Solutions Monkey : Microsoft Dynamics AX

EP/Role Centers in WSS vs MOSS

meysun — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:09:00 GMT

Out of the Box EP has the same functionality in WSS and MOSS.
For Role Centers, we do light up two role centers with MOSS specific components.If you have MOSS, the CEO role center and the SalesMarketingExecutive Role Center will use MOSS KPI List and Filter instead of equivalent functionality provided in the WSS version of these rolw centers(by using SQL Reporting Services).

The end user benefit of using MOSS for these two role center is that
• In MOSS for these two role centers, you can change the filter at a page level ,where as in WSS you need to do it at the web part level.
• MOSS version uses KPI List to display the KPIs , so end user can easily personalize to add / change/modify KPIs. Whereas WSS uses SQL Report to display the same KPIs, so to change them you have to edit the report

The other advantage of using MOSS is that , you could use Excel Services or other BI components. But out of the box role centers does not use Excel services.Barring this the out of the box role centers behave the same way in WSS and MOSS.

Enterprise Portal Screencasts at Channel9.msdn.com

meysun — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:51:00 GMT

	Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 – Creating simple List Page in Enterprise Portal This how-to video demonstrates how to create a simple List Page in Enterprise Portal using AxGridView control.
	Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 – Creating simple Task Page in Enterprise Portal This how-to video demonstrates how to create a simple Task Page in Enterprise Portal using AxForm control
	Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 – Creating simple Tunnel(Wizard) Page in Enterprise Portal This how-to video demonstrates how to create a simple Tunnel(Wizard) Page in Enterprise Portal using ASP.net Wizard control and EP AxForm control.
	Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 – Calling X++ classes in Enterprise Portal User Controls in C# This how-to video demonstrates how to create a simple X++ Class in AOT and create a C# proxy for this class and call it in Enterprise Portal user control written in C#
	Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 – Using Record Context in Enterprise Portal This how-to-video demonstrates using record context in Enterprise Portal. Record context is used to pass currently selected record information on a page or Web part to another page or connected Web part.
	Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 – Advanced Grid in Enterprise Portal List Page This how-to video demonstrates how to add ranges in dataset to restrict the data displayed and the different options supported (open,hidden,locked). This also demonstrates how to use display and edit methods defined in the table in the Grid.

Microsofty Dynamics AX 2009 Enterprise Portal / Role Centers - Deployment Tips-n-Tricks - 1

meysun — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:38:00 GMT

(1) Installation of Enterprise portal component, gives the following error:Error executing code: SysDevelopmentProxy (object) has no valid runable code in method 'generate'.
a. Go to Ax Client ( on a machine where Business Connector is installed)
b. Open the AOT\Classes node
c. Right click on the SysDevelopmentProxy class node and select compile
and make sure it compiles correctly. Then run the EP deployment.

(2) I have successfully created the EP Site and I can view the site. But other users are not able to view it.
a. Make sure the user is added to Ax and to the right AX user groups.
b. Make sure the user is configured as Employee or Customer or Vendor in User Relations form in Ax
c. Make sure the user is added in EP site using Site Settings
   i. Click on the “Site Actions” tab, and select “Site Settings” from the drop down list
ii. Click the “People and groups” link
   iii. Click the “New” button, in the “Add Users” page click the “Add all authenticated users” and check all the permissions boxes to give all configured users full rights
   iv. Click “OK”

(3) Role Centers are working fine in EP , but are not coming up in Ax Client
a. Make Sure the "Web site used to dispaly Role Center in the Ax Client " setting in Administration -> Setup -> Internet -> Web Sites form at the bottom right is set to the right EP site
b. Navigate to the EP site mentioned in the above setting and verify none of the web parts are throwing any error. If any web part is not rendering correctly , either fix the source of the problem for that web part or remove that web part

(4) After I added “Business Overview WebPart”, I tried to add some indicators. It gave the error message “An error has occurred while processing the business overview indicator. Check the web server application event log for more information.” From Event Viewer:“An unexpected error has occurred.The period is not valid......"
Did you initialize the profiles? You need to "Initialize Role Center Profiles" from Basic->Setup->Role Center or Import Time Periods from Administration -> Setup -> Business Analysis -> OlAP -> Time Periods

(5) In Enterprise Portal setup BC Proxy Account cannot be set if the FQDN is not a superset of the short domain name
In Enterprise Portal setup BC Proxy Account cannot be set if the FQDN is not a superset of the short domain name

if the FQDN is different from the short domain name , for example
If the FQDN = XYZ.microsoft.com
and the short dominname = XYZCORP
then setting the BCProxy user during EP setup fails.

