Dynamics 365 for Operations Platform Update 6

Greetings,

Microsoft has now released Platform Update 6 for Dynamics 365 for Operations.

To read about the latest and what's new in Update 6, and how to deploy in your environment, have a look at the below links:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4021254

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/operations/dev-itpro/get-started/whats-new-changed

Dynamics 365 for Operations - Exciting Announcement regarding On-Premise Deployment

Greetings!

Wanted to share this exciting news which many customers were looking forward to - Having an on-premise deployment of Dynamics 365 for Operations - aka Dynamics AX 7

Sri Srinivasan, GM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations, has announced this in the community forums

https://community.dynamics.com/b/msftdynamicsblog/archive/2017/02/23/the-right-cloud-option-for-your-business

New Developer Courses in Microsoft Dynamics Learning Portal

Microsoft Dynamics Learning Portal is a great resource to get started and acquire knowledge on the new Dynamics AX.You will need a partner account or PartnerSource Login to ign into the portal. Some new courses added recently in last few weeks in Dynamics Learning Portal and maybe some interest to developer community:

80925AE: Advanced Database Manipulation in Microsoft Dynamics 

80938AE: Use and Design of Product Inventory Management for Development in Microsoft Dynamics AX

80939AE: Use and Design of the Inventory Management Module for Development in Microsoft Dynamics AX

80928AE: Number Sequence Development in Microsoft Dynamics AX

How to Troubleshoot AOS Crash using Crash and Dump Analysis Tool from LCS

Friends,

This post is about my recent experience on how I went with troubleshooting the frequent AOS Crashes we encountered in one of the client's environment.

Pattern of AX Crash:

We have 4 AOS Servers, 2 of them dedicated to clients and rest of the 2 to share the load for Batches and SSRS Reports.

We had frequent crashes on the 2 AOS's which served the clients. 

How we knew it was a crash ?

Because when the crash happened, all of a sudden both the AOS Services goes into stopped mode - meaning they are no longer running and the users complain they can't connect to AX. It's very frustrating for the users as their application goes down when they are in the middle of something.

Some of the errors seen on the event logs were:

LCS Crash Analysis comes to Rescue:

I came to know there's a cool utility available in LCS known as Crash Dump Analysis. Upon doing some search, I hit upon this interesting blog from MSDN which shows the steps to get started with Crash Analysis

Basically, Crash Dump Analysis is a tool which will help you to evaluate the reason for AOS crash.

The input needed for this tool is a mini dump file which is generated when the AOS crashes. We can think of this similar to a Windows mini dump file which gets generated when Windows OS crashes.

There are many tools available out there to generate the dump file and out of those, I tried WER

WER (Windows Error Reporting) 

WER is built into Windows 2008/2008 R2 can be configured to automatically create and store memory dumps from an AOS crash 

The configuration happens by making some Registry modifications, more concrete creating the following Registry Key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\Ax32Serv.exe

In this new Registry Key several Registry Values have to be added as well (DumpFolder, DumpCount, DumpType, CustomDumpFlags).

Please note: 

Do NOT set the DumpType to 1 or 2, but set the DumpType to 0 and set CustomDumpFlags to 7015 decimal (0x1B67 hexadecimal). Invalid settings will generate dumps without the required information.

Below is a snapshot of how the registry looks after I made the change.

There's another good tool Debug Diagnostic Tool (v2) which can also be used to capture dump files. For more detailed insights, please refer to the instructions in this blog

I chose WER as there is no installation needed. It's just enabling some registry keys and it generates the crash dump file. Once a dmp zip file is generated, it serves as the input to your LCS Crash and Dump analysis tool.

A detailed step by step process to upload the dump file is shown here

Some tips when uploading the dmp file:

a. The dmp file needs to be in a zip format before it gets uploaded for analysis

b. I have observed when uploading large files one needs to keep an eye on the browser connection dropout. I just keep the browser active by clicking on the browser address bar

Once the file is uploaded and the analysis is done, it produces a html report. 

