Microsoft Dynamics - Innovations

Johan Olsson
Microsoft AB
Introduction
Microsoft Dynamics ERP content

• Module 1 Dynamics Application Platform

• Module 2: Look & Feel AX 4.0
• Module 3: What’s new in AX 4.0 technical
• Module 4 Q and A
Demonstration
Microsoft Dynamics Roadmap

Role-based user Enhanced

experience user
experience

Office server portals Workflow &

and collaboration process-centric
design

SQL contextual “Best of” application

business intelligence functionality
(BI)

Simple, model driven

Easy integration development &
& extensibility via web customization
services
 Demonstration
Reliability: Microsoft Dynamics Roadmap
Role-Based Contextual
User Experience Business Intelligence

• Role-based User
Experience
• Portals and
Collaboration
• Contextual Business
Intelligence
• Web Service-based
Composition and
Integration

Web Portals and

Services Collaboration
SQL Server Generations
History of Innovation

1st Generation 2nd Generation 3rd Generation

SQL Server SQL Server SQL Server SQL Server

6.0/6.5 7.0 2000 2005
 Differentiation  Re-architecture of  Performance,  High availability
from Sybase SQL relational server scalability focus  Security
Server  Extensive auto  XML support  Developer
 Windows resource  First to include productivity
integration management Notification  Native XML
 First to include  First to include  First to include
Replication OLAP & ETL  First to include
Data Mining & Enterprise ETL &
Reporting Deep Data Mining

Cross-release • Reliability & Security • Lowest TCO

objectives • Integrated Business Intelligence • Automatic Tuning
 Integrate Analyze Report
 Data acquisition from  Data enrichment,  Data presentation
source systems and with business logic, and distribution
integration hierarchical views  Data access
 Data transformation  Data discovery via for everyone
and synthesis data mining
 Browser Office Custom Application

Security Services
XML Web Service Interface (NT, Passport,
Data Sources
(SQL, OLE DB, XML/A, Custom)
ODBC, Oracle, Custom) Report Server

Report Processing

Data Processing Security

Rendering Scheduling & Delivery

Output Formats
(HTML, Excel, PDF, Custom) SQL Server Catalog Delivery Targets
(E-mail, SharePoint,
Custom)
Q and A
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel

– Menu
– Forms
– Reports
– Security
– Integration
– Interfaces
– Cool Stuff
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Menu

• Navigation Pane
– New Menu structure (Microsoft Office Look
and Feel)
– Structure can be modified
• Favorites Pane
– instead of user menu’s
– Can be modified
• Task Pane
– Global Search (data crawler)
• Online help file
– Integration with External help file (.chm)
• Microsoft HTML Help 1.4 SDK
• Workspaces
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Forms

• Sorting
• Searching:
– Filter by Grid
– Filter by Selection
– Filter by Field
• Format
– Move
– Hide
– Rename
– Add fields
• What’s this (.CHM)
• Templates
• Print wizard
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Alerts Global Search (data crawler)
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Reporting

• Microsoft Dynamics AX Internal Report Generator

– Output options: Print, Fax, E-mail, File..
– Print wizard
– Integrated Security
– Report hyperlinks

• SQL 2005 Reporting Services

– Integration
– Reports shown trough Report Manager

• SQL 2005 Analysis services

– OLAP Cubes
Creating and Running Ad-hoc Reports

Demo shows how Report Builder is

invoked and used with models
generated by Microsoft Dynamics AX.
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Integration

• Office
– Copy and Paste to Excel
– Document management
• Word integration
• Excel Integration
– CRM
• Outlook integration
– Visio integration
• Technical documentation
• Active Directory integration HRM / Security
• OLAP (SQL 2005 Analysis Services)
• SQL 2005 Reporting Services
• Application Integration Framework
– InfoPath / Web-services Wizard
• RFID
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Trust Worhty Computing (TWC) pillars
Business Practice
- SharePoint,
- Reporting services,
- .CHM files

Reliability
- Upgradeability
- Office GUI
- Dev Guide: Cookbook
- Version Control

Privacy
- User group setup
- Record level Security
- New Outlook integration

Security
- Active Directory Integration
- Mandatory 3 tier
- AX Code security
- Batch Server bound framework
- Database log & Audit trail
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Web interfaces