To workaround,
(1) change the app pool in IIS used by the EP Site to to be run by the bc proxy account with the FQDN specified.
(2) Also blank out the business connector proxy account in Ax.
(3) Then run EP setup and n the BC proxy user dialog , use the FQDN of the bc proxy.

(6)Manage Deployments dialog in Ax Client for Enterprise Portal may not function correctly on 64 bit machine
Manage Deployments dialog in Ax Client for Enterprise Portal may not function correctly on 64 bit machine

Administration->Setup -> Internet -> Enterprise Portal -> Manage deployments on 64 bit machine may give
"Manage Deployment can not run because Enterprise Portal is not deployed on this computer" even though Enterprise Portal is deployed and working fine. Manage Deployment is used to update the Enterprise Portal web server with the changed made in AOT web files and resources. To workaround this probelm, use the alternate way of publishing these changes to the web server, which is running Ax Setup and deploy EP without recreating the site.

(7) KPIs and Business Overviw keeps loading all the time and never ends.

if all the Role Center content in enterprise portal are coming up except the Business Overview webpart and it keeps displaying loading progress image for long time with no error msg in the event log, it may be because IE security setting is preventing the webpart from asynchronously getting the data. To resolve this issue add the EP site to the intranet site zone in IE or disable IE Enhanced Security Configuration from Add / Remove programs -> Add / Remove Widnows Components.

Role Centers in Microsoft Dynamics Ax

meysun — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:48:00 GMT

Role Centers

Role Centers offer a Role Tailored User Experience in Microsoft Dynamics Ax 2009 that

provides at-a-glance business overview above the data to monitor business performance
provides summary view of each person’s work and present it in one, made-for-that user default page

Helps users plan and prioritize their work
Put work into consumable chunks
Notify users of work to keep the (work)flow going

provides "software made for me" experience

Users/businesses can personalize Home Pages
ISVs can add parts

Value Proposition

End Users

Reach every employee with pervasive BI in business process
Add value to every decision
Provides big picture and help keep the work flowing
Increase the impact and productivity of information workers
Analytics embedded in the Business application itself. One integrated tool for both analytics and business transaction
Easy to drill into the transaction details from the analytical information
Available in both Client and Portal

Developers

Leverages Meta data defined in business system to generate the cubes
Out of the box Cues and Role Centers simplifies the development
Easy to integrate other systems
Easy to customize the user interface using std Microsoft development tools

Administrators

Easy to assign users to Role Centers
Familiar SharePoint, SSRS, SSAS admin tools to manage user's permissions

Role Center Web Parts

Business Overview - for displaying KPIs and for time comparison
Dynamics Reports - for displaying charts and summary reports
Cues - for displaying work information like paper stacks pictorial representation
Quick Links - for shortcuts
Unified Worklist - for displaying alets, workflow actions and crm tasks
EP Web parts

Gantt View , List, any ASP.net control

WSS Web parts - for collaboration
MOSS Web parts - for BI

Filter, KPI List, Excel Web Access, RSS Feed etc

Any std SharePoint and/or ASP.net controls

Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics Ax 2009

meysun — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:31:00 GMT

What is Enterprise Portal?

Portal Platform for Microsoft Dynamics AX
Rich development tools and technology
Out-of-the-box self-service scenarios for customers, vendors, business partners and employees
Personalized, role-based portal

Enterprise Portal Architecture

Similarly to Desktop Ax 5.0 Portal builds on the rich Ax programming model and data binding
It exposes the rich Ax Metadata Binding
It uses the full flexibility of ASP.NET (code and markup)
It uses the dynamic customization and personalization of SharePoint
It unifies ASP.NET, SharePoint and Ax Metadata in the AOT

Value Proposition
End users

Modern web experience (responsive & interactive)
Utilizes AJAX for rich interactions
Rich data visualization through controls

Developers

Integrates with Visual Studio for design time experience
Rich toolset for developers

ASP.NET controls
EP Controls ( List / Form / Look up etc..)
SharePoint Web Parts
Third Party ASP.NET controls
User Controls
Custom Controls
ASP.NET pages

Provides full control of UI rendering
ASP.NET runtime and rich CLR language and libraries
Allows associations of web parts in one page

Administrators

End to End EP deployment completely integrated in Ax Setup
Prerequisites checks built-in
Auto Install WSS , Auto configure WSS , Auto create EP site
No manual steps required

What's new in EP?