The report came with the following recommendations:

a. Recommended Kernel upgrade to CU9 - High risk (340 days old)

b. Recommended hotfixes to be applied related to AOS Crash

c.  Exception - Memory Access violation

In our case, the main reason for the crash was caused due to a Memory Access Violation and this was due to a custom SSRS report run by an user. We fixed that report and now no longer the crash occurs.

So, to conclude, next time when you come across an AOS Crash, it's highly recommended to try out the LCS Crash analysis tool to get to the root of the problem and fix it. Hope this post helps you in getting used to the Crash Analysis tool.

Anti-Virus Exclusions for SQL Server, SSRS and Dynamics AX AOS Servers for improved performance

This post is about sharing my experience where I helped some clients to improve their overall application performance.

Quite often I have seen, we neglect the anti-virus softwares which run on our production boxes and scan application and data files, thereby leading to disk I/O and performance issues.

We need to add an exclusion list in our Anti-Virus software to exclude scanning files for SQL, SSRS and Dynamics AX 

A. SQL Server: 

The following paths needs to be excluded:

Sqlserv.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Binn

Full Text Index Catalog C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\FTData

Data Files (.mdf/.ndf) D:\DATA (Path where SQL Database data files are located)

Log Files (.ldf) E:\Logs (Path where SQL Log files are located)

TempDB files F:\Tempdb (Path where tempdb files are located)

Backup Files (.bak, .trn) G:\Backup (Path where SQL Backup files are located)


B. SSRS Server :

ReportingServicesService.exe D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS11.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin


C. Dynamics AX 2012 AOS Server :

Xppil folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\Server\AXPROD\bin\XppIL
Label files C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\Server\AXPROD\bin\Application\Appl

Azure VM Tip Cannot connect to VM after changes in cores and memory

Greeting Friends!

I had to change some VM Settings for an Azure hosted VM and after which I was not able to connect back to VM

This blog tip helped me to solve the issue

http://blogs.endjin.com/2014/03/azure-tip-cannot-connect-to-virtual-machine-after-changing-virtual-machine-size/

Tom Moles - How to attract the best talent in a skills short market (Dynamics AX)

Dear Friends,

Here is a well written article by Tom Moles (from TalentWeb) on how to attract the best talent and how to retain them in a short skilled market. This article is written keeping in mind the Dynamics AX market and a good read both for employers and candidates.

Please read the entire article over here http://talentweb.com.au/index.php/news-blog/61-how-to-attract-the-best-talent-in-a-skills-short-market

My Interview @ MSDynamicsWorld.com

Dear Friends,

Linda Rosencrance, a freelance writer was kind enough to interview me couple of weeks ago to do a Dynamics profile page at MSDynamicsWorld.com

This is my first interview for an online publication. Please read it over here http://msdynamicsworld.com/story/dynamics-profile-bangkok-india-australia-one-dynamics-ax-professionals-journey

What makes a good Dynamics AX Project Manager?

Dear Friends, Thanks to Simon Andras, who authors the Cognitive Group blog http://www.cognitive-group.com/blog/ who asked me to share this useful infographic with the Dynamics community. I hope you would like it.


"What makes a good Dynamic AX project manager"

Microsoft Dynamics LifeCycle Services - A cloud based framework for AX!

Dear Friends,

Microsoft has released bunch of new cloud-based services which allows customers and their partners  to manage Microsoft Dynamics AX projects from pre-sales to implementation and operations. Based on the phase of your project and the industry vertical, the site provides checklists and tools that you can use to help you manage the project. It also provides a dashboard so that you have a single place to get up-to-date project information. 

