Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 and Azure

Back in November 2013 Mary Jo Foley reported that Microsoft planned to Dynamics AX to the clould by spring 2014.

With the release of Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Microsoft introduced the ability of deploying AX 2012 R3 to the Cloud, proving once again that Mary Jo Foley's articles are well worth reading when it comes to news on Microsoft and their products. While Microsoft have updated their articles on how to plan a AX deployment to the cloud, the move to a cloud based solution may seem a challenge if you never before have investigated Azure.

In order to get the fundamentals in place, Microsoft have published a free e-book. It is a great read, not only covering many of the topics that are relevant for a Dynamics AX 2012 R3 implementation but will also covering areas for general development.

Download your copy from:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2015/02/03/free-ebook-microsoft-azure-essentials-fundamentals-of-azure.aspx

Videos from Technical Conference 2015

The annual Microsoft Dynamics Techical Conference took place back in February. As always the conference demonstrated Microsoft's strong commitment to the Dynamics Product portfolio and gave participants the opportunity to hear about practical and technical content, as well as recommended best practices, delivered by Microsoft leaders and technology experts.

The videos from the conference are now available from Customer and Partner Source site:

2 examples of importing multiple files

In AX, the typical way to import files via the UI is to do it one file at the time. If you have multiple files to import there are several options on how to do this via the AIF.

Every once in a while, it could be useful for the end-user to have the option of importing several files through the UI.

I have found two similar examples on how to achieve this:

Example 1)
static void MultiFileSelectDlgTest_1(Args _args)
{
    System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog ofd;
    System.String[]                                          s2;
    int                                                               counters;
    str                                                               imageValaue;
    int                                                               i;
    ;
    ofd = new System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog();
    ofd.set_Title("Select files");
    ofd.set_Multiselect(true);
    if (ofd.ShowDialog() == System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult::OK)
    {
        s2 = ofd.get_FileNames();
        counters=System.Convert::ToInt32( s2.get_Length());
        for(i = 0 ; i <= counters-1; i++)
        {
            imageValaue = System.Convert::ToString(s2.GetValue(i));
            info(strFmt('%1', imageValaue));
            //do whatever you want ;)
        }
    }

}
The dialog will show this:

and the output in the infolog shows the individual files processed:

Example 2) The second example is just another flavour of the first, adding a filter option on the input content.

static void MultiFileSelectDlgTest_2(Args _args)

{

    int             idx;

    int             cnt;

    boolean         result;

    System.String[] files;

    Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog dlg = new Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog();

    dlg.set_Multiselect(true);

    dlg.set_DefaultExt(".txt");

    dlg.set_Filter("Text documents|*.txt|All files|*.*");

    result = dlg.ShowDialog();

    if (result)

    {

        files = dlg.get_FileNames();

        cnt = files.get_Count();

        for (idx = 0; idx <= cnt; idx++)

        {

            info(files.get_Item(idx));

        }

    }

}

Importing an Excel spread sheet with multiple columns

You may have seen it before, but here’s our take:

Case: The end-user has a spreadsheet they want to import, and creating a csv-file is not an option.

Challenge: In Excel the end user needs to set a “ ’ ” in front of the numbers if they are to behave as strings e.g. an account no “123435”. When read in AX the value will be read as 123.435,0000 since is interpreted as a real. To overcome this, the end user must set the ‘ in front of the string e.g. ‘123435. Since there may be several hundred or thousands of records, it is not an option for the end user.

How to import from Excel and format the cells’ content when assigning to variables in AX.

Suggested solution below:

So, you create a dialog etc. for the file import and in the actual method you read the sheet, the code looks like this:

private void readExcelFile()

{

    SysExcelApplication     application;

    SysExcelWorkbooks       workbooks;

    SysExcelWorkbook        workbook;

    SysExcelWorksheets      worksheets;

    SysExcelWorksheet       worksheet;

    SysExcelCells           cells;

    COMVariantType          type;

    COMVariant              variant;

    int                     row=1,errors = 0;

    smmBusRelTable                      smmBusRelTable;

    smmBusRelAccount                    smmBusRelAccount;

    XXX_SortingId                       sortingId;

    container                           errorCon;

    ;

    application = SysExcelApplication::construct();

    workbooks   = application.workbooks();

    ttsBegin;

    try

    {

        workbooks.open(filenameopen);

    }

    catch (Exception::Error)

    {

        throw error("@SYS19358.");

    }

    workbook    = workbooks.item(1);

    worksheets  = workbook.worksheets();

    worksheet   = worksheets.itemFromNum(1);

    cells       = worksheet.cells();

    type = cells.item(row+1,1).value().variantType();

    while (type != COMVariantType::VT_EMPTY)

    {

        row++;

        // find variant of cell

        variant         = cells.item(row, 1).value();

        // set variant type to smmBusRelAccount

        smmBusRelAccount = this.variant2str(variant);

        if(smmBusRelAccount)

        {

            smmBusRelTable = smmBusRelTable::find(smmBusRelAccount,true);

            // if there is a prospect proceed

            if(smmBusRelTable.RecId)

            {

                variant = cells.item(row, 3).value();

                sortingId = this.variant2str(variant);

                if(!sortingId)

                {

                    sortingId = cells.item(row, 3).value().toString();