New Asp.net based Framework
Web Modules are Sub Sites
One Site for All Ax companies similar to Client
Context Specific EP help
Reduced Configuration Steps ( For example, User Relation Configuration Optional for Role Centers ( Required for specific EP modules))
End to End Deployment part of Ax Setup
Consistent Navigation for Web Modules in Quick Launch
Lots of new application functionality

CRM in Sales Module
Expense Management
Purchase Requisition
Service Management
Compliance Center
Role Centers

New Blog from the EP Team

meysun — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:17:00 GMT

The EP Team has created a blog. Welcome team to the wonderful world of blogs.We have made tons of enhancements and a really cool ASP.net AJAX based EP framework in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 and we need more than one blog to talk about EP. This blog http://blogs.msdn.com/epblog is straight from the heart to the masses. All the dev/test/pm team members are going to contribute to this blog. We are also in the process of creating and releasing number of EP quick start guides, screencasts etc. So get ready to be drenched from information firehose.

Tech Ed 2008

meysun — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:36:00 GMT

TechEd North America 2008 Developers is starting next week ( June 3-8 , 2008) at Orlando, Florida. This is going to be a very exciting event for Microsoft Dynamics AX as the first major event immediately after the release of Microsoft Dynamics Ax 2009.

I am presenting EP and Role Centers at a breakout session. Attend this deep-dive discussion on the portal strategy and Role Centers for Microsoft Dynamics AX to learn about the enhancements made to Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal, the cool new user experience, powerful ASP.NET/AJAX/VS.NET development tools, seamless setup and deployment options, out-of-the-box Role Centers, customization and adaptability. See how to build and customize enterprise portal pages and Role Centers to add new functionality and help meet customers' needs.

Dev Conference	DYN208	Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal and Role Centers Session Day/Time: 6/3/2008 4:45PM-6:00PM Room: S310 E (DEV)
Dev Conference	DYN13-TLC	Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal and Role Centers Session Day/Time: 6/4/2008 8:30AM-9:45AM Room: Yellow Theater 2

Role Center Security

meysun — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:46:00 GMT

Role Center Security

Forcing NTLM http://blogs.msdn.com/solutions/archive/2008/05/28/forcing-ntlm-on-iiswebsite.aspx
Configuring Kerberos http://blogs.msdn.com/solutions/archive/2008/02/28/enterprise-portal-kerberos-delegation-for-connecting-to-reporting-analysis-services-on-a-different-box.aspx

SharePoint

SSRS

SSAS

Ax

EP Architecture

meysun — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:30:00 GMT

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 RTMed

meysun — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:21:00 GMT

We started this journey two years back and yesterday was a historical day when the product was RTM'ed. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 is available now for download from Partner Sourcehttps://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/support/selfsupport/productreleases/DynamicsAX2009release.htm.

This is a significant release with tons of new app & framework features with solid tighter integration to Microsoft platform technologies. The team size almost doubled in all three locations during this release and it was a phenomenal immersing experience working across three different sites/time zones and working with various disciplines in my product feature areas from the idea/conceptual state and taking it to a real shippable end product state.

You will see an awesome looking Enterprise Portal using ASP.net AJAX . You can do amazing things with this powerful ASP.net based EP framework and VS.net development tools . You can take advantage of greater user interface interactivity and responsiveness through the use of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) and ASP.NET and build rich web applications. In this release performance and throughput has increased many fold and setup is made simpler.

Role Centers deliver on the promise of providing Role Tailored user experience and is very unique to Microsoft Dynamics products. Role Centers brings the power of many Microsoft products and technologies together (WSS, MOSS, SSRS, SSAS, ASP.net, AJAX) to Microsoft Dynamics AX. Role Centers in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 provide an overview of the work relevant to job-specific roles, empowering them to make quick decisions and take actions and helping people to prioritize and plan their activities. They can monitor , analyze business performance with actionable BI displayed in the Role Center in the form key performance indicators (KPIs) , charts and reports and seamlessly drilldown to details and transactions.

