Book Review - Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Development Cookbook

Dear Friends,

Hope you are having a good time.

Thanks to Velinda from Packt Publishing for providing me with yet another copy of cookbook for review.

Introduction

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Development Cookbook is a handy and a must have book for any developer who is working on AX 2012 R3. It provides with practical scenarios which a developer comes across in his/her day to day work.

About the Author

Mindaugas Pociusis currently a freelance Dynamics AX technical and functional consultant and trainer at DynamicsLab Limited (www.dynamicslab.com). 

He is a Certified Microsoft Trainer for Dynamics AX and has delivered numerous Dynamics AX trainings.Mindaugas has participated in over 20 Dynamics AX implementations. He has held a wide range of development, consulting, and lead roles while always maintaining the significant role of a business application developer.

In December 2009, he released his first book, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Development Cookbook, and then in May 2012, its second edition, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Development Cookbook, both of which are published by Packt Publishing.

In order to obtain a copy of the book, please visit this link

Book Chapters

This book covers the following chapters

Chapter 1 - Processing Data

This chapter covers various scenarios like creating number sequence, merging records, renaming primary key, Executing Direct SQL Statement, Import/Export data from XML file, Building query objects.

Chapter 2 - Working with Forms

This chapter covers topics like using a tree control, Building a checklist form, Creating dialogs using the Runbase framework, Building a dynamic form through code etc

Chapter 3 - Working with Data in Forms

This chapter explains how to create custom filter control, preload images, create a wizard, processing multiple records, Adding image to records.

Chapter 4 - Building Lookups

This chapter is all about lookups - creating a lookup dynamically, using a form to build a lookup, Building a tree lookup and so on.

Chapter 5 - Processing Business Tasks

This chapter walks through various application scenarios like using segmented journal entry control, creating a general journal, posting a general journal, Processing Project Journal, Creating and Posting a Ledger Voucher, Creating and Posting Purchase Order, Creating and Posting Sales Order.

Chapter 6 - Integration with Microsoft Office

This chapter briefs on the various integration scenarios with Microsoft Office Products

Chapter 7 - Using Services

This chapter is all about creating and extending services (AIF and custom services) in Dynamics AX

Chapter 8 - Improving Development Efficiency

This chapter is about building extensions for Code Editor and Personalization forms

Chapter 9 - Improving Dynamics AX Performance

This chapter demonstrates the tools used to troubleshoot AX Performance like Dynamics AX Trace Parser, Calculating code execution time, Using SQL Server Database Engine Tuning Advisor.

Overall, a good book with plenty of code snippets which can be used on a daily basis.

Book Review - Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Reporting CookBook

Dear Readers,

Wish you all a Happy 2014!

Thanks once again to Packt Publishing to send me a copy of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Reporting Cookbook to review.

I had a chance to go through this book and this is a well written book easy to understand practical examples which can be used on a day to day basis for developers who are authoring SSRS Reports.

About the Author

I know Kamal through his blogs and contribution to Dynamics AX Community. Kamal has a new blog here http://dynamicsaxlounge.com/ More about the author below

Kamalakannan Elangovan

Kamal has over eight years of development experience in Dynamics AX. He shares a passion for product development and has pioneered multiple ISV solutions on Dynamics AX. In the past he worked with Innovites to create the first multidimensional ISV solution for cable industries called "Innovites for cable". Building the solution from scratch, he has gained great insights into building, selling, and promoting the product among customers and partners in the Microsoft Ecosystem. You can learn more about him at http://about.me/casperkamal. He is enthusiastic about sharing his learning with the community which led him to create one of the first few blogs for AX in 2006. It is currently available at http://kamalblogs.wordpress.com. He is active through twitter and the community, popularly by his pseudonym Casperkamal.

Audience for this book

"Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Reporting Cookbook" is recommended for Dynamics AX developers and .NET-based SSRS developers looking to familiarize themselves with the AX reporting framework. A basic understanding of Morphx and X++ is assumed but the step-by-step instructions make it easy even for a beginner. Some examples use C# and VB.NET, so experience with Visual Studio is a plus, but not a must.

Overview (Highlights from this book)

• Create and deploy reports
• Understand the report programming flow
• Modify the reporting framework
• Create RDP-based reports
• Design tabular matrix and chart-based reports
• Debug reports, the reporting framework, and business logic
• Migrate reports from the legacy reporting framework
• Use web services, OLAP, and external data sources to create your report
• Learn how to approach report modifications

You can find a detailed chapter coverage here http://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-dynamics-ax-2012-reporting-cookbook/book

To conclude, I would highly recommend this book for Dynamics AX 2012 SSRS Report Development

Book Review - Extending Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Cookbook

Dear Friends,

Greetings!

Thanks to Packt team once again for sending me a copy of this wonderful book to review.

