Microsoft Dynamics Ax 2012 is coming...
This is going to be a major step forward in erp systems. 1200+ what’s new features
Here are some to whet your appetite:
• redesigned forms – a brand new look.
• a form developed for the rich client can be used in EP just by publishing it.
• migrates all reports to SSRS reports
• forms can be reused.
• aot can be accessed from Visual Studio.
• new security structure is role based
• trace can be invoked from the client
• the new Tfs integration also supports work item
• as and is key words are supported by x++
• more smoother integration between x++ and c#. objects can be just passed between both the languages.
• different environments for development and application.
• tables can be inherited
• a lot of properties has been added to reduce setup through code.
• rich use of powershell
• a new command line utility called axutill is introduced
Note:
• the new version supports only vs 2010
• Oracle db is no longer supported
• the rich client doesn’t supports windows xp
• though the new version doesn’t have aod you can still import xpo’s but you can’t export them.
• portions of x++ runs in the clr
So Ax archtiecture has moved into the 21st century
• Model driven AX dev in VS. Enriched data abstractions, dramatic improvements with .net interop
• A strong statement that the model driven dev starts in VS rather than AX
• Metadata native access with AOT with the VS application explorer
• models live in the database and multiple models within a given layer
• Full web services integration shown with zones and integration with external site. SOA.
• Modeling -from database, to development, BPM and org setup.
• Global Address Book is used throughout AX2012. Reduction of duplicate data, and secure access and use to this data
• Managed code dev is now possible, eventing etc.
• However X++ still has it place and will continue
• Hierarchy browser for tables (extend tables)
• Table inheritance will simplify complex data models
SECURITY
Security roles form, is central place for management of role, record and external security. Managing security in AX 2012 is totally different than in previous AX versions. The points being addressed for AX 2012 is the make security administration rescues is a big way in complexity.
Role based approach is a pyramid: roles, duties, privileges, permissions from top to bottom.
Duties also map out in a functional way to the “process cycles” that a person or job function perform. Process cycle and duties is where segregation of duties are enabled and managed within AX 2012
Three types of users in AX 2012.Claims user, active directory user and group. AD is not required for user access anymore. Claims based authentication, based on share point 14 and it’s ability to support this security context model. The idea is not to require vendors or customers as AD users, but instead to ahve a claims based context user
Share point uses secure open service, to take the claims based user Id, and share point keeps the context for the user for user UX. This is key for federated access and trust. Ie, cloud enablement for secure access to AX and cloud objects.Federated support for security ismeans not just azure with live Id, but also google accounts or others. This provides secure mobile access to data and business logic within AX, managed in the the same way
MSDYNAX 2012 wil leverage SharePoint Claims based security for non-AD users. Welcome ADFS, Live-ID, SAML tokens ! Improvements are impressive: role based security, external users and automatic role assignment!
**SETUPS AND SCOM MONITORING
Install of ax 2012 is easier than ever . Scom pack for those that invest in systems center. Scom pack has bp configuration check. The scom pack for Ax 2009 is limited to the AOS. AX 2012 expands its scope, and contains key concepts of discovery, monitor and task. Scom wil be key for enabling Ax admin for a company a big investment that companies should plan.
Install checklist does not need to run multiple times. Done once and then done! Decouples the install and initialization
In Ax 2012 the biztalk adapter is replaced by the wcf adapter
Service packs and updates can be dropped in install share
Models folder is key to enable custom installs. Models, labels and updates folder make installs dynamic and simple. Always publish and sign models as part of axmodel file creation
PERFORMANCE
Rmote procedure call in no longer the only protocol for web based or SharePoint communication with the AOS. Now with services, WCF so you don’t have to go through the BC.Net and that removes a layer and therefore helps performance
AOS for the first time has large box awareness and can scale up! No longer just a scale out – True parallel and asynchronous processing with AX 2012
Table inheritance means taking one table and making it 8. This is part of the perf of AX 2012.
Hexcore and beyond support for cores in AX 2012.
Sys operations framework is the key that enabled more parallel processing.
Data caching has been 100% reengineered.
Included columns as part of indexes as well as full text index. Along with true temp table usage!
