DeniZone

Agile development and ERP

2011-11-23T12:57:00.000+01:00

Here is small collection of blog-posts, articles and case-studies on Agile and Enterprise Resource Planning implementations.
The post Can Agile Practices Prevent ERP Disaster sums up different sources on the topic and Agile practices in large system integration projects introduces a series of posts all dealing with agile and ERP.

MSDynamicsworld.com has a post titled How to Substitute Agile ERP Implementation for the Waterfall Approach which is spot on, when it comes strong link between the waterfall model and ERP-implementations.

InfoQ has a whole subsite dedicated to agile processes and Jesper Boeg's introduction to Kanban "Priming Kanban" can be downloaded for free.

Dynamics AX Easter Egg

2010-11-03T09:52:00.000+01:00

Jacob posted this easter egg on his blog - funny little thing
I know it's a "bit" off-season, but funny nonetheless

static void easterEgg(Args _args)
{;
info(conPeek(new HeapCheck().createAContainer(), 4));
}

AX6, Reports and SSRS

2010-10-27T09:02:00.002+02:00

As mentioned in a previous post on the sample content of the Technical Conference on AX, many tracks have SSRS and the transition from X++ reporting to SSRS reporting as a theme, and I anticipate that SSRS will be the de-facto reporting language in future versions of AX.
However, as Saveen Reddy mentions on his blog, the transition from X++ to SSRS is no novelty. The gap between the two technologies is too big, despite many white papers, blogs and documents, and consultants and developers need to ramp up their skills in order to offer customers the full benefits of their AX investment.
Luckily Saveen Reddy, lead programme manager for Dynamics AX Business Intelligence, acknowledges this difficulty in making the transition and has a series of posts on his blog, which might help developers and consultants alike "being productive", as he calls it.
The plan is a 4 phase series, which is already posted, so there is ample opportunity for us all to start learning SSRS and how it collaborates with Dynamics AX 6, for as Saveen Reddy states in no uncertain terms:
'And again why should you care? I’ll repeat again: the future of AX Reporting is SSRS. Internalize that message. I cannot emphasize it enough. X++ will continue to see much less investment in the future. Becoming very familiar with SSRS is your best bet to stay productive with AX in the future.'
Read the first post here and see all of the published posts on SSRS and AX 6 here

More on AX 6 from the Techincal Conference Programme

2010-10-07T09:05:00.000+02:00

During the last couple of weeks the programme for the Dynamics AX 2011 Technical Conference has been disclosed gradually. You can head about the conference here, which in itself is an interesting read.

Much more interesting is the sample session content, which indicates in which direction Microsoft Dynamics AX is heading. I have written about the X++ editor and I posted a general summary of AX 6 posts I found around the web. Going through the sample session content further hints to new functionality coming to light, e.g.

'the new granular metadata support for forms which reduces the upgrade impact, the new metadata driven approach to making the UI context-aware based on country region, the new managed host control which enables easier integration of WPF or WinForm controls, and the ease of use for controls supporting the enhanced user experience.'

and a very interesting session which is described this way:

'Outline the programming models and developer tools in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Layout guidelines for choosing the right programming model, language (.NET or X++) and development tools (MorphX or Visual Studio) for categories of development.'

along with several session covering an upgrade of a X++ report in a SSRS context indicating what I talked about earlier, i.e. that Microsoft is pushing .NET and SSRS as the defacto standard programming languages/platforms for future versions of Dynamics AX.

To me, it appears that Project Green is arisen in another guise. So instead of having the same kernel for the whole Dynamics portfolio, Microsoft are moving the development tools and language to their .NET framework and Reporting Services.

The new X++ editor in action

2010-06-01T09:59:00.000+02:00

During the last couple of months Vincent published more details on how the upcoming X++ editor will present itself.

I previoulsy discussed some of the features which the community have called out for and it seems that Microsoft hear our prayers.

In this post Vincent shows some nice screenshots of the new IntelliSense, (which AxAssist provides for 3.0, 4.0 and 2009) and in this video you can see some of the new features in action.

