In Dynamics 365 we are using number sequences to automatically create identifiers like product number, customer number etc. I’m a fan of having these numbers as “clean” as possible, and I always try to convince my customers use pure numbers. Why ? Take a look at the keyboard:

The numb-pad is the fastest way of typing in data. I also see that users normally perform lookup and see the description of what they are selecting anyway.

But let take a scenario; We will use a number sequence to create products numbers. We will then typical get product numbers like this :

Then I have often seen that another problem arises; typing errors from the num-pad are actually getting a “hit”, because when using a number sequence we can almost always find a product that have the same number as the user wrongly typed.

If you try using your credit card online you will see that the number is not accepted if any number is wrong. The solution there is to build in check-digits in the number.

I created a very small extension to solve this in Dynamics 365, with just a few lines of code. In the following example The “green” part is from the number sequence, and the yellow part is from the modulo 10 check digit calculation.

In this way the user can never type the wrong product(or any other identifier), unless it is 100% correct.

In the screen for number sequences I added an option to add the check digit to my generated numbers.

I wanted to share this with you, because it is so simple:

1. Create an extension on the table “NumberSequencetable”. Then add the extended datatype (YesNo) as a field, and name it “AddCheckDigit”.

2. Add this field to the “Setup field group”

Then we have the parameter in place, and it is available on the number sequence as shown earlier.

3. Then create a new class and replace all code with the following :

Here I’m creating an extension to the NumberSeq class, and I’m creating one method; Num, that will add the modulo10 number to my number sequence.

Where I check if my new “AddCheckDigit” is enabled, and I’m also saying that do not do this for continuos number sequences, manual, and I also say that the number sequence must be allowed to be changed to a higher number.

That’s it

Now you can have check-digits on products, customers, vendors, sales orders, purchase orders etc.

PS! I have not tested this code 100%, but the community is full of brainpower that hopefully can share additional findings on bugs or flaws.

If you like this, vote at idea sat https://ideas.dynamics.com/ideas/dynamics-operations/ID0002954

Have you ever seen the TV-series “House of Lies“. This is a quite funny TV comedy series that focuses on the extrovert lifestyle of a management consulting team. First of all it is a comedy and not very realistic, but it manages to illustrate the concept of how to create the most efficient organization form for solving problems; The Agile POD.

Agile pods are small custom agile teams, ranging from four to eight members, responsible for a single task, requirement, or part of the backlog. This organizational system is a step toward realizing the maximum potential of agile teams by involving members of different expertise and specialization, giving complete ownership and freedom, and expecting the best quality output. This blogpost is about how to organize a consulting business that is non-silo organized around an actual service product.

In many consulting companies today, we see increasingly alarming signs that prevents the full utilization of the people and resources. Some of the signs can be seen as:

– Many non-direct-operative managers. (If you have >5 levels from bottom to top you have an issue)
– To many internal meetings. (Why Meetings Kill Productivity)
– To much time are used to generate budgets, forecasts and excel spreadsheets.  (No actual customer value)
– Organized into silo-team with similar expertise. (Functional, Technical, Support etc)
– New project teams for each project. (Spends 2 months of getting to know your team members)
– Outdated internal systems and processes.
– Mixed marketing message and costly (pre) sales and implementation processes
– Many partners is currently not ready for the Dynamics 365 cloud based disruption (Sticks to waterfall, while agile accelerate)

Agile POD’s is a different way of organizing a team for efficiency. How does a agile POD look like? In this example we have a small 5 person permanent team. This team is specialized for running a some tasks/phases in the initial Dynamics 365 implementation; The Agile preparation phase.

In this example the POD owner is the Solution Architect. The roles in the POD can be described as:

The solution architect:

He runs the POD, and he also have all the responsibility of the POD. It is the POD owner that recruit the POD-members. The Solution Architect is the “face” of the POD, and will organize the work in the POD and also discuss the solutions with the key decision takers at the customer. Very often the solution architect have lot’s experience. In agile terms this is also the SCRUM-master and also very operational.

The Finance expert:

When implementing Dynamics 365, there is an always a need to know how to connect the operational processes into accounting and reporting. This person is highly knowledgeable in Financial Management reporting, Power BI, Excel. He also knows how to improve the reporting from the financial perspective by defining financial dimensions, setting up Tax, Bank, Fixed Assets, HR and Budgeting/Forecasting.

The Vertical Domain Expert:

How to implement best-of-breed processes is the vertical domain experts expertise. In Retail-domains this means expert on Master data, Categorization, Stores, POS, Devices etc.

The Technical Architect:

In a cloud based system, there is a need to understand how environments are deployed, setup and make it all ready for an efficient Application Lifecycle Management. The Architect knows the ITIL-framework. When a change is needed the technical architect will create the necessary documentation/VSTS backlogs for developers to execute on.

The Junior consultant:

The junior consultant is here to learn, offload and support the team. As experience increases the junior will eventually more responsibility and hopefully some day move into other positions in the team.

Within the team we are looking to T-shaped person, that have a width to their expertise, and also a few deep expert knowledge domains. A gaming company called Valve(That delivers the Steam gaming store) described what we are looking for with the following picture of the T-shaped model. Take a look at their employee handbook. This same concept and idea is relevant for Dynamics 365 consulting companies.

The Agile POD’s must therefore specialize their own services. Each POD-team must therefore build WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structures) that enables the delivery to combinedly utilizes the entire POD.

The idea is that a POD-team is sent out to the field, then delivers the pre-defined services, and returns safely afterwards. Then it is off to the next client to again deliver the same service. As you may understand, it is therefore important that the services delivered is predefined. In this concept there is not one team that delivers a complete implementation. In larger implementations it would be a sequence of Agile POD’s that cover the implementation.

This way of organizing is not a new way of doing things. This working concept have been applied for decades at entrepreneurs and building companies. When building a house this is not done with a single team. It is done by a sequence of teams that is specialized. A POD team will have responsibility of a limited set of tasks, that needs to be performed in a predefined sequence.

By organizing operational skills into POD’s executed in a sequence, we now have a balanced unit. One pain in Dynamics 365 consulting companies I often see is that bottlenecks arises around a few selected roles. Typical on the solution architects. This unbalance will result on high utilization on these roles, with other roles have low utilization, because work is not correctly distributed. We also see that consultants are being placed into project teams because they have free time, and not because they have the right knowledge. This increases costs and reduces satisfaction for customers. Ultimately it also reduces profitability for the implementation partner.

Agile POD’s does not solve every thing, but it makes the center core operational services lean and efficient. Any consulting company still needs sales, project management and customer support as separate functions.

As seen in the figure above the each vertical focus area will have a management functions, that focuses on building Agile POD’s. The idea is not to hire single consultants but to create new POD’s. The POD itself must define the services that the POD can deliver. The role of a vertical department management is therefore to how on recruiting new POD’s. As Valve explains it, the hiring becomes the most important thing in the universe.

A model for money and revenue must also be established. All departments must be self-financing and make sure that they are balanced according to how the revenue stream is defined. One element that is common in the consulting business is bonuses. I personally don’t like the idea of bonuses but I see that it is very difficult without it.(Necessary evil) In the model below is a an example on how different departments can be revarded.

Marketing and Sales: The concept of cloud based systems it that the customer don’t need to purchase all the software upfront. They rent/hire the software in the cloud, and only pays a monthly fee. The Marketing and Sales divisions must therefore be financed by the monthly license revenue, and the bonus would be accumulating. The purpose is therefore to make sure new customers are onboarding and that existing customers hare happy with the services. As a new seller in this way of organizing it, there will not be much bonus in the start, as you have few customers onboarded. But as more customers get’s on board, the bonus will be accumulating, and after 2-3 years there will be a decent bonus and a decent ground for investing more in marketing.

Project and Management consulting: As described earlier, these roles are the only more “permanent” roles that exists in the project. They will ask Agile POD’s to come inn and solve specific tasks. Their services are based on T&M(Time and Material), and their bonus will be based on the revenue(not margin) on the project.

The Agile POD’s: These services are charged in a combination of T&M and Predefined Product Services. The Predefined Product Services is the key here. Create WBS-structures where the price and delivery is clearly defined. The bonus here is a team bonus. Internally in the team it is distributed according to a key. But the POD-team can also choose to use the bonus for other purposes also like training or conferences. Remember that an agile POD is a self-contained unit with costs, revenues and margins. If the POD is not profitable it will be dissolved and the team unattached/fired.

Platform Services: This department is making sure all services/software around the Dynamics 365 is working as expected. This means making sure the azure/tendents are set up correctly, that Office is working and that services like CDS(Common Data Services) and PowerApps are setup as expected. All their services should be Predefined Product Services. And the bonus would be based on margin. Why ? Because we want to become better and better delivering these predefined services. The faster this is delivered the more margin is generated. This is a Win-Win situation for both the customer and for the consulting company.