2 different interfaces for 2 different purposes

Windows client Web client

• All functionality • Some functionality
• Some users • All users
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Cool Stuff

- Be careful with showing:

- Balance scorecard
- Shop floor control registration
- Tutorial Free Form
- Tutorial Tetris
- Snap Ins
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Look & Feel: Cool Stuff
Q and A
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Technical overview

• General
• Alerts
• Development
• Installation and Setup
• Business intelligence
• Enterprise portal framework
• Business connector
• Application integration framework

• Upgrade tool
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Demonstration

• General
– Adjusting Navigation Pane and Favorites
– Global Search Setup
– External Help files
– Trustworthy computing
– Unicode
– Integration
• Active directory / Windows authentication logon
• SQL 2005 Server (SQL Reporting Services, Analysis
Services Unicode support)
• Sharepoint Portal Services
• RFID Infrastructure
Enterprise Portal

Demo shows how we use WSS with in

Microsoft Dynamics AX.
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Demonstration

• Alerts (Business Activity Monitoring)

– Based on Due dates or database changes
– Notification by popup or email
– With hyperlink to ether the alert or the source

• Development environment
– Version Control management system
• Integrated with Visual Source Safe 2005 server
• Procedure
– Check out objects and labels
– Check in objects and labels
– Reverse engineering (Visio integration)
– New debugger (.Net standards)
– Common Language Runtime Interoperability (CLR Interop)
• Access to .Net assemblies
CLR Interop and Reverse engineering (Visio integration)

Demo shows how we use CLR Interop

to execute manages code with in
Microsoft Dynamics AX.
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Demonstration
• Installation and setup
– Removal of 2-tier, Thick client, web deployment
– Integration with Active directory
– Database improvements
• Index management
• Better language support by using Unicode
• RECid changes
– Ax 3.0: 4,294,967,296
– Ax 4.0: 18,446,744,073,709,551,615
• Optimistic concurrency
– Application File Server
• No copy of application folders Anymore
• Instead AOS manages applications
– AOS Improvements
• Loadbalancing using NLB
• AOS is true windows service
• Improved communication between client en server
Session Management
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Demonstration

• Business Intelligence
– Integration with SQL 2005 Reporting services
• Using a Semantic Data Model (buidl in AOT)
– Native Reporting Engine Enhancements
• Print drill down
– Primary Links
– Secondary Links
– OLAP
• Enhanced security

• Enterprise Portal Framework

– Fully integrated with Sharepoint services
• Sharepoint Web authoring experience
• Better personalisation
• Integrated collaboration and content management
• Integrated Document Management
• Web framework opened up to existing portals
– Based on .Net Business Connector
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Demonstration

• Business connector
– .NET BC Replacing the Ax 3.0 com-connector
– More stable / faster
– All applications using the com connector need to be updated:
• COM connecter interface adjustments
• Fit to Windows Authentication

• Application Integration Framework

– Documents based integration (B2B / A2A)
– Web services (Intranet use)
– Extra- / Intranet use need extra security
• Integration Technology for the Next
Release of Microsoft Dynamics AX
Application Integration Framework (AIF)

• New XML based integration framework

– Business-to-Business (B2B) collaboration
– Application-to-Application (A2A / EAI) integration
• Document-oriented interfaces
• Extensible X++ framework
Transaction Types

• Adapters (File System, MSMQ, BTS, WS)

– Send Documents
– Receive and Create Documents
– Respond to Read Requests
• Web Service Interface
– Request Documents from Axapta
– Submit Documents to be created in Axapta
• Note: Update and delete is not supported
out-of-the-box in this release
Configuring the AIF
Axd<Document> Query
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<SalesOrder xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/">
<DocPurpose>Original</DocPurpose>
<SenderId>dmo</SenderId>

<SalesTable class="entity">
<CaseTagging>No</CaseTagging>
<CovStatus>1</CovStatus>
<CurrencyCode>EUR</CurrencyCode>
<CustAccount>4020</CustAccount>

<SalesLine class="entity">
<Blocked>No</Blocked>
<CaseTagging>No</CaseTagging>
<Complete>No</Complete>
<CurrencyCode>EUR</CurrencyCode>
...