Summary of AX6

2010-01-11T11:51:00.000+01:00

Just thought I would post some of the links I found regarding AX6:

mpf has a series on the new AX Models, which will form the basis of deployment in future versions. The series consists of 4 parts, all of them well worth the read:

AX Models - Part 1 - Deploying models
AX Models - Part 2 - Manifest and Signing
AX Models - Part 3 - Multiple Models per Layer
AX Models - Part 4 - Working with Models Inside MorphX

Furthermore, Vincent has some nice changes made to the Editor, which can be seen here:

Dynamics AX6 - The new X++ editor

It appears that some of the things I discussed in x++ and C# compared are being implemented, which is much needed and widely wished for, as can be told by the number of comments on Vincent's post.

All in all, some nice improvements are bound for AX6 - when more details and posts appear around the net, I will add them to this post.

If you know of posts which relate to AX 6 which I havn't got on my list, please feel free to add them in the comment field, and I will add them to the list.

EDIT:
Having browsed through mpf's blog again - I found a few more posts on AX6:
AX6 sneak preview - X++ Unit test improvements
AX6 sneak preview - elements with 32 bit IDs
AX6 sneak preview - SQL AOD

Microsoft has also published their statement of direction, in which further functionality changes which will influence developers and their work are mentioned, so if you have access to PartnerSource it's a must read, as it gives an indication where AX is headed
Statement of Direction for Microsoft Dynamics AX

Preview to review of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Programming: Getting Started

2010-01-07T15:50:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned in my post on the new feature of community content on MSDN, a new developer book has been published by Packt Publishing, viz. "Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Programming: Getting Started" by Erlend Dalen.

I have the privilege of writing a review of the book, but until I read the book from page to page, there is a sample chapter for you all the study titled "Searching for Data".
Having scanned the content of the book I am certain that it will provide the novice AX programmer with an easy accessable introduction to the programming language itself, its core syntax and structure along with step-by-step guides on how to e.g. create queries, as exemplified in the sample chapter which you can download from the link above.

One thing that I can readily tell is that 'foo' and 'bar' examples have been substituted with a business-like scenario of a car rental, so you get the feel of real life examples while learning the basics.

Enjoy the sample chapter and stay tuned for a full review.

MSDN with wiki content on AX 2009

2009-12-20T09:45:00.000+01:00

There are many reasons why we bloggers blog, depending on the type of posts you post of course. Some rant about their personal relationsships, some about political stuff, and yet some about their work and / or hobbies. I fall into the last category - my posts are for myself ( so I don't forget stuff ) and for other AX people, much in the same way as Willy. When I started on AX development I knew only very little about programming in practice and very much about theory ( having a MA in Information Technology ). During my studies I buddied up with Tino at the VISL-project where I did the user-oriented studies and he did the programming ( his programming skills are still out of this world ).

So when it got round to AX development, I was scared s**tless over the lack of how-to's, documentation and manuals for AX. Much of know-how seemed to be anchored in the people who somehow were in contact with the Damgaard company or former Damgaard employees and the most common respons to programming problems was "see if you can find similar functionality in the std. application, and steal with pride". However, many of the problems were not represented in the std. application though of such a general nature, that someone out there must have a solution or hint to how to solve it. And this is where blogs and forums enter the scene. There are a plethora of blogs and forum posts out there which deal with, suggest solutions to an almost ever increasing pool of good questions ( imo - there are no stupid questions ).
Two of the sites which helped me - and continue to do so - are Axaptapedia and the Axapta Programming site and to a lesser extend MSDN, and this blog is my way of repaying the AX community in the same way I was helped in my hours of need for specific problems, and general discussions on AX related stuff.

Then I read the Microsoft Dynamics AX SDK Updates Blog and as of Nov. 10th Community content ( or wiki content ) can be added to articles ( currently only SDK 2009 - but 4.0 is in the making ). Great days are ahead of us - more books on X++ development are published now than when I started, the most recent ( 'Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Programming : Getting started' by Erlen Dalen ) appears to be an up-to-date of Steen Andreasen's MorphX IT ( which I still recommend to new AX developers ), but adding the possibilty of contributing to MSDN will increase it's overall value to AX developers out there. Kudos to the MS AX2009 SDK team which do a great job adding value to the documentation which was sparse to say the least until an increased effort from MS came about some years ago.