In the coming days , I will blog more about these two features...

Channel 9 Interview on Enterprise Portal & Role Centers

meysun — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:11:00 GMT

Arif,Dima,Chad and I sat with Dan Fernandez from Channel 9 team and discussed the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Enterprise Portal and Role Center features. http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=405045

More such sessions are planned for many of the Ax features and keep watching Channel 9 for Ax interviews.

Convergence 2008 - Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal and Role Centers

meysun — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:45:00 GMT

Convergence 2008 Orlando is starting next week ( March 11-14 , 2008) at Orlando, Florida. This is going to be a very exciting event for Microsoft Dynamics AX as we are very close to the next big release of Microsoft Dynamics Ax 2009 and have lots of exciting information to share with partners and customers and also to listen to them and get feedback on the current and upcoming product versions.

I am presenting EP and Role Centers at two breakout sessions. Attend this deep-dive discussion on the portal strategy and Role Centers for Microsoft Dynamics AX to learn about the enhancements made to Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal, the cool new user experience, powerful ASP.NET/AJAX/VS.NET development tools, seamless setup and deployment options, out-of-the-box Role Centers, customization and adaptability. See how to build and customize enterprise portal pages and Role Centers to add new functionality and help meet customers' needs.

Code	Title	Date/Time	Room
AX13	Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal and Role Centers	3/13/2008 5:00PM-6:00PM	W206BC
AX13	Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal and Role Centers(Repeat)	3/14/2008 4:00PM-5:00PM	W206BC

I am also hosting couple of partner and customer round tables and meetings through customer connect. So if you have any questions/feedback/suggestions or would like to know more about current or upcoming versions of Ax , Enterprise Portal, SharePoint, ASP.net/AJAX, Web Application Development, BI , Dashboard, Role Tailored experience etc, please connect with me either through Convergence Connect or email or through comments in to this blog posting.

Enterprise Portal Kerberos Delegation for connecting to Reporting/Analysis Services on a different box

meysun — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:08:00 GMT

Here are the steps that I followed for setting up Kerberos Delegation on For Enterprise Portal connecting to Reporting Services/ Analysis Services on different boxes

1) The first thing to do is to check that your domain controller is operating in Windows 2003 mode. By default you’ll find your system will operate in the Windows 2000 compatible mode. To check this go to active directory users and computers, right click on your domain, and click ‘Raise Domain Functional Level’. If it’s in Windows 2000 compatible mode, then raise it to Windows 2003 mode.

2) Enable Kerberos in SharePoint

a. Open Central Administration

b. Navigation to Application Management > Authentication Providers

c. Choose the web application you wish to configure from the drop-down in the top right corner

d. Click on 'Default'

e. Set the authentication to Negotiate (Kerberos)

f. IISRESET

g. In case of MOSS perform the below additional steps

i. Repeat the steps “c” to “e” until all application pools needed are modified. (Minimum should be the content application and the ssp application)

ii. To set the SSP and Excel Services if you are running them to use Kerberos authentication it is best to run the following two commands:

1. STSADM.EXE –o Set-ECSsecurity –SSP <ssp name> -AccessModel Delegation

2. STSADM.EXE –o SetSharedWebServiceAuthN –negotiate

iii. Optional if SharePoint admin service is enabled – STSADM.EXE –o execadmsvcjobs
If the service is not running the command is needed to propagate the change to additional servers and services.

iv. IISRESET

3) Make sure Reporting server and Report Manager virtual directory has Kerberos enabled. ( By default this is set to Kerberos. So this is an optional step , just to verify and correct)

a. In IIS Manager, right-click the local computer, and then click Properties..

b. Select the Enable Direct Metabase Edit check box, and then click OK.

c. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.

d. At the command prompt, type the following command to change to the directory where the MetaBase.xml file is located:

e. cd %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv

f. To open the file with Notepad, at the command prompt, type the following:

g. notepad MetaBase.xml

h. In the <IISWebServer> section, locate the NTAuthenticationProviders metabase property and modify its setting to read "Negotiate,NTLM".

