Image resources and icons

Just wanted to point out this form here that can be used to view all the image resources that we can use as icons for example on list pages.

The form can be found in the AOT under Forms\SysImageResources

And here is how you can add custom icons/images as resources to Ax 2012, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc621437.aspx

Using the Dynamics Ax Office Add-in

Hi everyone, I have been playing around with some Ax 2012 stuff and I was testing the Office Add-in and I think it is preatty cool.

In order to use the Office Add-in it has to be installed with the Ax client and some settings needs to be made in the system as well.

Lets dive into how it can be done, this is how I tested this function and it can most certainly be done in different ways.

First I created a small query called MyCustTableQuery

Next step is to provide information about the query and expose it so we can use the query in our office application, my application of choice was Excel.

In Dynamics Ax 2012 go to Organization Administration> Setup> Document Management > Document datasources

Here it is possible to select a query or service, in my example I used the query. So here i added a new record of data source type Query and then I selected my newly created MyCustTableQuery. Now the query is ready to use in what ever office application we have as far as the Office add-in has been installed.

Next step is to use the query in Excel. On the Dynamics Ax tab in Excel select Add Data

Open the field chooser and drag the fields on to the Excel grid where you want to display the information.

Once done close the field chooser and refresh the data

And there you have it, customer information displayed in a simple way in Excel using the Office Add-in for Dynamics Ax.

I hope this is helpful and happy implementations of Dynamics Ax

Upgrading to Dynamics Ax 2012

I have been laying low the past weeks due to some healt problems that have hindered me from working and writing some blogs.

Now I am slowly getting back after an operation on the 31st of August.

Before I went on a sick leave in mid July I was working on an upgrade project from Dynamics Ax 4.0 to Dynamics Ax 2012.

In this first post after the operation I just wanted to point out the importance of the data upgrade process and how important it is for all parties to work to gather to get it done. To success in the process the developer, consultant and the end customer must work as one. As a single unit the developer for example only has few pieces of the puzzle. He or she knows or at least should know how to write data upgrade scripts. But in order to succeed with that the developer needs to know how to transform the data and it is there where the consultant with the end customer come in to the picture.

So togather the consultant and end customer decide how and what data needs to be transformed and the developer knows how to do that.

All the parties involved need at least to have high level understanding of the overall process.

This blog post here from Kevin Kidder is a great help and starting point  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2012/06/04/10266239.aspx

2012 Enterprise Portal Development Cookbook

Yes it is here, the most interesting book of the year "Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Enterprise Portal Development Cookbook"

Check it out my friends

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/solutions/archive/2012/07/12/microsoft-dynamics-ax-2012-enterprise-portal-development-cookbook.aspx

Plug-able Authentication in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

I have worked in many projects involving the Enterprise Portal for Ax ranging from version 2.5. One of the biggest issue for the end customer/user has been the ability to have a plug-able authentication for EP. This has been an issue for example for customers that have other portals based on Share Point as well as custom build ASP.NET web sites. All these portals are able to share the authentication with Single Sign On, SSO. But until now with version 2012 of Ax this has not been possible since earlier versions of Ax have only supported Windows Authentication.

So in scenarios where you implement an EP site for a customer that has other portals and uses for example forms authentication, if you are not running Ax 2012 you have to have a special/dedicated log-on to EP.

One of the biggest advantages is the fact that now external users do not have to be in Active Directory mixed up with all the internal users or located in an extra AD repository with all the administrative IT work load to keep that up and running.

This paper describes how to setup forms based authentication for EP, go to download page

Dynamics Ax 4.0 to Dynamics Ax 2012 upgrade – Part 2, Security Upgrade Advisor Tool

In part 1 I talked about few general issues regarding the upgrade process to Dynamics Ax 2012 from earlier versions.

In this part I will talk little bit about the Security Upgrade Advisor Tool from Microsoft to map/transfer security information from a legacy (Ax 4.0) system over to the Dynamics Ax 2012 target system. 

On Dynamics Ax Information Source there is available video where the SUA tool is demonstrated, but the the first step in the process is not shown in the video. This is how to export the legacy security information as an XML file.

Here is how to do that:

After you have downloaded the SecurityUpgradeAdvisorTool.msi from Dynamics Ax Information Source (you need to have access as partner or customer) and extracted the msi file you need to run the X++ job ExportSecuritySettingsBuild in the legacy system. This generates the XML file that is used in the 2012 system to import the legacy security information.

For the rest of the process simply follow this video

Dynamics Ax 4.0 to Dynamics Ax 2012 upgrade – Part 1

Few weeks ago I took over an upgrade project from Dynamics Ax 4.0 to Dynamics Ax 2012. In the beginning my biggest task was to get an oversight over the project and to figure out the overall status. The code upgrade was somewhat done but only a small portion of the code was lifted to the 2012 version. To complicate the project even more I had to upgrade and install horizontal modules from Axdata, my employer.

In this first post I would like to mention few things to have in mind before you begin the upgrade process.

Read these documents

·         AX 2012 Upgrade Guide.pdf

·         AX2012SystemRequirements.pdf

·         Code Upgrade Overview AX2012.pdf

·         How to Write Data Upgrade Scripts for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.pdf

·         Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Data Upgrade Best Practices.pdf

More resources on Dynamics Ax 2012 can be found on TechNet, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh272863

One thing that I would like to point out to begin with is my blog post about the collation of the two databases that we work with during the upgrade. Both the source and target databases need to have the same collation so the bulk copy function works. This is due to the SQL class library in the .NET framework only can copy data between two identical databases and when you think of it that is quite normal.

I have as well received some good advises from other Dynamics Ax professionals:

 Eduardo Arias, http://axwonders.blogspot.com

·         Clean the source data base before bulk copy

·         Make sure that the shadow tables are created correctly before the upgrade process

·         Consider the performance and the power required to perform the data upgrade. Setting up an replication server might be needed not to disturb the live system.

Brandon George, http://dynamics-ax.blogspot.com

·         Use the Security Upgrade Tool - Security Upgrade Advisor Tool User Guide [AX 2012] , http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh394895.aspx

Jeremy Parr-Morley, LinkedIn profile

·         Syssetuplogtable needs 'version no' set to your version of AX4. It was blank on ours.

·         You may find some deleted users need to be reinstated.

·         The upgrade docs suggest to write code to transfer custom fields across, I found it easier to just add them to the 2012 database. The migration tool will find them and move the field content.

·         The AX2012 user running the migration needs to be admin on the AX4 database.

·         The code upgrade is somewhat a straightforward process

With that said I say to you, “Happy upgrade planning” and more information to become later in part 2.