full force, and with great depth, that will have you leaving, saying: "Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is truly the Safe and Powerful ERP solution for my company!"

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up with the following link:





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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - Type Hierarchy

With the upcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, one of the rather interesting new elements about this release, is the introduction of table type hierarchies.

When you glance at this, just from a data layer level, it seems to be super normalization. That is actually correct, however, you must look at the total picture. That means, you must take and look at this from the data + application layers, together.

That is the only way, that this concept then actually works. In order to help understand this concept, and how the new data structures live within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, there is a new tool called the Type hierarchy browser.

You can get to this tool, from any object within AX actually. Classes, tables, etc. For this post, we will focus on tables, and how the tool can help us better understand the data structure.

Lets pick a new structure in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, EcoResProduct. This is part of the new Master Data Management (MDM) / Product Data Management (PDM), that will exists out of the box for this release of AX.

Once we have selected the EcoResProduct table, within the AOT, simply right click, add-ins, and then click on the 'Type hierarchy browser' menu item.



Once we do this, we then see the hierarchy that exists for the EcoResProduct table, which extends from the Common table object.



You will notice, that both Common and the EcoResProduct tables have RecId, revVersions & relationType. You will also notice that, DataAreaId is no longer listed. We will save that for another post.

In here we can see as well that the EcoResProduct table inherits methods, from the Common table object. Fields that exists at the EcoResProduct table, are marked with blue blocks, that exist beyond the Common table. We can also see that, in the tree view on the right hand side of the screen, that the hierarchy make up, that EcoResProduct is a part of.

Extending from the EcoResProduct table object, is the EcoResDistinctProduct, and the EcoResProductMaster. Extending from the EcoResDistinctProduct, is the EcoResDistinctProductVariant table object.

Now, if we step forward in the tree, and select the EcoResDistinctProduct, in the tree view, we should see something that looks like the following.



Now you will notice, that for the EcoResDistinctProduct table, the only fields it has, is the three system fields that we listed above. If you look at the data for this table, sure enough that's all that is there, from the data layer perspective.

What this suggests then, and shows, is that the actual field data that lives for a Distinct Product, vs. a Product, still lives within the EcoResProduct table. The EcoResDistinctProduct table inherits the fields for: SearchName, ProductType, InstanceRelationType, and DisplayProductNumber.

When the table is referenced within a form, or code, the EcoResDistinctProduct table has these fields as possible uses, becomes of the new way AX handles, allowing table structure hierarchy.

This does a lot of things for such structures, it cuts down, big time, on the amount of repeat data, size of databases, and enables the application layer, to be the only true way, of working with the data that lives within a Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 instance.

With using the Type hierarchy browser, provided out-of-the-box for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, one can better understand the new data structures, and be able to connect all the new dots, that will exists with this release.

This is very powerful, and through the use of the application layer, the statement of Powerfully Simple, which is the tag term being used to describe Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, is true!

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



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