If you're an AX developer, I have some good news: the Dynamics AX 2009 developer documentation on MSDN is now enabled for community content (aka wiki). So now you can post comments, code samples, bug reports, kudos and brickbats on any particular topic.

You’ve most likely seen the wiki in action on MSDN if you’ve ever browsed the help for .NET or SQL Server or any of the other developer products. Just scroll to the bottom of any topic and you’ll see the Community Content pane. Click the Add new content link to sign in and start talking. You will need to have a valid Live ID to sign in and post a comment. Currently, only the AX 2009 help is wiki enabled, but we plan to enable this feature on the AX 4.0 help soon.

Let the discussions commence!

As part of the overall MSDN redesign, the Dynamics AX Developer Center is sporting a new look. The core navigation is still there, but many of the pages have been simplified to make it easier to find what you're looking for.

For more information about the overall MSDN redesign and what's in it for you, check out Soma's blog. Your feedback on how we can make the Dynamics AX Developer Center better is always welcome!

The Microsoft Dynamics AX Content Publishing team (we write all the AX docs) is holding some roundtables at the AXUG Summit going on right now. Please come by and participate – we’d like to hear your feedback.

Here’s the schedule:

This week is the annual AX User Group Summit 2009 in Chicago. The Dynamics AX Content Publishing team is there, and we have created a compendium of documentation resources for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009.

In this document you’ll find a list of the documentation that’s available for the product with links to where it’s located. The list is segmented by the type of documentation:

·         User

·         System administrator

·         Developer

This document covers all the product documentation. If you’re looking for AIF-specific documentation resources, check out this blog post.

Not able to attend the conference? No problem. I have posted the document right here (you can download it by clicking the link next to the teeny-tiny paperclip below).  

I recently discovered that there’s a tool that allows you to create a help file (either .chm or .hxs) from content on MSDN and TechNet. It’s called Package This and is available on CodePlex. This is great if you want to download a bunch of information to review offline, say at a customer site or on a plane.

If you don’t know about CodePlex, it’s our open source hosting web site. It’s publicly available and you can download the source for all the projects hosted there.

When you download the Package This executable (I created a new folder called \Program Files\Package This and put it there) and run it, you’ll see the MSDN tree – or the table of contents (TOC) as we call it. You can toggle between MSDN and TechNet by using the Library menu item.

Recently, I was on a mail thread that elucidated certain aspects of how AIF messages are encoded. So I thought I would share that info here.

In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, the default encoding is UTF-8. You can change the default in the global settings form by navigating to Basic > Setup > Application Integration Framework > Global settings.

The important thing to remember is that each endpoint has its own default encoding format, and that encoding is inherited from the encoding format specified in the global settings. So if you want to change the encoding on a single endpoint, you need to go to the endpoints form by navigating to Basic > Setup > Application Integration Framework > Endpoints > General tab.

If you change the default encoding format on the global settings form, it does not change the default encoding format on any existing endpoints. Only endpoints created after the change to the global settings will inherit the new global default encoding format.

Another important point to remember: Outbound documents (messages) that are being sent in response to an inbound request always use the encoding of the inbound request document.

The encoding formats supported by AX are:

·         UTF-8

·         UTF-16

·         UTF-16BE

·         GB18030

For more information than you’d ever want to know about Unicode encoding formats, check out the Unicode Consortium.

Sometimes you stumble upon something that has been around for a long time but you never knew about, so when you do find out about it, it’s like making a whole new discovery. This is how I felt when I found out you could automate the checklist that must be completed after you install Dynamics AX.

This automation can be a real time-saver if you are doing multiple AX installations. For instance, if you’re doing AX development and you have separate test and dev environments that you update on a regular basis.

First off, I tested this in AX 2009, but the functionality is available in 4.0 as well. Essentially, you create an XML configuration file and then run AX from the command line and point to that configuration file. The configuration file contains elements that correspond to the steps in the checklist.