You can login using your Partnersource/Customersource credentials over here lcs.dynamics.com

There's a new blog on LCS and below extract taken from here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lcs/archive/2013/06/28/microsoft-dynamics-lifecycle-services-released.aspx

Overview of what’s available in LCS V1:

COLLABORATION WORKSPACE	· Customer-managed collaboration workspace · Cloud-based, secure environment · Project management using SureStep or other methodologies · Project-specific dashboard · Tools & data that connect multiple lifecycle phases to enable better decision making by key stakeholders
Business process modeler	· Aligns industry processes (APQC) with process maps for Microsoft Dynamics AX. · Create cross-functional flowcharts based on rich metadata. · Map processes & perform fit-gap analysis. · Integration between BPM & RapidStart. · Quickly generate documents and flowcharts using the updated TaskRecorder (KB#2863182).
CODE & UPGRADE ANALYSIS	· Leverages a cloud-based rule engine to analyze code and identify potential best practice, performance and upgradeability issues. · Generates actionable reports in Excel & HTML that can be imported into MorphX IDE as actionable to-do’s for developers.
License sizing estimator	· Estimate how many licenses you need (CAL) · Model the effect of custom roles on license needs. · Get automatic CAL-level estimates
USAGE PROFILER	· Model user & batch loads. · See graphic representation of load volumes. · Identify a starting point for infrastructure sizing.
Issue search	· Search a repository of reported, in-progress & fixed issues. · Identify specific code objects & lines of code affected by hotfixes. · Get notifications for issue status changes, and new fixes for AX functional areas.
DIAGNOSTICS	· Automate & monitor health checks for AX ecosystem. · Collect data from AX environments. · Evaluate data against pre-defined rules · Generate reports to provide actionable corrective actions

Additional References/Links to videos and more content available here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsa/archive/2013/07/01/microsoft-dynamics-lifecycle-services-resources.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsa/archive/2013/07/01/microsoft-dynamics-lifecycle-services-resources.aspx

To conclude, It's all happening for Dynamics AX and Microsoft is taking the right direction to put it's flagship ERP product into the cloud.

The sun is shining brighter for Dynamics AX Techies!! :)

Dear All,

Wish you a Happy Easter!

As I was tweeting this morning, I happened to stumble upon this news and thought to share it over here!

For Dynamics AX professionals and for the aspiring ones, it's going to be a brighter future. Suddenly, there's a good demand all over the globe for techies experienced in Dynamics ERP (Dynamics AX being the most sought after ERP).

Have a look at this news http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/032613-microsoft-dynamics-268111.html

Some of the takeaways from the above news are:

a. Full-time technical architects working on Dynamics stand to earn a 14% salary increase

b. Technical architects also pull down some of the largest salaries among Dynamics professionals, with salaries of $148,000 for those versed in Dynamics AX, $115,000 for NAV, $144,000 for CRM and $115,000 for GP, the survey says. 

Freelancers can earn up to $1,100 per day.

c. The average freelance wage increase over the next year is 12%, and that is so attractive that 39% of full-timers would leave their current jobs to freelance.

d. A larger percentage (48.1%) describe themselves as satisfied with their jobs and 8.5% describe themselves as very satisfied.

e. Nearly half (45%) of those looking to change jobs would consider moving to another country, with the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and Germany scoring as the top choices.

f. Most jobs related to Dynamics offer laptops, bonuses, a mobile phone and health plans as standard perks. A significant chunk (20% to 50%) also offer life insurance, dental insurance, life insurance and free Internet access, and they give workers the option to work from home.

So, all looks exciting at the moment for people working on Dynamics AX :), Happy Daxing!!

Applying Custom filters to Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal Grid

Dear All,

Hope you are doing well. 

Recently, I did an Enterprise Portal code upgrade for one of my customers. They are on Dynamics AX 2009 and as I was investigating, I found that the web forms of Dynamics AX 4.0 were not upgraded by their previous vendor, so I undertook the  task of  upgrading their 20+ web forms (Dynamics AX 4.0) to Dynamics AX 2009 web controls. 

