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Friday, March 23, 2007

A little Dynamics AX Fun! [Axpace Invaders]

Alright so my friend at trucosax.com (www.trucosax.com) emailed me back at the start of this month to talk about a project he did for Dynamics AX. This one is very interesting, because the title is: Axpace Invaders!. I thought to myself, what in the world is Mkz up to? Well after reviewing it, the project is a cool knock off of Space Invaders game. This has no Functional value for Dynamics AX, but technically it really cool becuase it shows the power of X++ and Dynamics AX for doing all kinds of neat stuff, and proves the old saying that truly we can take and make Dynamics AX sing and dance for our clients! :-) Anyway check out the article and download link:

Click here!

I would like to thank Mkz for taking the time to show by example, what neat things can be done with X++! Being that it's a Friday and I am sure Everyone is super busy, I figured this would be a nice read and something to take a break with and relax for a bit! So enjoy and thanks again Mkz!

Check back soon for more!

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

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Thursday, March 22, 2007

Satya Nadella's moving on

(Must have access to PartnerSource)

Well I just saw on PartnerSource that Satya is leaving the leading spot of MBS / Dynamics for another MS position. You can read the letter to the Partners here:
Satya Nadella's Letter to Partners

I believe Satya has done a wonderful job since he took over, and has really help focus the Dynamics product line into the Microsoft vision for the information worker of the future. I would like to wish him well in his new position, and I am sure a Lot of other partners, customers, and internal Microsoft employee's can say that Satya has been a great asset to us.

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Trace Parser (beta) tool for Microsoft Dynamics™ AX 4.0

[Must Be able to access Partner Source]

Everyone knows that you can create trace logs on the client and the server for X++ Calls, SQL, etc. These trace logs are created, and can be very useful in looking into possible performance issues with custom code, SQL statements, and so forth. Of course to be able to look at this, and have the data make sense, you need a tool right?

Well recently on the 8th of this month the beta version of the Dynamics AX Trace Parser was released from the same team that is working on the performance load testing suite. You can find the link for the download here:

Linke to Trace Parser

Please keep in mind you need to have Partner Source access in order to download this. I have downloaded it, and it's a very handy tool, once you get it setup. Very visual on for the trace data, and can take and quickly help you analysis what is going on with an instance from either the client, or server, or both!

This is for sure an implementation consultants tool, and should be used in all implementations, along with Windows Performance Montior in order to benchmark and help identify issues.

Well that's all for now, check back soon!

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Performance Load Testing for Dynamics AX [Soon!]

I came across the following blog entry the other day, which talks about how the Dynamics AX perf [aka: Performance] Team will soon be releasing a tool set that can be used with Visual Studio unit testing, in order to create and generate a true benchmarkking / performance load testing withing Dynamics AX. Check out the link here:

DAX Performance Workbench

Now there is one set back, with the .Net BC, making you have to start your load testing from a command line, because you have to use no isolation mode. And in truth you can easily create yourself a load balance script anyway, that you can execute over and over again, depending.

Anyway, for new implementations this is great news! The reason is, you can now take the expected load for a system and see how it will preform. Make needed adjustments, and then have a much higher success rate in the deployement of the new system. A lot of people have been waiting a while for this, and it brings the development cycle, to a fuller state as well as the implementation cycle. See with this, you can create unit testing scripts as is, and execute from .Net.

Well that's all for now on this, but keep a look out as this will be a Very important new step in development as well as new implementations! Check back soon!

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Beware the Ides of March!

"e tu Dynamics?"

Well being that it is March 15th, and that I have been working crazy, thought I would post on this ides of March and let everyone know that I have a Lot to post about coming up.

I will try and make sure to post a single entry once a day. Of course I am still super busy, so it might be next week before I start that. So on this Ides of March, may everyone be safe, hope all had a exciting Convergence Experince, and now back to work!

Check back as I will be posting on a range of things, from Peformance tunning AOS(es), Performance Monitoring, Axpace Invaders (? What's that ?), and much much more!

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Friday, March 09, 2007

Watch the Amazing Gustavo!

Since Convergence is right here upon us, and it being a Friday and I have worked non-stop on an integration point for the past two days, I thought I would post something fun.

So here be amazed, a watch the Amazing Gustavo and learn about Convergence this year! [Click Here]

"Does it feel good?" LOL!

I predict that the movie will be "a moving experince" for you! :-) Anyway everyone have safe travels to Convergence, and hope you all have fun. I will be working myself to the bone on a go live... but hey a go live is why we do what we do!

Check back soon!

