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Entity store for Dynamics Ax 2012 R3 step by Step installation and configuration.

December 5, 2016 by alirazazaidi

I observed that Many developers are using Power BI with Dynamics Ax 2012 R3 by using Direct SQL server connection on Dynamics Ax database. Which is not good approach? This will expose Dynamics Ax 2012 database outside Dynamics Ax 2012 security. Especially when you expose or deploy Power BI on public URL.

With entity Store, Microsoft provide near to real time database access to Power BI.

In this approach, you can extract data to external database by Designing entities and data extraction from Dynamics ax tables and populate that staging entities and then to database. And this process can schedule into Dynamics Ax.

This approach is faster and more secure in the sense

Only required data available for Query, Unnecessary fields and table already removed.
No extra overhead on OLTP Dynamics Ax 2012 Database.
You can create more indexes on target database to faster fetch. As compare to indexes on Ax tables which creates performance overhead on Dynamics Ax.
Instead of Creating complex data mart, cubes and complex queries. We can create simple table structure and build dashboard on them.
Certainly external database can share and access on Internet or reporting is much more secure instead expose Dynamics Ax 2012 database for reporting.

For reference you can explore following links.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/intel/archives/185

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/4/2/242608B8-7F6A-4A59-8AAF-545EBE5166BA/Entity%20store%20Microsoft%20Dynamics%20AX%202012%20R3.pdf

Microsoft release the Entity Store for Dynamics Ax 2012 R3 back in May 2016.

But somehow I decide to explore it. So today I decide to Install Entity store on my local VM. And My local vm had Dynamics Ax 2012 R3 RTM. No other Dynamics Ax 2012 Update Installed on machine. Entity stored is already part of Cu 11 for Dynamics Ax 2012 R3.

So First step is download and install KB. You can find It from following link

https://mbs2.microsoft.com/Knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;3147499

I have to enter my email address and Microsoft send download link for patch.

I recommend to explore the following link for Installation of any update for Dynamics.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh335183.aspx

For this article I just extract the self-extract file.

Extraction result in folder something like

This file is again extracted exe. On its extraction it creates two folders

And again these two folder contains two self-extracted exe files..

On extracting these exes, one update for Model store and second for Kernel update.

Model Store Update:

So First I decide to install update for Model store.

Before that I stopped the AOS service. Otherwise update process takes unnecessary time.

So I Click on update Ax exe in Application folder.

Click on Next

Accept and Continue

Select you model store and Click on next.

On this steps you find conflict then first resolve them. In my clean installation there will be no conflict. Press next.

Click on Install.

And finally Update is successful.

Kernel Update.

Now I decide to install what ever exe at Kernel folder.

So I go the extracted folder and run the update ax exe there

Accept and Continue

Click on Install

Finally it also installed successfully.

Post Installation update challenges:

After installation when I start AOS service and open Ax Client. I found check list, with different options for example database synchronization, compilation and full cil Generation.

In my case, this check list did not perform anything.

So closed the Ax client and in Windows command prompt, I run following command. Remember, run Windows command prompt as run as administrator.

AXUTIL set /noinstallmode

Now open Dynamics Ax client and perform following steps.

Synchronize the database.
Full compile and resolve any error.
Generate Full CIL.

Interestingly I got errors. And errors are related to Payroll some symmentic dll. Each line shows error 99999.

I used very strange trick. Just add new empty line and add empty comment //. Save it and compile and as result error resolved. I resolved all these error 99999 by same way.

Dynamics Ax 2012 R3 Check list dialog did not Post Installation or Upgrade

December 5, 2016 by alirazazaidi

After upgrade process, Dynamics Ax checklist dialog did not let me do anything.

So closed the Ax client and in Windows command prompt, I run following command. Remember, run Windows command prompt as run as administrator.

AXUTIL set /noinstallmode

Now open Dynamics Ax client and perform following steps.

Synchronize the database.
Full compile and resolve any error.
Generate Full CIL.

Dynamics ax a Walk through – Pakistani MVP meetup.

October 10, 2016 by alirazazaidi

We conduct an information sharing session on New Dynamics Ax 7 at Microsoft Innovation Center Lahore on 7 October 2016.

