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!


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Modeling Business Processes with AX 2012 and Workflow - Part II - What's new

Recently, I started series for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, focused on Modeling Business Processes with AX 2012 and Workflow. In the first part of that series, I covered past post, that talked to and relayed the vision behind the desired use of workflows in AX 2012 to design and configure business processes with. In this post I continue this series, with Part II, whats new.

A lot has changed with workflows, when comparing AX 2012 to AX 2009, and so in order to help facilitate our dive into workflows, we need to understand what is new, and what the new abilities bring to the game.



To help jump start our understanding of what is new in AX 2012 for Workflows, Microsoft has done a bang up job of providing us some nice information, specifically on this topic. I recommend going to the following resource, for a look at what's new in AX 2012 and workflows: MSDN: What's New: Workflow [AX 2012]

Some of the more interesting highlights of what's new in workflows are:

• Simplified installation - Workflow server components no longer must be installed on a web server that is running Internet Information Services (IIS). Workflow server components are now automatically installed when you install Microsoft Dynamics AX Application Object Server (AOS).



• Workflow editor - The workflow editor is a graphical user interface (GUI) that you can use to create Microsoft Dynamics AX workflows by arranging workflow elements on a design surface. The process resembles the process for graphically modeling a business process by using Microsoft Visio. You can add, delete, and reposition elements that represent the tasks and approvals that make up the workflow. You can also add flow-control elements, such as manual and automated decisions. As a result, you can create complex workflows that exactly model the business processes that you want to automate. For more information, see About the workflow editor.



• Parallel activity – A workflow element that includes two or more branches that run at the same time. Note:This is a huge improvement, and shows the flexibility and power of using the .Net Workflow engine, hosted within AOS.

There are a number of other great improvements, that AX 2012 workflows bring, that just did not exists out of the box with AX 2009. The only low light, that I think is well worth pointing out, is the following.:
"Workflows that were created in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 are not upgraded. Before you upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, we recommend that you either process or recall all business documents that have been submitted for processing."

This is actually very understandable, as the workflow engine in AX 2009 was not the .Net hosted workflow engine really. It was a tack on, very limited offering, that can't compare to what AX 2012 workflows now offer. To try and enable a direct upgrade for these elements, just does not drive value, for the cost. The better value is to recreate, and take advantage of the new workflow elements, and possibilities that now exists in AX 2012.

I want to finish this part II of this series, with understanding what's new in AX 2012 for workflows is key to helping see, and know the possibilities and therefore benefits with using workflows. This is not the same workflow possibilities that were limited in AX 2009.

I plan on trying to keep each post in this series very focused, in building up to the point to where we are building custom workflows, and enabling them all throughout an AX 2012 instance. It think it's important we spend time through the different existing documentation Microsoft provides, we can build a solid base of knowledge, in which to use and extend with. To that end, that's all for now, check back soon though as a whole lot more to come. Till next time!



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Modeling Business Processes with AX 2012 and Workflow

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, a powerful new way of approaching business process design is given to us. I spoke about this back in an earlier post this year, on Modeling the world, with Dynamics AX. I also continued to talk to this point, with my last interview with Microsoft's own Lachlan Cash.

In that interview, I asked Lachlan about the vision Microsoft has for modeling business processes within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, through the use of the Workflow designer. I don't want to re-hash the entire answer, you can go back and read that post from the link above. I do however want to preface this series of post I'm starting, with the following quote from that interview.

"The goal with such items, as the workflow engine is to address the need to bridge the gap between development vs. business process modeling. To take and drive true BP workflows, down to the end user level."

Well here we are, now with AX 2012 alive, kicking and screaming. Well, not sure about the screaming part, but you get the idea. So it's time to start taking the tools, and taking the vision, and by example see this in action, and the value it brings now, and for the future.

To that end, and as I have already mentioned, this is the start of my series on Modeling Business Processes with AX 2012 and Workflow.



