mfp's two cents : Inside Dynamics AX

"Inside Dynamics AX 2009" is now available

mfp — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:43:00 GMT

The book is now available at amazon.com. You can also browse parts of the book, including the Table of Contents at Amazon.

Today MS-Press is printing "Inside Dynamics AX 2009"

mfp — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:14:00 GMT

Today MS-Press will be printing the hard copies of "Inside Dynamics AX 2009". The books will hit the shelves later this summer. I can hardly wait to hold a copy; and to get your candid feedback.

Here is a link to more details on the book. As you can see the book contains over 200 pages more than the AX 4.0 edition - I think this very well reflects all the new functionality added in AX 2009.

I've also heard rumors about an ebook version, and a Russian translation. Stay tuned for more details.

Thank you - Arijit Basu!

mfp — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:34:00 GMT

I've just handed over my final edits to my chapters of the upcoming "Inside Dynamics AX 2009" book to MS-Press. A big THANK-YOU is due to the book's technical reviewer Arijit Basu. He has diligently reviewed every single paragraph and added suggestions for improvements, corrected inaccuracies, highlighted ambiguities, pointed out missing information and spotted occasional blunders. He has also ensured that all the examples in the book are working as expected, and the figures are illustrative. I've not counted how many hundreds of comments Arijit has added to my chapters, but I'm very pleased with the thorough review. (I can now rest assure that the content is not too far from the mark.) Arijit; this book would not have had the high quality - if it were not for your massive review effort.

Please visit Arijit's blog at: http://daxguy.blogspot.com/

Summer is over...

mfp — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:01:00 GMT

The summer is over, and you might have noticed I haven't been blogging much the past few months. You might also think I've been spending the last few months on a beach on an exotic island - but nothing could be further from the truth.

Since the release of Dynamics AX 2009 I have been heads down on primarily two projects.

The first project is a feature in AX6, that in the hallways at MDCC goes by the codename: "ID-Go-Away." Currently we have a plan for solving the element id problem. The plan includes both the technical aspects and the required organizational enablers, such as the right team, management buy-in, cross-team awareness and support etc. And what's even better: We have been executing on this plan the past 4-5 weeks.

The second project is a book that goes by the name: "Inside Dynamics AX 2009". Yes, we are publishing an updated version of Inside Dynamics AX 4. Currently I have drafts lying in my top drawer of the chapters I'm responsible for. (These days my top drawer is a Sharepoint Server somewhere in a cellar in Ireland.) Next steps are editing and reviews.

On a more personal note, I also have a third "project" going on, as my wife is due mid-September. We are very much looking forward to little sleep, diapers, and all the other joys of family bonding.

Free eBook available: Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0

mfp — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:40:00 GMT

Dive deep in to the architectural details of Microsoft Dynamics AX to make relationships clear and development tasks easier. The first part of the book is aimed at consultants and developers who are new to Microsoft Dynamics AX but have backgrounds in business application development using traditional languages, frameworks, and tools. It describes the architecture and development environment and explains key application frameworks that developers need for their customization, extension, and integration projects. The second part of the book is a reference guide for developers who work with Microsoft Dynamics AX deployments, with information on developing new functionality and supporting users. It covers more complex development concepts such as advanced forms and reports, reflection over the application metadata, performance, upgrades, migration, and setup. This is the first book written by the Microsoft product group architects and the first to take developers deep inside Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Inside Microsoft Dynamics 4.0 is now available for download at: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/5/8/258C8894-B94A-4A87-81EA-4DBB9776F8F2/622579eBook.pdf

«Inside Dynamics AX 4.0» издана в России

mfp — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:04:00 GMT

Участвуя в онлайн сообществах посвященных AX, осознаешь как важно понимать русский язык: русское сообщество AX помогает друг другу и обеспечивает обмен информацией практически по любому вопросу связанному с AX, являясь отличным примером силы онлайн сообществ. Я горжусь тем что работаю над теми же продуктами что и вы!

Я только что узнал что книга «Inside Dynamics AX 4.0» была переведена на русский язык. Надеюсь что эта книга поможет вам в ваших будущих проектах!

Удачи!

A big thank you to Kirill Val for helping me with my first blog in Russian.

Here is another picture of the new book.

Dynamics AX 4.0 Meta Model

mfp — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:12:00 GMT

If you are a new developer and is trying to ramp up on AX, this might be a post for you. In MorphX (the IDE for AX) you do model-driven development. This basically means you create new elements of certain concepts, decorate them with properties, and wire them all together. Naturally there will be requirements to your features that cannot be expressed in the model, in these cases you have to resort to writing X++ code.

