Leave a comment Posted on January 29, 2016 Uncategorized

AX User 101 – Tips and Tricks for Using AX

A few months ago I wrote a series of posts on things I wish somebody had told me as an X++ developer right at the beginning of my explorations into the world of Dynamics AX. Today I want to start on a new list, one prompted by years of looking over the shoulders of users and realizing that many of the very basic navigation tools that I know and take for granted are often not taught to or effectively utilized by users.

For example I’ve seen way too many users copying field data on one form E.G. Employee Id on Purchase requisition and then navigating to the Employee form to go and search for it instead of simply right clicking and then clicking view details.

The target audience of this series is not seasoned users of AX (although you may benefit too) but rather new users wanting a quick centralized list of tips and tricks that can be used to make your usage of Dynamics AX that much more efficient. Where possible I have will try to link the tips to pre-existing blog posts from other experts rather than than create yet more of the same AX posts for the web.

Navigation (Using the interface).

Drilling down to parent/source records.
Viewing all available fields for a record.
Running multiple workspaces.
Quick navigation through records from edit form.
Reporting
1. Saving reports to PDF
2. Saving reports to Excel
3. Emailing reports via Outlook.
4. Auto-Reports

Working With Data.

Filtering
1. View Filter Grid – Ctrl+G
2. Quick Filter by value.
3. Advanced filter operators
4. Save Queries/Filters
5. Quick filters on lookups
Interacting with Excel
1. Export to Excel – Ctrl+T
2. Copy & Paste to Excel
3. Export subset of data
Alerts
1. Change based alerts
2. Due date alerts.

Customizing your experience.

Adding/Hiding fields on your form.
Saving form customisations
Retrieving form customisations from alternate users.
Favorites Menu.
Creating custom favourites with filters.
Useful default user options
1. Change default company
2. Always open forms in Edit mode.
3. Default filter by grid

References / Additional Reading:

http://atinkerersnotebook.com/2015/01/24/creating-one-master-menu-to-get-just-what-you-need/
http://blog.ignify.com/2015/07/07/personalization-with-microsoft-dynamics-ax-five-ways-to-streamline-your-user-interface/

2 Comments Posted on October 13, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Environment Management, SQL Scripts

AX DB Restore Scripts – Full Script

Just over a month ago I embarked on a series of posts on SQL scripts that I use when restoring Dynamics AX databases from one environment to another. We have covered topics including server setups, general configurations as well as data cleans to get your new environment up and smoothly running as quickly as possible. We are now at the end of the series and I trust it has been helpful to you in structuring your scripts.

I’d just like to remind you that these posts and scripts are not meant to be used as is but rather to serve as a guide to adapt for your specific scenario and to prompt your own thinking as to what you will need.

That said you can download my templated script here or view it below (download)

Declare @AOS varchar(30) = '[AOSID]' --must be in the format '01@SEVERNAME'
---Reporting Services---
Declare @REPORTINSTANCE varchar(50) = 'AX'
Declare @REPORTMANAGERURL varchar(100) = 'http://[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]/Reports_AX'
Declare @REPORTSERVERURL varchar(100) = 'http://[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]/ReportServer_AX'
Declare @REPORTCONFIGURATIONID varchar(100) = '[UNIQUECONFIGID]'
Declare @REPORTSERVERID varchar(15) = '[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]'
Declare @REPORTFOLDER varchar(20) = 'DynamicsAX'
Declare @REPORTDESCRIPTION varchar(30) = 'Dev SSRS';

---SSAS Services---
Declare @SSASSERVERNAME varchar(20) = '[YOURSERVERNAME]\AX'
Declare @SSASDESCRIPTION varchar(30) = 'Dev SSAS'; -- Description of the server configuration

---BC Proxy Details ---
Declare @BCPSID varchar(50) = '[BCPROXY_SID]'
Declare @BCPDOMAIN varchar(50) = '[yourdomain]'
Declare @BCPALIAS varchar(50) = '[bcproxyalias]'
---Service Accounts ---
Declare @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT varchar(20) = 'wfexc'
Declare @PROJSYNCACCOUNT varchar(20) = 'syncex'
---Help Server URL---
Declare @helpserver varchar(200) = 'http://[YOURSERVER]/DynamicsAX6HelpServer/HelpService.svc'

---Outgoing Email Settings---
Declare @SMTP_SERVER varchar(100) = 'smtp.mydomain.com' --Your SMTP Server
Declare @SMTP_PORT int = 25
---DMF Folder Settings ---
Declare @DMFFolder varchar(100) = '\\[YOUR FILE SERVER]\AX import\ '

---Email Template Settings---
Declare @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME varchar(50) = 'Dynamics AX Workflow QA - TESTING'
Declare @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS varchar(50) = 'workflowqa@mydomain.com'
---Email Address Clearing Settings---
DECLARE @ExclUserTable TABLE (id varchar(10))
insert into @ExclUserTable values ('userid1'), ('userid2')

--List of users separated by | to keep enabled, while disabling all others 
Declare @ENABLE_USERS NVarchar(max) = '|Admin|TIM|'
--List of users separated by | to disable, while keeping all the rest enabled all others  
--Declare @DISABLE_USERS NVarchar(max) = '|BOB|JANE|'

--*****BEGIN UPDATES*******---

---Update AOS Config---
delete from SYSSERVERCONFIG where RecId not in (select min(recId) from SYSSERVERCONFIG)
update SYSSERVERCONFIG set serverid=@AOS, ENABLEBATCH=1 
	where serverid != @AOS -- Optional if you want to see the "affected row count" after execution.

---Update Batch Servers---
delete from BATCHSERVERGROUP where RecId not in (select min(recId) from BATCHSERVERGROUP group by GROUPID)
update BATCHSERVERGROUP set SERVERID=@AOS 
	where serverid != @AOS -- Optional to see "affected row count"
update batchjob set batchjob.status=4 where batchjob.CAPTION = '[BATCHJOBNAME]'
update batch set batch.STATUS=4 from batch inner join BATCHJOB on BATCHJOBID=BATCHJOB.RECID AND batchjob.CAPTION = '[BATCHJOBNAME]'

---Update Reporting Services---
delete from SRSSERVERS where RecId not in (select min(recId) from SRSSERVERS)
update SRSSERVERS set 
    SERVERID=@REPORTSERVERID, 
    SERVERURL=@REPORTSERVERURL, 
    AXAPTAREPORTFOLDER=@REPORTFOLDER,
    REPORTMANAGERURL=@REPORTMANAGERURL, 
    SERVERINSTANCE=@REPORTINSTANCE, 
    AOSID=@AOS,
    CONFIGURATIONID=@REPORTCONFIGURATIONID, 
    DESCRIPTION=@REPORTDESCRIPTION
where SERVERID != @REPORTSERVERID -- Optional if you want to see the "affected row count" after execution.

---Update SSAS Services---
delete from BIAnalysisServer where RecId not in (select min(recId) from BIAnalysisServer)
update BIAnalysisServer set 
    SERVERNAME=@SSASSERVERNAME, 
    DESCRIPTION=@SSASDESCRIPTION,
	ISDEFAULT = 1
WHERE SERVERNAME <> @SSASSERVERNAME -- Optional where clause if you want to see the "affected rows

---Set BCPRoxy Account---
update SYSBCPROXYUSERACCOUNT set SID=@BCPSID, NETWORKDOMAIN=@BCPDOMAIN, NETWORKALIAS= @BCPALIAS
where NETWORKALIAS != @BCPALIAS --optional to display affected rows.
---Set WF Execution Account---
update SYSWORKFLOWPARAMETERS set EXECUTIONUSERID=@WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT where EXECUTIONUSERID != @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT
---Set Proj Sync Account---
update SYNCPARAMETERS set SYNCSERVICEUSER=@PROJSYNCACCOUNT where SyncServiceUser!= @PROJSYNCACCOUNT
---Set help server URL---
update SYSGLOBALCONFIGURATION set value=@helpserver where name='HelpServerLocation' and value != @helpserver

---Update Email Parameters---
Update SysEmailParameters set SMTPRELAYSERVERNAME = @SMTP_SERVER, @SMTP_PORT=@SMTP_PORT
---Update DMF Settings---
update DMFParameters set SHAREDFOLDERPATH = @DMFFolder 
where SHAREDFOLDERPATH != @DMFFolder --Optional to see affected rows

---Set BCPRoxy Account---
update SYSBCPROXYUSERACCOUNT set SID=@BCPSID, NETWORKDOMAIN=@BCPDOMAIN, NETWORKALIAS= @BCPALIAS
where NETWORKALIAS != @BCPALIAS --optional to display affected rows.
---Set WF Execution Account---
update SYSWORKFLOWPARAMETERS set EXECUTIONUSERID=@WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT where EXECUTIONUSERID != @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT
---Set Proj Sync Account---
update SYNCPARAMETERS set SYNCSERVICEUSER=@PROJSYNCACCOUNT where SyncServiceUser!= @PROJSYNCACCOUNT
---Set help server URL---
update SYSGLOBALCONFIGURATION set value=@helpserver where name='HelpServerLocation' and value != @helpserver

---Update Email Templates---
update SYSEMAILTABLE set SENDERADDR = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS, SENDERNAME = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME where SENDERADDR!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS OR  SENDERNAME!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME;
update SYSEMAILSYSTEMTABLE set SENDERADDR = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS, SENDERNAME = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME where SENDERADDR!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS OR  SENDERNAME!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME;
---Update User Email Addresses---
update sysuserinfo set sysuserinfo.EMAIL = '' where sysuserInfo.ID not in (select id from @ExclUserTable)

---Disable all users except for a specific set---
update userinfo set userinfo.enable=0 where  CharIndex('|'+ cast(ID as varchar) + '|' , @ENABLE_USERS) = 0
---Disable specific users---
---update userinfo set userinfo.enable=0 where  CharIndex('|'+ cast(ID as varchar) + '|' , @DISABLE_USERS) > 0

--Clean up server sessions
delete from SYSSERVERSESSIONS
--Clean up client sessions.
delete from SYSCLIENTSESSIONS

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Declare @AOS varchar(30) = '[AOSID]' --must be in the format '01@SEVERNAME'

---Reporting Services---

Declare @REPORTINSTANCE varchar(50) = 'AX'

Declare @REPORTMANAGERURL varchar(100) = 'http://[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]/Reports_AX'

Declare @REPORTSERVERURL varchar(100) = 'http://[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]/ReportServer_AX'

Declare @REPORTCONFIGURATIONID varchar(100) = '[UNIQUECONFIGID]'

Declare @REPORTSERVERID varchar(15) = '[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]'

Declare @REPORTFOLDER varchar(20) = 'DynamicsAX'

Declare @REPORTDESCRIPTION varchar(30) = 'Dev SSRS';

---SSAS Services---

Declare @SSASSERVERNAME varchar(20) = '[YOURSERVERNAME]\AX'

Declare @SSASDESCRIPTION varchar(30) = 'Dev SSAS'; -- Description of the server configuration

---BC Proxy Details ---

Declare @BCPSID varchar(50) = '[BCPROXY_SID]'

Declare @BCPDOMAIN varchar(50) = '[yourdomain]'

Declare @BCPALIAS varchar(50) = '[bcproxyalias]'

---Service Accounts ---

Declare @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT varchar(20) = 'wfexc'

Declare @PROJSYNCACCOUNT varchar(20) = 'syncex'

---Help Server URL---

Declare @helpserver varchar(200) = 'http://[YOURSERVER]/DynamicsAX6HelpServer/HelpService.svc'

---Outgoing Email Settings---

Declare @SMTP_SERVER varchar(100) = 'smtp.mydomain.com' --Your SMTP Server

Declare @SMTP_PORT int = 25

---DMF Folder Settings ---

Declare @DMFFolder varchar(100) = '\\[YOUR FILE SERVER]\AX import\ '

---Email Template Settings---

Declare @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME varchar(50) = 'Dynamics AX Workflow QA - TESTING'

Declare @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS varchar(50) = 'workflowqa@mydomain.com'

---Email Address Clearing Settings---

DECLARE @ExclUserTable TABLE (id varchar(10))

insert into @ExclUserTable values ('userid1'), ('userid2')

--List of users separated by | to keep enabled, while disabling all others

Declare @ENABLE_USERS NVarchar(max) = '|Admin|TIM|'

--List of users separated by | to disable, while keeping all the rest enabled all others

--Declare @DISABLE_USERS NVarchar(max) = '|BOB|JANE|'

--*****BEGIN UPDATES*******---

---Update AOS Config---

delete from SYSSERVERCONFIG where RecId not in (select min(recId) from SYSSERVERCONFIG)

update SYSSERVERCONFIG set serverid=@AOS, ENABLEBATCH=1

where serverid != @AOS -- Optional if you want to see the "affected row count" after execution.

