Extending Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Cookbook

Extending Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Cookbook

By : Murray Fife

Buy this Book

Extending Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Cookbook

By: Murray Fife

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Dynamics AX is built on a number of foundation products from Microsoft that are used to make it bigger, better, and stronger than the average business system. Taking advantage of these products will make your life easier. Use these tools to maximize the efficiency of your business management, taking advantage of a powerful and centralized tool set. "Extending Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Cookbook" will show you how to use tools that you already have to extend out Dynamics AX and discover potential new directions. You will be surprised at what you can do on a shoestring budget. The book will allow you to streamline your work processes, and use the system's powerful and centralised features to the advantage of your organization. "Extending Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Cookbook" will show you how to maximize the potential of Dynamics AX with common and popular tools to enhance your business management systems. We will begin by exploring how to extend Dynamics AX out with SharePoint. After this, the book will guide you through important elements in maximizing business management efficiency, focusing on key aspects like reports, dashboards, and workflows. The book will then finish by teaching you how to customize your management systems, achieving a comprehensive coverage of the most important extension processes relevant to you and your business with very little programming. This is a book for those of you that want to make the most out of Dynamics AX by using what you already have, and without breaking the bank.

Extending Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Cookbook

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Extending Out with SharePoint

Introduction

Configuring a My Site host site

Using note boards to microblog from the Role Centers

Adding My Site profile links to the Role Centers

Creating shared document libraries

Linking document libraries to Dynamics AX records

Summary

Reports and Dashboards

Introduction

Creating a Power View report from Dynamics AX

Creating a Power View report from Power View cubes

Saving Power View dashboards and reports

Adding a Power View report to a Role Center

Exporting a Power View report to PowerPoint

Creating a PowerPivot gallery in SharePoint

Creating a PowerPivot data source for Power View

Creating a Power View report via the PowerPivot gallery

Linking Power View reports to Dynamics AX forms

Summary

Dashboards, Charts, and Scorecards

Introduction

Creating a Business Intelligence site

Configuring a PerformancePoint workspace to connect to the Dynamics AX cubes

Creating a scorecard in PerformancePoint

Adding scorecards to a user's Role Center

Creating an analytical chart in PerformancePoint

Adding an analytical chart to a user's Role Center

Using Decomposition Trees to drill into the analytical charts

Creating PerformancePoint dashboards in SharePoint

Summary

Communication and Collaboration

Introduction

Linking Outlook with Dynamics AX

Flagging Dynamics AX contacts for synchronization

Synchronizing Dynamics AX contacts with Outlook

Using the Outlook Social Connector to research Dynamics AX contacts

Communicating with contacts from within Dynamics AX

Using Lync to collaborate with other users directly from Dynamics AX

Summary

Using Cases to Manage Incidents and Requests

Introduction

Creating Case categories

Assigning tasks through Cases

Creating appointments through Cases

Defining the standard processes for Case management

Assigning Knowledge articles to Cases

Associating additional business entities to Cases

Creating projects from Cases

Creating collaboration workspaces for Case projects

Summary

Organizing Your Workflows

Introduction

Creating a new workflow design from a template

Adding task steps to workflows

Saving and activating workflows

Setting the default workflows

Submitting and using workflows

Adding conditional decisions to a workflow

Adding manual decisions to a workflow

Adding workflow status notifications

Adding text placeholders to workflow messages

Summary

Reporting in Office

Introduction

Creating a document data source

Creating a Dynamics AX document template within Word

Creating document template libraries

Registering documents to template libraries

Summary

Talking to the Outside World

Introduction

Adding login accounts for customers in Active Directory

Configuring customer accounts in Dynamics AX

Associating customer logins with customer accounts

Configuring a product catalog

Adding images and presentation information to product catalogs

Summary

Creating Help

Introduction

Creating a new help publisher ID

Creating a new help publisher content folder

Creating your help content

Creating a Task Recorder walkthrough

Turning a task recording document into a help topic

Summary

Web Services and Forms

Introduction

Creating a Dynamics AX web service

Creating a web service wrapper

Using a Dynamics AX web service in an InfoPath form

Creating custom OData queries to retrieve Dynamics AX data

Building InfoPath lookups using OData queries

Summary

Role Center Personalization and Customization

Introduction

Creating a new Role Center template

Creating a new Dynamics AX user profile

Adding cues to Role Center profiles

Adding cues through the Advanced Filter editor

Adding RSS feeds to Role Centers

Removing the ribbon bar from Role Centers

Removing the navigation bar from Role Centers

Embedding Role Centers into Outlook

Summary

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Adding My Site profile links to the Role Centers

Another feature of My Sites is the ability for users to personalize their own profile with descriptions, contact details, profile pictures, and also personal notes and interests. Users configure and update their profiles, and then these can be used as a company directory, and an easy way to get to know the people you work with.

In this recipe, we will show how you can add your profile link to the Dynamics AX Role Center to give you quick access to your own My Site, and also how to add people that you frequently contact on your Role Center for quick access. Getting ready

Before you start on this example, you will need to make sure that you have configured your own personal profile within your My Site. To do this carry out the following steps:

Access your My Site by selecting the My Site option on the drop-down menu under your name in SharePoint.
Once you are in your My Site, click on the My Profile link in the top-left hand corner to access your profile page.
Click on the Edit My Profile link under your profile picture.
This will open up the Profile Maintenance page allowing you to add descriptions, avatars, and any other information that you may want to include on your profile:

How to do it...

To add a Contact Details panel to the Role Center, follow these steps:

From within the Role Center, click on the Personalize this page link in the top-right hand corner to enter into the edit mode.
Click on the Add a Web Part link where you would like to add your contact information.
This will open up the web part explorer. From the categories, select the Social Collaboration group and this will filter the available web parts to the My Site controls.
Navigate to the Contact Details control, and then click on the Add button:
This will add the Contact Details web part to the Role Center, but you need to configure it with a contact. To do that, navigate to Click here to add or modify a contact link.
This will open up the Web Part properties panel, and you will be able to select a contact from the address book:
Click on the Stop Editing button and you are done.