Join caching, date effective caching, sysglobslconfiguration class… All great improvements in AX 2012.
Sysglobalobjectcache…
Unique index caching for joins. This means unique records, are cached and therefore cuts down on io round trips. Caching support for super type and subtype for across the board, even with a legacy table.
Batch framework highlights how threaded processing works and will continue to work with improvements!
DMVs highlighted and shown with the Intelligent Data management Framewoirk IDMF for AX 2012
Event trace parser for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 lives right out of the client, easy to get going and work with! Making trace for AX 2012 easy to run and report on, is a key factor is having more people use it as a tool for performance.
OS can scale and tested on 32 cores! Again first time the scale up is really for the AOS
Performance gain for using CIL execution is around garbage collection. Test took 90k lines down from 24h to 2h.
EP
Single click process for taking a rich client form to make it a web protal page! Very powerful. Portal, rich client and office are truly a blurred UX and it looks the same across these products
WORKFLOW
In AX2012, workflow is integrated in the AOS. No more messy installs
Great workflow development wizard
Tracking details show workflow events and show in the branched out way they took place
Common workflow UI controls.
Vision: every process should be modeled with a workflow – i.e. any vertical add on or customisation should designed with workflows
Workflow runtime integrated into AOS, which helps with lowered TCO and manageability of workflows. Modeling the business process, documents actual workflow of process that at the same time “configures” the solution
Key focus is model “real life” business process in AX with new workflow. The workflow editor is the same as in VS2010 and shows multiple branching workflow that works out of the box. Shows great flexibility but needs to be designed properly
Companies when they upgrade will want to consider removing worklfow code code approaches to replace with WF.
POWERSHELL MANAGEMENT
PowerShell will be a key tool for management of AX
• UsePowerShell, to dynamically deploy the latest touched reports, based on modified date there will be a huge focus on PowerShell for report deployment, configuration and management among multiple instances
• Three ways to deploy, client, VS2010 or the A x management shell, (which is PowerShell with other things loaded )
• Standard tooling is based on PowerShell and PS cmdlets
• Standard box, 10 mins to deploy 800 reports in AX 2012AIF
• When upgrading from AX 2009 to 2012 for AIF service contracts have changed. There is some manual reconfiguration
• Big schema change, and will be some rework based on this.
• All excel import and exports for office addin happen through AIF.
• Performance increase of 37 percent benchmarked for new AIF improvements
• The AIF is fully built on services which will run on the AOS. All integration through WCF services. Standardizes integrations! The improved AIF framework will open up AX for mobile platforms (whcih soe xpressed to grow massively in the next 5 years) .
• Transformations truly enable any file format support based on the stream in and out for AIF.
• AIF awill be much easier to setup and manage.
• SQL server will to enable change tracking at the table level
• Going through several demos, a lot of work to make AIF configuration a lot easier. No more 10 mb file limit!
• New system services: query service, metadata service and user session service. These new system services expose AX in a new way
Another highlighted aspect is support for non-XML formats.
80 percent reduction in top level AIF concepts! Less complexity!
90+ out of the box document services that come with AX 2012.
Bulk import support! Opens door for using this in massive data loads!
DATAUPGRADE
Preprocessing data upgrade before the ACTUAL upgrade to minimize down time
AX2012 will be shipped with a new and enhanced upgrade model
SSRS REPORTS
The Ax reports as we know them from previous versions are still there in Ax2012, but no new development is to be done on those. The ‘old’ Ax reports are supported in the sense that they still exist and can be used, but are not supported in the sense that all Ax reports are converted to SRSS
The SSRS reports node is the new location of report elements and is no longer held in the reportlibs node of the AOT
Since the security framework and the datamodel has had some serious redesigning in Ax2012, your reports will probably be broken anyway. Upgrading those would not be a good investment. The better decision is from now on to create new SSRS reports right away.
SSRS integration struggled in previous versions. SSRS integration in Ax2012 is seriously improved and offers in combination with the latest 2008 version of SSRS a decent performance gain.
SSRS is totally aware of Ax2012 metadata and new concepts such as the org model and security model. It has batch integration and archive support
Besides that, SSRS offers cool graphics and layoot possibilities that just were not possible in Ax reporting. Let’s face it: Ax reports were not eye-catchers.