Happy hacking,
Steffen

Pass by reference vs. pass by value

2009-11-24T15:06:00.000+01:00

This one is for myself, as I often forget how to implement pass by reference and pass by value, and what the difference is between them.
Pass by reference:

Declare varible and set it :
SalesLine salesLine = salesLine4

Down-side is if salesLine4 changes - so does salesLine

Pass by value:

SalesLine salesLine;
salesLine.data(salesLine4);

Happy ax-hacking

If salesLine4 changes - salesLine doesn't

Deleting duplicate records in SQL

2009-11-16T08:45:00.000+01:00

Recently I needed to delete some duplicate records across several companies in AX. The table is self-contained so I needn't worry about delete actions or validation and as there are several companies I wanted to try and do it SQL-style. So this is what I came up with

DELETE FROM [Table with Duplicates]
WHERE [Primary Key Field] IN
DELETE FROM [Table with Duplicates]
WHERE [Primary Key Field] IN
(
SELECT a.[Primary Key Field]
FROM [Table with Duplicates] a,
[Table with Duplicates] b

WHERE a.[Primary Key Field]!= b.[Primary Key Field] -- i.e. Userkey
AND a.[Value to check]= b.[Value to Check] -- i.e. Lastname
AND a.[Second Value to Check] = b.[Second Value to Check] -- i.e. Firstname
AND a.[Primary Key Field] < b.[Primary Key Field] -- i.e. Userkey
)

Respect to the original poster at SQL Server forum.

Remember always to backup your data and try the SQL-statement on a test table before you do anything on data which will be used in live environments.

The future of X++

2009-09-02T08:57:00.000+02:00

During the summmer Microsoft announced that X++ based Web User Interface is discontinues in the next version of EP which hardly comes as a surprise - Dilip has some nice thoughs on the subject, and as he says this will allow developers to use Web 3.0 Framework.

On Channel 9 - "Dynamics Program Manager Peter Villadsen and Software Developer Gustavo Plancarte teach us about a new tool they've developed that translates X++ byte code into MSIL. We learn a lot of history along the way and gain insights into the process of taking X++ into the .NET age.

Microsoft Dynamics features a proprietary language called X++ (basically a superset of Java, with some strong data primitives added) and a complete stack (compiler, interpreter and debugger) that goes with it. The new feature Peter and team have developed is a tool to generate managed code from the X++ intermediate language produced by the X++ compiler. This will have profound impact on the performance of the business applications written in X++, and it very clearly points to where they'll be going in the next few releases of Dynamics Ax."

Watch the video here.

My thoughts on the subject - as I posted on Dilip's blog, is that X++ sooner than later will become the new COBOL; 'pure' X++ code and developers will never die completly due to the exsisting code-base already out there, which has to be maintained but when the full implementation of an intermedia langauge parser comes into exsistence .NET programmers will be able to code Dynamics AX customizations in e.g. Visual Studio. There are many blessings in X++ - Extended Data Types and it's function to name one - which does not exsist in other languages ( to my knowledge ) which newer generations of developers will probably not fanthom if the platform will be migrated completly to the .NET-platform.

The progress begs the question - what are the advantages in the migration from X++ to .NET? Hard to tell for a X++ 'evangelist' but one thing could be the that Microsoft wish to consolidate NAV and AX development to the .NET platform through the intermediate language and thus open ERP development to the many exsisting .NET developers. This will perhaps position Microsoft better in the ERP market versus e.g. SAP if in a few years all the .NET programmers will be able to develop ERP solutions?

The days where a X++ developer could get by with "only" SQL and X++ skills are soon to end. Already for ISVs to give customers the full advantage of their Dynamics AX 2009 investment, their competencies has to include .NET programmers and Business Intelligence people (e.g. MDX, Reporting Services) on top of the traditional X++ and SQL teams. This will bring new challenges to ISVs and Dynamics AX team composition.

Office 2010 Technical Preview

2009-07-18T09:02:00.001+02:00

Beta testing - technical preview - the words make me tingle, and getting the opportunity to actually get my hands on alpha/beta/RC software makes me tingle even more. I've done my fair share of pre-rtm testing in my time, e.g. running Firefox before it actually was called Firefox, writing this blog post on my Windows 7 64 bit RC box, loving Opera 10 which had many of the features that IE and Firefox later adopted and doing QA for OpenOffice.

So last week I tingled a lot as I had the opportunity to join the technical preview community of Microsoft Office 2010. I grabbed the chance to install the 64-bit version, which is one of the new features of Office 2010, on my windows 7 box, and installation was a breeze.