Customer support/After Sales: Customer support and aftersales is all about delivering excellent customer service after the project have gone live. It’s revenue should be based on support agreements and add-ons. The bonus for the department is based on accumulated revenue, because these services should be reoccurring services that the customer pays for each month. If the customer is happy about the services provided then they will continue to use this service. The alternative for the customer is to use Microsoft Premier Support that can be quite costly and not that relevant in most cases.

At the end of this blogpost I would like to visualize how we envision the Agile POD’s, where we have training on our services and delivering excellent customer services on time and on budget.

And if we don’t, then this is the consequence:

Additional details on Agile POD’s can be found here:

https://www.globant.com/build/agile-pods

https://www.agileconnection.com/article/using-agile-pods-realize-potential-your-team

Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJKRaocdxI

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of Microsoft, my employer EG or other parties.

With every new release and platform update we see a clear Microsoft commitment to support deeper integration across the D365 portfolio. It’s still in the early stages, but we see the direction. New developments such as parts of Dynamics 365 for Talent is using the CDS. I think that we in the future will see more business apps utilizing the CDS as the data storage. The benefit of the common data model is that applications can work against data without needing to explicitly know where that data is coming from. To see what the Microsoft business platform are, take a look at https://businessplatform.microsoft.com

The CDS also have an important role in both process and data integration between the Sales(CRM) and Operations(ERP) apps, and the current status after the July release and Update 9 is that we have 6 templates that we can use to test some scenarios with D365. The Business platform admin center is where the CDS data integrations can be set up. You can reach this from https://admin.businessplatform.microsoft.com or from https://admin.powerapps.com

The first needed to be set up is Connection sets. Connection sets are a collection of two more connections, organization mapping information, and integration keys that can be reused among projects.

In this case I have set up a integration where data can go from D365 for Finance and Operations à CDS à D365 Sales:

Then also to map the organization ID’s across the 3 services.

And finally the integration key’s.

After the connection sets have been setup, the CDS knows how to connect to the different systems. We can then create an integration project

We can then select between the current 6 templates.

I have only been able to test the Accounts and Products. The Sales Quotes did not work for me (but they are also in preview currently).

After the integration project have been created it is possible to add more integration tasks and make changes to the mapping. If there are issues with the mapping or you need to map additional it will show in the “Issues” column.

N the mapping transformation functions, like this where the item type is changed when transferred from CDS to Dynamics 365 for Sales

The integration can also be scheduled to run at specific times:

Some unofficial benchmarking, I managed to transfer 200 products to CRM in 40 seconds.

Summary:

We are definitely going in the right direction, but we are yet not ready to “Walk-the-walk”. Microsoft currently only support synchronization in one direction, but bi-directional synchronization are in the roadmap. This is important to support “multi-master” system where the same fields can be authored on either side. Like Customer Name etc. It seems Microsoft is focusing on providing business scenario’s like “Prospect-To-Cash”, and what we mainly have now is a preview of how this would look in the future. The mapping is not complete from the templates and needs more work.

My final comments are that we will in the future have a very easy to use system for connecting the unified business operations apps. It was hoped that this business platform would be more ready with the July release, but it needs more releases for this to be useful in actual implementations. This feature needs to grow beyond the “Minimum-Viable-Product”. I hope and expect that we will see in place through the fall, and that the next release will have more mature integration templates. So far, good work Microsoft, but please hurry ! To learn more take a look into the https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/common-data-service/entity-reference/dynamics-365-integration.

The transitioning from ax.help.dynamics.com to http://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/operations is going great. One of the benefits is that we now have localized documentation.

So if you prefer to look at the documentation in Chinese URL : https://docs.microsoft.com/zh-cn/dynamics365/operations/

If you like Norwegain try https://docs.microsoft.com/nb-no/dynamics365/operations/

D365!

Disclaimer: In this blog post I would like to share my understanding on what is happening when customers no longer pay their bill for Dynamics 365. Please consult with your partner or Microsoft to get the actual and official interpretation.

First some definitions; Most mid-size customers will buy Dynamics 365 through a partner that is a CSP (Cloud Solution Provider). Larger corporations will have the opportunity to buy Dynamics 365 directly from Microsoft through a EA (Enterprise Agreement). The information here is related to the CSP way of purchasing licenses.

When buying Dynamics 365, most customers will receive a monthly bill from their CSP partner. But the great thing about the CSP, is that you may adjust the number of users for the next period. Dynamics 365 have a low limitation of 20 licenses, but above this the customer may make changes.

But keep in mind that even though you receive a bill for the upcoming month, there is still a commitment for the base subscription period. For Dynamics 365, the subscription period is normally 12 months. I think I finally understood why the name is Dynamics 365; The reason may be that you have to buy it for at least 365 days

As stated earlier the customer normally receives a bill each month. But what happens when the customer stops paying the bills?

1. Well first the normal procedure is that the customer is notified by their CSP that payments are missing that follows the normal procedure.

2. The next step is that the CSP partner will suspend the subscription. This is done when by changing the status on the subscription to “Suspended”.

3. When a subscription status is changed to “Suspended”, this puts the subscription into a “data retention” mode. This means that end-users will not have access to any services, but administrators will still have access to the data associated with this subscription.

4. At the end of 60 days after a subscription is Suspended, the subscription is moved to a “de-provisioned” state. At this time, all data is removed.

The conclusion is therefore; Pay you bill or lose your data.

When I think of it…… it’s just like paying your electric bill.. no pay…no power.

When deploying your Azure based VM’s the most common VM Size is D13 with 8 cores and 56 GB RAM. This VM costs approx. 924 USD per month according to the pricing calculator.

Microsoft have made some new sizes available :

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/price-reductions-on-l-series-and-announcing-next-generation-hyper-threaded-virtual-machines/

The new size is named D13 V2 Promo, and will cost 749 USD. If you have MSDN the costs are further reduced to 429 USD/Month

You cannot select this size in LCS, so you must log into your azure portal after deploying, and change the size there.

Nice

Microsoft have released a new site for posting and voting on ideas to the Dynamics 365. https://ideas.dynamics.com

It is assumed that this is replacing all other forum and sites, like connect, yammer etc for suggesting new and exiting functionality. It covers the entire Dynamics 365 stack, and the concept is that each person can suggest and vote on up to 50 suggestions per forum. Microsoft have also created statuses on each suggestion, and additional comments can be added by registered participants.

A small suggestion to Microsoft on the site; Allow us to use our ADFS login, and not just our Live-ID login. (I guess I have to create a suggestion for this)

As announced with the update 4, Microsoft will release monthly updates so that new and existing environments can stay up-to-date with the latest innovations with a click of a button. Hopefully this make it easier to stay on the newest platform. We are also assuming and hoping that this approach in the future will extend to also cover business functionality (eg ApplicationSuite). A faster update cycle also results that there are more versions currently used in at customers. As seen here are all the official releases that Microsoft have made available for Dynamics 365 for operations. With a monthly update cycle the list will be extended quickly. Keeping track on versions does not give any actual customers value. But in a SaaS approach, creating faster and simplified updated on business functionality will require a better and more visible release policy, not based on build numbers.

We need to make this upgrade and update experience easier to understand and easier to follow. The work that the Microsoft Office and Windows team have done is a great example that I think is something we also should have for Dynamics 365: The introduction of release channels.

What channel you would like to have should be a setting in LCS, and the customers can switch between the channels as wanted. Visually the release and update schedule could then look something like this.

With the introduction of Microsoft AppSource and for ISV’s this would mean that they could commit to a specific channel, and “front-runners” like myself would have early access to the newest and hottest. Some customers are deadly serious about stability, and new features could potentially cripple business processes. In this way customers can for them self’s decide their speed for adding new functionality.

Dear Microsoft; Can we have something like this also for Dynamics 365?

Visual Studio Team Services Marketplace contains a ton of jewels, and one add-in I like a lot is the Test & Feedback extension to VSTS:

When installing it, you get a small icon in Chrome, where test and feedback can be given.

When setting it up, you just point to the VSTS site :

And then you are ready to start giving feedback, and to collect backorders, bugs or tests.

Let’s say I wanted the implementation team to know that some changes are necessary on the “All Customers” form. I then click on the feedback button, and click on “start recording”

While navigating and taking screenshots, notes and video, it all gets recorded, with URL, time etc.

When done with my recording I want to create a bug, test or create a test case:

In this case, create a bug, and while I’m typing I can even see that there are one similar bug already reported.