The SSRS-Ax reporting framework allows creating basic reports (that need no coding at all). Even more complex reports such as the projInvoice or salesInvoice are all converted to SSRS!
The new reporting framework gives developers different types of classes to customize reports as required: data provider classes, data contract classes and controller classes. These give the developer the same possibilities as with the Ax reports.
What does SSRS offer over traditional Ax reports?
- Awareness of Ax2012 metadata and concepts
- Correct PDF output
- Support for images in batch
What does Ax reporting framework offer that is not in SSRS?
Ax reports allow the user to define sorting, subtotals, grouptotals, print ranges, … SSRS does not offer this .
EXCEL INTEGRATION
Copying data from Ax to Excel is not new, but it wouldn’t be Ax2012 if it wasn’t improved: now only the actual columns you’re seeing on the screen are copied. But that’s nothing compared to the fact that you can now create, change and delete Ax data from within Excel. In an Excel workbook, you can ‘add data’ and pick one of the available services (these are webservices). In design mode and bind the fields from your datasource to the cells in your worksheet.
AX data changes while using Excel to edit, optimistic concurrency is used. Data cannot be published. No merging logic in place.
Allowing the users to create data in Excel and publish it when complete will be a big talking point in getting data into AX.
Two types of AX exports to Excel: static (like in a 2009) and refreshable export (active connection to AX). Excel junkies will rejoice
AX ribbon in Excel, to securely publish data back to AX Security roles mean you can take the budget template in Excel and load it to Ax. You can :
- Add new records (of course all mandatory fields need to be in place)
- Even create new linked header/line records
- Update existing values (data is validated!)
- Delete records
- Add (non-bound) calculated columns
- Format your data as you want
- Use lookup-values (just as with the drop-downs in the Ax client)
- Add ‘matrix fields’ to create aggregate views
- Changing the value of an aggregated field automatically updates the original values (proportionally)
All modifications that you do on bound data stays within Excel until you hit the ‘publish’ button, this sends the data back to Ax.Actually this can be used as a new way to bulk-insert data (think data conversion
Here are some to whet your appetite:
• redesigned forms – a brand new look.
• a form developed for the rich client can be used in EP just by publishing it.
• migrates all reports to SSRS reports
• forms can be reused.
• aot can be accessed from Visual Studio.
• new security structure is role based
• trace can be invoked from the client
• the new Tfs integration also supports work item
• as and is key words are supported by x++
• more smoother integration between x++ and c#. objects can be just passed between both the languages.
• different environments for development and application.
• tables can be inherited
• a lot of properties has been added to reduce setup through code.
• rich use of powershell
• a new command line utility called axutill is introduced
Note:
• the new version supports only vs 2010
• Oracle db is no longer supported
• the rich client doesn’t supports windows xp
• though the new version doesn’t have aod you can still import xpo’s but you can’t export them.
• portions of x++ runs in the clr
So Ax archtiecture has moved into the 21st century
• Model driven AX dev in VS. Enriched data abstractions, dramatic improvements with .net interop
• A strong statement that the model driven dev starts in VS rather than AX
• Metadata native access with AOT with the VS application explorer
• models live in the database and multiple models within a given layer
• Full web services integration shown with zones and integration with external site. SOA.
• Modeling -from database, to development, BPM and org setup.
• Global Address Book is used throughout AX2012. Reduction of duplicate data, and secure access and use to this data
• Managed code dev is now possible, eventing etc.
• However X++ still has it place and will continue
• Hierarchy browser for tables (extend tables)
• Table inheritance will simplify complex data models
SECURITY
Security roles form, is central place for management of role, record and external security. Managing security in AX 2012 is totally different than in previous AX versions. The points being addressed for AX 2012 is the make security administration rescues is a big way in complexity.
Role based approach is a pyramid: roles, duties, privileges, permissions from top to bottom.