Having a 64-bit version of Office 2010, the Office package probably being the defacto stadard of productivity suites, is a clear indication that 64-bit software is the future, and that 64-bit will most likely be gaining ground in production environments: "With Office 2010 64-bit edition, advanced users will be able to leverage the increased memory capabilities of 64-bit computing and harness this capability for analysis and manipulation of very large data sets and documents" though some VBA code require reengineering to work with the 64-bit version ( from the technical preview site ).

So let's get on the with the preview, starting off with Word 2010

One of the things I do at work is writing documentation, both technical and user-oriented. In AX 2009 ( and 4.0 - with the prober add-on ) I have Task Recorder at my disposal for easy and fast creation of user-oriented documentation. However, sometimes I need finer detailed screen shots than Task Recorder can provide so I use SnagIt for my needs. This works fine.

In Office 2010 this features has been combined with Windows 7's Snipping Tool so that you can actually past previously snipped screenshots directly into your word documented, e.g.:

This functionality does not make third-party programmes superfluous, such as SnagIt, which has many more excellent and useful functions; the funcinality in the Snipping Tool is pretty basic, but it demonstrats how Microsoft manage to integrate/couple standard Windows functionality with other products in the software portfolio.

This is just one of the new features of Office 2010 and as I spend some more time using it, I will most likely post some of my findings. If you have any questions regarding features of Office 2010, drop me a comment and I will see if I can find it.

Copy - paste utility

2009-06-25T08:44:00.000+02:00

The lack of IntelliSense in the MorphX IDE ( and being too cheap to invest in AxAssist ) made me browse for an alternative. I found ArsClip which is a nifty little tool for copying and pasting; and not just for programming. It can hold your Copy and with the right setup Ctrl-Shift-V will show you a list of you previous Copy ready to be inserted.

x++ and C# compared

2009-06-14T17:30:00.000+02:00

One indicatation that Dynamics AX developers need to learn C# in order to take full advantage of future versions of AX is when MS starts documenting differences in coding practices.

Personally, X++ was the first programming language which I've felt pretty comfortable with even though I've done som Java programming ( and the mandatory html coding which most programmers start out with ).

I see the need for AX developers to hone ( or just begin on ) their C# skills with the introduction of EP ( version 2009 ) and the reporting service integration with e.g. the role center. I've done som Hello Word-ish programming in C# using Visual Studio 2008 and I must say that I like it. One area where X++ and MorphX out ranks C# and VS is form development. After having created some rather basic forms in C# using VS it was a pleasure returning to MorphX's drag and drop design.

From what I can gather future version of AX will include a brand new approach to the layers and id ranges on elements but these advantages a side - MorphX still could adopt some of the features from VS, in my opinion. One thing I really like about VS is it's IntelliSense (Thanks Morten)~~"smart typing" ( I don't know what else to call it - but it's the feature when you start typing something VS automatically completes the string )~~ - it can be done; AxAssist does it for you - but why not integrate the functionality into MorphX as a standard? Well - perhaps in AX 6?

ODBC with FoxPro

2009-06-14T09:17:00.000+02:00

I recently had the pleasure of adventuring into the ODBC connection territory. I discovered that many others previously had done the same ( obviously ) but there was a surprising lack of how-to and other documentation. After some extensive searching I found Brandon's blog in which he meticulously documented an implementation of ODBC. Many excellent observations are included in his description, including AOS considerations, i.e. code-execution placing vs. maintenance of Windows ODBC connection ( he runs the code on the AOS server so that the system ODBC connection driver only needs to setup there and not on the client which would reduce maintainability as changes to the connection potentially would have to be distributed to all clients ).

If you are implementing an ODBC connection for the first time on AX 2009, I highly recommend reading Brandon's step-by-step description.

So implementig an ODBC connection should be a run of the mill type of assignment, had it not been for one small detail... FoxPro. One of Brandon's main consideratations was exactly that the ODBC connection should be created on the AOS, but the systems requirements for the AOS in the case in question on which the ODBC connection would be created stated that the OS ( Windows Server 2008 ) should be 64-bit, and FoxPro only runs 32-bit and since the AOS instance in AX2009 runs in 64-bit mode - it cannot access the 32-bit FoxPro drivers ( and as far as I could tell there never will be a 64-bit implementation of the ODBC drivers for FoxPro ).

So maintainability aside - I had to distribute the ODBC connection to all clients force the class which handles the code to run on the client. This can be done since the AX2009 client still runs 32-bit ( and in 32-bit mode on 64-bit OS ).