---Update Batch Servers---

delete from BATCHSERVERGROUP where RecId not in (select min(recId) from BATCHSERVERGROUP group by GROUPID)

update BATCHSERVERGROUP set SERVERID=@AOS

where serverid != @AOS -- Optional to see "affected row count"

update batchjob set batchjob.status=4 where batchjob.CAPTION = '[BATCHJOBNAME]'

update batch set batch.STATUS=4 from batch inner join BATCHJOB on BATCHJOBID=BATCHJOB.RECID AND batchjob.CAPTION = '[BATCHJOBNAME]'

---Update Reporting Services---

delete from SRSSERVERS where RecId not in (select min(recId) from SRSSERVERS)

update SRSSERVERS set

SERVERID=@REPORTSERVERID,

SERVERURL=@REPORTSERVERURL,

AXAPTAREPORTFOLDER=@REPORTFOLDER,

REPORTMANAGERURL=@REPORTMANAGERURL,

SERVERINSTANCE=@REPORTINSTANCE,

AOSID=@AOS,

CONFIGURATIONID=@REPORTCONFIGURATIONID,

DESCRIPTION=@REPORTDESCRIPTION

where SERVERID != @REPORTSERVERID -- Optional if you want to see the "affected row count" after execution.

---Update SSAS Services---

delete from BIAnalysisServer where RecId not in (select min(recId) from BIAnalysisServer)

update BIAnalysisServer set

SERVERNAME=@SSASSERVERNAME,

DESCRIPTION=@SSASDESCRIPTION,

ISDEFAULT = 1

WHERE SERVERNAME <> @SSASSERVERNAME -- Optional where clause if you want to see the "affected rows

---Set BCPRoxy Account---

update SYSBCPROXYUSERACCOUNT set SID=@BCPSID, NETWORKDOMAIN=@BCPDOMAIN, NETWORKALIAS= @BCPALIAS

where NETWORKALIAS != @BCPALIAS --optional to display affected rows.

---Set WF Execution Account---

update SYSWORKFLOWPARAMETERS set EXECUTIONUSERID=@WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT where EXECUTIONUSERID != @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT

---Set Proj Sync Account---

update SYNCPARAMETERS set SYNCSERVICEUSER=@PROJSYNCACCOUNT where SyncServiceUser!= @PROJSYNCACCOUNT

---Set help server URL---

update SYSGLOBALCONFIGURATION set value=@helpserver where name='HelpServerLocation' and value != @helpserver

---Update Email Parameters---

Update SysEmailParameters set SMTPRELAYSERVERNAME = @SMTP_SERVER, @SMTP_PORT=@SMTP_PORT

---Update DMF Settings---

update DMFParameters set SHAREDFOLDERPATH = @DMFFolder

where SHAREDFOLDERPATH != @DMFFolder --Optional to see affected rows

---Set BCPRoxy Account---

update SYSBCPROXYUSERACCOUNT set SID=@BCPSID, NETWORKDOMAIN=@BCPDOMAIN, NETWORKALIAS= @BCPALIAS

where NETWORKALIAS != @BCPALIAS --optional to display affected rows.

---Set WF Execution Account---

update SYSWORKFLOWPARAMETERS set EXECUTIONUSERID=@WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT where EXECUTIONUSERID != @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT

---Set Proj Sync Account---

update SYNCPARAMETERS set SYNCSERVICEUSER=@PROJSYNCACCOUNT where SyncServiceUser!= @PROJSYNCACCOUNT

---Set help server URL---

update SYSGLOBALCONFIGURATION set value=@helpserver where name='HelpServerLocation' and value != @helpserver

---Update Email Templates---

update SYSEMAILTABLE set SENDERADDR = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS, SENDERNAME = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME where SENDERADDR!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS OR SENDERNAME!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME;

update SYSEMAILSYSTEMTABLE set SENDERADDR = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS, SENDERNAME = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME where SENDERADDR!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS OR SENDERNAME!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME;

---Update User Email Addresses---

update sysuserinfo set sysuserinfo.EMAIL = '' where sysuserInfo.ID not in (select id from @ExclUserTable)

---Disable all users except for a specific set---

update userinfo set userinfo.enable=0 where CharIndex('|'+ cast(ID as varchar) + '|' , @ENABLE_USERS) = 0

---Disable specific users---

---update userinfo set userinfo.enable=0 where CharIndex('|'+ cast(ID as varchar) + '|' , @DISABLE_USERS) > 0

--Clean up server sessions

delete from SYSSERVERSESSIONS

--Clean up client sessions.

delete from SYSCLIENTSESSIONS

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4 Comments Posted on October 8, 2015 Dynamics AX, Environment Management, Jobs, SQL Scripts

AX DB Restore Scripts #8 – Disable users

A few weeks ago I embarked on a series of posts on SQL scripts I use when restoring Dynamics AX databases from one environment to another. We have covered a variety of topics including various configuration and setting changes to Dynamics AX. This post will be the last in the set of “data cleanup scripts” designed to help scrub your data for use in a development or testing environment.

Disabling users.

Quite often companies or partners will require access to development environments to be restricted to a very select group of users that are aware of what to test and are also careful enough to work methodically in the correct environments (i.e. not trying to to real work in the wrong environment or test work in production). To ensure all of the above one could follow a few paths.

Only provide a shortcut/configuration to users who require it.
Color code your environments so that they immediately recognizable.
Add a startup message to your AX environment to warn users what environment they are logged into.

All of these solutions do not physically stop users from accessing the alternate environment. So if you need an additional security mechanism, simply disable the users either manually in AX after doing a restore or disable then along with the SQL scripts we have been building up over the past few weeks.

To disable users in AX navigate to “System Administration -> Common -> Users -> Users. Double click on the user in question, click “edit”, uncheck the “enabled” button.

The accomplish the same in a SQL script you can do the following. I have parameterised the SQL for easier reuse or adjustment.

--List of users separated by | to keep enabled, while disabling all others 
Declare @ENABLE_USERS NVarchar(max) = '|Admin|TIM|'

update userinfo set userinfo.enable=0 where  CharIndex('|'+ cast(ID as varchar) + '|' , @ENABLE_USERS) = 0


--List of users separated by | to disable, while keeping all the rest enabled all others  
Declare @DISABLE_USERS NVarchar(max) = '|BOB|JANE|'

update userinfo set userinfo.enable=0 where  CharIndex('|'+ cast(ID as varchar) + '|' , @DISABLE_USERS) > 0

--List of users separated by | to keep enabled, while disabling all others

Declare @ENABLE_USERS NVarchar(max) = '|Admin|TIM|'

update userinfo set userinfo.enable=0 where CharIndex('|'+ cast(ID as varchar) + '|' , @ENABLE_USERS) = 0

--List of users separated by | to disable, while keeping all the rest enabled all others

Declare @DISABLE_USERS NVarchar(max) = '|BOB|JANE|'

update userinfo set userinfo.enable=0 where CharIndex('|'+ cast(ID as varchar) + '|' , @DISABLE_USERS) > 0

Note 1: Parameterising a list can be tricky in TSQL, so the above trick is what i found easiest.
Note 2: You will need to decide whether the list of users provided is inclusive (i.e. provide the list of all the users you WANT to disable) or exclusive (i.e. disable all users except for a small subset). I have provided both options, but would recommend the exclusive approach as it is more likely to give you safely give you what you expect.

I hope this assists you and will be useful in your management of your AX environments. Keep an eye out for new posts in this series!

View Previous – AX DB Restore Scripts #7 – Setting Email Templates and User Email Addresses

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1 Comment Posted on September 18, 2015 AX2012, Client, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, X++

Share AX User Form Customizations Between Companies

One of the nifty features of Dynamics AX is to share form personalisations between user. To see how to do so check out Murray Fife’s article over here. However it seems that a distinct restriction is that you cannot effectively share personalisations between companies, even for the same user. This means that you need to perform the same setups for every form that you are working on.

I thought I would share with you today a quick customization that will assist allow you to copy your own customizations from one company to another or copy from a different user’s profile in another company to yours.

Our customization will make a modification to the “SysSetupForm” in AX. This is the form that is displayed when right clicking on a field in AX and clicking “Personalise”

In this post we will basically duplicate the “Retrieve from User” button to provide a “Retrieve from Alternate company” option in addition to the basic functionality. You could also simply customize the standard function as well.

Step 1. Create a new button

Navigate in the AOT to the forms node and find “SysSetupForm”
Expand the following nodes “SysSetupForm->Designs->Design->Tab:ControlTab->TabPage:LayoutTab-> Group:RightGrp -> ButtonGroup:MainBtnGroup.
Right click on ButtonGroup:MainBtnGroup, click “New Control -> Button”
Set the button’s “Text” property to “Retrieve from Company”

Step 2. Update button to display profiles from all users and companies

Right click on the method’s node of your button, click Override Method -> clicked
In the clicked method add the following line of code: element.loadFromUserAll();
Navigate to the methods node of the SysSetup form, right click and click “New Method”
Rename your new method to: loadFromUserAll
Modify this method’s code the following (this is basically a modified copy of the loadFromUser method to cater for cross company lookups)

void loadFromUserAll()
{
    SysLastValue sysLastValue;
    userId       userId;
    CompanyId    companyId;
    ;
    if (!loadFromUserMapAll)
    {
        loadFromUserMapAll     = new Map(Types::String, Types::String);

        while select sysLastValue
            group by UserId, Company
            where sysLastValue.Company      != this.lastValueDataAreaId()
               && sysLastValue.RecordType   == UtilElementType::Usersetup
               && sysLastValue.ElementName  == this.lastValueElementName()
               && sysLastValue.DesignName
        {
            loadFromUserMapAll.insert(sysLastValue.UserId+"|"+sysLastValue.company, strFmt("%1 (%2)", sysLastValue.UserId, sysLastValue.company));
        }
    }

    if (loadFromUserMapAll.elements())
    {
        [userId,companyId] = str2con(pickUser(loadFromUserMapAll, true),"|");

        if (userId)
        {
            element.loadSetupCompany(userId,companyId);
        }
    }
    else
    {
        info("@SYS73299");
    }
}

void loadFromUserAll()

{

SysLastValue sysLastValue;

userId userId;

CompanyId companyId;

;

if (!loadFromUserMapAll)

{

loadFromUserMapAll = new Map(Types::String, Types::String);

while select sysLastValue

group by UserId, Company

where sysLastValue.Company != this.lastValueDataAreaId()

&& sysLastValue.RecordType == UtilElementType::Usersetup

&& sysLastValue.ElementName == this.lastValueElementName()

&& sysLastValue.DesignName

{

loadFromUserMapAll.insert(sysLastValue.UserId+"|"+sysLastValue.company, strFmt("%1 (%2)", sysLastValue.UserId, sysLastValue.company));

}

if (loadFromUserMapAll.elements())

{

[userId,companyId] = str2con(pickUser(loadFromUserMapAll, true),"|");

if (userId)

{

element.loadSetupCompany(userId,companyId);

}

else

{

info("@SYS73299");

}

Edit SysSetupForm’s Class declaration to declare a new variable: “Map loadFromUserMapAll;

Step 3: Provide logic to load the setup on selection

Navigate to the methods node of the SysSetup form, right click and click “New Method”
Rename your new method to:
public void loadSetupCompany(userId userId, CompanyId _company)
Modify this method’s code the following (this is basically a modified copy of the loadSetup method to cater for loading from a selected alternate company setup)

// AosRunMode::Client
public void loadSetupCompany(userId userId, CompanyId _company)
{
    SysLastValue    sysLastValue;
    container       value;
    Name            designName;
    Map             map;
    ;

    select firstonly sysLastValue
        where sysLastValue.Company      == _company  &&
              sysLastValue.UserId       == userId                      &&
              sysLastValue.RecordType   == this.lastValueType()  &&
              sysLastValue.ElementName  == this.lastValueElementName() &&
              sysLastValue.DesignName   != '';

    if (sysLastValue)
    {
        map = new Map(Types::String, Types::String);

        while select designName from sysLastValue
            where sysLastValue.Company      == _company   &&
                  sysLastValue.UserId       == userId                       &&
                  sysLastValue.RecordType   == this.lastValueType()         &&
                  sysLastValue.ElementName  == this.lastValueElementName()  &&
                  sysLastValue.DesignName   != ''
        {
            map.insert(sysLastValue.DesignName, sysLastValue.DesignName);
        }

        designName = pickList(map, "@SYS28107","@SYS28107", true);
        if (designName)
        {
            value = xSysLastValue::getValue(
                _company,
                userId,
                this.lastValueType(),
                this.lastValueElementName(),
                designName);


            xSysLastValue::putValue(
                value,
                this.lastValueDataAreaId(),
                curUserId(),
                this.lastValueType(),
                this.lastValueElementName(),
                '');

            element.disableLayoutChanges();
        }
    }
    else
    {
        info(strfmt("@SYS28106", userId));
    }
}

// AosRunMode::Client

public void loadSetupCompany(userId userId, CompanyId _company)

{

SysLastValue sysLastValue;

container value;

Name designName;

Map map;

;

select firstonly sysLastValue

where sysLastValue.Company == _company &&

sysLastValue.UserId == userId &&

sysLastValue.RecordType == this.lastValueType() &&

sysLastValue.ElementName == this.lastValueElementName() &&

sysLastValue.DesignName != '';

if (sysLastValue)

{

map = new Map(Types::String, Types::String);

while select designName from sysLastValue

where sysLastValue.Company == _company &&

sysLastValue.UserId == userId &&

sysLastValue.RecordType == this.lastValueType() &&

sysLastValue.ElementName == this.lastValueElementName() &&

sysLastValue.DesignName != ''

{

map.insert(sysLastValue.DesignName, sysLastValue.DesignName);

}

designName = pickList(map, "@SYS28107","@SYS28107", true);

if (designName)

{

value = xSysLastValue::getValue(

_company,

userId,

this.lastValueType(),

this.lastValueElementName(),

designName);

xSysLastValue::putValue(

value,

this.lastValueDataAreaId(),

curUserId(),

this.lastValueType(),

this.lastValueElementName(),

'');

element.disableLayoutChanges();

}

else

{

info(strfmt("@SYS28106", userId));

}

You’re all done!