After saving the bug. I see that a bug have been created in VSTS:

I now have a complete bug report in VSTS, that the consultants can start to process and to identify if this is a bug or an “as designed” feature

This means that in a Dynamics 365 project where VSTS is the central element, the feedback and testing just got simpler.

The feedback and Test extension do contain a lot more, but the rest you have to explore for yourself. Try out video recording . That is really cool.

Just a small reminder to my digital brain, that Microsoft have released a Microsoft PowerBI pack aimed for the WMS industry. Here are some samples.

Inbound – Measure vendor delivery precision. Measure put-away average times for products, and vendors, and be able to measure how fast your workers are processing put-away work.

Outbound – Measure how many of the shipments are send in full and on time. We provide ability to measure early, late and on time shipments in order to monitor outbound performance and endure high customer service levels.

Inventory accuracy (Warehouse itself) – Every warehouse needs to have high inventory accuracy on locations in order to be able to process shipments correctly. Measure inventory accuracy for locations and items based on inventory counting with full visibility into discrepancies in quantity and percentage. We provide easy way to monitor counting performance, and inventory accuracy for items on locations

Where can you find this package ?

In the LCS- shared asset library:

Thanks Yi Zhang !

Microsoft have released the new warehouse APP, and the setup instructions can be followed here : https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/install-and-configure-dynamics-365-for-operations-warehousing/

You can download the Windows App here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/dynamics-365-for-operations-warehousing/9p1bffd5tstm

The setup instructions are very good, and in 10 minutes you should be able to get the app working as expected in your windows 10 machine. The App also have a demo-mode that lets you try it out, without having to connect it to an environment.

Here are some pictures for you pleasure.

Thank you Markus J

I normally don’t share much that is considered as employer specific IP/tools, but today I will do an exception. At EG we have for years been focusing on how to address the business processes for the Retail industry, and how to name and classify these processes. By combining the structure APQC business process mapping and classification with the essential understanding on how to improve and implement the retail business processes. This means we have a that a predefined approach for scoping and planning retail implementations. The key to this model, is to ensure that we can have a good scoping and planning phased retail implementations based on the customers actual processes.

The top level in the EG Retail model we group all epic processes into “Management processes“, Operating processes” and “Support processes” as seen in the following picture. Then we have broken each process into sub-processes(Levels), pretty much according to APQC.

Level 1 – Operating processes

The Operating processes are the day-to-day processes taking place in at a retailer. We have divided the level 2 processes into 5 specific areas as seen in the figure below.

1. Category management is all about grouping products into hierarchies with similar properties and attributes. This makes it possible to give responsibilities and parameters on group levels, instead of on SKU level.

2. Sourcing and procurement is about making sure that we have the products available on the store/channels available for sale. This means working with vendors and producers, and to have clear planning strategies.

3. Retail logistics is processes that typical happens at the central warehouse, and when replenishment to stores is needed, then it is sent at the right time.

4. Omni channels is about being available to customers on multiple platforms and through the customers purchase experience. It stretches from brand awareness, store, web, mobile, loyalty and after sales processes.

5. Store operations is what is happening at the physical store.

Each of these level 1 the retail processes have been split into the following level 2 processes. In the column 1 we have the parent process, and below we have the sub-processes in the horizontal boxes.

We can further look deeper into the category management processes and we see the following level 3 sub processes. You can see the red boxes in the level 1, have been moved to the first column in level 2, and then the sub-processes are shown in the horizontal columns.

For each and every retail process we break the processes down to level 3 or level 4, and we then also decide on how we are solving each of these sub processes. This is done by color coding the processes. As you can see in the following picture, you see that most is solved in standard Dynamics 365, but also with some 3-party products. There are also processes that is not covered by the solution stack available currently.

At level 3 we have mapped each of these processes into APQC and into the LCS business process modeler. When we take the level 3 process called “Define categories” we have a relevant APQC process named 2.1.1, and this means that we(or APQC Members) can extract som KPI’s to allow us to define how this process are performing.

Together with APQC we can use these KPI’s to measure how good this process if performing, and also compare the process with similar retailers also using the same KPI’s. This tells us if the process needs to be improved to achieve more.

Microsoft released a new APQC library in November 2016, that is available in LCS, and here Microsoft have defined 3774 business processes and have 617 flow charts for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations. This gives us a further ability to map the processes directly into Dynamics 365. Here I have searched for “category” to see what APQC and Dynamics 365 processes are supported.

Using the process mapping to create a implementation plan.

When we are working with our customers, we build a scope plan quickly, and define what processes we what to start with, and what to postpone into future projects. We can be clear about the how quickly the ROI can be, and that we can start on business processes where we today have low performing processes. In the sample scoping below, I show how we can start with the stores, then in project 2 enable the HQ suppy chain/replenishment and then finally start a project where logistics to the stores are in scope.

This means we can do project phased retail implementations within the budgets for the retailer. Each of the “Boxes” also contains process descriptions, VSTS backlog and task lists, UAT test scripts and workshop agenda’s. This means that when running a retail project, we don’t have to start with a blank whiteboard.

In addition the model have been mapped into Visual Studio Team Services. This means that the Retail model is also a implementation model for than can be used by project managers, consultants, developers, customer super users and stakeholders.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how we are approaching the retail market from a business process standpoint, and delivering our implementation as predefined repeatable services where Azure, Office365, LCS, VSTS, ODM and all the other good Microsoft services are used to the full extent.

Retail is detail, and the future is bright J

Microsoft have released a hotfix on the document preview control, and this is actually quite cool. In the following picture you see the preview pane have been updated with some new buttons.

Now we have ordinary functions like move, zoom, print, but we also have highlight, Blocking and some text functions.

This means we can make direct changes to the attached images, and this is interesting when we have scanned copies of invoices or any other document.

In the following picture, I have just highlighted some parts, and blocked some texts. I have also added a text of my own.

Why is this interesting? Because good developers is experts in “copy-with-pride” solutions. And we now have a new web-enabled control that allows us to create new extended solutions for handling scanned documents.

I expect that we very soon will see small invoice approval apps available at a fraction of the price we have seen before, and that is using this feature.

Try it out J It’s Cool.

Dynamics 365 for Operations have a nice feature for generating demo data.

Here is my 1000 $ tip!
DON’T USE IT IN ANY IMPLEMENTATION PROJECTS!

This class is only meant for generating demodata in the Contoso dataset, and will corrupt and delete any real data you may have created. If you take a look at the class LedgerPeriodCloseWorkspaceDataCreation that will generate month end financial closing data you see that it only works towards specific contoso companies and personas defined in the contoso company.

There is also a method executed in the beginning, that just deletes data, and makes sure any data you may have generated is just gone.

Why Microsoft have decided to include this “Demo-data” package in the implementation deployment I don’t understand……

…and if you wonder; Yes, I did this mistake.

Microsoft is currently holding an online virtual Dynamics 365 launch party and I’m happy to see that Microsoft is delivering as promised. Take a look at it here:

What Microsoft also have made available is a trial experience of Dynamics 365 for Operations. That is available here. What you get is an access to a 30 day multi-tendent trial experience, where basic testing can be taken place. In my case I got company number 037, and I cannot access other trial users company J

In this first release you will have limited access to 3 basic processes as defined in the trial experience task recording. You can try to navigate around, but you have very limited access to create customers/vendors/products etc. Important: This is NOT a full feature trial, and you NEED to follow the task guides as your guide to Dynamics 365.

Remember that Microsoft is constantly refining and improving the trial experience, and if you want a full-blown trial you need to contact a Dynamics 365 partner that can help you set this up. Later Microsoft will release additional trial experiences, and also support localized trial experiences. Other industry based trials are on the way, like Retail/POS experiences.

Check it out!

If you have not heard about the Microsoft FastTrack program for Dynamics 365 on-boarding, then this is the post for you. So, to say it simple; the FastTrack program is Microsoft’s involvement after the licenses have been purchased to get you fast up and running on the cloud platform.

It starts when the licenses have been purchased through the CSP-portal (or through a EA agreement), and lasts until the live production system have been deployed.

When a Dynamics 365 deployment should start, we get a checklist of tasks that need to be completed when we move from one stage to another. The LCS implementation project looks a bit different than the ordinary LCS projects.

As you can see here there are a lot of checks that needs to be confirmed before going live. In the process, some guidance is needed, and Microsoft is giving this as a service included in the license. As the implementation goes forward Microsoft is conducting some bi-weekly workshops, where each meeting has a predefined agenda with information and some room for discussions and guidance. The touchpoints are divided between actual workshops using Skype 4 Business and Tech Talks that is a kind of webinar session.

In the FastTrack program there is a role and responsibility, that is explaining what is expected from the parties involved in a Dynamics365 rollout.