Let's return to modeling. In the AOT (Application Object Tree) you will find a lot of modeling concepts, such as Forms, Tables, Extended Data Types etc. The AOT is quite good as a dictionary of concepts, but how do they relate? For Inside Dynamics AX 4.0 we created the below overview diagrams to answer this question. After the book has been through editing the diagrams were chopped up. This gives a better details view, but the overview was lost. But not anymore. :-)

Read each arrow as "using". For example. A Menu uses Menu Items. A Menu Item uses a Form. A Form uses a Table. A Table uses Extended Data Types. And so on.

I've attach a Microsoft Office Visio version of the diagrams to this post as well for your convenience.

The win client version:

The web client version:

The winner of the crossword puzzle!

mfp — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:45:00 GMT

Congratulations to Junior Alonso Aguilar Meléndez from Costa Rica.

A signed copy of "Inside Dynamics AX 4.0" is on its way.

Holiday season X++ Crossword

mfp — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 13:18:00 GMT

As the holiday season draws nearer, what is more appropriete than giving away a nice prize. To challenge you a bit I've greated a small crossword. In the spirit of AX the crossword is only using X++ system functions - so if you are stuck, you can start up your favorite AX client to get some hints.

The prize is: One copy of "Inside Dynamics AX" - signed by the authors.

To participate in the competition:

Solve the crossword below
Arrange the letters in the red boxes into a magic word
Send me the magic word no later than December 20th 2006.

The winner will be drawn randomly from all correct answers. The winner's name and country will be published on this blog, and I will subsequenty contact the winner for mailing address, so I can send the prize.

The competition is open to all non-Microsoft-employees. The competition doesn't require any purchase. By submitting an answer, you accept the competition rules.

1: Which function deletes all non-alphanumeric characters from the text string specified by text.
2: Which function converts the time text string specified by text into an integer value.
3: Which function converts the date specified by date to a text string.
4: Which function calculates the length of the text string specified by text.
5: Which function returns the User ID for the current user.
6: Which function returns the printable name (the label) of the specified field.
7: Which function returns 1 if arg specifies an ultimo date, 0 otherwise.
8: Which function converts to a string representing the field name of the field specified.
9: Which function returns the current value of an annuity.
10: Which function returns the date in the previous year which corresponds most closely to the date specified by date.
11: Which function removes the characters specified in text2 from the text string specified by text1.
12: Which function returns the number of intervals for the given period.
13: Which function returns the fractional part of the argument decimal.
14: Which function returns the real starting date (the normalized date) for the period.
15: Which function returns the date in the following quarter which corresponds most closely to the date specified by date.
16: Which function returns the date which corresponds to the specified number of days since 01\01\1901.
17: Which function returns a null container.
18: Which function converts the decimal number specified by number to a text string.
19: Which function calculates the contribution ratio, based on the sales price specified by sale and the purchase price specified by purchase.
20: Which function returns the current time on the computer system.
21: Which function converts to a string representing form if it is an existing form.
22: Which function returns the constant depreciation amount for the specified asset for each period of the asset's life.
23: Which function returns the lesser of the two figures specified by figure1 and figure2.
24: Which function returns the absolute value of figure.
25: Which function returns the hyperbolic cosine of argument arg.
26: Which function calculates the future value of an investment.
27: Which function expresses the natural logarithm of the decimal figure specified by figure.
28: Which function returns the percentual increase of the amount specified by amount.
29: Which function returns the arc cosine of the argument arg.
30: Which function returns the sine of the argument x.
31: Which function converts all letters to lower case in the text string specified by text.
32: Which function returns the cosine of argument arg.
33: Which function calculates the year which contains the date specified by date.

Building a layer file from XPO files

mfp — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:07:00 GMT

So now you are using version control - and you just realized the master is no longer the AOD layer file, but instead a zillion of XPO files. Still you want to provide an AOD file to your consumers, as that is the way to deploy an AX application.

Page 88 in Inside Dynamics AX 4.0 contains a description on how to build an AOD file from XPO files. In this section an SDK and a tool are mentioned. While we are working on providing you with the SDK for building a layer file, I can make the CombineXPOs.exe tool available.

See the attached file.

Usage: CombineXPOs.exe XPOfolder DestinationFile.xpo

Example: CombineXPOs.exe USR myFile.xpo

Files in the XPOFolder folder must match the AOT structure. This is automatically ensured when using AX version control integration.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

It has landed!

mfp — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 14:44:00 GMT

Just now I've held my first sample of the Inside Dynamics AX 4.0 book in my own hands. Before the proud owner walked away with it again, I had a chance to photo the beauty!

If you want a copy for yourself, it is now available on Amazon.

If you already own a copy, make sure to review it on Amazon. I'm eager to hear what you think!

Interview on upcoming Dynamics AX book

mfp — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:15:00 GMT

Yesterday I was interviewed by Harish Mohanbabu on the upcoming development book on Dynamics AX.

Today the interview was published at: http://www.harishm.com/Navision/Ax4book.html