Compile your form and access it from anywhere in AX by right clicking on a field and clicking Personalise.

You should now have a “Retrieve from Company” button.

When clicking on this button you will see a list of all user profiles for other companies, including your own with the company listed in brackets. Double click on the user name, then double click on the the personalisation name to load it.

I hope this helps make life more efficient and easy!

Leave a comment Posted on September 16, 2015October 8, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Environment Management, Jobs, SQL Scripts

AX DB Restore Scripts #7 – Setting Email Templates and User Email Addresses

In my series of posts on SQL scripts I use when restoring Dynamics AX databases from one environment to another, we have so far covered various configuration and setting changes to Dynamics AX. Today I will move on to some suggested data changes that you may wish to consider making when doing database restores. These changes won’t affect the functioning of AX, but may prevent some awkward or confusing situations like clients or user’s receiving emails etc..

These data cleanup scripts are really meant as guidelines to help you in creating your own scripts, rather than a comprehensive set of “must-do” scripts.

The two changes for today are as follows

Setting your email templates to clearly indicate that they originate from a testing system. It may be perfectly legitimate for users to receive emails from your testing or development environments, e.g. for testing workflows, however it is very helpful for the users to clearly see that they are viewing test data rather than production data. So setting the senders name and address to indicate “Development” will assist.
Email templates are found under: Organisation administration -> Setup -> Email templates

2. Setting user email addresses. We obviously don’t want to send emails to users who have no interest in our development systems so one may, depending on your needs, want to do one of the following.
1. Clear all user’s email addresses, except for a specific subset.
2. Set some or all user’s email addresses to a single address (e.g. You want emails to still be generated to see that they are working, but you would like to see the contents of them yourself and not expose the user to the test data)

These settings can be found under System Administration -> Users -> Options (ribbon button) -> Email

The following SQL code will accomplish the above. I have parameterised the SQL for easier reuse or adjustment.

---Email Template Settings---Declare @WFAPPROVER_ADD varchar(50) = 'workflowqa@norplats.co.za'
Declare @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME varchar(50) = 'Dynamics AX - DEVELOPMENT'
Declare @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS varchar(50) = 'dev@mydomain.com'

---Email Address Clearing Settings---
DECLARE @ExclUserTable TABLE (id varchar(10))
insert into @ExclUserTable values ('userid1'), ('userid2')

---Update Email Templates---
update SYSEMAILTABLE set SENDERADDR = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS, SENDERNAME = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME where SENDERADDR!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS OR  SENDERNAME!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME;
update SYSEMAILSYSTEMTABLE set SENDERADDR = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS, SENDERNAME = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME where SENDERADDR!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS OR  SENDERNAME!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME;
---Update User Email Addresses---
update sysuserinfo set sysuserinfo.EMAIL = '' where sysuserInfo.ID not in (select id from @ExclUserTable)

---Email Template Settings---Declare @WFAPPROVER_ADD varchar(50) = 'workflowqa@norplats.co.za'

Declare @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME varchar(50) = 'Dynamics AX - DEVELOPMENT'

Declare @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS varchar(50) = 'dev@mydomain.com'

---Email Address Clearing Settings---

DECLARE @ExclUserTable TABLE (id varchar(10))

insert into @ExclUserTable values ('userid1'), ('userid2')

---Update Email Templates---

update SYSEMAILTABLE set SENDERADDR = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS, SENDERNAME = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME where SENDERADDR!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS OR SENDERNAME!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME;

update SYSEMAILSYSTEMTABLE set SENDERADDR = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS, SENDERNAME = @EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME where SENDERADDR!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_ADDRESS OR SENDERNAME!=@EMAIL_TEMPLATE_NAME;

---Update User Email Addresses---

update sysuserinfo set sysuserinfo.EMAIL = '' where sysuserInfo.ID not in (select id from @ExclUserTable)

Note, the above example clears all user email addresses except for a specific set, you could easily adjust this to set them all to a specific address as follows:

update sysuserinfo set sysuserinfo.EMAIL = 'youraddress@mydomain.com'

1	update sysuserinfo set sysuserinfo.EMAIL = 'youraddress@mydomain.com'

I hope this assists you and will be useful in your management of your AX environments. Keep an eye out for new posts in this series!

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Leave a comment Posted on September 11, 2015September 16, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Environment Management, SQL Scripts

AX DB Restore Scripts #6 – SMTP Server and DMF Folder

Recently I started creating a list and a series of posts on SQL scripts I use when restoring Dynamics AX databases from one environment to another, typically from production to QA or development.

We have so far discussed a number of configurations that must be changed for the new system to operate effectively and starting yesterday we moved onto exploring more optional configurations.

Today we will cover two of these items namely re-configuring the outgoing SMTP server in AX and configuring the settings for the DMF working folder.

Note: In my experience the SMTP server will most likely not change between a production and development server, but you may need to reconfigure it if moving to a new domain etc. Similarly it will work to use the same DMF shared folder between PROD and DEV, however I would recommend changing this to keep the data 100% separate.

These two configurations are located in the Dynamics AX 2012 client under the following paths.
1. SMTP Server, accessed via System Administration -> Setup -> System -> E-mail parameters.

2. Data import, export framework shared working directory. Accessed via “Data import export framework -> Setup -> Data import export framework parameters”

To update these 2 settings above we need to do the following:

1. Update the SysEmailParameters table to update the SMTP server name (and additional login parameters)
2. Update the DMFParameters table to reflect the new shared folder path.

The following SQL code will accomplish the above. I have parameterised the SQL for easier reuse or adjustment.

---Outgoing Email Settings---
Declare @SMTP_SERVER varchar(100) = 'smtp.mydomain.com' --Your SMTP Server
Declare @SMTP_PORT int = 25

---DMF Folder Settings ---
Declare @DMFFolder varchar(100) = '\\[YOUR FILE SERVER]\AX import\'

---Update Email Parameters---
Update SysEmailParameters set SMTPRELAYSERVERNAME = @SMTP_SERVER, @SMTP_PORT=@SMTP_PORT
---Update DMF Settings---
update DMFParameters set SHAREDFOLDERPATH = @DMFFolder 
where SHAREDFOLDERPATH != @DMFFolder --Optional to see affected rows

---Outgoing Email Settings---

Declare @SMTP_SERVER varchar(100) = 'smtp.mydomain.com' --Your SMTP Server

Declare @SMTP_PORT int = 25

---DMF Folder Settings ---

Declare @DMFFolder varchar(100) = '\\[YOUR FILE SERVER]\AX import\'

---Update Email Parameters---

Update SysEmailParameters set SMTPRELAYSERVERNAME = @SMTP_SERVER, @SMTP_PORT=@SMTP_PORT

---Update DMF Settings---

update DMFParameters set SHAREDFOLDERPATH = @DMFFolder

where SHAREDFOLDERPATH != @DMFFolder --Optional to see affected rows

I hope this assists you and will be useful in your management of your AX environments.

View next – AX DB Restore Scripts #7 – Setting Email Templates and User Email Addresses

View Previous – AX DB Restore Scripts #5 – Configure Service Accounts and Help Server

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Leave a comment Posted on September 10, 2015September 11, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Environment Management, Security, SQL Scripts

AX DB Restore Scripts #5 – Configure Service Accounts and Help Server

Last week I embarked on a series of posts on DB restore scripts for Dynamics AX by creating a list of items in your AX database that need to be updated/reconfigured when restoring a database from a production environment to a development or QA one.

So far we have covered the majority of the most critical issues to fix when doing a DB restore, so from today on most of the scripts are basically optional. They are optional for one of the following reasons: 1. It may be common to have the same configuration in both live and dev, yet in some circumstances they may differ e.g. Business connector may remain the same if you are restoring from live to dev, but not from live to a demo VPC.
2. The data is correct but for safety or security you may want to manipulate it for a development environment. E.G. Changing all email templates to clearly indicate the source is from a dev system.

Today we will cover two topics namely re-configuring the service accounts in AX and configuring the AX help server URL.

In the Dynamics AX 2012 client, the configurations that we are going to look at are:
1. System Service Accounts, accessed via System Administration -> Setup -> System -> System service Accounts

2. Batch Jobs, accessed via System Administration -> Setup -> System -> Help system parameters

To update the settings above we need to do the following:

1. Update the SYSBCPROXYUSERACCOUNT table to reflect the business connector user’s SID, networkdomain and network alias. For this step you will need to find out the SID of the business connector either by setting it manually the first time and then running select SID from SYSBCPROXYUSERACCOUNT where NETWORKDOMAIN='[yourdomain]’ and NETWORKALIAS='[yourbcuseralias]’ or follow one of the suggestions over here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gaurav/archive/2014/06/03/get-sid-of-the-object-registry-wmic-powershell.aspx
2. Update the SYSWORKFLOWPARAMETERS table to reflect the userId of the workflow execution account.
3. Update the SYNCPARAMETERS table to reflect the userId of the Microsoft Project server synchronization service account.
4. Update SYSGLOBALCONFIGURATION to reflect new help server URL if necessary.

Notes:
1. If you are wanting to use an Alias/Network domain combination for either of the two execution accounts, I would recommend setting them manually in AX as they create users and permissions automatically when you do this.
2. The above script assumes that execution accounts you are setting exist in the new system and have the necessary permissions.

The following SQL code will accomplish the above. I have parameterised the SQL for easier reuse or adjustment.

---BC Proxy Details ---
Declare @BCPSID varchar(50) = '[BCPROXY_SID]'
Declare @BCPDOMAIN varchar(50) = '[yourdomain]'
Declare @BCPALIAS varchar(50) = '[bcproxyalias]'
---Service Accounts ---
Declare @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT varchar(20) = 'wfexc'
Declare @PROJSYNCACCOUNT varchar(20) = 'syncex'
---Help Server URL---
Declare @helpserver varchar(200) = 'http://[YOURSERVER]/DynamicsAX6HelpServer/HelpService.svc'

---Set BCPRoxy Account---
update SYSBCPROXYUSERACCOUNT set SID=@BCPSID, NETWORKDOMAIN=@BCPDOMAIN, NETWORKALIAS= @BCPALIAS
where NETWORKALIAS != @BCPALIAS --optional to display affected rows.
---Set WF Execution Account---
update SYSWORKFLOWPARAMETERS set EXECUTIONUSERID=@WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT where EXECUTIONUSERID != @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT
---Set Proj Sync Account---
update SYNCPARAMETERS set SYNCSERVICEUSER=@PROJSYNCACCOUNT where SyncServiceUser!= @PROJSYNCACCOUNT
---Set help server URL---
update SYSGLOBALCONFIGURATION set value=@helpserver where name='HelpServerLocation' and value != @helpserver

---BC Proxy Details ---

Declare @BCPSID varchar(50) = '[BCPROXY_SID]'

Declare @BCPDOMAIN varchar(50) = '[yourdomain]'

Declare @BCPALIAS varchar(50) = '[bcproxyalias]'

---Service Accounts ---

Declare @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT varchar(20) = 'wfexc'

Declare @PROJSYNCACCOUNT varchar(20) = 'syncex'

---Help Server URL---

Declare @helpserver varchar(200) = 'http://[YOURSERVER]/DynamicsAX6HelpServer/HelpService.svc'

---Set BCPRoxy Account---

update SYSBCPROXYUSERACCOUNT set SID=@BCPSID, NETWORKDOMAIN=@BCPDOMAIN, NETWORKALIAS= @BCPALIAS

where NETWORKALIAS != @BCPALIAS --optional to display affected rows.

---Set WF Execution Account---

update SYSWORKFLOWPARAMETERS set EXECUTIONUSERID=@WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT where EXECUTIONUSERID != @WFEXECUTIONACCOUNT

---Set Proj Sync Account---

update SYNCPARAMETERS set SYNCSERVICEUSER=@PROJSYNCACCOUNT where SyncServiceUser!= @PROJSYNCACCOUNT

---Set help server URL---

update SYSGLOBALCONFIGURATION set value=@helpserver where name='HelpServerLocation' and value != @helpserver

I hope this assists you and will be useful in your management of your AX environments.

View Next – AX DB Restore Scripts #6 – SMTP Server and DMF Folder

View Previous – AX DB Restore Scripts #4 – Reconfigure batch jobs

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Leave a comment Posted on September 8, 2015September 11, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Environment Management, SQL Scripts

AX DB Restore Scripts #4 – Reconfigure batch jobs

This post is closely tied to and relies on my previous post on re-configuring your AOS and Batch AOS instances to work, so ensure you have completed that script before continuing. Today I will be looking at re-configuring your actual batch jobs and batch groups to function correctly under your new environment.