For this first post, I want to spend time talking about the value this vision is meant to bring. Talk to the reality of what we currently have, and the ability for partners and customers to adopt this type of approach as part of the overall implementation project, for meeting business requirements.

First the value of such a vision. I've had long talks about this with plenty of people inside and outside of Microsoft. If you read through some of my earlier post, I mention terms like domains specific languages, and the ability to model more and code less. Such terms help describe the vision, and the perceived value supporting the vision is around being more agile, and flexible in the business processes that a company governs and uses.

There have been plenty attempts in the past to do code generation, and this is not the same vision, as what we are talking about doing with workflow to model business processes with. No, instead we are talking about enabling the ability to create workflow elements, that connect into custom components, to enable a business process to exists. The idea, is that this workflow framework, and the elements that make it up, could be used, to create and model business processes, that, in the past would be done through mostly custom code, and parameter based configurations.

So, that is the targeted value, for taking this vision and making it a reality in your AX 2012 projects. The next area we need to look at, is the reality of the current offerings, within AX 2012.



Here we will see, that Microsoft does provide some out-of-the-box offerings, that follow this vision, to enable business process modeling. For example, if you go to Organization Administration, Setup, Workflow, Organization Workflows then you will see, on creating a new workflow whats comes with AX 2012. These are: Case Management workflow, Document Handling & Signing limits workflow. These are workflow templates, that are made up of the elements you see in the image just above this paragraph.

So the reality is, there are some out-of-the-box offerings, in which we can start to use for taking and making the vision a reality. We must also taper this vision, to reality, with the fact that value should drive what we do. I know I sound like a broken record at times, when it comes to business value, but I don't think it can be said enough.

Also, while speaking to the point of reality, AX 2012 is actually the first major stepping stone, in this grand vision of modeling the world, from a business process modeling point of view. So to this point, this is why we see in the offerings from Microsoft that comes with AX 2012, are not very deep, and only enabled and used in certain parts of the application itself.

This brings me to my final point for this first post, which is the ability for the partner and customer to adopt this vision, and thought process, for achieving business requirements, via business process modeling through workflows.

Because there are so many options, and great new features within AX 2012, and we still have time lines and budgets to meet when it comes to AX 2012 implementations, the temptation will be to get this done, and not make use of workflows that much. When weighted against value, which is what should drive the design, and a workflow could meet the business requirement needs, for the business process, that would actually reduce development effort, but require some custom workflow elements, then that approach should be considered.

This is where the rubber meets the road, and where AX 2012 projects, and those who are implementing it, need to really understand the ability of AX 2012. They need to know the vision for the workflows modeling business processes, and the reality of the value this might can bring.

The flip side of that, is not everything is meant to have a workflow govern it, and you can never get away from custom code. I hope, however, to take and through my series on Modeling Business Processes with AX 2012 and Workflow's, that you will see the power this brings, the flexibility, and good examples of using this on projects now, and in the future.

That's all for this part in the series, but check back soon as a whole lot 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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Interview with Microsoft's Lachlan Cash on his new role, AX 2012 and more

While at Conv11 I had the chance to sit down with Microsoft's Lachlan Cash. You may recall Lachlan, as he is very active while at Convergence, helping with the keynotes, doing demo's, and also has been on my blog a few times before. (Interview with Microsoft's Lachlan Cash about Dynamics AX Technical Conference)

This time, I sat down with Lachlan to review a lot of different things, including is move from the Microsoft Dynamics AX Product Team, to becoming a AX Solution Architect working with Sri and Hal Howards R&D teams.

The following is the result of that interview.:



Q1: Lachlan, you recently moved from the AX Product team, to Hal Howards Dynamics Research group. Can you tell us a little bit about this new position, and your influence over AX in this new role?

Lachlan: "Making the move from the Product team, to Hal Howards group, and specifically Sri’s Solutions Architect team, put my focus more on the sales process, as well with implementations for Microsoft Dynamics AX.