Task completed - but the journey probably would have been longer and more tedious had it not been for Brandon's blog.

Hope my expericences with FoxPro ODBC connection in connection with AX2009 helps someone, just as Brandon's blog helped me.

Happy hacking

Import csv job

2009-05-14T13:53:00.000+02:00

Here is an import job for importing tuples from a csv file:

Happy hacking

Opening a form on start up of AX

2009-05-02T11:20:00.000+02:00

I've recently implemented a variation of Palle Agermark's post on how to run a form on start up of AX. He opens a form through calling the Display menu item. I needed was to call a form with conditions, so I created a class which would handle the conditions in question and instead of calling the menu item I called the main method of the class

Thanks to GregP for his helpful tips and insisting that he could get it to work.

EDIT: There is a small aber dabei ( which roughly translates "there is a but", I just happen to like the German term better ). In order for the AutoRun to function, development rights for the user-group are necessary, as the function we utilize is typically used to automate installation/configuration. Giving the user group full development rights though is not an option in this scenario, so after some fiddling about I found that the only security setting the user group needs is SysLastMinuteCheck

which, by the way, only can be set giving the user group full development right and then removing all but this SysLastMinuteCheck.

How to tell if a form was opened with 'Go to main table' function

2009-02-17T15:12:00.000+01:00

I found this sample code really helpful in connection with a customization,where the customer wanted to alter the 'Go to main table' function.

Respect to original poster (though I can't remember where I found it - but the idea is not mine)

On main datasource:
public void executeQuery()
{
query q;
querybuilddatasource qbds;
querybuildrange qbr;
int fldLookupField;
str sLookupValue;
;
if ( element.args().caller() &&
!element.args().dataset() &&
element.args().lookupField() &&
element.args().lookupValue()) //jumpref
{
sLookupValue =element.args().lookupValue();
fldLookupField =element.args().lookupField();

q=this.query();
qbds=q.dataSourceTable(this.table());
qbr=qbds.addRange(fldLookupField);
qbr.value(sLookupValue);
this.query(q);
}
super();
}

Invoking a method on a field in a form's datasource

2009-02-13T11:04:00.000+01:00

I needed to call the modified method on a form's datasource's field to invoke the logic, which updated a couple of fields on the form. I had defaulted a value in the field on the table's initValue()-method but this - of course - means that the modified method is not in play.
Therefore I needed to call the method in code, for which I had two options, either calling the form controls method by setting AutoDeclaration to Yes and then calling modified or calling the datasource table's field's method which I chose.

e.g. ProdTable_ds.object(fieldnum(ProdTable, ItemId)).modified();

but where to place the code? After some time I found out that if I placed it on active() of the datasource the form showed the correct information.

/Happy hacking

Show current configuration in title bar of windows

2009-01-05T08:47:00.000+01:00

This code snippet shows the current configuration of the AX client you have opened. Really helpful if you have several different AX clients opened at the same time.

void workspaceWindowCreated(int _hWnd)
{
SqlSystem sqlSystem = new SqlSystem();
LoginProperty loginProperty = sqlSystem.createLoginProperty();
;

// Put workspace window specific initialization here.

// Show application details in title bar
if (loginProperty)
{
WinAPI::setWindowText(_hWnd, strFmt("%1 - %2@%3 (%4)", WinAPI::getWindowText(_hWnd), loginProperty.getDatabase(), loginProperty.getServer(), this.currentAOLayer()));
}
}

RunBase - classes and Best Practice

2008-10-20T11:38:00.000+02:00

There are certain classes which serve as excellent templates. One such class the LedgerExchAdj-class. If only all runbase-classes were as this one. In my opinion its simplicity and readability is top-notch. I've edited the class-specific code so that only the run() template is present, which included that all important error handling, which one might forget


public void run()
{
#OCCRetryCount
 ;

try
{
    ttsbegin;
// Insert code here
    ttscommit;
}

catch (Exception::Deadlock)
{
    retry;
}

catch (Exception::UpdateConflict)
{
    if (appl.ttsLevel() == 0)
    {
        if (xSession::currentRetryCount() >= #RetryNum)
        {
            throw Exception::UpdateConflictNotRecovered;
        }
        else
        {
            retry;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        throw Exception::UpdateConflict;
    }
}
}

Setting Cross-reference update in a Schedueld task

2008-10-03T09:52:00.000+02:00

An updated Cross reference is an indispensable tool when developing for AX but the client-side dependency can be annoying. So after a little research I found the command line parameter/Windows build-in Scheduled task combo and it does the trick.