In the Dynamics AX 2012 client the configurations that we are going to look at are:
1. Batch Groups, accessed via System Administration -> Setup -> Batch Groups

2. Batch Jobs, accessed via System Administration -> Inquiries -> Batch Jobs -> Batch Jobs

Depending on the configuration of your source system (e.g. Production) you may have multiple AOSs setup as batch servers whereas your DEV and QA would most likely just have a single AOS that functions as the batch AOS. You may also have a number of batch jobs that that you explicitly don’t want to run in a development environment, such as integrations to vendors, automatic ordering etc… Therefore our scripts will need to do the following:

1. For each of our batch groups we want to:
– Delete all but one of their selected/linked “batch servers”
– Re-point the remaining link to the current batch server setup in our previous script.
2. Disable batch jobs that we do not want to run in our development environment.
Before proceeding, please note, these scripts are intended as guidelines and do make various assumptions on the state of your environment. For example I’m assuming that your batch jobs were cleanly shutdown with their status’ either in “Error, ended, or waiting” (not Cancelling or Executing). Please adjust these scripts to suit your environment.

The following SQL code will accomplish the above. I have parameterised the SQL for easier reuse or adjustment.

 --Reuse the parameter declared for the SSRS and AOS update script
Declare @AOS varchar(30) =  '[AOSID]' -- Must be in the format '01@SEVERNAME'

-- #1.1 Clear out but one link between each batch server group and batch server.
delete from BATCHSERVERGROUP where RecId not in (select min(recId) from BATCHSERVERGROUP group by GROUPID)
-- #1.2 Repoint remaining links to the active aos/batch server.
update BATCHSERVERGROUP set SERVERID=@AOS 
  where serverid != @AOS -- Optional to see "affected row count"
-- #2 - Disable batch jobs that should not run in a production environment. Copy the two lines below for each batch job you want to disable.
update batchjob set batchjob.status=4 where batchjob.CAPTION = '[BATCHJOBNAME]'
update batch set batch.STATUS=4 from batch inner join BATCHJOB on BATCHJOBID=BATCHJOB.RECID AND batchjob.CAPTION = '[BATCHJOBNAME]'

--Reuse the parameter declared for the SSRS and AOS update script

Declare @AOS varchar(30) = '[AOSID]' -- Must be in the format '01@SEVERNAME'

-- #1.1 Clear out but one link between each batch server group and batch server.

delete from BATCHSERVERGROUP where RecId not in (select min(recId) from BATCHSERVERGROUP group by GROUPID)

-- #1.2 Repoint remaining links to the active aos/batch server.

update BATCHSERVERGROUP set SERVERID=@AOS

where serverid != @AOS -- Optional to see "affected row count"

-- #2 - Disable batch jobs that should not run in a production environment. Copy the two lines below for each batch job you want to disable.

update batchjob set batchjob.status=4 where batchjob.CAPTION = '[BATCHJOBNAME]'

update batch set batch.STATUS=4 from batch inner join BATCHJOB on BATCHJOBID=BATCHJOB.RECID AND batchjob.CAPTION = '[BATCHJOBNAME]'

I hope this assists you and will be useful in your management of your AX environments.

View Next – AX DB Restore Scripts #5 – Configure Service Accounts and Help Server

View Previous – AX DB Restore Scripts #3 – Configure AX servers and batch servers

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Leave a comment Posted on September 4, 2015September 8, 2015 Dynamics AX

AX DB Restore Scripts #3 – Configure AX servers and batch servers

Earlier this week I embarked on a series of posts on DB restore scripts for Dynamics AX by providing a list of data entities in your AX database that need to be updated when restoring a database from a production environment to a development or QA one.

Today I will be drilling into how to reset/configure your AX AOS and batch AOS configurations via DB scripts. These scripts are necessary especially for the SSRS script and for the batch server update script (available soon) as these rely on a correct AOS configuration.

Note: Under normal circumstances a new configuration for your AOS will automatically be created if it does not exist when the AOS starts up after a restore, however all your other configs like batch jobs, SSRS settings etc won’t be pointing to it, but rather the old settings that are not cleared. Thus I prefer to fix this in my script.

In the Dynamics AX 2012 client these configurations are located under System Administration -> Setup -> System -> Server Configuration

Depending on the configuration of your source system (e.g. Production) you may have multiple AOSs setup here and typically your destination may only have a single AOS configuration therefore your script would need to do the following:

1. Remove all but one of the AOS configurations
2. Update the server details of the remaining configuration
3. Enable the remaining server as the “batch” server.

The following SQL code will accomplish the above. I have parameterised the SQL for easier reuse or adjustment.

 --Reuse the parameter declared for the SSRS update script
Declare @AOS varchar(30) =  '[AOSID]' -- Must be in the format '01@SEVERNAME'

-- Clear out all but one server config.
delete from SYSSERVERCONFIG where RecId not in (select min(recId) from SYSSERVERCONFIG)
-- Update the remaining one to point to your current AOS and enable it for batch processing
update SYSSERVERCONFIG set serverid=@AOS, ENABLEBATCH=1 
where serverid != @AOS -- Optional if you want to see the "affected row count" after execution.

--Reuse the parameter declared for the SSRS update script

Declare @AOS varchar(30) = '[AOSID]' -- Must be in the format '01@SEVERNAME'

-- Clear out all but one server config.

delete from SYSSERVERCONFIG where RecId not in (select min(recId) from SYSSERVERCONFIG)

-- Update the remaining one to point to your current AOS and enable it for batch processing

update SYSSERVERCONFIG set serverid=@AOS, ENABLEBATCH=1

where serverid != @AOS -- Optional if you want to see the "affected row count" after execution.

Note: These changes assume everything is setup correctly on the SSAS server itself.

View Next – AX DB Restore Scripts #4 – Reconfigure batch jobs

View Previous – AX DB Restore Scripts #2 – SSAS Servers

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Leave a comment Posted on September 3, 2015September 11, 2015 Dynamics AX

AX DB Restore Scripts #2 – SSAS Servers

Recently I started a series of posts on DB restore scripts for Dynamics AX by providing a list of data entities in your AX database that may need to be updated when restoring from one environment to another, in particular a production DB to a development or QA environment.

Today I will be drilling into how to reset the SSAS (SQL Server analysis services) configurations via DB scripts.

In the Dynamics AX 2012 client these configurations are located under System Administration -> Setup -> Business Intelligence -> Analysis Services -> Analysis Servers.

Depending on the configuration of your source system (e.g. Production) you may have multiple servers setup here and typically your destination would only have a single server (Development) therefore your script would need to do the following:

1. Remove all but one of the SSAS configurations
2. Update the server details of the remaining configuration

The following SQL code will accomplish the above. I have parameterised the SQL for easier reuse or adjustment.

Declare @SSASSERVERNAME varchar(20) = '[YOURSERVERNAME]\AX'
Declare @SSASDESCRIPTION varchar(30) = 'Dev SSAS'; -- Description of the server configuration

delete from BIAnalysisServer where RecId not in (select min(recId) from BIAnalysisServer)
update BIAnalysisServer set 
    SERVERNAME=@SSASSERVERNAME, 
    DESCRIPTION=@SSASDESCRIPTION,
	ISDEFAULT = 1
WHERE SERVERNAME <> @SSASSERVERNAME -- Optional where clause if you want to see the "affected rows

Declare @SSASSERVERNAME varchar(20) = '[YOURSERVERNAME]\AX'

Declare @SSASDESCRIPTION varchar(30) = 'Dev SSAS'; -- Description of the server configuration

delete from BIAnalysisServer where RecId not in (select min(recId) from BIAnalysisServer)

update BIAnalysisServer set

SERVERNAME=@SSASSERVERNAME,

DESCRIPTION=@SSASDESCRIPTION,

ISDEFAULT = 1

WHERE SERVERNAME <> @SSASSERVERNAME -- Optional where clause if you want to see the "affected rows

Note: These changes assume everything is setup correctly on the SSAS server itself.

View Next – AX DB Restore Scripts #3 – Configure AX servers and batch servers

View Previous – AX DB Restore Scripts #1 – SSRS Servers

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Leave a comment Posted on September 2, 2015September 3, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Environment Management, SQL Scripts, SSRS

AX DB Restore Scripts #1 – SSRS Servers

Yesterday I started a series of posts on DB restore scripts for Dynamics AX by providing a list of data entities in your AX database that should be updated when restoring from one environment to another.

Today I will start drilling into the details of each of these items starting with SSRS (SQL Server reporting services) configurations.

In the Dynamics AX 2012 client these configurations are located under System Administration -> Setup -> Business Intelligence -> Reporting Services -> Report Servers.

1. Remove all but one of the SSRS configurations
2. Update the remaining one to be default and update the relevant data fields.

The following SQL code will accomplish the above. I have parameterised the SQL for easier reuse or adjustment.

Declare @AOS varchar(30) = '[AOSID]' --must be in the format '01@SEVERNAME'
Declare @REPORTINSTANCE varchar(50) = 'AX'
Declare @REPORTMANAGERURL varchar(100) = 'http://[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]/Reports_AX'
Declare @REPORTSERVERURL varchar(100) = 'http://[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]/ReportServer_AX'
Declare @REPORTCONFIGURATIONID varchar(100) = '[UNIQUECONFIGID]'
Declare @REPORTSERVERID varchar(15) = '[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]'
Declare @REPORTFOLDER varchar(20) = 'DynamicsAX'
Declare @REPORTDESCRIPTION varchar(30) = 'Dev SSRS';

delete from SRSSERVERS where RecId not in (select min(recId) from SRSSERVERS)
update SRSSERVERS set 
    SERVERID=@REPORTSERVERID, 
    SERVERURL=@REPORTSERVERURL, 
    AXAPTAREPORTFOLDER=@REPORTFOLDER,
    REPORTMANAGERURL=@REPORTMANAGERURL, 
    SERVERINSTANCE=@REPORTINSTANCE, 
    AOSID=@AOS,
    CONFIGURATIONID=@REPORTCONFIGURATIONID, 
    DESCRIPTION=@REPORTDESCRIPTION
where SERVERID != @REPORTSERVERID -- Optional if you want to see the "affected row count" after execution.

Declare @AOS varchar(30) = '[AOSID]' --must be in the format '01@SEVERNAME'

Declare @REPORTINSTANCE varchar(50) = 'AX'

Declare @REPORTMANAGERURL varchar(100) = 'http://[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]/Reports_AX'

Declare @REPORTSERVERURL varchar(100) = 'http://[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]/ReportServer_AX'

Declare @REPORTCONFIGURATIONID varchar(100) = '[UNIQUECONFIGID]'

Declare @REPORTSERVERID varchar(15) = '[DESTINATIONSERVERNAME]'

Declare @REPORTFOLDER varchar(20) = 'DynamicsAX'

Declare @REPORTDESCRIPTION varchar(30) = 'Dev SSRS';

delete from SRSSERVERS where RecId not in (select min(recId) from SRSSERVERS)

update SRSSERVERS set

SERVERID=@REPORTSERVERID,

SERVERURL=@REPORTSERVERURL,

AXAPTAREPORTFOLDER=@REPORTFOLDER,

REPORTMANAGERURL=@REPORTMANAGERURL,

SERVERINSTANCE=@REPORTINSTANCE,

AOSID=@AOS,

CONFIGURATIONID=@REPORTCONFIGURATIONID,

DESCRIPTION=@REPORTDESCRIPTION

where SERVERID != @REPORTSERVERID -- Optional if you want to see the "affected row count" after execution.

Note: These changes assume everything is setup correctly on the SSRS side.

View next – AX DB Restore Scripts #2 – SSAS Servers

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2 Comments Posted on September 1, 2015October 8, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, SQL Scripts, Workflow, X++

AX Database Restore Scripts (List)

A common task in the administration of a Dynamics AX installation is restoring databases from a live application to a development environment or quality assurance (QA) environment. However when doing so one needs to be very careful to re-configure the database so that it behaves correctly in its new context. For example you would need to re-configure your SSRS servers to point to the correct DEV/QA SSRS instance. Many of these changes can be done via the front-end, but it is very useful to script these in SQL so that nothing is missed and alot of effort is saved.

The following post aims to list as many of the potential data items that need to be changed when doing a DB restore. I will in the following days be posting the relevant SQL alongside the front-end equivalent and ultimately a full DB restore script that you can use when doing such a restore. Some of these may need to be adapted for your specific configurations and you may need to add your own based on customization etc.

Infrastructure setups

SSRS Servers – Re-point or recreate your SSRS (SQL Server Reporting services) instances (View Details)
SSAS Servers – Re-point or recreate your SSAS (SQL Server Analysis services) instances (View Details)
Configure AX AOSs and batch AOSs – Live environments may typically have multiple AOS’ and batch servers. Cleaning up and reconfiguring these references will assist in getting new batch jobs and SSRS setups up and running. (View Details)
Batch Jobs/Batch Groups (View Details)
- Reconfigure batch jobs and batch groups to use the new server configurations as soon as the AOS is started up (e.g. Workflow processing)
- Disable certain critical batch jobs – This is especially important if there are batch jobs that should NOT run in a DEV/QA environment. E.G. Automatic placement of orders etc… These jobs should typically never be run outside of live so we want to disable them before the AOS even starts up.
Service accounts – (Optional) Reset your AX service accounts (workflow execution and business connector proxy) if live and DEV/QA differ. (View Details)
Help server – (Optional) Re-point your help server URL if necessary if live and DEV/QA differ. (View Details)
Reset outgoing email server – (Optional) if live and DEV/QA differ. (View Details)
Reset Data Migration Framework’s shared folder (View Details)
Enterprise portal websites – Re-point your enterprise portal website urls to the DEV/QA instances.

