Microsoft Opens the Door on Socl - Why I'm using it!

From time to time, I like to post and write about things that aren't specifically related to processes, and post that give you how-to's. Still these topics do have direct & indirect impact on the Dynamics Ecosystem at large. With this in mind, and understanding, I wanted to write about Microsoft Socl.



It's Microsoft's new social platform, that really engages and blends well with the other platforms out there. It's easy to create post, follow specific interest, and blend your other outlets. Obvious, there can be plenty of time looking at picture's, but my focus is more purely on the aspect of gaining valuable knowledge.

I see this as a social learning platform, and one where things can be easily pinned, and revisited later. If you like me, you read a lot! At times there are plenty of things that you would like to read, but don't have time for. With Socl, I'm finding it the best way to tag, and collect content that is important to me.

It is a place where I can pin & place the interest I have, and come back to an uncluttered view of the topics I care about. It's specific, and content focused with out a lot of noise that exists now within certain popular social platforms.



Creating a new post is easy, as you can see from the above image and my first post. Of course, I'm talking about what's hot on my mind for Dynamics, that being BI and more specifically Personal BI with OData Feeds from AX 2012 consumed in PowerPivot!

Sharing is easy as well, being able to tweet or post back to facebook. Further, linking your profiles across multiple platforms is easy as well with the settings for Socl.



I do think that Socl has a spot within the Social landscape, specifically for me around the use of learning, and managing my sources of information into a clean and easy to understand and useful space. The nature of how things are stored, tagged and collected seems like I'm creating little learning portals about specific topics. Further through tags and interest I'm able to find others who are posting and sharing about specific topics.

Some come along and make sure to join me on Socl, and start creating your learning portal's and post, or topics of interest that you care most about!



That's all for this post! I'm interesting to see how this can be used further when thinking in terms of engagement. That is a theme I focus on a lot, System's of Engagement - where user's become fans! I can see a lot of potential with Socl in this aspect. Maybe even being used in Gamification platforms? Till Next Time!
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AX 2012 - Understanding & Extending the Organization Model

I wanted to take the time today, and point out some great resources around the concept of extending the Organization Model in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.



Before we dive right into the mix of common task that are typically associated with customer implementations of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, I would first like to point out a great learning webinar around the topic of Modeling Your Organization with AX 2012. What I'm speaking about can be found here.: Modeling your Organization: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

The above link will take you through a nice webinar that really gives you a feel for the thought process of modeling an organization with AX 2012. This is the 'unified natural models' that Microsoft speaks about a lot. I should correct that really and say one of the unified natural models. See.: Enabling Agility through Unified Natural Models



When we start to think about extending the organizational model that comes out-of-the-box in AX 2012, there are two common task that are typically done for customers. The first task is around adding custom Operating Units. Microsoft has a done a good job at creating the following walk through.: Walkthrough: Create and Use a Custom Operating Unit Type [AX 2012] I will add that this walk through does leave out specifics, for example if you want the new Operating Unit to appear under the GL > Setup > Organization for management of said new custom operating unit.



The second most common extension that takes place for customers is around the creation of custom purposes. The following resource from Microsoft is a nice walk through as well, for this topic.: How to: Create a New Purpose [AX 2012]



Adding a new custom purpose for organization hierarchies helps further shape and allow customers to truly model AX as they run their business. Purposes for hierarchies can help relate policy and reporting needs.

With all of this one of the best resources for understanding how to implement and extend the organization model for AX 2012 can be found here.: Implementing and Extending the Organization Model in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Update: I wanted to take the time and update this post, to include the fact that InformationSource located at InformationSource.Dynamics.com has some good resources on this topic as well. This includes some video's, which the webinar is based on. Further a specific PowerPoint artifact that I would like to point out.:



The above PowerPoint has some good information around understanding the concepts of organization modeling, as well as common task involved with the process. Further it has common task typically associated with extending the organization model offering for AX 2012. It mentions further task around Security with XDS, and relating Master as well as transaction data.

Now With the above information and resources, someone familiar with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 can extend the organization model(s) for a customer. Further, if your an ISV there could be good reason to include in your IP offering extensions to the organization model offerings. Keeping in mind that a customer could have a need for several organization hierarchies in their instance. Powering everything from Operations, reporting, relating to security, workflow approvals and more.

That's all for this post, but check back soon as I will continue with my focus around BI for AX, extending the reach of AX with Office 2013 and more! Till Next Time!
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