In this session, two speakers invited by Meetup group. Hasan Bukhari from Maison Consultancy (It is leading Microsoft Dynamics AX Implementer in Pakistan and Middle east). Second speaker was Me.

As professionally I am technical consultant (Currently working as freelancer). I cover the technical side of Dynamics Ax. While Mr. Hasan Bukhari covered the Functional expects of The Product. Usman Ur Rehman Ahmed helped us to organize this meetup. Here are some picture taken during the session.

Employee hiring process (recruitment process) in new Dynamics Ax (Aka AX 7).

July 16, 2016 by alirazazaidi

Suppose we have to hire a Ax Dynamics Ax Technical consultant in new Dynamics AX (AKA).

There are multiple ways to do that, but we follow these steps.

For this we have follow following steps. We explore, Job creations, we create skills, education and certification required for this job, later we create position and attach it to job. Than create a recruitment project where we mentioned who is HR Manager, who is recruiter and create a new application and hire the required person.

We can divide the whole process into following parts

Create a new job
Create a position and associate with job
Create a new recruitment project for job.
Hire a new worker against Recruitment Project.

Create a new Job.

After successful login

and from menu open the HR module

and expand it and click on Jobs.

On click a new web page opens, that shows the list of jobs present in Dynamics Ax. Now Click on new button.

In a new Job detail page, enter, Dynamics Ax consultant in job , In description, mentioned “Dynamics AX techno Functional Consultant” And Title select Consultant. You can also set

You can also Expand Skills fast tab and add new skill, If skill is not available for example in my current scenario, X++ and supply chain is not preset so on skill text box right click and click on view details.

You have to add rating also the same way.

When skills are added, I select them in skill section.

Next step is to add certification, Here requirement is that Person must have certification.

So right click on certification and create new certification and then select it.

Add new Education, suppose we require to person at least Graduate. So select graduation.

Now we have to add three task, that belongs Customization, integration and code.

Save the job from top menu and close the job

If we see on list page, we find our new job is listed there

Create the new position

Now second step is Position creation and attach job with it.

From menu, select position.

On list page, from top menu, Click on new

Select Job we created in last step.

You find the now position associated with job in position

New position is listed on list page

Create a Recruitment Project.

Now go back to Main menu and create a new Recruitment Project

Form list page create new recruitment Project by clicking on new at top menu.

Select Previously Created Job and save the Recruitment project.

From top menu click on and start the Recruitment Project

Hire new employee against recruitment project

New recruitment project is started, we can receive application against this

From top menu click on applications.

Select the applicant name, In my current scenario, required Applicant name was not exists in ERP. So I right click on Name field and click on View Details.

From New party page enter the Required name and create a new party.

After that save and select newly created party as new applicant. Right click on top menu. And hire new worker.

If select employee from menu.

Click on Hire button to create new worker, the applicant successfully Hired against job.

Dynamics Ax 2012 R3 Customization Overview Session Pictures

August 30, 2015 by alirazazaidi

My session on Lahore Microsoft Invocation Center was at 24-8-2015. Purpose of this session was give introduction about Dynamics Ax to young graduates. Target Audience was of 0-1 year working experience.

Happy New year, best wishes for 2015

December 31, 2014 by alirazazaidi

Image stored in Dynamics Ax 2012 tables

December 19, 2014 by alirazazaidi

In dynamics Ax 2012, You can read image from physical path and stored in database as follow

BinData binData = new BinData();
str extention, path, nameOfFile;
container imageContainer;
str imageFilePathName;
imageFilePathName=”C:\\abc\\ali.jpg”;
// if ( WinAPI::fileExists(imageFilePathName))
{
binData.loadFile(imageFilePathName);
imageContainer = binData.getData();
table.Person = _Party.RecId;
table.Image = imageContainer;
table.insert();

}

This code runs both for server side and client side. At server side execution table use winserverapi::FileExists

Exploring Dynamics Ax function that convert Numeric value into words

October 14, 2014 by alirazazaidi

During exploring the question posted on Microsoft community AX fourm, I found about a global method, which converters numeric values into words.

static void Job_AmountInWords(Args _args)

{

info(numeralsToTxt(420.420));

}

Getting Count in X++ using Select statement

July 27, 2014 by alirazazaidi

Hi, You can get Count X++ select statement as

/// <summary>
/// Get resource poool count.
/// </summary>
/// <returns>
/// resource pool count.
/// </returns>
protected int getResourcePoolCount()
{
select count(Rank) from resourceTable
where resourceTable.UserSession == _userSession
&& resourceTable.ResourceSet == ProjResourceSet::Pool;

return resourceTable.Rank;
}

How to integrate Dynamics AX 2012 R3 AIF Document Service with BizTalk server

July 1, 2014 by alirazazaidi

Purpose: Purpose of this post is help to Consume AIF Document service in BizTalk and call its method.

