RF-SMART Leading the way in Role Based Dynamics User Experiences

One of the things I like to do with my blog from time-to-time, is a spot light or feature post. With that, I virtually sat down with RF-SMART’S own Sherry Paul to pick her brain a bit. My goal with talking with Sherry was to find out, what RF-SMART was doing, to help enable Role Based user experiences for Dynamics AX customers. The following is the result of that interview.


Sherry Paul, Business Solutions Advisor – RF-SMART

1.) How does RF-SMART help create a role based, system of engagement for Dynamics AX Customers?

"RF-SMART provides the ability to setup roles for workers so they can clearly see their daily tasks on mobile devices. The worker can clearly determine which tasks need to be performed and in which order. These roles can be setup narrowly for specific business processes or roles can be defined more broadly to be use by managers in the warehouse and manufacturing plant."

2.) What are some of the unique workflows that RF-SMART helps enable "RF-SMART customers mobilize their workers to do important tasks such as receiving incoming goods, inventory management, recording progress for production order operation and completing product which can be paperless picked with RF-SMART.



RF-SMART provides dashboards, designed with modern tablets and smartphones in mind. The dashboards allow managers, regardless of where they are, to take action on current picking activity in their warehouse.



With the RF-SMART Production Activity billboard, plant production can be monitored at a glance while being displayed on a large monitor, potentially hanging on a wall in the production area."



3.) For these workflow's, what kind of ROI, with time saving, and efficient processes do customer's see when making the choice of RF-SMART?

"When choosing RF-SMART, customers will have increased visibility and tighter control, measurable gains and easy ownership. Having visibility into their inventory levels, picking, people/activity, deliveries and much more, this therefore enables them to reduce physical inventory counts, labor costs and provides them with superior operational and financial performance. Some examples of our customer successes’ include:

• Automated process for receiving and transfers has reduced CMC’s manual inventory movement processes by 97 percent - saving CMC 173 labor hours per month!

• Physical inventory counts have dropped from twice a year to once a year and only half the amount of staff is needed!

• Increased receiving accuracy to 99.97%"

4.) Looking into the future, what can you tell the readers about exciting, upcoming offers that will continue to make RF-SMART a great value add for Microsoft Dynamics AX customers?

"It’s an exciting time for the RF-SMART team. We’re wrapping up our best year ever and 2013 looks even brighter.

From a product perspective, we’re going well beyond supporting core AX 2012 functionality while, true to our mantra, make it easier and easier for people to manage and execute critical inventory functions throughout the warehouse, shop floor and retail store. That’s really what we do: make inventory execution easy by delivering the right information, at the right time, on the right device to prompt the right action.

What helps us identify new functional opportunities is our unique level of industry and Dynamics AX experience. Our people are the best at developing easy-to-use software that solves real problems by taking into account AX, business requirements, mobile UI capabilities and knowledge of how people actually work. As a result, RF-SMART helps companies be more efficient and responsive by helping their people do their jobs better.

Looking forward to 2013!"

I would like to thank Sherry for taking the time to answer’s my questions. One of the major focuses of mine is around Role Based user experiences, specifically in how that can foster the creation of a System of Engagement for Dynamics AX Customers. I know RF-SMART, a sponsor of this blog, is doing the right things focusing their efforts on this goal as well!

To find out more, visit the following resource, fill out the form and download RF-SMART’S AX 2012 Role Base Brochure.

Till next time!

About Sherry Paul: “I have been working with ERP software for my entire career which started in 1984. Spanning my career I have worked with many manufacturing companies to implement ERP and Mobile application, for their discreet, process and lean manufacturing environments. An MBA and years of experience in the industry enable me to offer unique solutions to help clients develop best in class business processes for their organization.”


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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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AX 2012 and the impact on Design with the new Security Model

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, one of the great new things, at least by my own opinion, is the role based security model. To help understand the impact of what this brings with AX 2012, I think it's important to understand what existed before AX 2012.