I have been lucky, and have been involved in a complete cycle, and I have to say that I’m impressed how this FastTrack program works. As the Dynamics 365 is quite new, and the entire Dynamics ecosystem is trying to absorb the information made available, it is easy to get lost and to think that implementations are conducted in the same way as earlier. If you expect that some hardcode system administrator/developer can jump into the sandbox/production environments, then you are wrong. Now things have to happen in a sequence and have to follow predefined quality steps to ensure that we get a rock-solid production environment.

Our FastTrack contact have always been available and have given us the “light touch” on the shoulder to guide the implementation and expectations. Remember that FastTrack is not about business processes, masterdata and project management. That is still handled outside of this program.

A small and important reminder; remember that you have to purchase your implementation licenses, and remember that you could start small, and ramp up you license count as needed.

A few days ago Microsoft have the Flow connector available for preview, and you can read more about it here. What I wanted was to see if I could make a very simplified flow, where a customer is created in CRM, and then transferred to Dynamics AX.

The flow therefore consists of the following steps, when a record is created in CRM, a customer is created in AX. After that, I wanted an email to be sent to me.

To test this flow, I created a Customer in CRM online.

Then I waited for a few second, and then the customer was visible in AX. I just became very impressed.

I also received an email, telling me that a new customer was created in AX from CRM, and that made be even more happy.

If I when in and analyzed what happened, I could trace the entire integration in Flow, and also see how much time spent on processing each step. In this case, I see that AX used 10 seconds to process the JSON/ODATA message, and spent 3 seconds to sending me an email that the record was created.

Here are the steps I used to create this flow. First I select the Flow action “Dynamics CRM Online – When a record is created”.

Then I specify the organization and the entity name: Accounts

Next I add the action Dynamics AX Online – Create a record

And I select the instance, and what user I should log in with. I also select the entity name: Customers, and select to only transfer the Account number and Account name into the AX entity. Some of the other fields, I choose to hardcode for simplicity reasons.

The last step is to send an email to myself

Some summary.

Using Dynamics AX with flow will certainly be the way forward on how we integrate AX with CRM and all kinds of other 3’rd party systems. It is still in preview, and the next thing we are waiting for is that Dynamics AX can get reactive, and then when a record is created or modified inside AX, this can trigger a flow. But Microsoft have promised that this is on its way. Also remember that this tool has its current restrictions and that we need to be patient and let Microsoft further develop and improve its capabilities. But for easy and simple integrations I would call this as a unique opportunity to get rid of complex and time consuming integrations. As long as you keep it simple it works as intended.

Thanks Microsoft, keep it coming!

The Common Data Model was today as promised made available in preview through PowerApps, and gave us insight on how it works. You need to take a log at the following blog posts. Your entry point for starting to explore CDM is http://powerapps.microsoft.com

Let’s jump past
all introductions take a small look at the products made available the sample demo data when the CDM database is created. After the sample CDM database is created you will have access to the entities here

Then find the entity named Product. Then click on the “Open in Excel”

After logging in I start to see some similarities to what we have in the new Dynamics AX. It’s the same excel app on the right side.

It is even the Contoso data, and as highlighted here I’m showing the item 1000 – the good old Surface Pro 128 Gb J

Now start your journey into the CDM. It will be the backbone and foundation of our entire Dynamics 365 stack.

I just love such headlines, because it instantly attracts attention.

But in this case it is actually true. And Microsoft is even wants us to do this. I want to write how to automatically shut down and start up environments in Azure, so that you are not spending more than needed. This post is for newbies, and experts surely will bombard the comment section with improved suggestions on how to make it even better.

In this example I have 4 environment running in Azure and the machine type I prefer is the D13_v2. This will cost me 3696 USD per month if I just let them stay on for 744 hours per month.

But I only plan to use them 07:00 à 17:00 Monday to Friday. This is 200 hours per month, and then it will just cost 993 USD J A lot of fun can be done with these extra credits.

So what is the next step? The trick is to use the Azure Powershell Runbook. Here is the step-by-step instruction on how to set it up:

1. Log into Azure, and open the Azure automation

2. Add an Automation Account.
    Create a name, like “TurnOffOnVM”.
    Select the subscription, and if a resource group should be created. Also if you want an Azure Run As Account. (I didn’t bother to have that, since I have no important stuff on these environments)

3. Then create an Asset named “automation” for holding credentials, that will run the shutdown/start up scripts. The credentials you are using must have the rights to run scripts and to start/stop VM’s.

4. Let’s create 2 Runbooks, that holds the scripts and schedules for the start and stop scripts.

5. Use the “Powershell Workflow” type

6. Let’s put in the “Start script”. It’s done here

I have removed my VM-names in this example.

If you wonder what your VM name is, it is the computer name, that can be seen here:

Here is a copy-paste version of the Start-up script:

workflow StartVM

{

    $cred = get-automationpscredential -name “automation”

    add-azureaccount -credential $cred

    select-azuresubscription -subscriptionname “Microsoft Azure Enterprise”

    $VMs = Get-AzureVM

foreach($VM in $VMs)

{

if ($VM.Name -In “VMName1”, “VMName2”, “VMName3”, “VMName4” )

{

if ($VM.PowerState -ne “Started”)

        {

     Start-AzureVM -Name $VM.Name -ServiceName $VM.ServiceName -ErrorAction Continue

        }

}

}

}

7. Let’s put in the “Stop script”. It is basically the same procedure as creating the “start script”, so I just add the copy-past version of the script.

workflow StopVM

{

    $cred = get-automationpscredential -name “automation”

    add-azureaccount -credential $cred

    select-azuresubscription -subscriptionname “Microsoft Azure Enterprise”

    $VMs = Get-AzureVM

    foreach($VM in $VMs)

    {

    if ($VM.Name -In “VMName1”, “VMName2”, “VMName3”, “VMName4” )

    {

        if($vm.Status -eq ‘ReadyRole’)

        {

        Stop-AzureVm -Name $vm.Name -ServiceName $vm.ServiceName -Force

        }

    }

    }

}

Remember to press the “publish” button the scripts J

8. Let’s create a schedule (one for the Start runbook, and one for the stop runbook)

9. You can now monitor the start/stop scripts:

10. Go party with all the credits you have saved! And if you see me, and use this script, buy me a beer J

Happy DAX’ing J

To always keep an eye on what’s happening is important. We see that AX.HELP is growing and becoming the number one center for understanding the new AX. I want to give you the most important page; https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/help-get-started/ Read it!

What I did was to setup a RSS feed to get all the news and new articles, and the address is https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/revisions/

Setting this up in Outlook is easy. Right-click on the RSS Subscription, and add https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/revisions/

You will then get a RSS message for each new post and article. You will in 5 minutes every day get the overview of what have been published and update. No more slow searching, and you will quickly be the “go-to” expert, that knows it all.

Happy DAX’ing

The New Dynamics AX never stops to surprise me, and every day I find new possibilities and solutions. Microsoft have made available a new set of form letters, like purchase order, sales confirmation, invoice etc, and installing them is optional. What is new is that they are much nice and modern, but they are missing country specific requirements. Microsoft is calling them “Modern reports”, and you can read about them here.

But the main topic of this blog is about how to pimp-up your form letters, with document branding. The following report is the Purchase order in modern design, and where I have added a logo and some colors.

The menu item for controlling this is found under Organization à Setup à Document branding

We have the following menu items;

Document brands, is just the identifier, like company ID etc.

Document images is a container for logoes etc,

The Brand details is where we can override per formletter and design, and select colors, and override addresses and contact information.

I expect Microsoft have much more coming, so stay tuned J

Now the fun begins, and let’s develop! The following post is only meant for hardcore Dynamics AX technical consultants J

In previous posts I wrote about how to access Dynamics AX data and metadata through ODATA and only using an internet Explorer. In these scenario’s we where only fetching data from Dynamics AX. This time, we will use Visual Studio to publish data into Dynamics AX, by accessing the ODATA services. I must let you know, that I consider myself as a newbie to creating C# code, and the following post is only for giving you a directional guide for you to start exploring for yourself.

What you need to make this happen is:

1. Visual Studio 2015
2. Administrator access to Azure AD
3. A deployed New AX on Azure

What I wanted to achieve here, is to be able to add vendors from a C# program. A None-Dynamics AX developer may have no idea of the inner structure of AX, but they can be given access to the metadata. Based on this metadata it should be possible to create CRUD integrations. One issue with Visual Studio is that it is not possible to consume ODATA services directly. So we need to generate a proxy library. The MSDN OData v4 Client Code Generator is the best way of doing this, because it will generate wrapper classes for the data entities. To speed up a bit I found the AX-LAB12, where Microsoft is showing how to import a BOM, here I found the framework that we can use. This AX-LAB12 contains a word document that is good to understanding how to set this up. I’m “stealing” the following 4 first classes from the.