Duties also map out in a functional way to the “process cycles” that a person or job function perform. Process cycle and duties is where segregation of duties are enabled and managed within AX 2012
Three types of users in AX 2012.Claims user, active directory user and group. AD is not required for user access anymore. Claims based authentication, based on share point 14 and it’s ability to support this security context model. The idea is not to require vendors or customers as AD users, but instead to ahve a claims based context user
Share point uses secure open service, to take the claims based user Id, and share point keeps the context for the user for user UX. This is key for federated access and trust. Ie, cloud enablement for secure access to AX and cloud objects.Federated support for security ismeans not just azure with live Id, but also google accounts or others. This provides secure mobile access to data and business logic within AX, managed in the the same way
MSDYNAX 2012 wil leverage SharePoint Claims based security for non-AD users. Welcome ADFS, Live-ID, SAML tokens ! Improvements are impressive: role based security, external users and automatic role assignment!
**SETUPS AND SCOM MONITORING
Install of ax 2012 is easier than ever . Scom pack for those that invest in systems center. Scom pack has bp configuration check. The scom pack for Ax 2009 is limited to the AOS. AX 2012 expands its scope, and contains key concepts of discovery, monitor and task. Scom wil be key for enabling Ax admin for a company a big investment that companies should plan.
Install checklist does not need to run multiple times. Done once and then done! Decouples the install and initialization
In Ax 2012 the biztalk adapter is replaced by the wcf adapter
Service packs and updates can be dropped in install share
Models folder is key to enable custom installs. Models, labels and updates folder make installs dynamic and simple. Always publish and sign models as part of axmodel file creation
PERFORMANCE
Rmote procedure call in no longer the only protocol for web based or SharePoint communication with the AOS. Now with services, WCF so you don’t have to go through the BC.Net and that removes a layer and therefore helps performance
AOS for the first time has large box awareness and can scale up! No longer just a scale out – True parallel and asynchronous processing with AX 2012
Table inheritance means taking one table and making it 8. This is part of the perf of AX 2012.
Hexcore and beyond support for cores in AX 2012.
Sys operations framework is the key that enabled more parallel processing.
Data caching has been 100% reengineered.
Included columns as part of indexes as well as full text index. Along with true temp table usage!
Join caching, date effective caching, sysglobslconfiguration class… All great improvements in AX 2012.
Sysglobalobjectcache…
Unique index caching for joins. This means unique records, are cached and therefore cuts down on io round trips. Caching support for super type and subtype for across the board, even with a legacy table.
Batch framework highlights how threaded processing works and will continue to work with improvements!
DMVs highlighted and shown with the Intelligent Data management Framewoirk IDMF for AX 2012
Event trace parser for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 lives right out of the client, easy to get going and work with! Making trace for AX 2012 easy to run and report on, is a key factor is having more people use it as a tool for performance.
OS can scale and tested on 32 cores! Again first time the scale up is really for the AOS
Performance gain for using CIL execution is around garbage collection. Test took 90k lines down from 24h to 2h.
EP
Single click process for taking a rich client form to make it a web protal page! Very powerful. Portal, rich client and office are truly a blurred UX and it looks the same across these products
WORKFLOW
In AX2012, workflow is integrated in the AOS. No more messy installs
Great workflow development wizard
Tracking details show workflow events and show in the branched out way they took place
Common workflow UI controls.
Vision: every process should be modeled with a workflow – i.e. any vertical add on or customisation should designed with workflows
Workflow runtime integrated into AOS, which helps with lowered TCO and manageability of workflows. Modeling the business process, documents actual workflow of process that at the same time “configures” the solution
Key focus is model “real life” business process in AX with new workflow. The workflow editor is the same as in VS2010 and shows multiple branching workflow that works out of the box. Shows great flexibility but needs to be designed properly
Companies when they upgrade will want to consider removing worklfow code code approaches to replace with WF.
POWERSHELL MANAGEMENT
PowerShell will be a key tool for management of AX
• UsePowerShell, to dynamically deploy the latest touched reports, based on modified date there will be a huge focus on PowerShell for report deployment, configuration and management among multiple instances
• Three ways to deploy, client, VS2010 or the A x management shell, (which is PowerShell with other things loaded )
• Standard tooling is based on PowerShell and PS cmdlets
• Standard box, 10 mins to deploy 800 reports in AX 2012AIF
• When upgrading from AX 2009 to 2012 for AIF service contracts have changed. There is some manual reconfiguration
• Big schema change, and will be some rework based on this.