In the class SysStartupCmd's construct the command line parameter compileAll-startup command the the parm _+ instantiates a complete compile and cross reference update which means that if you set-up a Scheduled task in Window's standart scheduled task tool with the parameter -startupcmd=compileAll_+ you can update when it suits your development team best.

MB6503 - AX 4.0 Installation and Configuration certification

2008-08-26T10:45:00.000+02:00

So, I've done it - I got my AX 4.0 Installation and Configuration certification. Actually this test was harder than I expected it to be but there's my five cent worth of advice for those of you who are preparing to take this exam. RTFM ( here an abbreviation of read the fun manual). Nearly all the answers are to be found in the Installation and Configuration manual provided by MS. Hands-on experience will also greatly increase your chances of passing this test, in my opinion.

OpenOffice and Dynamics ax

2008-08-20T09:15:00.000+02:00

Here is an example of how to use OpenOffice together with Dynamics AX (code-wise of course)

static void Job2(Args _args)
{ COM OpenOffice;
COM DeskTop;
COM Document;
COMVariant arg;
Array arr = new Array(Types::String);

//Creating instance of OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice = new Com("com.sun.star.ServiceManager");
DeskTop = OpenOffice.CreateInstance("com.sun.star.frame.Desktop");

// create and initialize a COMVariant object
arg = COMVariant::createFromArray(arr);
//Creating the document
Document = DeskTop.LoadComponentFromURL("private:factory/scalc", "_blank", 0, arg);
}

Original post by Ivan Kasperuk

My coding practice vs. your practice

2008-07-08T10:00:00.000+02:00

your program (n): a maze of non-sequiturs littered with clever-clever tricks and irrelevant comments. Compare MY PROGRAM.
my program (n): a gem of algorithmic precision, offering the most sublime balance between compact, efficient coding on the one hand, and fully commented legibility for posterity on the other. Compare YOUR PROGRAM.

How to close a form after a certain timespan

2008-07-07T13:48:00.001+02:00

Sometimes it would be really nice if a form closes automatically after a certain timespan. I found it particulary useful in ShopFloorControl, where end-users might not have a mouse to point to close on a form.

On the forms run:

public void run()
{
str JmgJobId;
// Define variable for timeout
// Created with new int on JmgParameters
int TimeOut = JmgParameters::find().JmgRegistredOnJobPromptTime;

// Check if there is a parm
if(element.args().parm())
{
JmgJobId = element.args().parm();
jobIdTxt.text(JmgJobId);
}

super();

// Close form after TimeOut
this.setTimeOut(identifierstr(close),TimeOut);
}

DAX 2009 RTM ready on Partner Source

2008-05-25T15:27:00.000+02:00

Here it comes - the RTM of 2009. You can download it from ParterSource (requires a ParterSource access as always). I've been experimenting with the TAP for some time now, and I must say that I like it more and more every time I open it. The project module is changed substatially compare with 4.0 which might prolong the learning curve.

Along side the actual RTM there is also an upgrade-document if you plan to upgrade already exsisting Axaptas to Dynamics AX 2009, and I'm glad to find out that there is an option of upgrading directly from 3.0 to 2009, which really eases application upgrades and transitions.

I can't wait to get going with the DAX 2009.

Happy hacking

WinMerge - a nifty little compare-tool

2008-05-19T10:55:00.000+02:00

When checking for consistency between labels I use a nifty little tool called WinMerge. It's OpenSouce and has a shell-integration which eases daily use. It can be downloaded from here

Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 free e-book

2008-04-28T12:02:00.000+02:00

Harish Mohanbabu was kind enough - per proxy qua his blog - to bring to my attention that MS has release a free e-book edition of Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 here as a pdf. I quite like the book as it serves both as an introduction to general X++ development and as a reference guide for more specific programming problems.