This is one of the best book which I have reviewed and written by one of the best in the game - Murray Fife

Introduction of the Author (from the book)

Murray Fife is a Microsoft Dynamics AX MVP, a presenter, and an author with over 18 years 
of experience in the software industry.

Like most people he has paid his dues as a developer, as an implementation consultant, 
and a trainer. He has a hard-to-find blend of technical and interpersonal skills and spends 
his days working with companies solving their problems with the Microsoft suite of products, 
specializing in Dynamics AX solutions

I'm sure most of us would have come across Murray's blog (www.atinkerersnotebook.com) or  SlideShare account (www.slideshare.net/murrayfife). I would recommend you to go through his presentations and blog, it's really helpful. 

Who this Book is for

This book is really a great resource and handy for AX developers/consultants who would like to take that extra advantage of integrating and extending Dynamics AX into their existing Microsoft stack of Sharepoint and SSRS/SSAS (Reporting and BI) tools. Likewise, if you have a Sharepoint or Reporting Team working with Dynamics AX team, they can as well leverage some of the knowledge from this book.

What to expect from this book

This book is filled with practical and do-it-yourself examples which one can leverage in their enterprise straightaway and get productive.

Some Highlights of the book:

* Extending with Sharepoint - Create document Libaries in sharepoint, Link the document library directly to AX Records

* A whole chapter is dedicated to Power View Reporting and integrating Power View Reports into Dynamics Ax forms and Role Centers - very cool

* More Reports, Dashboards, Scorecard, Charts etc

* Leveraging Unified communication via Lync 2010

* Organizing Workflows

* Reporting using Office Tools via Dynamics Add-In

* Create Help

* Use Infopath forms to consume Dynamics AX WebServices


Please refer the chapters of book over here http://www.packtpub.com/extending-microsoft-dynamics-ax-2012-cookbook/book?utm_source=networking.com&utm_medium=book&utm_campaign=book_networking


Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed going through this book and I would give it a full 5/5 rating. I recommend this book highly to anyone who is interested to utilize Dynamics AX and the surrounding Microsoft technologies to it's fullest. Once again kudos to Murray Fife for taking time and writing such a useful book.

Book Review - Dynamics AX Performance Optimization Guide

Dear Friends,

This post has been due from my end for a while now. First of all, I would like to thank Martin Zhen and Daniel Liao for shipping me the hard copy of the book from China.

Introduction of the Authors:

Martin Zhen started as a Dynamics AX developer in 2004. His focus has primarily been on performance, working on architecting, developing, and tuning Dynamics AX applications.

 

Daniel Liao has been working with AX since 2004.  Currently, he is managing an offshore development team in China that specialize in providing a complete set of offshoring services around the Microsoft Dynamics AX and .Net development services.

"Dynamics AX Perfomance Optimization Guide" - This book lives upto it's name and I would recommend it as an excellent resource and a handy guide to troubleshoot performance related issues to Dynamics AX and SQL. This book is targeted towards the technical audience.

Alongwith Dynamics AX, this book covers advanced troubleshooting tips with SQL Server which many of us might have not known before.

This book spans approx. 200 pages and it's divided into 8 chapters:

1. Understanding Dynamics AX - covering Dynamics AX Architecture, Sessions, Concurrency Control

2. Monitoring Hardware, Database and Dynamics AX - Touches on the key areas like Hardware Monitoring, Database Monitoring, Database I/O, Monitoring Dynamics AX

3. Setup and Configuration - This chapter extensively covers from a SQL Server perspective like Recovery models, Files and File Groups, SQL Server configuration, Database options

4. Common Dynamics AX performance problem - Disk I/O Bottlenecks, Memory Bottlenecks, Extensive Logging, Deadlocking

5. Optimizing Dynamics AX SQL Statement - Index Hints, Trace flags, Best Development Practices, Buffer and Caching mechanisms are covered in this chapter

6. SQL Server Performance and Compilation Optimizations for Dynamics AX - Resource Management, Auditing and Compliance, Performance Monitoring , Query Optimizations and Hardware Optimizations

7. Database Maintenance - Managing Indexes and Locking

8. Infrastructure and Hyper - V virtualization - Hardware Sizing, Sizing guidelines for Dynamics AX 2012 and 2009, Dynamics AX Server Virtualization benefits, Hyper-V best practices

As you might have already seen by now, this book covers extensively SQL Troubleshooting which i think is very critical to understand while dealing with performance issues. I think every technical person developing in Dynamics AX should have a good understanding of SQL Server from an administrative point of view and this book exactly does that. Whether you are a newbie in AX Development or an experienced developer, there's a lot to learn from this book.

I really appreciate Martin and Daniel for the effort they have put behind this book and I would recommend every technical person to grab a copy of the book if they could. Good job guys!

If you like to order a copy of this book, kindly go to this link http://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Performance-Optimization-Guide-Microsoft/product-reviews/1481100750