The AuthenticationUtility is the class that makes sure we are authenticated with Azure AD, and that we are logged in with the right user. In this class you can hardcode the user/password and the Tendant and the ActiveDirectoryClientAppId

The next step is to generate the ODataProxy. This is done in the Microsoft.Dynamics.DataEntities project. This basically means creating a bunch of classes that reflects all the metadata. It will give us a class, so that we can assign values to Odata fields and execute methods etc. But first we must specify where all the metadata can be downloaded from. In the picture below, you see that this is just a hardcoded string in the OdataProxyGenerator.tt file.

Then right-click as shown under, and select the “Run Custom Tool”.

This will then download all the metadata from the published data entities in Dynamics AX, and create one class per data entity. It takes a few minutes, and it creates thousands of classes.

Since we want to create vendors, it is interesting to see how the Vendor data entity looks in AX, and how the generated C# proxy class looks like:

As you see, we are consuming the ODATA Data entities into visual studio, that let’s to access fields and methods as we are used to in X++. And this by only generating proxy classes from the Odata metadata.

Then I may start developing against the ODATA proxy classes, and now I see that fields and method lookup, that we are used to in X++ is working. As seen in the following picture, I’m declaring the vendVendorEntity of the type Vendor, that have the same structure as defined in the Data Entity.

My complete code for creating a vendor using ODATA is therefore :

I build and run:

I then check AX to see if the vendor is created:

It works J

Let’s try to see if I change the code, and are selecting a vendor group that does not exists :

It correctly don’t let me create the vendor J

The conclusion:

The ability to create CRUD operations using ODATA, changes the game. External none-Dynamics developers can create apps and integrations through the Odata services, and it regulated through security and validation. They don’t need to know the internal structure of Dynamics, because this is exposed through the metadata service. Dynamics AX is truly a game changer.

Happy DAX’ing J

When using the «Open in Excel»( Dynamics Office Add-in) feature in the New Dynamics AX RTW, you may have some trouble opening it in Excel.

Especially if you have a corporate login, like me. It then seams that the login failed.

Microsoft have upgraded the Dynamics Office Add-in, but on existing demo data (Contoso) may also need to be changed.

Then the connector seams to be working (At least for me)

Also take a look at https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/office-integration-troubleshooting/

Happy DAX’ing

As we know, deploying the new Dynamics AX will basically come in 3 different flavors. I wanted to explain a bit what this means and what I have found. The information here should be double checked together with your partners, and also with Microsoft. Also remember that it all is very fresh technology, and that things may change quickly as must is in early releases and preview.

1. AX Public cloud – Black-box, maintained by Microsoft in Azure and it just works.
   The public cloud “edition” was the first platform that the new Dynamics AX was released on. In the public cloud it is Microsoft personnel that is deploying and monitoring the instances. Customers and partners should have no technical access to the production environments. Data and code (like customizations) are created as packages and uploaded into LCS, where according to maintenance windows, and Microsoft will deploy them to the production environment. Customers pays a monthly fee per user, that includes licenses a production environment with high availability, disaster recovery and some sand-box environments (for testing and dev). The customer doesn’t have consider how to scale or what kind of virtual machines is needed. This is taken care of by Microsoft. Customers must expect to pay at least 110.000 USD per year in costs for this. It is my consideration that this offer actually is a very good offer, because it includes many of the services and licenses that we don’t normally consider when evaluating costs for operating a ERP system. I think than smaller customers (50-250 users) would benefit from this scenario.
2. AX Private cloud – Maintained and deployed by customer/partner, but still on Azure.
   Private cloud is 100% running in Azure. Private just means that Microsoft is not deploying and monitoring the instances. In this scenario you will purchase AX licenses, and you will purchase Azure services and deployments. Basically 2-3 invoices J. You scale up the VM’s according to you needs, and it is your own responsibility. It is typical a partner that can help out, and you probably will have to purchase service agreements to monitor and maintain your Azure deployed instances. Will this be cheaper than the “public cloud” offer? If you compare apples with apples I don’t think so. There are many hidden costs, and if you sum up the costs, at least my internal calculations show that this offer quickly can be 20% more expensive than the Public Cloud offer. But the private cloud offers flexibility, but will demand a very knowledgeable technical department/partner. You can decide more by yourself within the boundaries of the Azure. I expect that larger customers (250+ users) would like to go for this scenario.
3. AX On-Premise and Azure Stack – For those that have a datacenter to spare
   

   Azure Stack is the new hybrid cloud platform product that enables organization to deliver Azure services from their own datacenters. You get cloud services, yet maintain control. You decide where to keep your data and applications—in your own datacenter or on others/azure. You will still pay for the AX licenses, but the you will also have to pay for your own hardware. There is one problem. It is not released yet. We are waiting for Windows Server 2016 with Azure Stack, and SQL Server 2016. These are still in technical preview. But for those (like me) that like to try out, you can actually download it from https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/azure-stack/ . If you wonder what kind of machinery is needed, take a look her. (Basically 16 Cores , >128 Gb RAM and a few TB of disk). It will be a bit difficult to run the Azure Stack on my portable PC J. Also remember that there will still be lots of services that still have to be on the cloud. I assume that this option will be selected for large enterprises (1000+ users) and for hosting providers/ASP.

And remember that what I write here is not facts, but just my interpretation of how it can be.

Happy DAX’ing J

In the new AX the tool we use for work, development, test and build is Visual Studio Online(VSO). Now a mobile access to VSO is available in the Visual Studio Markedplace. It enables you to browse, monitor and engage in projects via your phone, It’s still in preview, but it looks very interesting.

Take a look at it here; https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sprints-for-vsts.sprints-for-visualstudio

For part II of the learning involves taking a look at a video from the Technical Briefing.

Microsoft Dynamics AX Integration: A Customer Perspective:

https://mbspartner.microsoft.com/AX/Videos/961

Happy DAX’ing

We have learned that today the RTW is officially released, but this is mainly for the “tier-1” countries. I’m a bit jealous on Denmark and Iceland that are in the first support release wave, and that Norway have to wait until H2 2016 to get country specific support. But when I dig into the AX RTW I will find much of the country specific elements already in place. They have been included in the transfer from AX 2012.

Only one small Issue. Microsoft have hardcoded that the unsupported features cannot be used. I guess (and hope) that it is for a reason. If you try to create an unsupported company for Finland, you get;

Many of the localized fields needed to run Finland is then hidden or disabled.

But there is a way to “Hack” this. Comment out your country from SysCountryRegionCode.onCountryRegionSupportedCheck():

Then compile and deploy. Then the fields related to Finland etc will open up.

I know I’m are moving into uncharted terrain, and this is disabled for a reason. But we start already now to promote and sell AX 7, and then we expect Microsoft to stick to the release schedule, and make the Dynamics AX ready for all countries as planned. We also have several customers that don’t need the localized company specific functionality, and they don’t want to be constantly reminded J.

Disclaimer; If you do this for a production environment you are on your own!

Hacking Dax’ing

Learn the word; ODATA. We will hear a lot of ODATA in the future, because it will change the way we integrate and how we exchange information between AX and other systems. A good starting point is the AX help wiki, that Kuntal Mehta created. I have decided to explore what the ODATA can do, and wanted to write a bit about my journey. Instead of trying to explain all technical details of data entities and how the architecture is, then let us rather just test something J

What you need to test what I’m doing is

1. An AX RTW environment deployed from LCS
2. Internet explorer
3. Good old notepad

Step1: What services is available?

To get all entities available to you use your Site address, and add “/data” at the end.

Then save the file you receive, and open it in notepad. (I have associated *.json with notepad). The file you get looks like this:

Each line here represents a data entity service we can use. The format of this is the JSON format, but that is not important now.

Step2: Show me the customers

In the file you may find that there is an entity/schema named “Customers“. I can therefore just add the “/data/Customers” to my URL

And then I get a JSON file of all the customers;

But this is a bit “cloudy” and I can further filer down what I want. Let’s say I just want to see all customer names. I can then add “/data/Customers/?$select=Name” to my URL

Now it returns a JSON file with only the Name.

If I wanted to add one more column, like the Payment terms, the syntax would look like “/data/Customers/?$select=Name,PaymentTerms“, but this would not work because the comma cannot be used on a URL. I therefore need to replace the comma with %2C, that is the URL representation of comma. For multiple columns I therefore add “/data/Customers/?$select=Name%2CPaymentTerms”

You see some strange “@data.etag”, and here is an explanation. It is for caching.

Step3: Can I read this in Excel?

Yes. Excel can import OData, and format it like we would.