                }

                if(XXX_Table::exist(sortingId,8))

                {

                    smmBusRelTable.XXX_Field = sortingId;

                    smmBusRelTable.update();

                }

                else

                {

                    errorCon = conIns(errorCon,maxInt(),strFmt("Error with sorting %1",row,sortingId));

                }

            }

            // write to error log

            else

            {

                errorcon = conIns(errorCon,maxInt(),strFmt("Error with prospect %1",row));

            }

        }

        type = cells.item(row+1, 1).value().variantType();

    }

    application.quit();

    ttsCommit;

    info('Import done');

    // Header was counted as successful import. 1 is substracted from row to reflect that headers should not count

    info(strFmt('Number of items imported %1',(row-1)-conLen(errorCon)));

    setprefix(strfmt('@SYS344649',conLen(errorCon)));

    while (errors < conLen(errorCon))

    {

        errors++;

        info(conPeek(errorCon,errors));

    }

}

In the

while (type != COMVariantType::VT_EMPTY)

we check if there is something the cell read.

Then you assign the variant of the cell

variant         = cells.item(row, 1).value();

which you then cast to string:

private str variant2str(COMVariant _variant)

{

    str valueStr;

    ;

    switch(_variant.variantType())

    {

        case COMVariantType::VT_EMPTY   :

            valueStr = '';

            break;

        case COMVariantType::VT_BSTR    :

            valueStr = _variant.bStr();

            break;

        case COMVariantType::VT_R4      :

        case COMVariantType::VT_R8      :

            if(_variant.double())

            {

                valueStr = num2Str0(_variant.double(),0);

                

            }

            break;

        default                         :

            throw error(strfmt("@SYS26908",

                                _variant.variantType()));

    }

    return valueStr;

}

Easy steps to create a number sequence in AX2012

Following are steps to create new NumberSequence in Ax 2012

1. Open the NumberSeqModuleXXX (XXX is for the module name e.g. NumberSeqModuleCustomer, NumberSeqModuleHRM etc) class in the Application Object Tree (AOT) and add the following code to the bottom of the loadModule() method:

datatype.parmDatatypeId(extendedTypeNum(YYYY)); //EDT used for number sequence

datatype.parmReferenceHelp("zzzzzzzzzzz");

datatype.parmWizardIsContinuous(false);

datatype.parmWizardIsManual(NoYes::No);

datatype.parmWizardIsChangeDownAllowed(NoYes::Yes);

datatype.parmWizardIsChangeUpAllowed(NoYes::Yes);

datatype.parmWizardHighest(999);

datatype.parmSortField(20);

datatype.addParameterType(

NumberSeqParameterType::DataArea, true, false);

this.create(datatype);

2.Create a new job with following code and run it:

static void NumberSeqLoadAll(Args _args)

{

NumberSeqApplicationModule::loadAll();

}

3.Run the number sequence wizard on the Organization

administration >Common >Number sequences > Number sequences > Generate and click on the Next button. Click on Details for more information. Delete the lines except the desired lines ( lines with your module and reference to your EDT). Click next and finish the wizard.

4.You will find the newly created numberSequence in the respective module's parameters form under numbersequence tab.
In the parameters table(zzzzParameters) in the AOT create the following method:

public server static NumberSequenceReference numRefYYYY()

{

return NumberSeqReference::findReference(extendedTypeNum(YYYY));

}

5.To use the number sequence refer to the following code :

public void initValue()

{

NumberSeq NumSeq;

;

super();

NumSeq = NumberSeq::newGetNum(zzzzParameters::numRefYYYY(),true);

//NumSeq.num(); this will create new numbers.

}

How to redirect/drain user clients in a cluster AOS-setup

It may become necessary to redirect users to a specific AOS instance even though the client configuration is setup to use a AOS cluster.

If the redirect is a temporary fix such as setting an AOS-server offline for maintenance instead of editing all axc-client configurations, it is possible in the user interface to tell an AOS-server to redirect user connection to other AOS-instances in the cluster quite easily:

Open AX and navigate to the System Administration module:

In the group Users, open Online users:

On the tab Server Instances confirm that are are 2 or more AOS-instances connected to the application:

Mark the AOS-instance that you want to redirect from and press the Reject new clients button, e.g. 

A prompt will ask for confirmation, press OK:

Status for the AOS instance will shift to Draining, which means that connections to the AOS-instance is in the process of drained from the AOS-instance(s).

 

To allow connections to the AOS-instance again, navigate to the same form, highlight the redirecting AOS instance and press the “Accept new clients”.

In this way, we have redirected new connections to an AOS-cluster away from a specific AOS-instance, without altering the client configuration.

TechNet: Drain users from an AOS

Checking up on Backup history?

Ever needed to show the history of your backups? Here is the SQL script to do it

SELECT top 10

    database_name,

    recovery_model,

    CASE bs.type

        WHEN 'D' THEN 'FULL'

        WHEN 'I' THEN 'DIFFERENTIAL'

        WHEN 'L' THEN 'TRANSACTION LOG'

        ELSE 'UNKNOWN'

    END AS backup_type,

    backup_start_date,

    backup_finish_date,

    backup_size,

    compressed_backup_size

FROM msdb.dbo.backupset bs

where database_name = 'AX2012'

order by backup_finish_date desc