I had to replace the existing standard filters which comes with EP AxGridView to custom textbox filters. And, for this reason I had to apply the filters via code. I got a good idea by seeing this useful blog on how to achieve it http://blogs.msdn.com/b/epblog/archive/2008/11/17/filtering-a-dataset-from-code-behind.aspx

There was a small hiccup while referencing FilterCondition and Typ as I didn't knew the namespace, so before we use the filterObject and conditionType objects, dont forget to declare the below highlighted namespace.

using Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.Data.Ax;

Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.Data.Ax.filterObject
Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.Data.Ax.conditionType

Review - Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Services Book

Dear Friends,

Greetings!

A few weeks back, I had a brief overview posted about Dynamics AX 2012 Services book.

I took some time to go through the book and I would give it a rating of 4.5/5 as the chapters are structured in a logical way and the language is quite clear and lucid to understand, along with screenshots and code snippets wherever necessary. This book will definitely help any developer on understanding and using AIF Services Framework in Dynamics AX 2012

The book talks about the following key areas:

• Services and SOA Architecture Overview and Concepts
• Whats New (AOS WCF Service Host, WCF Adapters)
• Type of Services (Document Services, Custom Services, System Services, Query Service, Metadata service, User session Service)
• AxBc Classes
• WCF Concepts, ABC's of WCF
• Service Deployment
• Types of Bindings
• Document Services (Step by Step)
• Create Custom Services
• SysOperation Framework, SysOperation vs RunBase Batch
• Multithreading
• WebServices (using VS and X++ Dev tools), Consuming the webservice
• System Services

• 
  

Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Book released!

Dear Friends

Thought to share with you the long awaited book (Inside Dynamics AX 2012 ) is publicly available now to be ordered

Read more about the release in MS Press Blog below...

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2012/10/10/rtm-d-today-inside-microsoft-dynamics-ax-2012.aspx

Dynamics AX Manuals - A good website with videos on AX functionalities

Hi there,

Thought to share with you this website which I stumbled upon as I was tweeting... Looks to me this can go to my favorites as it has some good AX videos..


http://dynamicsaxmanuals.com/

Troubleshooting Dynamics AX incorrect cost posted on Partial Project Purchase Orders

Issue:

We had an issue where Partial Purchase Orders (Project) was not posting proper cost amount to the Project accounts.

Solution:

Microsoft has identified this behaviour as a bug - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937246.

Note, the hotfix was in form of dis<layer>.aod file. I extracted the .aod file and merged it on the local AX instance running on my laptop, identified the classes which is required for the above fix, Did a compare and imported only the code which fixes the issue.

Just a FYI on the classes which were impacted:

              \Classes\InventMovement

\Classes\InventMov_Virtuel

\Classes\InventUpd_Estimated

Troubleshooting Invalid Dimension Combination Error in Projects Module

Hello! Hope you all are doing good.

Just thought to do a quick post on the posting errors which I encountered in Projects Module. (Posting Hours Journal)

Issue-

On posting Hours Journal in Project Module, I stumbled upon this error "Invalid Dimension Validation Error"

Solution -

I knew it would be some setup which is missing, but bit time consuming to go to each setup and look where what went missing, so straight away went into debugging mode :)

a. The code below checks whether Dimension has been set for the employee.

b. Once this was set, the error vanished.

Voting begins for Top 100 Microsoft Dynamics Influential People in the world

Dear Friends,


I'm bit late on this news but Thank you for nominating me once again for the most important person within Microsoft Dynamics. There is at the moment a voting going on where I'll very much appreciate your vote.

Please go to:
http://www.dynamicsworld.co.uk/top-100-voting-page-2/ 

And then set a tick in front of my name: Dilip Nair

Thanks in advance.

Troubleshooting OLAP Errors in OLAP Storage Engine The attribute key cannot be found when processing: Table

Dear Friends!