Then fill in the /data URL, select schema, and then select fields.

And then you may read directly into Excel all entities made available in AX RTW, even without the AX connector.

Step5: Show me all !

Sure. Try to add the “/data/$metadata“, and AX return All schemas, fields and relations. It take a long time, but nice to explore.

Step6: Can we use DIXF to import directly from OData feeds ?

This is what I would love to see. But I have not found it yet.

Happy DAX’ing 😉

When downloading the AX RTW local VM from connect, you often want to disable some configuration keys. (Like catch weight etc). But now you will see the following warning;

“This form is read-only unless the system is in the maintenance mode. Maintenance mode can be enabled in this environment by running maintenance job from LCS, or using Deployment.Setup tool locally”

This warning is to prevent that configurations are enables/disabled, and that the system is set in maintenance mode. There are 2 ways of dealing with this.

1. The proper way; Use the Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Deployment.Setup.exe command; (Credits to Joris de Gruter)
   Run this from command line:

   \bin\Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Deployment.Setup.exe –metadatadir –bindir –sqlserver . –sqldatabase axdbrain –sqluser –sqlpwd –setupmode maintenancemode –isinmaintenancemode true

    

    

    

   Here is an actual example J:\AosService\WebRoot\bin\Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Deployment.Setup.exe –metadatadir J:\AosService\PackagesLocalDirectory\ –bindir J:\AosService\WebRoot\bin –sqlserver . –sqldatabase AxDB –sqluser axdbadmin –sqlpwd ******* –setupmode maintenancemode –isinmaintenancemode true
   

   and then run the command with “false” at the end to turn if back off.

2. The Hack way; Use the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, and edit the following record in the table dbo.SQLSystemvariables ; CONFIGURATIONMODE
   

After that, you can change configurations. But make sure you never
EVER do this in a production environment!

Hacking DAX’ing J

In Dynamics AX, we have been blessed that we can have most of the data in one system, and in one single database. But I sense a shift, where systems are breaking up into more loosely best-of-breed components. We see the introduction of Omi-channels, SaaS, RESTful Web services and ODATA as accelerators into this area.

The generic topic of Master data management(MDM) is much less about technology and much more about understanding how business processes are supposed to work. The principle of MDM is applied whenever two or more business processes must view or share (master) data. This means that all companies have a need for the discipline of MDM, meaning that it must be driven by the business, a business case, and supported/enabled by IT. This includes governance and data quality, and MDM cannot be established without them.

In my profession, when working with our internal EG-Retail model we are covering the Master Data Management processes from life-cycle data management to data distribution to POS-systems. As you see, there are not much directly related to the functionality of Dynamics AX, but more against how to create work processes that maintains and secures a company’s master data.

Master data lifecycle

The most common area where life-cycle processes are used are on products. Products are introduced, created, maintained, discontinued and finally archived or deleted. A lifecycle also involved different roles and departments, and the responsibility and master data ownership is changed through the lifecycle. It could be visualized like this, where effort in the processes is shown.

In terms of responsibility I also see the benefit of separating the roles of Master Data owner and requester, and introducing clear formal processes.

Create master data

Master data are the critical nouns of a business and falls into four groupings: people, things, places, and concepts. Further categorizations within those groupings are called subject areas, domain areas, or entity types. For example, within people, there are customer, employee, and salesperson. Within things, there are product, part, store, and asset. Within concepts, there are things like contract, warrantee, and licenses. Finally, within places, there are office
locations and geographic divisions.

The process of identifying additional Master Data elements should be a formalized process and an ownership process must be in place.

Creating master data is the process of collecting the accurate and persistent data related to each master data element. It is not only important to just enter the data, but also to identify
the source of the master data. In a data maintenance scenario, the process and master data owner may return to the source to collect more details. When creating master data, the completeness must be defined. Define what Master Data elements are mandatory and optional. What related master data must be in place to correctly create the master data.

As described above, all Master Data will have a life cycle. When creating, often only a minimum set of mandatory data elements are required. The life cycle and status should reflect the completeness of the master data.

Master data may originate from many different resources, roles and process participants. Timing is also relevant, because different data elements may only be needed on a later stage. An example is that certain set of data elements is needed when purchasing a product. When selling the product another set of data needs to be in place before this process can start.

A more formal process of handling Master Data will ensure that the quality and relations are taken into consideration. The following process should include both a requester and the master data owner, so ensure the formality.

When the master data is complete enough to be used for selected processes, the master data must be released and available in the systems where it is used. Examples are the procurement process where only a small subset of information is needed to initiate the purchasing process. But in order to receive the product at the warehouse, the product must be released to the warehouse management system. This require additional information and timing. In integrations, the release process of master data must be controlled and tracked. Before release of master data, the required completeness and data quality must be decided and confirmed.

Maintain master data

As requirements is expanding and changing, the master data will also have the need to change. Maintaining completeness and quality of master data becomes a central part in the life cycle Master Data management. Typically new markets and countries will request the need for new prices, VAT/Tax compliance and translations. Establishing maintenance processes will not only be essential for growth and expansions, but also to support day-to-day processes. The key principle is to centralize master data update around specific roles and processes. The generic maintenance process is reflecting this.

Discontinuation of master data

Deleting Master Data is generally not recommended. The reason is that the master data often have been used and related to transactions, and often in other systems like WMS, eCommerce etc. A better approach is the discontinuation process. If master data still should be deleted, it is important to analyze the consequences, and to initiate clean-up processes.

The discontinuation phase begins when the maintenance phase ends. Master data discontinuation is often a planned process, where the date of the discontinuation is set in advance. The discontinuation can also be related to specific processes, like a product is discontinued for procurement, but not for sale.

It is recommended must implement a structured life cycle process on master data, to control the situations where a master data record is discontinued or replaced with a new master data record. In this future process, we expect that the participants are the Master Data Owners and the MDM Administrator. The main purpose of the process is to support the actual discontinuation or depletion of Master Data Records in the AX system.

The input to the process is an online request or need for discontinuation or depletion of a Master Data Record. The output of the process is an updated Master Data Record in AX with the specified data from the request.

The process diagram below outlines an example of the future process for the discontinuation or depletion of existing Master Data Records in AX. In this process, we distinguish between discontinuation and depletion. In relation to products, the discontinuation only applies for specific SKU’s whereas depletion applies for all. (Like flushing out master data from an integrated system)

If it is expected that the growth of the data will accelerate as more partners and stores is connected to the installation, then archiving and purging will be important to keep an optimized performance of the Microsoft Dynamics AX installation. Before a master data record can be archived and deleted, other data (such as purchasing documents) that refer to the master data must themselves be archived. Both the purge and archive operations depend on a carefully determined hierarchical relationship of related tables based on both master data, settings and transactions. The archiving and purging process is too complex to be manually handled, because of the many relationships that exists to master data. It is therefore recommended to look into tools like the Microsoft Dynamics AX Intelligent Data Management Framework (IDMF) that can be used for this purpose.

IDMF have the following process.

Taking easy on master data processes can result and complete failure of your system and processes. When implementing Dynamics AX, make sure that enough time is invested to create a clear strategy, and good processes.

Happy DAX’ing J

When working with new clients, I just love to show Life Cycle Services, and all the new tools and gadgets now available to us. Prices on licenses and Azure services are beginning to come into light, but there is one “unknown” factor. How much would it cost to in time to setup and implement all the tools and services?

I will not
give you the estimates, but I can give you the sequenced task list of what to do

..Ok… the number is 42… but what was the question ?

The new Dynamics AX have some very powerful capabilities to show exactly where time is spent. You would like to explore more about what is happening behind the scene, try adding the “&debug=develop” to the URL. This will bring up a small timer that shows how much time was spent on opening and showing the current form.

If you click on it, it will give more performance details. Like if I open the all customers in the Contoso form, my system gives me the following.

I see here that the loading the customers took 366 ms, where 131 ms was from the AOS loading the data. You also see a color coding (green/blue) that indicates at what sequence the time was spent.

There is also a section to show what the server is doing, and it also shows you the exact SQL call that was the longest running SQL statement.

At the bottom of the performance screen we can also see something interesting;

And when I click on this Session ID, I get;

I have no clue what that is J, but could this be a tool for external monitoring ?

When opening the new Dynamics AX client, you see that we have a nice set of navigation menus and options in the top of the screen.

But if you would like to limit the navigation options for the user, try to add the “&limitednav=true” to the URL.

As you see, the menu-bar is then changed, and the user cannot see the menu buttons, search and settings any more. We have a limited navigation.

Let’s further extend this ability by also adding the “&mi=action:WHSWorkExecute“. For those that have not heard what WHSWorkExecute is, it is the form used for simulating a Warehouse Mobile Device. The form existed in AX 2012, and it also exists in AX 7.