Applying agile software development to Dynamics AX development part I

2008-04-18T10:14:00.000+02:00

Ever since I wrote my thesis at university, I've pondered the fine art of software development methodologies. During my last year at the University of Southern Denmark I "shopped around" and followed a myriad of software related courses, e.g. Agile software development, User-centered software development, and other iterative and waterfall based software development processes. These development methodologies all have ther merits and flaws, which will be well known to any software developer and the process of merging business processes and software development processes is notoriously difficult, though it is of the utmost importance in order to achieve the best results, business- and softwarewise.

The courses I followed at university were mainly concered with the whole development process(es) from early conceptualization to post-installation maintenance, including GUI-development and Business Intelligence reports. Therefore when I started developing (or should I say customizing -a point to which I will return later) Dynamics AX for customers, my craze - User-Centered Design - slowly fell to the background. Is customizing an ERP-programme, such as Dynamics AX, merely a question of replicating exsisting business processes, with some optimization, and merging them into a new ERP-application or is the development of an ERP-solution an almost god given chance to take a critical bird's eye view of the whole organization and try to optimize business processes all the way r0und? The latter would seem the obvious answer but this again begs another question, viz.: can business processes be optimized isolated from the software development process, when the software has a central place in today's organizations? No. Of course it cannot.

All to rarely is there any substantial software development theory included in the business development plan for the implementation of a ERP-system. Traditional user-experience studies / examinations are left behind, because the UI is developed for us, as part of the standard application in the Dynamics-series, and it is 'just' (I know I'm a bit hard here - but I'm trying to get my point through) a question of rearranging data-presentation, based on the customer's prior ERP-system or an external system. All too often does the customer say something like 'that's not the way it was in the other system' when confronted with an newer version of, lets say Dynamics AX.

So the big question is: how do we - as software developers and business consultants - merge the two worlds and come-up with a process which will lead to sound business optimization and software development integrity?

More new stuff from Dynamics AX 2009 - Developer Documentation improvements

2008-04-11T18:16:00.000+02:00

During the week I had some more time for myself and my Dynamics AX 2009 CTP3. I've dived into the depths of the developer side of the CTP a bit more and discovered many new things and improvement compated to the previous versions. I looked at version control breifly in a previous post which I am looking forward to seeing in action when multiple developers are working on the same installation at the same time.

When browsing through the tables I found a new entity on the property of the table, DeveloperDocumentation which at first sight appears just to be a simple label. But the truth is much more interesting which became clear when I found a new node in the Add-in node of e.g. InventTable. DeveloperDocumentation is referenced to - it appears - the Dynamics AX SDK, which can be found online. Though it exsisted in 4.0 and 3.0 for that case, in 2009 it is wastly more elaborate. In Dynamics AX 2009 it is integrated in the MorphX IDE, as developers might recognize from other IDE's - Visual Studio etc. Yes - I know that AX developers might have gotten used to having the SDK open in a browser window next to Dynamics AX, but once again the consolidation of development envirionments, which was set forth in a MS road-map earlier, shines through, and I like it. The developer documentation was available in earlier versions of AX but the most commen result was "There is no information on the topic". The developer documentation in 2009 pretty much provides the information which is available from the online SDK but is updated and streamlined with e.g. Visual Studio's SDK, which - as you might know - also can be accessed from within the studio itself. The developer documentation node is also available for other elements in the AOT - classes, EDTs - just in case you were wondering.

Import items into InventTable and associated tables

2008-04-08T10:24:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I needed to import item data into a company for testing purposes, so I wrote a small job which reads an csv-file containing itemId and itemName and creates the posts in InventTable and its associated tables, InventTableModule and InventItemLocation

static void InventTableImport(Args _args)
{
//
//Author : Steffen Denize
//Purpose : Demonstration for importing InventTable into Dynamics AX
//
InventTable inventTable;
CommaIO inFile;
Filename filename;
Dialog dialog;
DialogField dialogField;
ItemId itemId;
int counter;
InventTableModule inventTableModuleBuf;
InventItemLocation inventItemLocationBuf;
ItemName itemName;
;

//
// Note - In this example, I have used 'Dialog' & DialogField classes
// as a tool for me to select the file that has to be imported.
//
dialog = new Dialog("Demo of import of items into a blank InvenTable");
dialogfield = dialog.addField(typeid(Filenameopen), "File Name");
dialog.run();

if (dialog.run())
{
filename = (dialogfield.value());
}

//
// Note - In this example, I have used CommaIO class. But you can also use
// AsciiIO class as well. Basically all these classes (AsciiIO, CommaIO,
// Comma7Io etc) derives from 'Io' base class. For more info, please
// refer to Io class.
//
inFile = new CommaIO (filename, 'R');

if (!inFile || infile.status() != IO_Status::Ok )
{
//strfmt - function for formatting text string
throw error (strfmt("@SYS19312",filename));
}
ttsbegin;