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Kineticsware pre-Convergence Information for Dynamics AX

Well Jeff Sampson and Richard Barnett of newly formed Kineticsware contacted me this week. They wanted to talk about their announcement of their new company Kineticsware. I was able to have a phone conversation about their new company, and I have to say it was very interesting. They have some big players, and big names in the ERP game on their team, and they are looking to address some serious gaps in the current ecosystem that is Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Let me back track a little and talk about who Jeff Sampson and Richard Barnett are: [Jeff Sampson, Richard Barnett, and other key Kineticsware Management Profiles]
As you can see they have a lot of experience in the industry and have a good view point on the entire biology behind Microsoft and their partners, as well as Dynamics AX itself. Now moving on, I asked both of them why they left Microsoft to form Kineticsware, and they told me that both were driven by their own entrepreneurship and the need they saw that existed in the current ecosystem of Dynamics AX. With that we dove deeper into the needs that they see, and Jeff laid out the three main area’s of focus, that they will address with their business model.

The first is industry functionality. This topic is something of much debate, and when I say that, I mean in regard to Microsoft. You see, no matter who you ask at Microsoft, if you ask “Is Dynamics AX a platform or an application?” the most likely answer is “Yes.” Meaning right now yes to both. But we all know Microsoft, and Dynamics in general will shift to a platform more and more, as evident in the roadmaps that have been released. With this, Kineticsware wants to try and offer that bridge of functionality, to the platform, to take the platform and offer the needed functionality in order to compete with those that Dynamics AX competes with today. [ie: SAP and Oracle.] This first area leads into the second, because in order to offer industry functionality, then you have to have experienced personnel in the functional area’s needed.

So the second area of focus for their business model is trained and billable resources for implementing Dynamics AX and the Kineticsware solution suite. Now this is easer said than done. Like most people, my training in DAX has most always been OTJ or On The Job training method. There is hardly any training materials that exists, still today (much less when I first got started), that help one prepare and gain confidence in the product they want to sale and support. Kineticsware plans to offer, what I refer to as, a deep reach training and implementation method, in that they will train their partners, work with them to implement, and still offer up a better than 80% return on their partners revenue generated from services and sales. This is actually a very good thing, because we have all seen those fly by night companies that promise the moon in sales, and take their implementation teams to hell and back in order to achieve what they promised. Kineticsware plans on avoiding this, and addressing this very critical need that would help bring partners up to speed, keep them up to speed, and their customers as well. Like all puzzles, this one builds on top of each piece before it, and so we move on.

The third area of focus is sales lead generation. Most VAR’s and ISV’s in the Dynamics AX ecosystem work hard, and have large investment in their sales teams. This means a lot of resourceful digging for just warm leads in the sales pipe line. One of the things that Kenticsware plans to do, is use their vast social network and marketing ability to give their partners a sales channel that offers up more warm and hot leads, along with working with their newest partners hand in hand to deploy for new implementations. Jeff and Richard, in this section of the review, talked about how the partners are graded and perform on Execution, let me say that again, E-x-e-c-u-t-i-o-n will have more and more sales lead generation sent their way. So just like in school, partners will be graded on the full cycle of a project, from sales, execution, and customer retention. This is very important note, because a lot of current grading for awards and acknowledgements *cough* are focused on volume license sales and not so much on execution of implementations. Kineticsware considers their partner building strategy the next evolved step in IBI or industry builder initiative from Microsoft, and hence why they claim this will bring more projects into a higher success rate, because of the quality of Experience for the customer.

So now we have the company, the people behind it, and the vision for the business model they want to focus on. So what do they do? Good question! Kineticsware by all accounts is a software product company, focused on / in the Dynamics AX ecosystem. They plan to focus on discreet manufacturing, and have listed verticals as:

- High Technology Value Chain
- Consumer Goods Value Chain
- Apparel Value Chain

Their product offerings with be IBI in nature for the verticals listed, and address GAP area’s in Dynamics AX that don’t exist with today’s current software offerings. One of the areas that Richard and Jeff talked about for their announcement at Convergence 2007 from their product offerings is their Advanced Planning Solution. With this they plan to offer a compliment to the current Demand Planner and MRP engine with Dynamics AX for constraint based models, priorities of different forecast types, advanced simulation of forecast, and to address the different GAP’s that exists for representing forecast with Dynamics AX. The particular piece of their solution is developed on the .Net framework, but unlike most, this is developed with Dynamics AX in mind, for working with and integrating with Dynamics AX. Some of the other highlights they talked about, that will be announced at Convergence 2007 is the building of templates for future cases, to speed along deployments, variable yield abilities (this plays to the High Tech vertical), etc.

Well to not ramble on much longer, all in all I had a very nice conversation with both Jeff and Richard. They have a lot of synergy around their company and focus, and a lot of claims that they will have to hold themselves too. I hope that all their laid out expectations can be met and they are able to deliver on them. I mean they have a lot of big players, like Peggy Taylor being a board member, who was one of the founders of PeopleSoft, etc. etc. The biggest question about a new company, and new claims, is the execution of the vision, and the execution of the claims. If Jeff, Richard, and everyone at Kineticsware can hold up through the different hurdles ahead, and come through with what they want to deliver, then they will truly bring forth a lot of great things for the Dynamics AX ecosystem, and really be a great company to partner with.