I have been working as part-time BI and Sharepoint Developer/Admin alongwith my routine AX development. While working with Analysis Services and Cubes Processing, I have come across several errors, In today's post, I will list down the troubleshooting steps involved to solve one such error, Hope it helps somebody out there:

Error# 1

Errors in the OLAP storage engine: The attribute key cannot be found when processing: Table: 'dbo_RR006_Inventory_x0020_Calculations', Column: 'TimeKey_FK', Value: '12/01/2012'. The attribute is 'Time Key PK'. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: The record was skipped because the attribute key was not found. Attribute: Time Key PK of Dimension: Time Dimension from Database: RR001a-RetailReporting, Cube: RR001-RetailReporting, Measure Group: Inventory Calculations, Partition: RR006 Inventory Calculations, Record: 1. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: The process operation ended because the number of errors encountered during processing reached the defined limit of allowable errors for the operation. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while processing the 'RR006 Inventory Calculations' partition of the 'Inventory Calculations' measure group for the 'RR001-RetailReporting' cube from the RR001a-RetailReporting database.

Solution:

Process the Dimension in question by going to Process options and change from “Process Update” to “Process Full”

Also had to reprocess the following dimensions

Dim Sales Dimensions, Time, Item Dimensions, End of Details, Customers

Note: The table names and dimensions names may differ in your scenario.

Some Additional Notes/References:

Difference between ProcessFull and ProcessUpdate

ProcessFull

ProcessFull applies to all objects. It discards the storage contents of the object and and rebuilds them. ProcessFull is recursively applied to all descendants of the object as well.

ProcessUpdate

ProcessUpdate applies only to dimensions. It is the equivalent of incremental dimension processing in Analysis Services 2000. It sends SQL queries to read the entire dimension table and applies the changes—member updates, additions, deletions.


Since ProcessUpdate reads the entire dimension table, it begs the question, "How is it different from ProcessFull?" The difference is that ProcessUpdate does not discard the dimension storage contents. It applies the changes in a "smart" manner that preserves the fact data in dependent partitions. ProcessFull, on the other hand, does an implicit ProcessClear on all dependent partitions. ProcessUpdate is inherently slower than ProcessFull since it is doing additional work to apply the changes.


Depending on the nature of the changes in the dimension table, ProcessUpdate can affect dependent partitions. If only new members were added, then the partitions are not affected. But if members were deleted or if member relationships changed (e.g., a Customer moved from Redmond to Seattle), then some of the aggregation data and bitmap indexes on the partitions are dropped. The cube is still available for queries, albeit with lower performance.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345142(SQL.90).aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922673 (Look at Section “Ignore the Error”)

Wanted - Dynamics AX ERP Business Analyst

Greetings!

Rarely you will come across job advertisement on my blog, but just thought of helping my company out here. Paspaley Pearls is looking for a Dynamics AX Business Consultant. This position is based out of Darwin, Australia. Please find the ad below:

Note - For those not eligible to work in Australia,Visa sponsorship/assistance is available for the right candidate

PASPALEY

ERP – BUSINESS ANALYST

Ø  Darwin Based

Ø  Challenging Role

This is an exciting opportunity to join a very progressive Group with interests in many diverse industries that uses the Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP system.

The position reports to the Manager – Information Technology and will be responsible for analysing business processes across the Group and formulating solutions through the use of the AX ERP system and other applications; initiating and leading related projects; and providing day-to-day support of the AX ERP system.

The person we seek must be a self-motivated individual with a positive attitude and have had experience with and exposure to major ERP implementations, process re-engineering, change management and documentation preparation.

Although not absolutely necessary, experience specifically with Microsoft Dynamics AX will be considered as highly advantageous.

Ideally, you will have:

·         A good functional understanding in and have been involved in deploying a variety of ERP system modules.

·         Experience in gathering business requirements and preparing functional specifications for system modifications.

·         Experience in providing end user support.

You will also be an excellent communicator across all levels and have the ability to manage multiple deadlines and stakeholders within a team environment.

Darwin is a vibrant and multicultural city and is Australia’s gateway to Asia.  Over $150 billion in investments is slated for northern Australia in the next 5 years and Darwin is positioned to benefit from this investment.

Salary will be negotiated with the successful applicant.

Applications close Monday 23^th April 2012 and should be addressed to the Manager Information Technology at recruitment@paspaley.com.au