In the AX ‘7’ preview demo environment try the URL:
https://usnconeboxax1aos.cloud.onebox.dynamics.com/?cmp=usmf&mi=action:WHSWorkExecute&limitednav=true

You then have a quite nice RF device without the navigation options. Simple can often be the best J

Happy DAX’ing

This is a guide I have been looking forward to publish, but due to the NDA restrictions I needed to wait until the new Dynamics AX was made public preview, and today it is J This blogpost is not about AX licenses prices, or implementation costs, and if you were looking for that, you have to google again. It’s about what product sales price and discount options that exists MSDAX – “out-of-the-box”, and it’s not about product sales price tactics and strategies, but how to apply them into AX and most of the presented information here can also apply to earlier releases of Dynamics AX.

Summary

Pricing and discounts is a science, and the number of variations and combinations is amazing. When I talk to my customers I like to show the following overview of the most common used pricing strategies available in AX. Here I have tried to put “retail names”, and exemplify what they mean.

The Microsoft documentation on TechNet visualizes quite clearly the relationship between prices, discounts, channels and programs with the following many-to-many relationship diagram;

It basically means that you can combine and mix pricing elements to achieve the strategy you are aiming for. The combination of these gives us the functionality we are looking for, but we have also realized that not all combinations are practical or possible. Remember that much of the pricing possibilities became available with the introduction of Retail, Call- center and in some cases the lean-modules. Some pricing options will therefore not work in combination with each other, and also not across the Omni-channel.

Product prices and RRP (Recommended Retail price)

RRP, or Recommended Retail Price is a very common and known concept. It is very often used on, when the sales channels are more complex, and includes producers, distributors, partners and resellers. Often the ownership structure of the sales channel is fragmented and differentiated. The recommended retail price is therefore often specified based on geography, currency and channel. The RRP if very often just the baseline on which prices are built on, and as the name suggests, just a recommended price. In Dynamics AX either the standard (single currency) sales price on the released product or having a “All/Group” sales trade agreement (multiple currencies, dates, quantity) is sufficient to make this work. One restriction to make this work within AX, is that the product must be released, in order to do this. If a more “Global recommended retail price” is wanted, I suggest reading my blogpost on this subject, where prices are made global, and distributed to all legal entities.

Price/discount matrix’s (Trade agreements)

The price discount matrix has been available for AX users since the beginning, and handles most requirements in a B2B scenario. The setup is quite easy, and involves setting price or discounts on groups, or in relation to specific entities like product or customer accounts.

In the following example we have different sales price on a single item, but it differences per customer price/discount group.

In AX ‘7’, you will just create a trade agreement journal, and create the necessary lines to reflect the different prices.

Discount matrix

Maintaining sales prices on the item-level per customer group, or per specific customer can quickly be a maintenance nightmare. The different combinations quickly end up with so many price points, that oversight is lost. A customer of me had 4000 products, 6 currencies and 12 different account selection options. This would mean that they would maintain 288.000 price points. That was impossible! The option was to use discounts instead, and just maintain recommended retail prices per currency. This resulted in 24.012 price points to maintain. With the use of smart rounding, and generic currency we reduced the number further down to 4012 price points. A discount matrix would look like this, where the combination per item price group and customer price group resulted in a discount.

In AX ‘7’, you will just create a trade agreement journal, just like for prices, and create the necessary lines to reflect the different discounts.

If you want to test a sales price, with all the different combinations, you can use the “Find prices” feature. Here I have a specific customer belonging to the price group “Retailer”, The item belongs to “Apparel”, and the combination of this gives me a net amount of “127,5”.

Generic currency and smart rounding

As seen in the example above, I have specified prices for different account selections, but only in USD. If multiple currencies are used, and you don’t always want to maintain currency based pricelists, then the generic currency option is a nice feature. The first step is to specify what is the generic currency, and what exchange rates that should be used. Also if smart rounding should be applied after currency conversion. In the setup of smart rounding you also need to set up member currencies that belongs to the smart rounding.

Enabling this, will open the “include generic currency” option on the trade agreements, and when creating sales orders in a different currency, the sales order. Here we have a sales order, converted from USD to €, and then the automatic smart rounding is applied.

Trade agreements and Retail/Call center in combination

As shown here we, the trade agreement matrix can solve quite a few price requirements, but in a retail scenario it would not solve the all requirements we see. We are missing elements like retail channel, categories and more advanced features. Going deeper into retail functionality shows that there are many additional possibilities that opens up. I have met quite a few companies, that have advanced price and discount requirements, but they have never thought about enabling the retail module. Many thinks the retail is for POS, but the retail module is for Omni-channel. This means that we can also use this in traditional sales orders (The “call center module” enabled retail functionality to be used in traditional sales.)

But there are some elements in AX, that you should be aware. I often see good old AX consultants getting confused when they start looking at retail discounts. Let’s say we have the following scenario; We have item 0001 with a recommended price of 150 USD.

And then we have a 15% discount on the customer;

You would then expect that when using the retail module, it will just use these values. But it don’t ! It actually calculates the discount amount, and not the percentage. Keep this in mind, because it will confuse you later.

When using the retail discounts, they will work together with the traditional trade agreements, but not exactly as you would expect. To better understand the actual code executing, then take a look at the class\RetailOrderCalculator.saveSalesOrder(). The CRT (Commerce Run Time) engine returns quantity, price and total discount amount. Based on this, the unit discount amount is calculated. I’ll also show the actual source code on this, because when we are talking about discounts, we are most likely going to think in percentages, and the same are customers and users.

And one more thing. The CRT will not apply both the trade agreement discounts and the retail discount. It will select the best of them.

The use of Retail Discounts in Sales orders

Let’s take some scenarios, that is common in the retail industry, and I’ll try to link them to what you find in the standard Contoso demo dataset. In AX ‘7’, the retail module mainly has 4 discount types of discounts, and a price adjustment;

1. Just an ordinary discount product
   

Let’s say you just want to have a discount on a single item.

First step is to use the retail discount rule.

Periodic discounts on categories

“50 % off on accessories this week” can be a strong trigger to make the customer open the wallet.

To create such discounts, we can use the same screen.

PS! The Retail discounts have a “discount code” field, but I have never managed to use it in the call-center sale order screen. But in POS, it works J

Happy hour J

Happy hours are an efficient way of attracting and breaking customer’s shopping routine. It’s also fun, and can give retailers a lot of attention. This feature is excellent also for Black Fridays.

The validation period has an advanced setting, that opens up the field “Discount period number”, and select a discount period. I have here created a happy hour between 12 AM and 1 AM for early birds.

We can further specify the valid periods here, so that more period based discounts can be given. Just remember that the valid period is current time +/- the offset time defined on the retail channel. In the AX ‘7’ CTP 7 version, the call-center channel details screen is not showing the time zone, like it does for retail stores, and this could have some implications on using “Happy hour” in an installation that works across time zones. A small service request to Microsoft have been created, and I’m sure they will fix this J

Coupon discounts (Call center)

Coupon discounts seems to be very popular in US, and we also see an increasing use of this in Europa. Especially in relation to mobile coupons.

In Dynamics AX 2012 there are two ways of working with Coupons. One solution for POS, and one solution for Call-Center. And these two don’t work in common. It is a bit sad, because it means we have a GAP in the Omni-Channel offering. But with enough push on Microsoft, I’m certain it will merge in future versions.

Call-Center Coupons, can be defined to be an amount or a percentage, and may have valid period. The coupon can be a unique, and a one-time use, and

It can have item rules attached, that specifies what products the coupon can be used with or excluded from.

So solve Coupons for Retail/POS, you can see that all discounts have the option to apply a “Discount code”. I have not found a way to make this discount code to behave as a unique and on-time code. Even though AX-Sales orders not can use CRT as the price engine, there are no places, where the discount code can be applied to a sales order. It therefore only works on POS/eCommerce scenario’s It is a bit sad, because it means we have a GAP in the Omni-Channel offering.

Dynamics AX for retail have a GAP in relation to coupons to solve “One-Time” coupons, and in future versions I hope to see more features, like Store coupons, Manufacturer coupons, Mobile/Cell codes and promotion codes.

Trade discounts

Trade discounts is a most common way of creating discounts. 3 very common discounts are

• Employee discounts
  
  This can be solved by using affiliations in Dynamics AX, and works for both POS and AX sales orders In order to leverage the Affiliation functionality at retail POS, the following must be setup:
  Price group(Retail)
  

  Affiliations, and link the Affiliation to the Employee price group.
  