In this new role, I will focus on helping fill a need that has been identified with helping with sales support questions from a total Solutions Architecture point of view. This includes working with larger implementations of AX, and driving value helping the total solution for a customer scale.

One of the business values, from this new role, and how that influences AX in general will be around creating lessons learned, which in turn help with the partner channel around readiness efforts.

In my new role then, I focus on more of the execution side for helping deliver Microsoft Dynamics AX implementations, through our Partner Channel, and how the functional depth and use of AX fits into the overall total solution package for a given customer.

As part of this, the R&D team can also take what we learn through helping with customers scale and complete their total solution, and if you will – drive backwards through the R&D, and therefore product development to help shape a better and better ERP platform that is Microsoft Dynamics AX."

Q2: Now that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is in public beta, can you talk to the power of things, like the workflow engine & designer, and it’s impact on such ERP project task, like business process modeling?

Lachlan: "The goal with such items, as the workflow engine is to address the need to bridge the gap between development vs. business process modeling. To take and drive true BP workflows, down to the end user level.

With this in mind, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is really the first true step in this direction. We started the foundation for this concept in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, but really built upon on it AX 2012. Now that we host the Microsoft .Net Workflow engine, and Visual Studio Workflow designer, the gap between the developer world and business process modeling world has gotten a lot smaller.

Take for example, now with workflow in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, you can nest workflows, and have workflow logic that calls upon other workflows. This is truly an empowering step towards a business process modeling world, that leads to a more dynamic and agile ERP platform.

Looking at this from a long term view, the idea would be eventually to drive system configuration away from so much code and parameters, and to more domain specific design, and even language to complete the configuration of a Dynamics AX instance.

The underlying design theme, then is taking and setting up AX, so that this move to decouple modules and sequential code, into more business model concepts then enables in the future the ability to have this ‘lego block’ approach to deploying and even customizing Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Lets look at a real world example, of this decoupling that has already taking a positive affect in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. If you look at the new structure and design for the infinite financial dimensions, we have a great story here. In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 and before, some code and parameters had to be adjust in order to add a new financial dimension. Now in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, no code or parameters are needed. You model your financial dimensions as needed, and the work load is a business user, vs a technical need.

Another great example of this same decoupling, or abstraction that we are doing is the separation of the Inventory dimensions. Before Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, we had a very tightly created design around inventory dimensions that mixed item attributes along with storage and tracking information. Now we have split these, decoupled them, in a fashion to where the Item Attributes, live abstract from the tracking dimensions, which also both live in an abstract manor, separate from storage dimension.

As we move forward with the development of Microsoft Dynamics AX, more and more of this decoupling will take place, which will help empower and enable customers that choose it as their ERP platform."

Q3: Lachlan, with this new vision, for performing business process modeling via the workflow designer, how much ISV development and also AX 2012 out-of-the-box will be setup using this new approach?

Lachlan: "Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 represents the first step in this direction. With that, we are still not completely at the point in which true business modeling is mostly done with the workflow designer, and with domain specific components.

For ISV’s, there exists however a new place in which they can deliver their vertical specific expertise through the creation of workflows, and business modeling elements in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. In doing so, they would be setting themselves for future releases of Microsoft Dynamics that will use this approach.

For Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, out-of-the-box business process modeling workflows still reside mostly around the procurement, and procurement templates. However, these are great examples, and a lot more depth than what came out of the box in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009. From these templates, a customer, or ISV can use, to help them create their own templates that govern other processes.

With regard to the out-of-the-box nature, for business process workflow templates, Microsoft’s focus is and will be around the horizontal needs, which include the five focused industry sectors that will be apart of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and beyond. This means, as I stated earlier, that there is a lot of room for ISV’s to bring their vertical expertise to the table with what now exists in the workflow elements."

Q4: Lachlan, as part of the Microsoft Convergence 2011 keynote, Kiril made the official announcement for Microsoft Dynamics ERP Online. As part of that announcement, it was officially released that Microsoft Dynamics AX version 7 will be built for the cloud first. For the Azure PaaS offering. Care to give a little insight on this?

