First impressions of Dynamics AX 2009 CTP

Well, I had my first experiences with the CTP of the upcoming version of Dynamics AX - the 2009 edition - and I must say that if you found the changes from 3.0 to 4.0 hard to adapt to, then this upgrade is going to blow your shoes off. The user-interface is brand new, and the consolidation of user experience across the whole range of Microsoft products is beginning to shows its value. Many hings users know and are accustomed to in other products are now present in Dynamics AX 2009, among other things the ribbon, known from Office 2007, and the navigation pane.

As a system engineer, I naturally looked for new things on the developer side of the upcoming version. On of the things I really missed in 4.0 was a build-in version control option. I know you had the option of installing a VSS-server to take care of Version Control for your installation, but the installation process was cumbersome, in my opinion; especially if you only required version control for a single installaion. In the CTP of Dynamics AX 2009 you have no less than four different option of Version Control at your finger-tips.
This will really ease the use of version control as the development team can chose exactly the type of version control which suit their needs. The MorphX VCS is a local, application integrated version control, which does not require any further software installation, which makes it perfect for smaller development teams, which might not have a use for the Team Foundation Server or a Visual SourceSafe. The MorphX allows the development team to check whole projects or single/multiple items from the AOT and has the option of adding descriptions.


Another nifty feature is the export to Excel-button, which pretty much exports the current records to an Excel-spreadsheet. This is an easier and faster way to extract simple data, which most likely will come in handy for a large number of users.


These are just some of the changes in the upcoming version of Dynamics AX 2009 and my first impressions are that the consolidation of user-interfaces across other MS products will ease the transition from previous version of Dynamics AX to upcoming 2009-ed.