Data safe guards (Optional)

Reset all email templates to have a sender name and address that clearly shows that they originate from a DEV/QA system. (View Details)
Reset Customer/Vendor/User email addresses – We may not want to inadvertently send out mails to clients, vendors or users while performing tests. These may include alert or workflow emails. (View Details)
Disable users – You may require that only certain users have access to DEV/QA databases for testing, scripting the disabling of the users in bulk will help prevent the wrong people from accessing the environment and save you having to do this manually. (View Details)
Clean up sensitive data if needed – E.G. Bank accounts, credit cards etc.
Set user status bar options – It is sometimes useful to set your users status bar options in DEV/QA so that you can easily identify critical bits of information relating to their sessions. (View Details)

Clean Ups

Clean up SYSServerSessions
Clean up SYSClientSessions

Leave a comment Posted on August 20, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Role Centers, SSRS

Role Centers / Analysis Services: Report Server (AX) cannot load the AXADOMD extension.

Let me say at the outset that I am very new to Dynamics AX role centers and analysis services and really have a lot to learn. However I thought I would share the following problem with setting up role centers and the associated solution that I found.

Problem description: After installing role centers on AX2012 RTM CU 3 with SQL Server 2012 the following error is displayed “An attempt has been made to use a data extension ‘AXADOMD’ that is either not registered for this report server or is not supported in this edition of Reporting Services. (rsDataExtensionNotFound)”

The Event log on the SSRS machine says the following: Role Centers / Analysis Services: Report Server (AX) cannot load the AXADOMD extension.

Problem resolution / investigation: After chasing my tail on this one for quite a while (including multiple re-installation etc) trying to figure out why the “AXADOMD” SSRS datasource extension was not installed I discovered that the problem did not lie with “AXADOMD” being missing but rather it might be having issues when it was loading.

Looking at the SSRS log files (C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS11.AX\Reporting Services\LogFiles) I discovered the following message:

ERROR: Exception caught instantiating AXADOMD report server extension: System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. —> System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.AnalysisServices.AdomdClient, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91′ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
File name: ‘Microsoft.AnalysisServices.AdomdClient, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91′
at Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.Reports.AxAdomdConnection..ctor()

This lead me to think something might be wrong with the Microsoft.AnalysisServices.AdomdClient itself despite the AX installation validation showing up that it was installed already.

Paying a quick visit to C:\Windows\Assembly revealed that only AdomdClient version 11.0.0.0 was installed

The simple solution to this issue was to install the 10.0.0.0 client from http://www.microsoft.com/en-za/download/details.aspx?id=23089 after which SSRS no longer complained.

I hope this saves somebody some of the hassle and time that I have spent on figuring this one out.

Leave a comment Posted on August 6, 2015 Dynamics AX

Workflow – Manual Decisions

Recently a question was asked on the Dynamics AX community forums about the reason for and the use of manual decisions in Workflow. (see original thread)

Basically manual decisions allow you as a implementation consultant at configuration time to define a question for a user to answer with two outcomes (answers) that can be used to change the logical process flow of the workflow.

Normally in my experience with workflow, processes tend to not rely on a user’s choice to define the flow, but rather on a pre-decided flow and set of rules that can be catered for by automatic decisions (conditional statements), assignment etc. However there may, from time to time, be choices that are simply too fuzzy or complex for system to handle and we can therefore delegate the decision to a human user to make. For example: We may want a purchase requisition to go through an RFQ cycle if a senior manager thinks that the amount “looks” too much, or that he thinks there “may be” preferential treatment of a selected vendor. There is no conditional statements in AX that can cater for these subjective scenarios. So we can simple ask a user using a manual decision.

So here is how we setup a manual decision.

Configuration

1. Create a new workflow configuration of your choice and fill in all the basic details. E.G. Purchase Requisition review.
2. Drag the “Manual decision” control from the “Flow controls” onto your workflow configuration.

3. Select the newly created Manual decision and click the properties Icon in ribbon bar.
4. Provide a name for the element so that it makes sense in your configuration.
5. In the “Workitem Subject” field pose a question to the user. E.G. Does this requisition require a Review / RFQ?
6. Provide a description with more details in the “Work item instructions”.

7. Select the “Outcomes” tab (under Basic settings) and enter the two answers for the user. E.G. “Review Document” and “Do not review”
8. Select the assignment tab and choose who to pose the question to. (beyond the scope of this blog)
9. Click close.
10. On your workflow diagram create the relevant elements such as requisition review and approval nodes (beyond the scope of this blog)

11. Connect up your Manual decision
11.1 Connect an incoming flow to your decision e.g. From the start element (or from any other workflow element.
11.2 Connect (from the left of your decision) the Outcome one node to the element that your want to process should the user select what you defined as Outcome one. E.G. In our example Outcome 1 was to review document, so we connect outcome 1 to the review element. Hint: Hover over the decision to see the handle to drag the process flow
11.3 Repeat 11.2 for outcome 2.

12. Save and close your workflow. (ensure you select the “activate new version” option) when prompted

Test your workflow.

1. Create your document and submit it into workflow.
2. The user you selected in step 8 above should (after workflow has processed for a minute or two) see the following screen with our question and two outputs.

3. The user can now select an option and workflow will be redirected as needed.

I hope this is helpful in understanding Manual decisions in Workflow in Dynamics AX.

Happy Daxing

1 Comment Posted on July 24, 2015August 13, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Further Reading, Quick Tips

Free: AN INTRODUCTION TO DYNAMICS AX 2012 (Dynamics AX Companion Guides)

Its not really my habit in my blog to re-post or re-blog other users content, but rather to write up my own findings as I explore Dynamics AX. However this post is a bit of a worthy exception.

If you have been in AX for an period of time you have most likely heard of Murray Fife and his very practical Companion guides to Dynamics AX. Right now you can download his “AN INTRODUCTION TO DYNAMICS AX 2012″ for free over here. It is highly useful material for anyone new to AX or even old hats looking for some new easy to use tips and tricks. I’ve been compiling some introductory basic training material for our company and this book will go along way in assisting me with this!

Thank you Murray Fife for this awesome content.

See his original post over here too.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/free-prize-download-introduction-dynamics-ax-2012-murray-fife?trk=prof-post

Update: Unfortunately this was only a limited time offer, but I would still encourage you to get hold of this book either from Murray Fife’s website http://www.dynamicsaxcompanions.com/ or from amazon Here

Leave a comment Posted on July 23, 2015 AX2012, Client, Dynamics AX, X++

Beware the “Catch”

Recently while debugging some legacy code I came across the following interesting observation regarding transaction scopes (ttsbegin, ttscommit) and the exception handling surrounding it. While walking the legacy code was observing very strange and unexpected behaviour and after some online investigation i found the following statement from Microsoft:

“When an exception is thrown inside a ttsBegin – ttsCommit transaction block, no catch statement inside that transaction block can process the exception. Instead, the innermost catch statements that are outside the transaction block are the first catch statements to be tested.”
(https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa893385.aspx)

In its simplest form this means that for the following code:

 try
    {
        ttsBegin;
        try
        {
            throw error("Thrown Error");
        }
        catch (Exception::Error)
        {
            error("Inside Error");
        }
        ttsCommit;
    }
    catch (Exception::Error)
    {
        error("Outside Error");
    }

try

{

ttsBegin;

try

{

throw error("Thrown Error");

}

catch (Exception::Error)

{

error("Inside Error");

}

ttsCommit;

}

catch (Exception::Error)

{

error("Outside Error");

}

Prints the following results:

Now when it comes to a simple block of code like above one may say “Well that is simply silly coding”, however it becomes harder to anticipate results when that inner try…catch is within a method somewhere deeper inside the call stack (perhaps in standard code somewhere) e.g.

    void innerFunction()
    {
        try
        {
            ttsbegin;
            throw error("Thrown Error");
            ttscommit;
        }
        catch (Exception::Error)
        {
            error("Inside Error");
        }
    }
    
    try
    {
        ttsBegin;
            innerFunction();
        ttsCommit;
    }
    catch (Exception::Error)
    {
        error("Outside Error");
    }

void innerFunction()

{

try

{

ttsbegin;

throw error("Thrown Error");

ttscommit;

}

catch (Exception::Error)

{

error("Inside Error");

}

try

{

ttsBegin;

innerFunction();

ttsCommit;

}

catch (Exception::Error)

{

error("Outside Error");

}

Further more if your inner exception does cleanups or logging of information this will not happen by carelessly adding ttsBegins and ttsCommits around the calling code E.G. “writeErrorLog” will never be called in the following function regardless of what the writer of “innerFunction” does if the writer of the caller adds TTSBEGIN AND COMMIT

static void testTransactions(Args _args)
{
    void innerFunction()
    {
        while forUpdate select myTable
        {
            try
            {
            
                ttsBegin;
                if (someCondition)
                {
                    throw error("Throw Error");
                }
                else
                {
                    myTable.myField = "update";
                    myTable.update();
                }
                ttsCommit;
            }
            catch (Exception::Error)
            {
                writeErrorLog(strFmt("Failed on record %1", myTable.RecId));
                error("Inside Error");
            }
        }
    }
    
    try
    {
        ttsBegin;
            innerFunction();
        ttsCommit;
    }
    catch (Exception::Error)
    {
        error("Outside Error");
    }
}

static void testTransactions(Args _args)

{

void innerFunction()

{

while forUpdate select myTable

{

try

{

ttsBegin;

if (someCondition)

{

throw error("Throw Error");

}

else

{

myTable.myField = "update";

myTable.update();

}

ttsCommit;

}

catch (Exception::Error)

{

writeErrorLog(strFmt("Failed on record %1", myTable.RecId));

error("Inside Error");

}

try

{

ttsBegin;

innerFunction();

ttsCommit;

}

catch (Exception::Error)

{

error("Outside Error");

}

I thought I would just paste these observations for anyone who like me has experienced this type of “strange behavior” in the past and didn’t know the exact reason and also as a warning to beware of the “Catch”.

Feel free to share your comments, observations and thoughts.

Leave a comment Posted on July 7, 2015July 7, 2015 Dynamics AX, Jobs, Quick Tips, X++

Setup DB Logging in X++ (Updating events)

Setting up AX Database logging via the user interface wizard can at times be a bit of a cumbersome and slow task, especially for tables that are not very common. The job below will simply set database logging for all fields on a specific table. Simply replace “InventSalesSetup” with the table name of your own choosing. As always, test this in a non-production environment to confirm that it performs suits your own needs.

static void setDBLogOnTable(Args _args)
{
    TableId tableId = tableNum(InventItemSalesSetup);
    DatabaseLog log;
    SysDictTable dictT = new SysDictTable(tableId);
    SysDictField dictF;
    Set fields;
    SetEnumerator   se;


    log.logType = DatabaseLogType::Update;
    log.logTable = tableId;
    fields = dictT.fields(false,false,true);
    se = fields.getEnumerator();
    while (se.moveNext())
    {
        dictF = se.current();

        log.logField = dictF.id();
        log.insert();
        info(strFmt("Adding field %1", dictF.name()));
    }
    SysFlushDatabaselogSetup::main();
}

static void setDBLogOnTable(Args _args)

{

TableId tableId = tableNum(InventItemSalesSetup);

DatabaseLog log;

SysDictTable dictT = new SysDictTable(tableId);

SysDictField dictF;

Set fields;

SetEnumerator se;

log.logType = DatabaseLogType::Update;

log.logTable = tableId;

fields = dictT.fields(false,false,true);

se = fields.getEnumerator();

while (se.moveNext())

{

dictF = se.current();

log.logField = dictF.id();

log.insert();

info(strFmt("Adding field %1", dictF.name()));

}

SysFlushDatabaselogSetup::main();

}

Leave a comment Posted on June 23, 2015 AX2012, Client, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, X++

Advanced AOT searching

Its always a great opportunity to interact with other AX developers and have the opportunity to learn from each other. A few weeks ago I published a blog post on searching the AX AOT in code for objects with specific properties, after the post went out I got a comment on the post of a much easier way to search the AOT from the frontend, that for some reason I have never really noticed before. So here is a quick way to do an advanced search of the AOT using a real situation I encountered this morning.

Example: Find all privileges in the AOT that have a specific menuitem as an entry point. e.g. “PurchFormLetter_PackingSlip”

1. Open an AOT and select the section of the AOT that you wish to search. Obviously the narrower the search the quicker it will be. I selected Security->Privileges.
2. Right click on the object. Click Find

3. Select “All Nodes” in the search dropdown

4. Select properties tab.
5. Right click on any field in the “Property” Column, Click filter by field.

6. Enter the name of the property you wish to search on. In my case I’m looking for all entry points that points that have the ObjectName set to PurchFormLetter_PackingSlip, so i enter “ObjectName”

7. Click Ok.
8. Click the “Selected” checkbox
9. Enter the value you want to search for under “Range” e.g. “PurchFormLetter_PackingSlip”
10. Repeat steps 5-9 if you want to search for multiple properties.
11. Click Find now
12. You will now have a list of all the subobjects of whatever you selected in step 1 containing a specific property with a specific value.

Note 1: You can also do some pretty neat searches using both the date and advanced tabs on this form so be sure to check them out too.