i. Repeat the same for Reports and ReportServer Virtual directory

j. Save and close the MetaBase.xml file.

k. IISRESET

4) Register the App pool

a. SPNs are configured by using SetSPN.exe (download it from here for Windows 2003 SP1 or SP2) which is a command line provided as part of the Windows 2003 resource kit

b. Run SetSPN for all EP servers and Reporting Servers with the app pool account alias for HTTP ( for each server you have to run twice one with FQDN and another with just host name for each service. So for a given server there will be two commands)

i. Setspn.exe -A HTTP/mey1 redmond\meysun

ii. Setspn.exe -A HTTP/mey1.redmond.corp.microsoft.com redmond\meysun

In the above command, replace
“mey1” with the server name
“redmond.corp.microsoft.com” with the domain name
“redmond\meysun” with the app pool account

c. Add the SSAS service to each account for each Analysis Service machine

i. Setspn.exe -A MSOLAPSvc.3/mey1 ssasaccount

ii. Setspn.exe -A MSOLAPSvc.3/mey1.redmond.corp.microsoft.com ssasaccount

In the above command, replace
“mey1 ” with the server name
“redmond.corp.microsoft.com” with the domain name
“ssasaccount” with the machine name if the SSAS service is running in network service or the domain account which is running this service

5) The user account(s) you want to be delegated must have the "Account Is Sensitive And Cannot Be Delegated" option cleared (i.e. not checked). You'll find this property in "Active Directory Users And Groups", under the "Account" property tab. I believe this is unchecked by default.

6) The app pool accounts should have the" Account Is Trusted For Delegation" option enabled in "Active Directory Users And Groups"->"User"->"Properties"->"Delegation"->"Account is trusted for delegation ".

7) In the odc file stored in Data Connections document library on the EP site, edit the connection string and append the following ";SSPI=Kerberos"

8) Component Services Configuration

a. Open Component Services on the EP server

b. Navigate to Component Services > Computers > My Computer > DCOM Config > IIS WAMREG Admin Service

c. Click on Properties (for IIS WAMREG Admin Service) and navigate to the Security tab

d. Edit Launch and Activate Permissions

e. Grant all application pool account 'Local Activation' permissions (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920783). In our example, these accounts would be your network service and app pool account of your EP site.

Note: If you are Windows 2008 Server, then by default Kernel Mode Authentication is enabled and it uses LocalSystem account. So for web sites which use Domain account as App Pool account either you need to configure useAppPoolCredentials in applicationHost.config

Configure the useAppPoolCredentials attribute in system.webServer/security/authentication/Windows-Authentication configuration section to true. For example:

<windowsAuthentication enabled="true" useKernelMode="true" useAppPoolCredentials="true" />

OR disable Kernel-mode authentication for the web site

In IISManager7 , under the Windows Authentication -> Advanced Settings option, uncheck "Enable Kernel Mode authentication"

SharePoint Tips & Tricks

meysun — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:02:00 GMT

1) If you are building a web part and is crashing the webpage, here is a quick way to remove it and get the rest of the page working.Add contents=1 to for example, if the page url is http://axep/default.aspx then change it to http://axep/default.aspx?content=1 and it will bring up the web part page maintenance page and lists all the webparts that are used in that page and provides way to delete selected web parts , switch view or reset.

(2) If you are trying to access the SharePoint just with the site url without specifying default.aspx , for ex http://axep and instead of rendering the webpart page, if it gives a File download warning, check the Execute permission property of the IIS Web site. For the default page to be redirected from just the URL, the IIS web site should have execute permission set to “Scripts and Executables”

How to alternate the background color of each row in Web Grid in EP 4.0?

meysun — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 07:52:00 GMT

In WebFormHTML class layoutgrid method, you can declare a boolean to check even or odd row and set the bgcolor ( ro style class) of the tr tag rendered.

For example

…

...

bEvenRow = false;

for (row = 1; row <= rows; row++)

{

rowStr = int2str(row);

if (dsos.cursor().RecId && moreRecords)

{

if ( bEvenRow == false)

{

#Output('<tr>');

bEvenRow = true;

}

else

{

#Output('<tr BGCOLOR="red">');

bEvenRow = false;

}

....

...