// Set the delimiters
infile.inFieldDelimiter(';');
infile.inRecordDelimiter('|');

//Checking status of last operation
while (infile.status() == IO_status::Ok)
{
// Setting container according to datatypes
[itemId, itemName] = infile.read();
if (itemId)
{
if(!InventTable::find(itemId).RecId)
{
inventTable.initValue();
inventTable.ItemId = itemId;
inventTable.ItemName = itemName;
// These values must be set on their respective tables.
// Here the value are hard-coded into the import as the import
// serves a demo purpose only
inventTable.ItemGroupId = 'TST';
inventTable.ModelGroupId = 'TST';
inventTable.DimGroupId = 'TST';
inventTable.Insert();

// Values must be setup in inventTableModule, which in Dynamics AX 4.0SP2 has three valid arrayelements
// purch, sales, invent (DEL_smmQuotation is not included in this job)
for(counter = 0; counter <= 2; counter++)
{
inventTableModuleBuf.ItemId = inventTable.ItemId;
inventTableModuleBuf.ModuleType = counter;
inventTableModuleBuf.insert();
}

InventItemLocationBuf.ItemId = inventTable.ItemId;
InventItemLocationBuf.inventDimId = InventDim::inventDimIdBlank();
InventItemLocationBuf.insert();
}
}
}
ttscommit;
}

Please notice that the posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights

How to setup automatic sync with Seagates FreeAgent Go

2008-04-04T13:40:00.000+02:00

Coming from XP to Vista is not as difficult as I would expect, though some of the software which I found indispensable in XP is not quite mature enough for a 64-bit version of Vista. One such piece of software is my automatic synchronization of documents to an external harddrive. In XP my FreeAgentGo 160GB external harddrive contained an exact copy of my documents folder - just in case - so big was the surprise when I tried to install the FreeAgent Tool on my 64-bit only to discover that the software wasn't supported on 64-bit OS'es. Having cussed for a while I tried to run the application in Windows 2000 compatability mode, and lo and behold, the installation ran perfectly and post-reboot, the sync is up and running again. Hurrah.

First impressions of Dynamics AX 2009 CTP

2008-03-28T09:46:00.001+01:00

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.

Dynamics AX 2009 CTP3 release

2008-03-26T14:45:00.000+01:00

Here it is - the first widely distributed prerelease of the upcoming version of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009.

It's available for download from PartnerSource (requires a PartnerSource login).

One of the many exciting new features is the Role centers and the new integration with Microsoft Project Server. I'm personally really looking forward to getting my hands on this CTP3 and experiencing many of the new features which this upcoming version has to offer.
You can find a comprehensive description of the features in the Dynamics AX 2009 on PartnerSource from the What's New in Dynamics AX 2009 (requires a PartnerSource login).

Hope you find the CTP3 as exciting as I do.

Faster data import in Dynamics AX

2007-10-16T13:42:00.000+02:00

So here it comes - my first real post. I've been having some difficulties when importing data into an exsisting application. It takes forever, especially with tables CustTrans and LedgerTrans, so I browsed the net and found this tip.

Notice that you will lose audittrail of the transactions.

The tip is as follows :
Go into Class SysDataImport, and into the method : updateTransactionId()

Make it return early as possible from this method, and everything goes quick.
Just create it like this :

private void updateTransactionId(TableId _tableId, CreatedTransactionId _oldCreatedTransId, ModifiedTransactionId _oldModifiedTransId)
{
CreatedTransactionId newTransId = 0;
;
// Return as early as possible to increase import speed
return;
if (!hasTransIdSupport)
{
return;
}

if (hasCreatedTransId[tableIds[_tableId]])
{
.
.
.
}

Do likewise with method updateTransactionIdReference().

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

As time goes by

2007-10-16T09:13:00.000+02:00

I will to to post some of the things I find while browsing the net. Posts will probably concern my professional interest, e.g. software develepment methologies, quality assurance in its broadest sense, process optimization and software development within the Dynamics AX framework, but do not despair if the occational non-professional post emerges.