I hope this helps somebody who like me has just overlooked this for years.

Thanks Martin for the tip!

Disclaimer: For my specific example it may have been easier to use either the Security development tool or right click on the menu-item in AX -> Add-ins -> Security Tools -> View related security objects. But I needed an example for this post

1 Comment Posted on June 11, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Uncategorized

Determining what kernel hotfix has been installed on a System

When one is exposed to a new AX environment, one of the first things to do is check exactly what version of AX kernel is running. Obviously the easiest way to do this is to open the “about” box in AX and note the build number and compare it with the common build numbers on a site such as Axaptapedia or MSDN

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2012/03/29/overview-of-ax-build-numbers.aspx
http://www.axaptapedia.com/Build_numbers

However on occasion when a kernel hotfix has been installed you will not find your build numbers on these pages. Searching for the build number on google, customersource or partner source also doesnt reveal anything. So here is the slightly round-about way I have found to find out what kernel hotfix has been installed. If you have an easier way, please let me know!

1. Take note of your kernel number in the about box of Dynamics AX
2. Confirm that the build number is not a major CU release by reviewing the sites above
3. Open up programs and features on the AOS, select “View installed updates”
4. Locate the section on “Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Object Server”. Take not of the KB article numbers listed

5. Logon to Microsoft customer or partnersource.
6. Open any existing KB article e.g. https://mbs2.microsoft.com/Knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2998197
7. Replace the KB number in the URL with the KB number noted in step 4. E.G:

https://mbs2.microsoft.com/Knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2998197
becomes
https://mbs2.microsoft.com/Knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2936094

This example reveals that we have a hotfix to resolve “SysGlobalObjectCache is not invalidated in multi Application Object Server (AOS) environment for CIL code”

I hope this helps anybody who has ever struggled to find out what kernal hotfixes are installed.
I also hope there is an easier way!

3 Comments Posted on June 3, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Environment Management, Quick Tips

Remotely Controlling AOS services

I’ve recently moved into an environment with multiple load balanced AOSs that need to be controlled during code deployment and maintenance. If one needs to stop and start these services include either to logging into each machine individually or using the Windows services control panel to connect to the indivual machines to shutdown each AOS service.

Both of these options unfortunately are rather tedious and time consuming especially if you have numerous services to control and need to do it quickly. A simple way to do this is to batch/script the process using command line instructions to control the remote services. You can use sc.exe application to do so. Here are some examples:

sc \\[SERVERNAME] stop [SERVICENAME] e.g. sc \\JH-Srv-01 stop AOS60$01
sc \\[SERVERNAME] start [SERVICENAME] e.g. sc \\JH-Srv-01 start AOS60$01

This will issue the commands but won’t necessarily wait around while the services are stopping or starting.
Adding multiple of these commands to a single .BAT file will make you environment management life much easier! You can also use it to control other services like SSRS etc…

Note 1: You will obviously need the necessary permissions on each of these servers to do these tasks.
Note 2: The service name is the name listed under the properties (right click on the service, click properties) of the service not the one in the list of services.

Reference: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/166819

Leave a comment Posted on May 29, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX

Install .Net 3.5 offline

Issue: One cannot install SQL Server required for Dynamics AX without .Net 3.5 on a server with limited internet access

Description: One of the obvious requirements for installing Microsoft Dynamics AX is SQL Server which in turn requires the .Net Framework 3.5 to be installed as one of Windows features. However both the Windows feature installer as well as the download versions of .Net Framework 3.5 require an active intenet connection to Window Update servers even if you have the Windows install files. If you do not have this connection due to some reason like a corporate proxy etc installation can be big problematic.

There is hope though. One can force the installation from the Windows disk using the following technique.

1. Insert your Windows installation disk into your computer or mount the disk image.
2. Open a command window running with Administrative privileges
3. Enter the following command: “Dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /All /Source:E:\sources\sxs /LimitAccess” replacing “E:\” with the path or drive of your windows install disk
4. Press enter and .Net 3.5 will install.

Many thanks to Reza Faisal for saving us many hours with your article on this, it has saved myself and my colleagues much frustration. View the article here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2785188

Leave a comment Posted on May 26, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, X++

10. My checklist for debugging X++ code

As part of my series on “Things new X++ Developers Should know”. I have been writing a few basic howtos and checklists for new X++ Developers. These are really meant to be simple step by step guides to get new developers more productive by exposing the little secrets of the AX development that sometimes take years before discovering.

Today’s post is a checklist of things you need to have in place to ensure that you can debug X++ code.

Enable debugging for your user. In an AX development window click on the tools menu item, then click options. Click on the development fast tab. Under debug mode set the option to “When Breakpoint”
Ensure your user is part of the local “Microsoft Dynamics AX Debugging Users” user group. On the machine which you are running the debugger on Edit your users and groups.

Expand the “Groups” section and double click on “Microsoft Dynamics AX Debugging Users”. Click “Add” and enter your domain name and click ok.
You will need to restart your user session by logging off and back on again
Ensure the server is enabled for debugging (needed for serverside code). Open up the Microsoft Dynamics AX Server configuration console from Windows administrative tools. On the “Application Object Server” tab enable “Enable breakpoints to debug X++ code running on this server” and “Enable global breakpoints”
Enable client debugging options (optional/advanced for business connector debugging). In the Microsoft Dynamics Client configuration console in Windows administrative tools enable the following: “Enable user breakpoints to debug code in the Business Connector and Enable global breakpoints to debug code running in the Business Connector or client.
Ensure the debugger is installed on the client machine. Run the Microsoft Dynamics AX installer and ensure the “Debugger” (found under development tools is installed)
If your code is running in CIL: You can either follow the steps listed on MSDN https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg860898.aspx or for simple debugging (i.e. logic errors) set your user to not run business logic in CIL via your user options form:
Finally and most obviously you need to create breakpoints. You can do this in three ways.
1. Navigate to the line of code that you want to debug. Press F9
2. Navigate to the line of code and press the “Red circle” on your toolbar.
3. Finally you can physically type “debug” in your code to create a breakpoint. However this will enable it for all users in the system, not just for yourself.

I hope this checklist will help somebody stuggling with their debugging in AX. Please let me know if there are additional tips for debugging that this list may be missing.

For some additional details on debugging see MSDN:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg860898.aspx

3 Comments Posted on May 21, 2015 AX2012, Client, Dynamics AX, Uncategorized, X++

Find all Menuitems Linked to a Form

For diagnostics purposes it is often useful to search the AOT for all objects matching cetain properties. For example you may want to find all display menutitems that are pointing to a specific form. The below job illustrates how to simply traverse the Display Menuitems node in the AOT to locate all items who’s “ObjectType” is “Form” and object is a specific form name. E.G. “PurchReqTable”.

static void FindMenuItemsForForm(Args _args)
{
 #AOT
 str find = "PurchReqTable";
 TreeNode root = TreeNode::findNode(#MenuItemsDisplayPath);
 TreeNode current;
 TreeNodeTraverser trav = new TreeNodeTraverser(root,false);
 
 current = trav.next();
 while (current)
 {
 if ((current.AOTgetProperty('ObjectType') == "Form") &amp;&amp; (current.AOTgetProperty('Object') == find))
 info(strFmt("Found menuitem %1",current.AOTname()));
 current = trav.next();
 }

static void FindMenuItemsForForm(Args _args)

{

#AOT

str find = "PurchReqTable";

TreeNode root = TreeNode::findNode(#MenuItemsDisplayPath);

TreeNode current;

TreeNodeTraverser trav = new TreeNodeTraverser(root,false);

current = trav.next();

while (current)

{

if ((current.AOTgetProperty('ObjectType') == "Form") && (current.AOTgetProperty('Object') == find))

info(strFmt("Found menuitem %1",current.AOTname()));

current = trav.next();

}

Adapting this to search other nodes is as simple as changing the original node instantiation to search a different path as well as changing the AOTgetProperty() method to search through the properties relevant to you.

Happy Daxing

Original community post: https://community.dynamics.com/ax/f/33/p/161258/387257#387257

Leave a comment Posted on May 19, 2015May 19, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, Training, X++

14. Using Alt+[Up/Down] to rearrange the order of elements in the AOT.

As part of my series on “Things new X++ Developers Should know”. I have been writing a few basic howtos for new X++ Developers. These are really meant to be simple instructions to get new developers more productive by exposing the little secrets of the AX development that sometimes take years before discovering.

Today is the simple trick of moving elements up and down in list in the AOT using your keyboard. E.G. Re-arranging fields in a grid control or field group. Sometimes the mouse re-arranging produces unexpeded results and is quite frankly much slower.

Simply highlight (click on) an element of an object that makes sense to re-order e.g. a column in a form grid.
While holding in the “ALT” key use the up and down arrow keys of your keyboard to move the object up and down in the list

Notes on this functionality:

This functionality only works where it actually makes sense i.e. where where order actually matter like on grids and field groups. E.G. Moving your control above “methods” (in the screenshot) will have no effect and will automatically move it back down to directly below “methods” on re-opening the aot element.
This functionaly will do nothing on set elements in an Object e.g. “Methods”, “Datasources”, “Designs”, “Parts” etc…
If you’re a little OCD like myself and would like to re-arrange the fields (in the fields node) on a table object they will move when using Alt+[Up/down], but the change will not be permenant, even after saving. Field order doesn’t really make much difference in AX, apart from readability in the AOT. So if you want the primary key to be at the top of the list, then you must create it first (I haven’t found a workaround yet).
The same applies for ordering of methods in classes. The methods physically move but the change is not permenant
As above, even though you are physically able to, reordering the tables in the AOT makes no difference. They will always be revert to being alphabetical after re-opening the AOT.
Re-ordering objects in an AX development project does work! The elements will stay in the order that you arrange them.

Leave a comment Posted on May 14, 2015 AX2012, Client, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, Training, Uncategorized, X++

8. Locate specific AOT object without scrolling

As part of my series on “Things new X++ Developers Should know”. I have been writing a few basic howtos for new X++ Developers.

Today’s post relates to quickly navigating to specific objects in the AOT without endless scrolling.

So often when working over the should of new developers or consultants exploring the AOT I see them scrolling endlessly or dragging the scrollbar back and forth for a while before finding the object they are looking for.

A common technique to navigate through lists in both Windows (e.g. My computer etc) and windows based environments (SQL management studio etc..) is to simply start typing the name of the object you are looking for. Windows automatically moves to the first object matching the sequence typed.

AX is by no means an exception to this rule. Simply click and expand the main node of the object you are looking for e.g. “Forms”

and start typing E.G. “PurchReqT…..”

As you type AX will move to the first object found matching what you have typed so far..
E.G. P moves to PartitionAdministration, Pu to PurchArgreement etc….

There are some bonus features when using this in AX:
1. You can always see what you have typed so far by looking at the bottom left of your screen
2. The typing timeout is long compared to applications like SQL etc where you need to have taken a speed typing course to get this right. As long as you still see the search term in the bottom you can just continue typing (this normally takes around 7 seconds or until you use your keyboard arrows or mouse to do something different

I know this may be a very obvious tip, but I’ve witnessed too many people taking forever to find objects by scrolling to not include this in the “Things new X++ Developers Should know” series.

Enjoy

Leave a comment Posted on May 11, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, Training, X++

4. Drill through to code from Info log

As part of my series on “Things new X++ Developers Should know”. I have been writing a few basic howtos for new X++ Developers.

Today’s post relates to quickly navigating to the source code from where an info log error, warning or information message is called from. It took me a while to figure out that for many info log messsages you can simply double click on the message in the info log window and the code that called the message will be displayed for you.

E.G. If you see the normal error log icon or warning icons with a small arrow in the bottom left corner, you are normally able to double click the message to see the code behind it. These icons look like this:

Error Log

Info Message

Warning Message

Simply Double click the message as below

To be presented with the code that called it.

NOTE 1: If you have your “Execute business operations in CIL” user option enabled, a lot of business logic like postings etc will not allow you to drill down.

NOTE 2: If the code calling the info message makes use of the SysInfoAction parameter, you will be taken to an alternate form specified by the developer and not the source code. (See Axaptapedia Article)

Leave a comment Posted on May 8, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, Training, X++

3. Drilling down to the parent type of an object in the AOT.

As part of my series on “Things new X++ Developers Should know”. I have been writing a few basic howtos for new X++ Developers.

Today’s post relates to quickly navigating to the source or parent type of an object in the AOT. This is often useful to drill through to a parent object to discover, debug or modify properties and code. The following are some examples of drill-downs you can perform

1. Open the Data Dictionary Table from a Form’s datasource
2. Open the Data Dictionary Enum used from a table field
3. Open the Extended Data Type used by a table field
4. Open the AOT Form object (or class, report etc) from a Menu-item object
5. Open the Data Dictionary Table object from a Query datasource
6. Open a parent EDT from an extended EDT
7. Open a parent class from an extending class.

Steps

1. Open the object in question e.g. a Table field.
2. Right click on the field.
3. Select “Add-ins”
4. Select Open new Window
5. Click “Open used Extended Data Type”

6. The parent type is now displayed in a new window. In this example the ProjId EDT is displayed

Leave a comment Posted on May 7, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, Training, Uncategorized, X++

7. Determine Field name of control on an AX Form

As part of my series on “Things new X++ Developers Should know”. I have been writing a few basic howtos for new X++ Developers.

