Topic: ‘Dynamics AX’

Identifying the requirement for items against a project or sub-project can be accomplished in more than one way directly on the level(s) required.  Creation of these item requirements is critical in identifying demand and easily create purchase orders to provide the supply.  In addition to the ability to add individual items, as required, a bill of material or a parts list can also be exploded to a project / sub-project’s item requirements.  When these items are identified on the line(s), a sales order is created behind the scenes.  If you look at the sales order form, these appear as type ‘item requirement’.

AX functionality then allows the creation of purchase orders directly from these item requirements.  The items listed, available to release on a purchase order, is dependent on how the item requirements were created.  If the items were created from a quotation, only one sales order was created.  All items on the same ‘sales order’ are then listed for selection of creating a purchase order.  However, if lines are created manually on the item requirements, a new sales order will be created, for each line entered) and these items will appear on a separate purchase order for selection.

The way around this is to manually add the item(s) to the item requirement ‘sales order’ which will in turn make the selection for the creation of a purchase order visually on the same list.

Keys to remember:

1) Projects created a sales order (type item requirement) against the item requirement(s) of the project.  This sales order creates the demand.

2)  At the point of creating a purchase order against the item requirements, AX is actually creating purchase orders against the sales order.)

Before a user can create a purchase requisition, the user must first be linked to an employee in AX.   To link a user to an employee, go to the Administration module and open the Users form.  Search for the desired user in the table, highlight that user, and select the User Relations button.  Once the form opens, go to the General tab, and highlight the appropriate user type (Internal / External) and choose the corresponding employee or account.  Close the forms and now the user can create a purchase requisition.
Permissions for the user can also affect whether or not a purchase requisition can be created.

I was doing some AX BI work for a client and stumbled upon the following  AX-specific BI resources.

Here’s a collection of very informative screencasts from the AX-BI Team manager http://tinyurl.com/yhpdmud

Here’s a link to the BI Persona Presentation for Dynamics AX 2009 (PartnerSource or CustomerSource required).

It may be necessary sometimes to reverse a packing slip and a pick list on lines in an order.  This is possible as long as the order has not been completely invoiced.

• From the AR module  –>Sales Order Details.  Select the Sales Order you wish to modify.
• Next, on the line level, select the line you wish to modify.  Now click the Quantity tab.
• On the lines you wish to modify, set the Deliver Now field to a value that the negative of the quantity delivered.  For example, if the quantity is 5, set the Deliver Now value to -5.
• When all of the lines have a negative value, click Posting–>Packing slip menu button.
• In the Posting packing slip window, use the Quantity – Deliver Now.  Click OK.
• Now all inventory has been removed from Delivered status.  The next part of this process is to remove the output orders for these items.
• In the lines, select Inventory (2) –>Output orders.  Delete record using the ‘X’ in the top left.  A warning will appear saying ‘The output order is completed.  Delete it anyway?’. Click ‘Yes’ in the warning form.

The sales order can now be maintained and re-picked as necessary.

Here is a little publicized fact concerning the resetting of the status of a Production Order in AX2009…..

The Production Order is released, and started as planned….but then, Production Control decide that the decision to “Start” production, was the wrong decision, so they must reset the Production Order. This is done by clicking the “Update” button and selecting “Reset Status”.

Click the “Update” button

From the options, select “Reset Status”

When the reset form is displayed, AX suggests the desired status to reset back to…..there is no indication that you have a choice, and if you accept the default, AX implies that you have to reset status, one step at a time.

This is not the case!

By clicking in the “Desired Status” field, a drop down icon becomes visible……

Simply select the desired status from the list and click”OK”.

The Production Order will be reset back to the selected status.

Requirement -Occasionally one might want to reset the check number sequence in AX when using Free type checks (no pre-printed number).

Bank >Bank Account Detail> Select bank account> Setup Button> Check Layout>Check Number Method.

Select drop down check type to Fixed. Create checks up to the number you wish to start with, then reset Check Number Method to Free. This resets the counter from the initial single digits assumed.

We had a client recently who had a business relationship with a customer that was also a vendor.  Standard AX allows this cross reference in from both the customer master and the vendor master.  They were attempting to transfer a balance from the customer account to the corresponding vendor account.  Here’s the process:

Step1: Create an INVOICE Journal (or you can use a General Journal).  Click Lines.

Enter the AMOUNT to (DEBIT or CREDIT) the Vendor account.   Offset the Posting to the related CUSTOMER ACCOUNT.  Enter the proper POSTING date.

POST THE ENTRY.

Step2: On the Vendor Account “SETTLE” the  Outstanding DEBIT/CREDIT amounts through OPEN TRANSACTION EDITING.

Step3: On the CUSTOMER Account  the amount is now open, and posted to the AR Account.

There are many data maintenance tasks that are simply too big for manual updating, but too small to justify writing scripts and using IT resources.  Dynamics AX 2009 features a Fill Utility that allow you to update multiple records at the same time.  For example, if you decide to change the Cash Discount for all customers or a group of customers, you can use fill utility to update all the selected customers at the same time.

1. Open the form where the field that you want to update is displayed.
2. Right-click the field that you want to update and select Record info from the menu.
3. Click the “Fill Utility” button.
4. Use the Inquiry to select which records should be updated.  For example, if you only wanted to update the Cash Discount for customers in a certain State, then you would select ‘Sales District’ in the ‘Field’ field that is related to the Customers Table.  This will return only customers that match that criteria.
5. Once the Fill Utility form is open, you can see the records you are about to change/update.  Remember, in this form you can remove any records you do not wish to update.
6. Click OK, and the New Field Value window opens.  From here you enter the desired field and click OK again.  This will update your records!

Of note; not all fields are available in AX for Fill Utility.  Also, not all users have access to Fill Utility.  This feature is only available if the Fill utility configuration key is selected and the Fill utility security key is enabled.

To view changes that were made using the Fill Utility, see Basic/Inquires/Fill Utility Log

Microsoft Press has released Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 as a book application for the iPhone.  This book is a must have for many AX professionals.  The app features the full version of the book, full text search, dictionary, and the ability to add notes.  And at $5.99, it’s a great value over the $40-$70 for the tree-and-pulp version.  It’s available here.  (iTunes required).

If anyone knows of pdf version of this book (or any other AX book), please let us know.

The MS Dynamics AX Sustained Engineering Team has confirmed that Windows 7 is compatible with AX 4.0 SP2 and Dynamics AX 2009 RMT and SP1 (read MS results here – customer or partnersource required).  Not a real surprise and also nice to confirm compatibility with AX 4.0 SP2.  The team also used the opportunity to announce compatibility with Server 2008 R2 and SP2.