With AX 2009 and even before that in 4.0, the security for AX was basically around security keys.


Security Keys in AX 2009

With this, there was then Security domains, in which could span all, or some companies within AX, and finally User groups, that tied permission, to security keys in AX.


User Groups in AX 2009

With this, we had a very granular approach to permissions for users, and honestly for a lot of implementation projects this was an after thoughts, or something that was done closer to go live. Before the security profiler tool, this was a huge pain at times.: Dynamics AX 2009 Security Profiler tool

Now we have a whole new approach to security, based on Roles. This is a huge improvement that brings a lot of new scope possibilities actually, like segregation of duty, rule based-date effective assignment of privileges, and so forth. Because of this fact, security has a larger impact on design time, for when implementing AX 2012 for a client.

The very first impact that this has, is around customization and gap scope that comes out of discovery phase of a project. Typically a project creates functional requirements documentation as well as functional design documentation. This is driven by functional consultants, and role based security should be looked at now from a functional level.

This is no longer mostly a technical issue, but a functional need. Understanding what you can do with the new Role based security, can impact a functional design, and possibly even the nature of a process.

Going back to our first impact then, and what focus needs to be around the functional requirements and design documentation. Sessions should exists at this level, that list at least what Roles, Process Cycles, Duties & Privileges might be affected, or even need to be created as part of the design process.



Further, if as part of the initial go live, segregation of duty will impact the customer that AX is being implemented for, then the new functionality that enables this needs to be looked at. This is where a company can setup, based on privileges, which are high, medium and low risk, when a user is granted such privileges.



This focus at the functional requirements and design level, will help when it comes to the actual technical design, setup, modeling and development efforts. Doing this, will enable the technical engineer or architect to correctly lay out a technical design that meets the requirements, that has security at the forefront of such designs.

This is very important, and this impacts reports, forms, services, tables, etc. etc. It is a good point to state, that security keys still exists in AX 2012, but only for backwards compatibility. These are no longer used to help define role based security instead: privileges roll up into duties. Duties then in turn roll up into process cycles. Finally process cycles role up into Roles.

Since this is the case, when someone is developing or modeling custom scope, and artifacts, the level in which security is implied lives within a new Security tree node, as part of the AOT.



This deserves further dives, specifically around code permissions, and other topics that need real attention, more than they have ever needed before. There is real value however, that comes from understanding the impact that the new Role based security has on AX. Having this understanding means, great ROI for customers, and that my friends is the bottom line we are all after.

Well that's all for now, check back soon as a whole lot more to come. Till next time!

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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Learning Plans & The Important 'Solutions Architect' Role

I wanted to take the time and highlight a post from Kevin Machayya, and his blog.: New Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Technical and non-Technical Learning Plans Now Available

Kevin did a great post here, that lists the new roles that should exist when talking about Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 projects.

These are very important roles, and when talking with Kees Hertogh, at Convergence this year, he had this to say about the Solutions Architect Role.:
"This new role [Solutions Arhitect] will be key to the success of any new Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 project. No longer will these 'super consultants' be able to take on the project themselves. This role is a must for any Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 project." - Kees Hertogh, Director, Product Management, Microsoft Dynamics AX

If you look at this role, and from the information provided by Microsoft at both Convergence 2011 as well as the Microsoft Dynamics AX Technical Conference 2011, then we see it as truly a new role.

This role, per Microsoft, is involved at the sales cycle level, and carries over as a high level team member on project implementations. The idea, behind this role, is that it's someone that helps with entire solution planning for a customer. This may mean, then that they will integrate into several LOB applications, make use of CRM, AX and PTC's FlexPLM.

The Solutions Architect role is meant to help define this, with the sales team, maybe prove things out technically, and then be involved on the project as either the same role, or moves into the Technical or Application Consultant role, part time.

This role goes beyond technical design, but must also understand the technical design as well, to be able to help put together the full picture.