  Discounts, and link to the price group “employee
  
  Each employee must be a customer, that is linked to the Affiliation, and you mark the customer with the relevant affiliation. When this customer in POS or in AX creates a sales order, the discount will apply.
  

  Affiliations can also be used for senior, military or any other groups.

  

• Discount category
  
  With discount category I mean that we can have a discount on an entire category of product. Let’s say “Digital SLR camera” sale, as is exemplified in the Contoso demo data. We then don’t have to assign a discount to a specific product, but just refer to the retail category. When adding products from the category the discounts will automatically apply (after running some periodic jobs, and distributing the prices to the channels.)
  
• Loyalty discounts
  
  To use the loyalty features, then a lot needs to be setup. But in relation to prices, it just means that you need to assign a price group to the discount. If we take the example of the “SLR” discount, we can associate it with a price group called “LP-FabGold”, meaning that all loyalty customers in the “Gold” tier will get the discount.
  
  

Mix and Match discounts

• Mix/Match
  
  A mix and match discount gives customers a discount when they purchase a specific combination of products. In the Contoso demo data, take a look at the “30% off 3” discount. Here a 30% discount is given, if you select 3 of the specified products. Here we use the “Mix and Match discount” form.
  
• BOGO
  
  A BOGO price is basically “get 2 for the price of one”. We also use the “Mix and Match discount” form for this, but we use the “Least expensive” price option, and give a discount of 100%, and specify that 2 units are required for the price to “kick-in”. In this case, the lucky customer gets 2 camera’s for the price of one J
  

  Other options also exists, like a 50% discount when selecting 2 of an item, or use line Spec and Product category feature in Mix and Match discount

• Buy 3 pay for 2 promo
  This can be solved just like BOGO, but where the number of products are increased to 3.
• Free item A if item B
  For this, we can take a look at the “Water Bottle Promo” in the Contoso demo data. We use the Mix and match discount, but use the “line spec” discount type. Then we create a “Mix and match line group, to specify that we need to have at least one item in the selected category/product, for the price to be active.
  

Quantity discounts

A quantity discount is a discount that is given to customers when they purchase a particular quantity of a product. For example, you can set up a 5 percent discount for the purchase of two products of a particular category or brand.

• Buy 2 items get 5%, Buy 3 items get 10%, Buy 10 items get 40 %
  

Threshold discounts

A threshold discount is a discount that is given to customers when the total for a transaction reaches one or more specified amounts. For example, you can create a discount that gives a 5 percent discount for purchases over 100.00 or you can specify a fixed discount amount.

– Buy for 100 $ get 5%, Buy for 200 $ get 10%, Buy for 900 $ get 40%

Price adjustments per channel

• Online gives 5% discount, In Store gives 2% discount
  Channel based discounts are solved by assigning channel specific price groups to a channel, and then assign the different price adjustments to each price group.
  

Loyalty cards

The loyalty module in Dynamics AX is a large module with a lot to offer.

But there are some small GAPS you should be aware of, and that is to use loyalty points for payment in the call-center sales order. It could be I’m wrong, but I have not been able to efficiently use the Dynamics AX sales order screen efficiently with the loyalty module. A good blog for loyalty is available here.

Smart Rounding

Smart rounding is a feature that have no direct effect on retail pricing.

But it can adjust trade agreements, that indirectly works with retail. Also remember that it is not “automatic smart rounding”, and the smart rounding is applied to a price discount journal. A good blogpost on smart rounding is this one.

Recurrence and discounts

The ability of creating recurring sales is not directly related to Retail/POS. In AX there is a feature called continuity programs where delivery schedules can be setup.

I don’t think this modules works very nicely with POS and eCommerce, and is mainly a tool for call-centers and selling recurring items. More information is available on TechNet.

B2B Discount agreement

Price agreements is not working with retail-POS, and is not very good supported through the CRT. It is mainly used for B2B orders, and features exists both for sales and for purchase.

• Yearly agreement to buy 1200 pcs, and get them for 450 $ per pcs.
  In this example I have an agreement to buy 1200 units, and I get the price of 460, until 12/1/2016. In this case, it is a product quantity commitment.
  

  

  Other types of commitment also exists like

  

  This makes it possible to create several different types and combinations. It features also contains Ok formletter that is confirming the agreements. Take a look at the following blog for additional information.

If you are installing a ISV solution into a Contoso environment, and you suddenly see that you cannot synchronize, and you cannot see why:

Here is a tip that works for me;

Disable the track changes in the specified tables;

Then the synchronization is able to perform. After synchronization you can enable it again.

If you want to switch on/off in SQL, then this is the script for Switching off;

To switch them on again;

Happy Daxing !

Dynamics AX 2012 R3 have truly evolved into an enterprise solution, and the functional width solves most requirements that any customer “really need”. But there is always the 80% / 20% rule that applies and there are requirements that is not solved by the standard Dynamics AX. We often see extended domain specific requirements in relation to finance, sales, procurement, logistics and production. To solve this, customers have the option to create customizations or to try to find VAR/ISV solutions that solves this. (VAR= Value Added Reseller. ISV =Independent software vendor) Creating your own large customizations can result in high risks, and the option to buy a “ready to use” ISV solution then becomes interesting.

What I wanted to give to the Dynamics Community is my list of how I evaluate ISV-solutions as a VAR. I basically just use a word document with a set of chapters, and the topics to evaluate here is from a consulting perspective. The idea is to have a formalized way of making evaluations, and also use the ISV/representatives to fill in the information for you.

1. Executive summary
{Yup. There is always someone to report to. }

2. Product Introduction
{Then I write a brief introduction to the product, describing the overall area that it solves.}

3. Background for evaluation
{Here I write why this product was evaluated in the first place.}

4. Vendor/Distributor information – general
{Then I record some general information about the company that offers the solution. Just to be sure that the company behind the solution will exists in the future. The following table can be used}

5. Vendor/Distributor information – product
{The ISV-“mothership” may be large, but it is interesting also to check out the team that is organized around the product. I therefore have a secondary evaluation around the team developing and maintaining the ISV solution}

6. Pricing
{Describing product pricing, enhancement and also flexibility. Also include a case study with implementation. }

7. Marked/Cost savings potential
{ Describing the current marked potential, also reflect according to existing customer base. I also use a calculation sheet to show investment, potential, margins, number of sales each year, training costs, start up issues etc}

8. Known Competitors
{Describing any known competitors to the ISV solution and what the main advances this product have.}

9. Versions and language
{Describing supported versions and language of Dynamics AX. I also want to record how support is handled as new versions and upgrades go along}

10. Access to software
{Describing how the product is accessible from the ISV and how it is distributed}

11. Technical Installation guide

{Describing the quality of the installation guide, and I also try the installation to check how easy it is}

12. Application setup guide
{Describe the quality of the application guide, and I also try the application to check that it actually work}

13. Scenario testing
{In this chapter, we will test the different functional aspects of the product. The processes that is tested is the most common scenarios that we expect and have experienced in the field. Normally divided into a section per feature.}

14. Solution footprint
{The solution footprint is very important to evaluate, because this tells us how costly upgrades and applying hotfixes will be. We want to see high footprint on SYS elements for Dynamics AX. A way to easily evaluate this, is to count the number of SYS overlaying’s that exists and how many new elements that have been introduced. I therefore use a table like this}

{If there is a high number of SYS objects customized, I know that cumulative updates from Microsoft will be more costly.}

15. Best practice deviations
{To evaluate the coding quality, then evaluating all best practice deviations that can be found. Dynamics AX have building tools for this, and if there is a high amount is BP errors and warnings, it means that the code quality it not where it should be. }

Also get any documentation if the product have a CfMD certification (Certified for Microsoft Dynamics)

16. Support and training
{Describe how the product is supported from the vendor. There will always be questions and issues, so we need to know how this is handled. Often ISV solutions are purchased from VAR’s, and then it is good to know how this financially is handled. Also if there are any training included in the offering.}

17. Internal requirements
{Describe needed competence and needed training needed internally to implement, deliver and use this ISV-solution. }

18. Road map
{Show what plans there are for the product, what their priorities, what are their policies around upgrades, etc}

19. Marketing
{If you are a VAR, that want’s to include a ISV solution offering, it is important to understand how the ISV will support you in promoting the solution. Show what marketing material the ISV have and how you can use it. Do they have marketing insight they in the local market. Also find out how the ISV will support and drive market campaigns, participate in events, demos, etc with people and or marketing funds (money)}

ISV solutions play a big role in unlocking all of the possibilities that Dynamics harnesses. When analyzing your Dynamics ERP investment, it’s imperative that you also analyze your ISVs so that you can make the best decision for your business, both in the short and long-term. These topics will lead you toward making better evaluations while looking for an ISV solution. Feel free to use them, and extend them when needed.