With some of the more complex forms in AX 2012 it can sometimes be quite tricky to navigate through the form hierarchy in the AOT to debug which table and field certain controls on your form are bound to. So today I’ll cover how to determine the Table and Field name or the name of a control directly from an AX Client form. A quick and easy way to do so is to simply use the “personalise” function in AX.

NOTE: This requires you to have system administrator privileges (which you probably have if you are a developer)

1. From any form in AX. Right click on the form control or field that you would like to diagnose.
2. Click “personalise”

3. From the personalise screen you can now view the following:

#1. The location in the Design node of the AOT where the control resides
#2. The name of the Control in the AOT
#3. The name of the AOT Table name that the control is bound to
#4. The name of the datasource on the form that the control is bound to (normally the same as the Table Name)
#5. The name of the field on the table that the control is bound to

Leave a comment Posted on May 6, 2015May 6, 2015 AX2012, Quick Tips, Uncategorized, X++

2. Drilling down to the AOT from an open form

As part of my series on “Things new X++ Developers Should know”. I have been writing a few basic howtos for new X++ Developers.

Today we cover how to determine the AOT name of the current form that you are accessing and edit it directly without having to go through the tedious process of navigating/searching in the AOT. This can be very useful in increasing productivity as well as debugging functionality

1. From any form in AX right click on an control.
2. Click “Personalise”.

3. Select the “Information” tab.
4. The AOT name of the form is visible under “Form name”.
5. Click Edit to acess the form in the AOT.

Note: This won’t work for forms created in code like dialogs etc..

Leave a comment Posted on May 5, 2015May 26, 2015 AX2012, Client, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, Training, Uncategorized, X++

Things new X++ Developers should know

Since my start in X++ development over 6 years ago there are many small things that I have learnt that I wish I had known from the start. Small things that won’t necessarily help you post a stock journal from code or perform complex integration tasks, but none the less makes your day ever so much more productive. If you are a seasoned developer you will most probably already know most of these, but I thought I’d put them all down in a neat list for new guys to go through. Here are some of my favourites along with links to short articles on how to do them. (I will hopefully add some more over time).

1. Keyboard Shortcut to view properties of an AOT element: Simply Hit “Alt+Enter” on any AOT element to view its’ properties list. Much quicker than fumbling with right clicking on the mouse. (view more shortcuts)
2. Drilling down to the AOT from an open form: Instead of reverse engineering forms from menu structures or navigating in the AOT to edit a specific form, simply right click on any form, click “Personalise”, select the “Information” tab, click on the “Edit” button next to the form name. (view details)
3. Drilling down to the dictionary type of an object in the AOT. E.G. Edit enum or EDT being used by a field on a table. Navigate to an element in the AOT e.g. A enum field on a table. Right click on the element, click “add-ins”, click “Open in new Window”, click “Open used Enum” etc…. (view details)
4. Drill through to code from Info log – Quite often the info log will allow you to drill down into the code the called the error message. If you notice a small arrow on the error icon you can simply double click on the line to take you to the code. (view details)
5. Infolog code drill down does not work if code is running in CIL. As an addition to the above you will not be able to drill down to code if it is running in CIL. For DEVELOPMENT/DEBUGGING purposes only you can simply disable code from running in CIL in your User Options.
6. Run AX as an alternative user. For debugging security or processing workflow it is often needed to run AX as an alternative user. Simply press Shift and right click on the AX icon on your desktop. You can then select “Run as different user”. (view more)
7. Determine Field name from control on Form. Sometimes you need to quickly find out the database table and field that is shown on a form without navigating through the complex AOT form. Simply right click on the field, click “personalise”. Under “System Name” you will see the following: Control name, Datasource Name, Table Name and finally Field Name. (view details)
8. Locate specific AOT object without scrolling. This may be an obvious one as Windows uses this technique in many other applications. Open the AOT and expand and click on the main node of the object you are looking for e.g. Classes. Then simply type the name to navigate to the specific object. (view details)
9. Creating an Development Environment shortcut. As a developer you don’t necessarily want to login to the Dynamics AX front end whenever accessing the AX shortcut, but rather want to open a development workspace directly. To do so right click on the AX shortcut on your desktop, click properties, on the shortcut tab in the “target” field add “-development” after the path to the Ax32.exe file. (View step by step)
10. Enabling breakpoints / debugger. One of the most important tools in a developers toolbag is the debugger. There are a few items on the checklist that you should ensure before you can successfully debug code: View them here.
11. Enabling viewing of Layer and Models. In a complex AX environment it is very useful to know what model and layer an object forms part of in order to search for patches or fix yourself. You can easily enable the AOT to display these by navigating to: File -> Tools -> Options -> Development -> Application Object Tree -> Application Object layer -> Select “Show All layers” and Application Object Model -> “show on All elements”.
12. AX Layer Config files. Create AX shortcut files to allow you to easily logon to the layer of your choice. View how here. (link available soon)
13. Profiler / SQL Trace. You can easily make use SQL Tracing or profiler to see the exact SQL being executed behind the scenes. This can be very useful for debugging purposes. (link available soon)
14. Using Alt+[Up/Down] keys to reorder AOT elements. To rearrange object elements like controls on a form grid simply hold in ALT and press the Up and Down keys to rearrange its order in the parent. (view details)

Anyway thats my list for now. Please let me know of any other quick tips and tricks that you think new developers (or old) should know about!

Keep a lookout for some more detailed explainations on some of these coming up in the follow days.

For some more advanced tips, tricks and coding patterns please also checkout the knowledge base at dynamicsaxtraining.com

Leave a comment Posted on April 21, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Environment Management, X++

Environment based Dynamics AX Color coding

Before I start: As a disclaimer, I’m posting this to show a potential way to solve this issue or similar issues, and to spark thought not necessarily as a production recommended solution.

I have had the requirement in the past to ensure that our environments (DEV, UAT and PROD) are reliably color coded to reflect the true environment that is currently open. This should not be application dependent (code only existing in individual environements) or database dependent (settings residing in the database) as these may change, be restored or be overwritten.

The best solution out there on how to physically color forms is Palle Agermarks’ solution. I would recommend you look at his code to get started as this is not the primary purpose of this post.

This solution however relies on a database table with the required color settings. This means that if a database is restored the color settings in UAT may reflect the color settings in Prod. For some purposes this may be ok or indeed what is needed, but we want to be able to clearly and confidently differentiate between our environments without having to remember restore scripts etc.

To do this I took Palle Agermarks‘ color coding code and modified it to look (in code) at what the current database is and color code my environment accordingly. Unfortunately this does require a bit of hard-coding a set of database names, but the colors will change correctly regardless of database or application loaded.

The key to this is to use SysSQLSystemInfo::construct().getLoginServer(); to determine the current database server you are connecting to.

public void setFormStatusBarColor()
 {
 int a,r,g,b;
 Color color;
 str serverName = SysSQLSystemInfo::construct().getLoginServer();
 if (formRun)
 {
 switch (serverName)
 {
 case "MYDEVSERVER" : color = "33CC33"; //green
 break;
 case "MYPRODSERVER" : color = "FF9933"; //red
 break;
 case "MYUATSERVER" : color = "0066FF"; //blue
 break;
 }

public void setFormStatusBarColor()

{

int a,r,g,b;

Color color;

str serverName = SysSQLSystemInfo::construct().getLoginServer();

if (formRun)

{

switch (serverName)

{

case "MYDEVSERVER" : color = "33CC33"; //green

break;

case "MYPRODSERVER" : color = "FF9933"; //red

break;

case "MYUATSERVER" : color = "0066FF"; //blue

break;

}

if (color)
 {
 a = 254;
 [b,g,r] = WinAPI::RGBint2Con(hex2Int(color));
 formRun.setStatusBarBackgroundColor(a,r,g,b);
 }
 }
 }

if (color)

{

a = 254;

[b,g,r] = WinAPI::RGBint2Con(hex2Int(color));

formRun.setStatusBarBackgroundColor(a,r,g,b);

}

Some variations on this, depending on your setup, would include looking for keywords in your server names instead of the whole name to determine what environement is being used. E.G. Does servername contain “DEV”. This may make it a bit more flexible and re-usable.

Leave a comment Posted on April 9, 2015 Dynamics AX, Uncategorized, Workflow, X++

Creating a Custom Workflow Due Date Provider

Although not often needed within workflow, one sometimes has the requirement to set due dates, escalation dates etc based on some sort of custom criteria E.G Complete by My Birthday or Complete at least one day before the documents requested date. Recently on the Dynamics AX forum this question was raised (https://community.dynamics.com/ax/f/33/t/156937.aspx) so I thought I’d write up a “short” post on how to create a custom WorkflowDueDate provider.

1. Create a new class in the AOT that implements “WorkflowDueDateProvider” e.g. MyCustomDueDateProvider
public class MyCustomDueDateProvider implements WorkflowDueDateProvider
{
}

2. Create method getCalendarTokens

The getCalendarTokens method will return a list of items that will display in the Time Limit’s Calendar option in your workflow configuration.

You can return any list of items here that you would like to allow the user to select for resolution. For example in the standard Calendar Due Date provider a list of all the configured calendars in the system. However you could customise this to return an entirely personal list of options such as “My Birthday” and “My Anniversary” that will set the workitem’s due date to my next birthday (26th of June 2015) or next anniversary (24 of March 2016). You could also provide an option that is document specific such as “1 Day Before Requested Date”. For this example I am going to use these options to illustrate the true arbitrary nature of the tokens.

public WorkflowCalendarTokenList getCalendarTokens()
{
WorkflowCalendarTokenList tokens = WorkflowCalendarTokenList::construct();
;
tokens.add(“MYBIRTHDAY”, “My Birthday”);
tokens.add(“MYANNIVERSARY”, “My Anniversary”);
tokens.add(“1DAYBEFOREREQ”, “1 Day Before Requested Date”);
return tokens;
}

3. Create the resolve and resolveNonUser methods

After creating the tokens list we need to create a way to resolve the specific option that the user has selected in his configuration. I’ve kept my code very simple (and hardcoded) to illustrate how this works.

public WorkflowDateTime resolve(WorkflowContext _context, WorkflowCalendarToken calendarToken, WorkflowTimeSpanMinutes _timeSpanMinutes, WorkflowUser _userId)
{
Date tmpDate;
WorkflowDateTime ret;
PurchReqTable req;
;
if (!_calendarToken)
throw error(“@SYS105450″);

if (_calendarToken == “MYBIRTHDAY”)
{
tmpDate = str2DateDMY(“26062010″); //specific date
ret = DateTimeUtil::newDateTime(tmpDate, 0);
ret = MyCustomDueDateProvider::nextDate(ret);
}
else if (_calendarToken == “MYANNIVERSARY”)
{
tmpDate = str2DateDMY(“24032010″); //specific date
ret = DateTimeUtil::newDateTime(tmpDate, 0);
//next date is a custom method that simply finds the next occurance of my birthday by adding years to the provided date until it is greater than today.
ret = MyCustomDueDateProvider::nextDate(ret);
}
else if (_calendarToken == “1DAYBEFOREREQ”)
{
if (_context.parmTableId() == tableNum(PurchReqTable))
{
//retrieve original document form WorkflowContext
req = PurchReqTable::find(_context.parmRecId());
ret = DateTimeUtil::newDateTime(req.RequiredDate,0);
ret = DateTimeUtil::addDays(ret, -1);
}
else
{
throw error(“Cannot use 1DAYBEFOREREQ with any document except PurchReqTable”);
}
}

return ret;
}

For this example we are not going to use user specific resolution, so the resolveNonUser and resolve methods will return the same values

public WorkflowDateTime resolveNonUser(WorkflowContext _context,
WorkflowCalendarToken _calendarToken,
WorkflowTimeSpanMinutes _timeSpanMinutes)
{
return this.resolve(_context, _calendarToken, _timeSpanMinutes, ”);
}

4. Create new and construct methods

protected void new()
{
}

public static MyCustomDueDateProvider construct()
{
return new MyCustomDueDateProvider();
}

5. Create a due Date provider in the AOT.

1. Navigate to Workflow -> Providers -> Due Date Calculation
2. Right click, click “new Due Date Calculation Provider”
3. Right click on your new provider and click properties.
4. Provide an appropriate name e.g. “MyCustomDueDateProvider”
5. Provide a relevant label. This will appear in your workflow configuration under “Calendar Name”

6. Depending on how you have coded your provider you may need to select an Association Type of company and AvailableForAllWorkflowTypes as “no” if you rely on company specific information or on record specific information.
7. Most importantly: Select the the class that you have created under “ProviderClass”

6. Perform CIL Compile and restart your client
7. Configure your workflow: Open your workflow configuration and navigate to the place where you would like to make use of your new functionality. E.G. Any Assignment’s “Time Limit” tab. You should now be able to select your provider under the “Calendar Name” option and select the resolution type under the “Calendar” option. Note our code didnt make use of the “_timespanInMinutes” parameter so the Duration option can be set to anything. We could have used this parameter to increase the flexibility on the “Before Requested Date” option if necessary.