Microsoft really sees this as a new role, and it's something that should be considered.

With that said, if you go to the learning plans, pointed out in the post, they were last updated on May 2nd of this year, and do not yet include the training plans, for the Solution Architect Role. That's something still be understood and worked out fully.

However it's something to consider and think about. This maybe already be happening for some of you, that these roles already exists and are just not named the same. However, it's important to at least see if this role is covered within your project or org., if you want to align with Microsoft, and their vision for projects, and then role.

That's all for now, comments? Corrections? Feedback on this? Please, all are welcome!

Till next time!



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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 - Security Architecture Overview

One of the area's that has some really cool, and new improvements is around the Security Architecture in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

This includes things, like Claims Based Security, which can enable the use of Federated Trust, for granted role based security rights to non-AD user ids. I wrote about this some, back in March of this year.: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and the use of Claims Based Security

Now on TechNet, we have a nice article that explains the overall Security Architecture, and it's purpose as well as approach, located here.: TechNet: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Security Architecture

With this, we see Security Roles relating to Duties and also Privileges. The Priviledges, are then tied to objects in and outside of Microsoft Dynamics AX core, that make up the total solution for a given customer.

So there are technical improvements with this new release, like the ability to make use of Claims Based Security, and also, through the improvements of having duties, and being able to seperate duties among people, for roles, in different given business units or entities.

This is part of the overall message from Microsoft, that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is Powerfully Simple.

That's all for now, but check back soon as more to come, including soon a new blog design, as I relaunch this blog, entering it into it's v2.0 state! Till next time!

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Creating a BI Solution for your company with Microsoft Dynamics AX

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, the BI capabilities of Dynamics AX really jumped in way of ahead of what you could do before the release. With AX 6.0 coming out next year, this is going to only be expanded upon. With that, you can use Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 now to create compiling BI solutions for your company.

With Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, the driving factor of BI is actually focused around Role Centers. I think it’s important to understand Microsoft’s vision for Role Centers, and it’s purpose in Dynamics AX, so that you can truly build your company’s BI experience.

Role Centers for Dynamics AX are meant to be the delivery method for the user experience. The idea, is that Role Centers deliver to a given user type or “role” the needed reports, information and links to common forms that help the given user type complete their task(s) within the scope contained of your company’s Dynamics AX investment.



Now I think it’s really important to understand the word usage here. It’s meant to “deliver” a given roles needs from within Dynamics AX. Before, with earlier versions, the workflow for tasks was for a given user to launch Dynamics AX, go to the needed menu, navigate to the forms, reports, etc. to do their given task.

So in versions before Dynamics AX 2009, a user would “go to” the given reports, forms, and other elements within Dynamics AX. This is key to understanding Microsoft’s vision for BI and Role Centers inside Dynamics AX.

Role Centers then, are meant to be how the user experience is delivered to a given role. This, by nature, helps increase productivity and efficiency of a given user role, for performing their needed task, or acting on displayed data for important business decisions.



Now that we have this base understand of the vision and purpose of Role Centers, lets bring back into focus the title of this post, ‘creating a BI solution for your company with Microsoft Dynamics AX’.

With Role Centers as the focused delivery method for delivering the user experience, and keeping with this same thoughts process, then BI elements should be developed and made a part of the roles that make up your companies Role Centers.



So how do you go about doing this? Well like any other module in Dynamics AX, Role Centers should first be setup, configured, deployed. Then from this point, discovery and gap analysis should be performed to determine which roles your company has.

From there, each role should go through its own discovery and gap analysis process, where each role for your company is compared to the ‘out of the box’ role that closely matches the role at hand. The outcome, or deliverable, for this process should be the creation of a scope document(s). These documents should lay out the BI elements needed to enable the role to be a valid, productive, user experience that delivers the roles needs to those assigned to it within Dynamics AX.
Once these scope documents are created, tasks can start being assigned. At this point, you have a lot of options to achieve the scope items for creating the roles for your company.