I would like to take the time now to thank both Jeff Sampson and Richard Barnett for contacting me about my blog, and wanting to use it as an outlet to talk about their company, vision, and use it as a pre-Convergence platform where all of this will be covered. I also would like to state here that I am not officially indorsing the company. I have not yet worked with their team, or product line. I hope to get the chance too though, and with everything is said and done I believe Kineticsware has a great chance to really make a big splash, and stick, in the Dynamics AX ecosystem.

You can find out more about Kineticsware by visiting their website at: [Kineticsware Website] as well as visiting them at Convergence. You can also see the wonderful VAR I am a part of, Sunrise Technologies, Inc, at Convergence as well (Sunrise Technologies, Inc. List Events).

Well that’s all for now, check back soon as I continue to try and add to the growing Dynamics world we all live in! :-)


Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Office client for Dynamics

Well we have known that Microsoft is moving to where Office will be the front end for Dynamics, as well as SharePoint Services. I wanted to post though about something from ZDNet about the Office client piece. This is in line with my last post about InfoPath 2007 and Form Services 2007. Check it out here:

ZDNet Blog Post

Basically everyone is looking for an offical taughting from Microsoft about this, further more past the Snap-in program, at Convergence '07. This is exactly what I meant when I said designing for InfoPath 2007, Form Services 2007, and the other office products to be used to offer greater in's and out's to information workers now is the step into the right direction. In doing so, and offering this to our clients, it would be a smooth transition to the next phase, of when the offical connector and client come out for Office and Dynamics AX.

Anyway check back often and soon! Looks like I need to beef up and get certified in the newest office products... espically since they are true server offerings as part of the product line now and it is more and more clear that it will be a major part of the Dynamics tool offerings!

Check back soon!


Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Monday, March 05, 2007

InfoPath 2007, Dynamics AX, and some crackers!

Ok, the subject line is meant to be funny with the crackers part, because basically that's a phrase I say, and thought I would make light a little bit. In all serious though I have been thinking a lot about working remotely with Dynamics data, for say creating sales order, quotes, etc. Along with the snap-in program, and well in doing so I thought about:

- InfoPath 2007
- Form Service 2007
- .Net Assemblies

With these I have been designing a framework, to where you could create and work with Dynamics AX, via InfoPath 2007 and Form Services 2007, in a connected or disconnected state. The point is to offer remote workers the flexbility of working from anywhere to create sales orders, customers, quotes, etc. and do this with active / intellgent syncs to where no matter if they are connected or not, they can do their jobs.

Now let me say, there is a very nice product called eCon out there that does this well. What I was looking to work with, and showcase was a streamline, slimmed down, set of functions that is offered via eCOn. At first I thought I would have to create a flat out .Net Smart Client of my own. I started thinking about having to have classes to present the data structures, in .Net and managing the windows form, and controls. Then InfoPath 2007 and Form Services 2007 crossed my mind.

That got me really interested, and so with all of that said, I am wanting to take and create a simple infopath form that will take a sales quote and enter it into Dynamics AX, via Form Services, and use .Net assemblies and MSMQ [Soon WWF / WCF] to faciliate disconnected business rules, as well as active syncing. With this one could see how to extend this out and really make use of InfoPath 2007 to offer remote abilities into Dynamics AX, for disconnected information workers. This follows the path that Microsoft is taking, and though it's not directly part of Snap-in, it's more looking into the next generation of what snap in points too. What I would like to do from there is look to the snap-in program, to extend this, and finally get a chance to write about Snap-in post I started back last year!

Of course, no one has time, and I want have time in the next weeks to do so, but I did want to get this idea out to the community and see the thoughts of people. See if anyone is thinking about this? Has anyone tried this? And get things in motion so that we could all benefit from such an example of the latest Dynamics AX product working with the latest office technologies, with .Net in the middle to give us a disconnected possible information worker for certain design task.

Well please feel free to comment, ask, poke at, etc.! Check back soon!

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Dynamics AX / Vertex O Series Integration

I wanted to take the time, during lunch today, and post about something that Sunrise Technologies, Inc. is now offering. What I am taking about is the Sunrise Technologis - Dynamics AX / Vertex 0 Series Integration.

Below here is a blurb about the offering:
"Sunrise Technologies, Inc. has created a base package that seamlessly integrates Microsoft Dynamics AXTM 4.0 with the Vertex O Series TM for effective management of corporation’s sales tax responsibilities. In addition to the base package, Sunrise provides customization and implementation services to help companies meet their unique sales tax requirements."

This is great news for anyone wanting a scalable, and easy to integrate tax base solution within Dyanmics AX. Check out some of the highlighted features:

"
The base package includes the following features:

• Fully embedded to Microsoft Dynamics AX
• XML based communication to Vertex O Series
• .NET based integration platform
• Vertex customer and product class maintenance
• Tax area identification look-ups based on shipping address
• Sales tax calculation from sales quotation and sales order forms
• Fast seamless integration
"


You can find out more by going to the following link: Sunrise Technologies, Inc - Dynamics AX / Vertex O Series Integration

Well check back soon! :-)

Find a job at: www.DynamicsAXJobs.com


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