Assumption: that target audience has deep knowledge of BizTalk, mapping, schema and orchestration.

First of all you have to create service group that is gateway to your document service. For this post I have to consume VendVendGroupService. I create a new service group in AOT and drop VendVendGroupService to that node as follow

Right click and deploy the service group.

Wait for generate Increment CIL and Infobox shows deployment of All possible Service group

Now to System Administration module of dynamics Ax. Click on System Administrationè Setup è Services and Integration frameworkè inbound port.

Now create a visual studio project for BizTalk. There are three sub solution, One for Schema, Map and third for orchestration.

In Schema solution. Add the generate Items and then select consume wcf Service

Now add copy wsdl to generate Schemas.

Select metadata Exchange (MEX) endpoint

Click next and generate schema

Schema is generated.

Go to Schema project and delete the Vendor Group Service Orchestration.

Important Schema which will used in mapping.

EntityKeyList Schema has following fields which are used to set values in Request response methods.

This key value pair used for search , Field represent table field Name and value is search field.

VendorGroup schema is replicate of VendorGroup table, here we use SenderId is used legal entity where operation will perform.

If we see the Service Schema, here all request and response methods are generated.

One Schema I create to take input to Interface, and decide which operation is performed I called it for InputSchema.

This Schema will use for input to Interface. We will discuss it later when we start mapping one by one.

Bindings:

As compare to other wcf service, when we consume wcf service, empty binding files are generated, so we have create binding operations manually.

These operations are based on AIF service Object not AIF service Group, where I wasted hours on it.

Please consider the following screenshot for Service operations used in binding files.

The operations in BtsAction will be generated as follow.

Namespace +/+ExternalName+”/”+method name. All Action are similar. For example

http://WIN-IKPOSIU2SGD:8101/DynamicsAx/Services/VendorGroupService/read.

Settings for BizTalk Send Receive port is as follow.

Pipeline settings:

Send Pipeline should be XML Transmit.

Receive Pipeline should be XML Receive.

Click on Configure Button and set as following.

Remember the Operation Name in SOAP action header mast be identical to Operation Name in logical port in Orchestration.

All action mapping is as follow.

 

<BtsActionMapping xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

<Operation Name="ReadOP" Action="http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2008/01/services/VendGroupService/read" />

<Operation Name="CreateOP" Action="http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2008/01/services/VendGroupService/create" />

<Operation Name="UpdateOP" Action="http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2008/01/services/VendGroupService/update" />

<Operation Name="DeleteOP" Action="http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2008/01/services/VendGroupService/delete" />

<Operation Name="FindOP" Action="http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2008/01/services/VendGroupService/find" />

</BtsActionMapping>

Mappings:

I attached screenshots for mapping used for calling AIF methods.

Read Method:

Read method is two-step process, first step map the input to Entity list, and then Entity list to VendGroupReadRequest

Create Method:

In the case of Create Mapping is as follow.

Delete Method:

Update Method:

Update is little tricky, There is field in Update Request Schema, _DocumentHASH, This Field is hidden and every row has its unique value, without that row is did not updated. According to Microsoft Documentation, First you get /find required record using read or find method and then use response data to Update it. For saving time and for the sake of this tutorial, I just pic the_docuemntHash key form previously read response method and hardcode it in map. This is not generic way, but this solve the temporary and my wants to run the Update AIF document method.

Find method:

Find method is works wonder, if you want to search more than one or all records you can call Find method, where is field with Operation, where you can mentions, value Equal, not equal, greater then equal etc. I want to get all vendor group from Dynamics In response, so I sent its value “not equal”. Response message return all values.

The code of this tutorial is attached, you can download it from here.

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