You can use the Dynamics Reporting Template for Visual Studio 2008 to create SSRS reports that are targeted and used in web parts for display transactional or analytical data. You can create pie, bar or line graphs used to show key metrics. You can use OLAP cube properties like KPI, to delivery dimension based data for viewing and working from. Task list, Cues, Links, and enterprise portal forms to deliver a complete role user experience.

This is all focusing on the platform delivered options for creating roles, and delivering a company BI solution, that pushes information to your users, vs. your users having to go and find the information.

There is also a lot more that can be done from the role center development aspect. This includes having MOSS, or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Keep in mind; this is different than the free WSS, or Windows SharePoint Services offerings that can be used.



When MOSS is used, this opens up the possibility for having Excel Services, and Excel Web Parts to exists as BI elements for your Role Center pages. You can also take advantage of PerformancePoint Services for SharePoint to create dashboards, which make use of Dynamics AX data, and are loaded as part of Role Center experiences.

Going beyond MOSS, you may even take advantage of RIA, or Rich Interactive Application Web Parts built with Silverlight or Flash. This can deliver high end, dynamic web parts that feed from multiple locations into published services that expose Dynamics AX business logic and data.

Moving beyond this, you also have the option to work with one of the many different ISV offerings for BI, like TARGIT BI Suite, iQ4biz, Atlas, etc. Basically any ISV BI offering that can connect to Dynamics AX through the Application Layer or that Dynamics AX can push data to, and that can publish it’s elements as SharePoint web parts for rendering on a Role Center page.

When looking at building a BI solution for your company, with Dynamics AX as your ERP platform, BI is no longer a separate project that happens as a later phase. Now BI is very much a part of a given Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP implementation project, and should be considered as such.

With Microsoft’s continued efforts, and vision for delivering needed BI elements to users, your investment with Microsoft Dynamics AX can help you and your company be more productive, more efficient, and more Dynamic!


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Everyone gets it!

Well Microsoft is doing a new digital market push for the Dynamics brand, making use of roles to better reach a given target role, and how the Dynamics Platform can address the business needs for a given role. Check it out here: Everyone gets it!

Check out the different roles, and learn more about how the Dynamics platform can address your needs, in the 'Everyone gets it' push.

For what this really applies too, after listen to the IT Manager role, they are really pushing the theme of the Dynamics platform, building and using the rest of the Microsoft Product stack, to make ERP much more understandable, user controlled, user friendly, and as the marketing name implies, just get it!

Check back soon!

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Role based experinces in Dynamics AX

For a little while now talk as been around creating and using roles inside Dynamics AX to define an information workers experince while using the solution. With this thought I wanted to spend a little time speaking about this with old, current, and future releases and the benefit.

Role based tasking, or UI grouping is not new by any means. With the furthering of UI controls, and ever connected states, the role based information worker concept will really start to come into play as being really a huge benefit. In AX 3.0 days, everyone saw everything in the main menu, out of the box, unless you limited by security. With To-Increase, the ability has been given for AX 3.0 to take and create custom menu's for roles information workers. This was all setup and configuration though, and could be by passed. With DAX 4.0, the same type of ability exist, but still it's more up to the user, and the user's configuration in this matter. With 5.0 security and role based workflows, and UI experinces will come to a could interestion, really for the first time. With Dynamics AX 5.0, role based information worker experinces will exist with designed flows, aligned security, and flowing UI that all focus towards an information workers tasks and goals. With the intro of Microsoft Dynamics Client for Office starting to be pushed more and more, the DAX 5.0 role based information worker experinces will truly take shape to something that flows well for a end user, and that will truly streamline down to the information worker task, vs. just business processes.

So to wrap up, looking ahead roles, and role based information worker experinces will really come about to mean something much, much more in Dynamics AX 5.0!

Check back soon!

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com