Here’s the config file that I used to test with. As you can see, this file specifies

·         That the application should be compiled

·         That the license file should be loaded from the specified path

·         That the sample data should be imported from the specified path

·         That the database should be synchronized

<?xml version="1.0" ?>

<AxaptaAutoRun version="4.0"

    logFile="c:\temp\config\autorunerrlog"

    exitWhenDone="true">

<CompileApplication crossReference="false"/>

<LicenseInformation file="c:\temp\config\

    AxsetupLicense.txt" />

<DataImport file="c:\temp\config\40ExtendedData1380.dat"/>

<Synchronize/>

</AxaptaAutoRun>

So the first thing you do is install Dynamics AX. Then, you write your config file with the settings you need. Then, run AX on the command line and specify the config file with this command:

Ax32.exe -StartupCmd=AutoRun_c:\Configuration.XML

My sample config file shows only a subset of what you can do with the config file. You can add users, add companies, run an XPO, run code from the AOT, etc. See the SysAutoRun Class help on MSDN for more options.

One final note - the config file above specifies version 4.0. That will still work with version 2009, as long as the version number specified is <= the product version number, it will not be a problem.

Early this year, we released the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard (ESD). This is a module that works with Dynamics AX 2009. This tool is not my area of expertise within AX, but I thought it was really cool so I wanted to mention it.

The dashboard allows you to configure your AX installation to track your energy consumption. You can use the dashboard reports to analyze the data you collect and find opportunities for reducing your footprint and maybe even saving your company some money at the same time.

Another benefit of the dashboard reports is that they provide information that you can share with customers, the media, government regulators or anyone that needs or wants to know about your organization’s environmental data.

Click here to see a short video that provides a nutshell version of how it works. As you’ll see in the video, the great thing about the ESD is that the tracking of energy usage is part of your organization’s everyday business process.

The ESD was released after AX 2009 as a targeted release. You can download it at https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/downloads/servicepacks/ax2009esd.htm?printpage=false&stext=sustainability. You’ll need a valid PartnerSource login to access it though.

At long last, a white paper about implementing new services and best practices for developers has been published. This document is chock-full of helpful tips for developers that are creating services in AX 2009.

Running the AIF Document Service Wizard is just the first step to creating a new service. Then you need to put the business logic code in and this paper gives you a jumping off point.

You’ll find recommendations for:

·         How to create the schema.

·         What fields are exposed by the query.

·         How to implement Ax<Table> classes.

·         How to handle defaulting and validation.

·         How service security works.

·         How to debug services.

Code on!

The updated version of Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 is now available. Check it out here.

If you’re using Dynamics AX 2009 and are new to services, there’s a new webcast that you’ll want to check out. It’s on Channel 9, and it was done by Sanjay Jain, ISV Architect Evangelist.

It gives you the nutshell version of how to:

·         Create a new service

·         Add a new service operation to the service

·         Publish the service

·         Consume that service

For more in-depth help on AX 2009, see the help content on MSDN and TechNet.

The SDK team has released its first update to the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 developer documentation on MSDN since the release of the product. Go here for a list of changes that were included in the most recent update.

Training isn’t necessarily my bailiwick, but I recently came across some Microsoft Dynamics AX training links that I thought would be useful. These aren't new links, just thought I’d aggregate and post them.

When you use the AIF file adapter to process messages, you might think that the messages would be processed sequentially in the order they are submitted as determined by the file time stamp (even though the processing is asynchronous). But the file adapter actually uses the file name and processes the messages alphabetically.

So if you want to control the order in which messages are processed by the file adapter, you can do so by creating a sequence using the file name. For example, file names such as PO_000001.xml, PO_000002.xml, and so on. You get the idea. You could potentially create any type of sequence you want.

There was recently a very interesting blog post interview with Lachlan Cash, Senior Product Manager for Dynamics AX. This interview discusses the product SOA strategy, how it has evolved through the different product versions and how it continues to evolve.

Also discussed is the future of X++. Perhaps we should start an ‘X++ becomes a managed language’ pool? You pick the date!