Lachlan: "When looking at the cloud offering, what Microsoft Dynamics AX version 7, or vNext, will offer is around scale as well as flexibility. The idea that is driven us, is around that enabling flexibility and choice to our customers.

Some customers will want to be 100% cloud based, however what we are seeing mostly is customers that will want to live in a hybrid cloud mode. Where parts of their solution will exists in the cloud, while other parts will still exists on-premise.

The architectural changes you now see in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, with the decoupling, unified natural models, abstraction, the move to more .Net all help line up Microsoft Dynamics AX to help offer this eventual true choice for customers.

It is true, that Microsoft Dynamics AX version 7 is being built for the cloud first, however the same code base and offering can still run 100% on-premise, or in a hybrid mode, as well as the partner hosted model that we see geared up now for the Microsoft Dynamics AX cloud story.

The choice is what separates Microsoft Dynamics from the rest of the pack in this regard."

Well I would like to take the time and thank Lachlan for sitting down with me. It's always a pleasure!

As you can see, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 represent true generational shift in the ERP landscape. This includes Microsoft Dynamics Cloud ERP offering, and driving to Microsoft Dynamics AX 7, which will be built for the cloud first.

I agree with Lachlan, that, Microsoft Dynamics flexbility and being designed so the customer has a choice in how and what is running in the cloud and not, helps separate it from the rest of the pack! You can read more on my take for Microsoft Dynamics Cloud Vision here: A Guide to Microsft Dynamics Cloud ERP - Dynamics AX

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

"Visit the Dynamics AX Community Page today!"

Dynamics AX 6, DotNet 4 and the WF Designer

A fellow blogger, Anass, over at AX4All.blogspot.com sent me a recent blog post he did, covering the Channel 9 video of Josh Honeyman (Principle Development lead for Dynamics AX workflow), that walks through the use of .Net 4.0, the Workflow Designer, and how it will be used in Dynamics AX 6.

Anass write up about this video can be found here.: Dynamics AX 6.0 and WF4

The video, can be seen here:


In this video we get to see Dynamics AX 6 in action with the .Net 4.0 Workflow designer being used to help create and manage business process workflows. This is highlighted to help reduce the need for code, and the transition into a more model drive development approach.

I first covered this in the following post.:
Dynamics AX, SOA and Oslo on the mind

" In the very near future, [Dynamics AX] will be improved with .Net 4.0 and WF, along with a new designer for the workflow that will be Visio like. The workflows will be easier to manage and offer more flexibility, with less code."

That was over a year ago that I first wrote about .Net 4.0, WF and the Designer, and how it will change the way Dynamics AX processes are created and controlled, with the goal of less code. That same post also talked about Olso, now SQL Server Modeling.

So we can see all these technologies coming together, and how Microsoft leverages research in other products groups, to help Dynamics AX.

This was actually a big topic at Convergence 2010, how Microsoft Dynamics AX team gets to leverage the research in .Net, Office, SharePoint, SQL Server, and beyond.

The idea, as pointed out, is to make Dynamics AX deployments, use, modifications, upgrades, the entire ownership lifecycle of a Dynamics AX investment, for agile, and bottom line being.: Better, Faster, Cheaper

I would like to thank Anass for the post, and his insight, coverage of this video. This is also a topic well covered in the interview I held with Microsoft's Mike Ehrenberg.: Interview with Microsoft Distinguished Engineer - Mike Ehrenberg


The above is from the video, that is the Business User interface. That is not the developers interface. And it's the out of the box DSL, or Domain Specific Langauge (Ref: SQL Server Modeling).

This is some powerful stuff, and can't wait to see how this speeds up deployments of Dynamics AX 6 and beyond!

That's all for this post, however this still part of the coverage from Convergence, in which I have a lot more to post about, including another interview, focused on Dynamics AX team that I did while at Convergence.

Check back tommorrow, as more great post are coming!

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