• All excel import and exports for office addin happen through AIF.
• Performance increase of 37 percent benchmarked for new AIF improvements
• The AIF is fully built on services which will run on the AOS. All integration through WCF services. Standardizes integrations! The improved AIF framework will open up AX for mobile platforms (whcih soe xpressed to grow massively in the next 5 years) .
• Transformations truly enable any file format support based on the stream in and out for AIF.
• AIF awill be much easier to setup and manage.
• SQL server will to enable change tracking at the table level
• Going through several demos, a lot of work to make AIF configuration a lot easier. No more 10 mb file limit!
• New system services: query service, metadata service and user session service. These new system services expose AX in a new way
Another highlighted aspect is support for non-XML formats.
80 percent reduction in top level AIF concepts! Less complexity!
90+ out of the box document services that come with AX 2012.
Bulk import support! Opens door for using this in massive data loads!
DATAUPGRADE
Preprocessing data upgrade before the ACTUAL upgrade to minimize down time
AX2012 will be shipped with a new and enhanced upgrade model
SSRS REPORTS
The Ax reports as we know them from previous versions are still there in Ax2012, but no new development is to be done on those. The ‘old’ Ax reports are supported in the sense that they still exist and can be used, but are not supported in the sense that all Ax reports are converted to SRSS
The SSRS reports node is the new location of report elements and is no longer held in the reportlibs node of the AOT
Since the security framework and the datamodel has had some serious redesigning in Ax2012, your reports will probably be broken anyway. Upgrading those would not be a good investment. The better decision is from now on to create new SSRS reports right away.
SSRS integration struggled in previous versions. SSRS integration in Ax2012 is seriously improved and offers in combination with the latest 2008 version of SSRS a decent performance gain.
SSRS is totally aware of Ax2012 metadata and new concepts such as the org model and security model. It has batch integration and archive support
Besides that, SSRS offers cool graphics and layoot possibilities that just were not possible in Ax reporting. Let’s face it: Ax reports were not eye-catchers.
The SSRS-Ax reporting framework allows creating basic reports (that need no coding at all). Even more complex reports such as the projInvoice or salesInvoice are all converted to SSRS!
The new reporting framework gives developers different types of classes to customize reports as required: data provider classes, data contract classes and controller classes. These give the developer the same possibilities as with the Ax reports.
What does SSRS offer over traditional Ax reports?
- Awareness of Ax2012 metadata and concepts
- Correct PDF output
- Support for images in batch
What does Ax reporting framework offer that is not in SSRS?
Ax reports allow the user to define sorting, subtotals, grouptotals, print ranges, … SSRS does not offer this .
EXCEL INTEGRATION
Copying data from Ax to Excel is not new, but it wouldn’t be Ax2012 if it wasn’t improved: now only the actual columns you’re seeing on the screen are copied. But that’s nothing compared to the fact that you can now create, change and delete Ax data from within Excel. In an Excel workbook, you can ‘add data’ and pick one of the available services (these are webservices). In design mode and bind the fields from your datasource to the cells in your worksheet.
AX data changes while using Excel to edit, optimistic concurrency is used. Data cannot be published. No merging logic in place.
Allowing the users to create data in Excel and publish it when complete will be a big talking point in getting data into AX.
Two types of AX exports to Excel: static (like in a 2009) and refreshable export (active connection to AX). Excel junkies will rejoice
AX ribbon in Excel, to securely publish data back to AX Security roles mean you can take the budget template in Excel and load it to Ax. You can :
- Add new records (of course all mandatory fields need to be in place)
- Even create new linked header/line records
- Update existing values (data is validated!)
- Delete records
- Add (non-bound) calculated columns
- Format your data as you want
- Use lookup-values (just as with the drop-downs in the Ax client)
- Add ‘matrix fields’ to create aggregate views
- Changing the value of an aggregated field automatically updates the original values (proportionally)
All modifications that you do on bound data stays within Excel until you hit the ‘publish’ button, this sends the data back to Ax.Actually this can be used as a new way to bulk-insert data (think data conversion
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