<InventDim class="entity"> ... </InventDim>

</SalesLine>

<DocuRefHeader class="entity"> ... </DocuRefHeader>

<DocuRefHeader class="entity"> ... </DocuRefHeader>

</SalesTable>
</SalesOrder>
Creating a Web Service
Dynamics AX Web Services
• Standards
– WS-I Basic profile 1.1 compliant
– XSD version 1.1
– WSDL version 1.1
– SOAP version 1.1 and 1.2
• One web service per document class
• One method per action
• Consumed in
– InfoPath
– Visual Studio
– Other applications and custom clients
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Upgrade tool

1. It has a detailed process oriented documentation

2. It has a checklist that helps you control the whole
upgrade process
3. It has TWC Implemented
4. Strong focus on performance
5. Pre-upgrade of Unicode
6. Documentation of data upgrade jobs
7. Build on top of a new module oriented architecture
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Upgrade tool: Implementation guide

• A detailed process oriented

documentation!
• Step by step guidance
– Before you begin
– Code upgrade
– Data upgrade
– Production upgrade

Test Production
environment environment
Code Data Production
upgrade upgrade upgrade
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Upgrade tool: Pre Data Upgrade

– Working on two db’s

– Insert information in
current 3.0 data base
• PrivateProject_LeftJustified.xpo
• PrivateProject_UpgradeColumn
List.xpo

– Execute the Pre-data

upgrade tool
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Upgrade tool: Synchronize

– Working on one db

– Mark obsolete data to be

deleted data
– Executing jobs - Delete
obsolete data, allow
duplicates during
synchronize
– Change the data base
– Executing jobs - Move
data
What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
Upgrade tool: Synchronization Process

• Executing jobs using the standard batch server

Upgrade paths
• Major version and Service Pack go through the same
upgrade process
– Cannot skip a major version
– Major versions are 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.1, 2.5, 3.0, 4.0
– e.g., no direct upgrade path from 2.5 to 4.0

2.5 SP1 ... SPx

3.0 SP1 ... SP4
4.0 SP1 ... SPx
 What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0
How does Microsoft help you?

On the CD
– Hands on Labs
– Demo Scripts
– Video’s
– Laymans Spec’s
Preparation
How does Microsoft help you?

• Technical Demonstration Toolkit

• Rapid configuration Toolkit

• Microsoft Dynamics AX Sales Prototype

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/sales/salestools/demos/axaptasalesprototype.htm/

• Microsoft Dynamics AX Demoservers.com

https://axapta.demoservers.com/?o=null&t=partner/register

• On CD
– Microsoft Dynamics AX Sales Prototype
– Axapta Tools overview PPT
– Microsoft Dynamics AX_Tools and Collateral Overview doc
– Telephone Pre Sales Tech Support.pdf
 Qualify
How does Microsoft help you?

• Partnersource/sales & marketing/competitive information.

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/sales/marketing/competitiveinformation/

• Positioning guides
https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/products/axapta/sales/salestools/positioningguides/

• Solution Finder
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/solutionfinder.mspx/
• Partner Channel Builder:
http://partner.microsoft.com/global/40010230/

• Partnersource / solutions / Axapta / industry builder link

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/newsevents/events/webseminars/AX_IndBuilder_LiveMeetings.htm/

On CD
– AX Competition PPT
– MBS Q1 2006 Win Loss Trend Report
– HQ ERP Roadshow
– Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 fact sheets
– AX Industry Builder Q&A
– Draft pricelist & supplement for AX 4.0
– Industry Builder Initiative video
 Demonstration
How does Microsoft help you?

• Customer stories
http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/casestudies_axapta.mspx

• Strategy and roadmap

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/resources/strategy/

• GotDotNet http://www.gotdotnet.com/default.aspx?lc=1033/

• On CD
- Master slide decks 4.0
- Nucleus ROI
- BDM (Business decision maker)
- Microsoft Dynamics AX Snap Ins
 Scoping & quotation
How does Microsoft help you?

• Microsoft Dynamics Technical Presales Advisory Group (TPAG)

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/communities/consulting/mbsconsult
ingservices/tpag.htm?printpage=false/

• Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS)

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/documents/partnernewsitems/mbs_
consulting_announce_0702.htm?printpage=false/

• On DVD
– Hardware sizing guide for less then 100 users
– Hardware sizing guide for less then 250 users
– Price list
– Fact sheets
© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.