I hope this assists someone sometime! Happy Daxing

Leave a comment Posted on April 2, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Uncategorized, Workflow, X++

Workflow Notifications to Custom list of Users

Problem statement: It is quite frequent in workflow in Dynamics AX that one would like to notify users when certain approvals have occurred, tasks have been completed or when errors occur. This is pretty easy to accomplish out of the box with Dynamics AX by using the notifications on approvals, tasks or on the workflow as a whole. However the options are pretty limited and not very dynamic (especially in AX 2009) and up until AX2012 you have only really been allowed to assign to specific users (i.e. by user id). This means that it is very difficult to accomplish complex notifications such as notify the following people when a document has been approved: Document Creator, Project Manager for the document’s project and all users assigned to the “Accountants” security role in AX.

AX 2012 however has now allowed you the ability to make use of “Participant Providers” as an assignment option in notifications.

This means that you can create a Custom “notification” participant provider for your system that can resolve any number of personalised lists of users as above.

For example we created a particpant provider with a couple these lists. In our custom participant provider we returned a unique token per list e.g. “Originator, Project Manager, Requester and CEO” and “Originator, Project Manager, Financial Manager and CEO”.

In the resolve method of the participant provider we then retrieved the workflow document out of the workflow context object and returned the “Created by” user, looked up the project on the document and returned the associated Project manager and finally looked up the Financial Manager and CEO from a custom parameters table in AX and returned them as well.

The actual creation of a custom participant provider is beyond the scope of this article but you can find some more resources over here:

https://workflowax.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/participant-provider-example/

I hope this sparks some thought and is useful to some:

Inspired by: https://community.dynamics.com/ax/f/33/t/155436.aspx

Leave a comment Posted on March 26, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, X++

Finding orphaned Records in tables using RefRecId

Dynamics AX makes us the RefRecId, RefTable and RefCompany data pattern in a number of tables the system to provide flexible linking from a common/generic table such as WorkflowWorkitemTable to a variety of specific tables such as PurchReq or PurchTable.

Examples of this include Workflowtables, DocuRef, SpecTrans, etc…

From time to time you may want to identify which of the records in these tables have become “orphaned” i.e. the documents that they refer to no longer exist. To do this in a fairly generic way you can make use SysDictTable’s makeRecord functionality as below (Using DocuRef as an example)

static void Check_Orphans(Args _args)
{
SpecTrans specTrans;
DocuRef docuref;
counter i;
Common record;
SysDictTable table;

while select forupdate * from docuref// where SpecTrans.RefTableId == 865 && SpecTrans.RefCompany==’an’// 866 for Debtors
{
table = new SysDictTable(docuref.RefTableId);
changeCompany(docuref.RefCompanyId)
{
record = table.makeRecord();
select firstonly * from record where record.RecId == docuref.RefRecId;
if(!record.RecId)
{
info(strFmt(“Record %1 has been orphaned”, docuref.caption()));
//Delete if necessary over here…
i++;
}
}
}
info(strFmt(“%1 orphaned records found”,i));
}

I hope you find this a useful trick in your AX wanderings.

Leave a comment Posted on March 17, 2015June 29, 2015 Dynamics AX, Uncategorized, Workflow, X++

Workflow: User Selectable Approver

A question that has come across on a number of occassions on the Dynamics Community forum is how can one allow the creator of a document to select an approver to approve the document. We did do a variation on this request for a client a couple of years ago, so here is one way to do it.

Summary

1. Create a custom field to store the approver on the record you are workflowing
2. Allow the user to populate this field (either directly on the record’s form, or via a pop-up request) on submission.
3. Create a custom participant provider that can resolve the user selected in #2
4. Modify your configuration to use this participant provider.

Details
For this example I will make use of the PurchReqTable and its workflows

1. Create Custom Approver field

Open the AOT, Data Dictionary, expand Tables, locate PurchReqTable. Expand the node and expand the fields node.
Right Click on fields, click new -> String
Rename your field (e.g. ChosenApprover) and provide a suitable Label

2. Allow the user to populate this field
Option A – Allow modification directly on the form:

Open the AOT, expand the forms node, locate and expand the PurchReqTable node.
Right click on data sources, click “open in new window”
Expand the PurchReqTable datasource, expand the fields node
Drag the “Chosen Approver” field to a relevant place on your form E.G. Designs->Design->Tabl->TabPageDetails->TabDetails->TabPageheader->TabHeader->TabPageHeaderGeneral->HeaderAdministration

Option B:

Locate the Class behind your workflow’s Submit button. E.G. PurchReqWorkflow.
Before the code line “if (ret && purchReqWorkflow.dialogOk())’ add code to prompt the submitter to enter a user.
Save the selected user to the PurchReqTable

3. Create a custom participant provider to resolve the ChosenApprover

Open the AOT, right click on Classes, click “New Class”
Rename Your class to “ChosenApproverParticipantProvider”
Edit the class declarationand implement the “WorkflowParticipantProvider” interface
E.g. class ChosenApproverParticipantProvider implements WorkflowParticipantProvider
Create a new method called “getParticipantToken” with the following code to present a single resolution option to the users…
public WorkflowParticipantTokenList getParticipantTokens()
{
WorkflowParticipantTokenList tokens = WorkflowParticipantTokenList::construct();
;
tokens.add(“CHOSENAPPROVER”, “User selected Approver”);
return tokens;
}
Create a new method to resolve the token above called “resolve” with the following code (this code assumes that the provider will only be used from a purchase requisition and will not have resolution options other than “chosenApprover”, also it assumes that all requisitions will have the ChosenApprover field filled in:
public WorkflowUserList resolve(WorkflowContext _context,
WorkflowParticipantToken _participantTokenName)
{
PurchReqTable purchReqTable;
WorkflowUserList userList = WorkflowUserList::construct(); //Retrieve the requisition from the workflow context
purchReqTable = PurchReqTable::find(_context.parmRecId());
userList.add(PurchReqTable.ChosenApprover); return userList;
}
Save your class.
Expand the Workflow node in the AOT, expand “providers”, right click on “participantProviders” and click “New Participant Assignment Provider”
Rename the Provider to ChosenApproverParticipantProvider (similar to your class name)
Right click on the provider, click properties.
Provide a suitable label for the provider e.g. “Chosen approver provider”
If your record is a cross company table select AssociationType of “Global”
Choose “No” under “available for all workflow types” as this provider assumes that a PurchaseRequisition is being used.
Under “ProviderClass” enter the name of your class created above. “ChosenApproverParticipantProvider”
Associate your provider with the PurchReqWorkflow type: On expand your “ChosenApproverParticipantProvider” AOT node, right click on “workflow types”, click “new workflow type”. Right click on the newly created node, click properties, select the relevant workflow type under the “workflowType” Option. E.G. PurchReqReview
Save the ParticipantProvider.

4. Modify your configuration to use this participant provider.

Perform a CIL compile and close and open AX client for your changes to take effect.
Navigate to your workflow configuration and click “edit”. E.G. Procurement and Sourcing -> Setup -> Procurement and sourcing workflows -> Select PurchReqReview configuration.
Locate the node that you would like to assign to your Chosen User. Click assignment in the toolbar.
On the assignment type tab, select Participant
Click on the “Role Based” tab.
Under type of participant select “Chosen Approver Provider”
Under Participant select “User selected Approver”
Save and close your workflow
Ensure you activate the workflow version you just created!

All done! Test and enjoy!

Leave a comment Posted on February 25, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Security

Debugging Security (in the AOT)

With the various ways in AX2012 that you can allow permissions to objects it can sometimes be very difficult to diagnose why your role is not working as required. There are a number of very useful tools to use to assist in finding the problem, including the security development tool from Microsoft.

In this post however I will describe how to analyse a specific problem in a security role using the AOT.

Example: We have created a new Role that should allow users to have read only access to a number of forms including the Users form in the System Administration Module. A number of standard “Inquiry” duties were added to the role as well as a custom duty explicitly allowing view only access to the SysUserInfoDetail form. On testing of the role the user still had access to edit the users. To resolve the issue we followed the following procedure.

Determine the Entry Point / Menu Item being used.
1. Right click on the form that’s proving problematic
2. Click Personalise
3. Select “Information” tab.
4. Note the MenuItemName. In this case “SysUserInfoDetail”
Locate the Menu Item in the AOT
1. Open the AOT in a development workspace
2. Expand the “Menu-Items” node
3. Expand the “Display” node
4. Locate the MenuItem noted above (1.4)
Determined Roles that use this MenuItem
1. Right Click on the Menuitem
2. Click “Add-Ins”
3. Click “Security Tools”
4. Click “View related security roles”
Locate your custom role in the table
From her you can determine what other duties and privileges are also providing access to this
In our case it is the PaymVendorPaymentStatusInquire duty and VendPaymentJournal_NAGenerate privilege that is giving full access and overriding our view only permission.

I hope this will assist you in debugging your custom security roles.

Leave a comment Posted on February 19, 2015 AX2012, Training

Microsoft Dynamics Technical Conference 2015 – Videos available

For those of you who were unable to attend the Technical conference this year, many of the session videos and presentations are now available via partnersource. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in on these.

https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/northamerica/AX/learning/presentations/AXTechConf15PresentationVideos

Leave a comment Posted on January 20, 2015January 20, 2015 AX2012, SQL Scripts, Uncategorized

SQL Database Restore History

From time to time it is useful to determine the history of restores that a database has gone through. For example if you maintain a local copy of a client database / environment and would like to determine the exact date it was last refreshed. The following script is useful for getting this restore history from SQL:

SELECT [rs].[destination_database_name],
[rs].[restore_date],
[bs].[backup_start_date],
[bs].[backup_finish_date],
[bs].[database_name] as [source_database_name],
[bmf].[physical_device_name] as [backup_file_used_for_restore]
FROM msdb..restorehistory rs
INNER JOIN msdb..backupset bs
ON [rs].[backup_set_id] = [bs].[backup_set_id]
INNER JOIN msdb..backupmediafamily bmf
ON [bs].[media_set_id] = [bmf].[media_set_id]
ORDER BY [rs].[restore_date] DESC

Sample Output

1 Comment Posted on January 19, 2015 AX2012, Dynamics AX, Quick Tips, X++

Adding code templates/shortcuts in AX 2012

If you’ve got any blocks of code that you use frequently, e.g. specific comment blocks, you can very easily add code short cuts in AX 2012 to auto-insert the them in to your X++ code.

For example you can setup AX to automatically create surrounding comment such as

whenever you type “mycom” and press the tab key.

How do you accomplish this. Very easily!

Step1: Locate the class EditorScripts in the AOT.
Step2: Create a new method with the format public void template_flow_[shortcut](Editor editor)
Step3: User the editor parameter to add code the code that you would like inserted. e.g. editor.insertLines(“\\test comment”);
Step4: Add your method to the case statement in the isApplicableMethod method in the section relating to template “editor scripts that does not apply to Macros”

Thats it, now if you type your shortcut into any editor in AX and press tab, the “\\test comment” code will be inserted.

Here’s a full example method

The above creates the following output:

Repost from my old blog: https://workflowax.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/527/

3 Comments Posted on December 1, 2014 Dynamics AX, Uncategorized, X++

Form Parts: Creating form method callbacks

Problem description: Form parts in Dynamics AX usually make use of linked data sources to activate changes. However there may the case that your form part does not have a direct datasource link to the parent form or simply needs to activate code to populate the info displayed. In this case one needs a mechanism to call code on the form part when the record on the parent form is changed.

Solution: To resolve the issue one needs to create method call-backs between the two forms. Two approaches need to be followed based on whether the form part has been added to a list page or to a normal form.

Standard forms

Create your form and form parts.
Add your form part to your main form
On your main form create a reference to your form part in the class declaration e.g. Object _part;
Create a method on your main form e.g. “registerForChange(Object _part); with the following code:
public void registerForChange(Object _part)
{
part = _part;
}
This method will allow your form part to provide a reference of itself to the main form.
On your form part’s init method. Call this method register call the above method passing itself as a reference. Note: you will need to perform step #4 on all forms that will use this form part.
public void init()
{
Object caller;
caller= args.caller();
if(caller)
{
caller.registerForChange(this)
}
}
On your form part create an doRefresh method, your main form will call this method whenever a form part refresh is needed. This method can have an parameter that your would like the main form to pass through. In this example we will pass the active record from the main form E.G.
publicvoid doRefresh(Common _record)
{
//Do custom form part refresh.
}
Finally, on your main form, call the the method in #6 at the appropriate time. In this example calling “part.doRefresh(myTable);” in the myTable datasource’s active method works well. You could also do your call from a button on the main form or on any other trigger.

ListPage variation

If you are planning on using the form part as part of a list page. You need to make the following adjustments.

Create a reference to your part in the list page’s ListPageInteractionClass’ ClassDeclaration e.g. Object part;
For step #4 add the “registerForChange” to your list page’s ListPageInteractionClass
For step #5 detect whether your part is being called from a ListPage or a normal form: E.G.
public void init()
{
Object caller;
SysSetupFormRun formRun;
super();
caller= this.args().caller();
if(caller)
{
formRun = caller;
if (formRun.pageInteraction())
{
caller = formRun.pageInteraction();
caller.registerForChange(this);
} else
{
caller.registerForChange(this);
}
}
}
On the relevant method in your list page interaction class call the part’s doRefresh method. For this example use the selectionChanged method
public void selectionChanged()
{
ListPage listPage = this.listPage();
if (listPage.activeRecord(“MyTable”))
{
part.doRefresh(listPage.activeRecord(“MyTable”));
}
}