Microsoft Dynamics AX UK Blog

Click the link above to view the details and products included on the update.

Posted By Fee Nolan

This course will review the benefits of presenting a business case and the importance of establishing credibility during the sales process.  We’ll look at how to use Nucleus Research ERP ROI Tools to shorten the deal cycle and how to use the business case to identify areas of competitive benefit.  We will examine when to apply metrics such as ROI, TCO, NPV, and Payback during the sales process, how to build credibility behind estimates of benefits, and how to use the business case to effectively negotiate with customers during the purchase phase.

Two Live Deliveries at:

• 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time, Tuesday July 21, 2009
• 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time, Tuesday July 21, 2009

Content:  Nucleus Research Tools
Target Partner Role: Exec/Owner, Marketing, Sales
Level:  200

This webcast will be offered live at two separate times to accommodate various time zones and busy schedules. The presenters will cover the same topics at each session; please attend the one that best fits your schedule.

Register here:

8am session

5pm session

Posted By Fee Nolan

Hello All, for those focused on the VPCs, a great blog to connect to, and now linked on the UK blog is one by Lachlan Cash, the Lead Dynamics AX Evangelist within the Microsoft Product Team. Lachlan is one of those people who creates VPC images, and takes the points that you report back.

You’ll find details of his blog here, as well as on the blog links on our UK blog.

Lachlan is expecting to release the Refresh II later this week, so fingers crossed it will be available on PartnerSource in the near future. We’ll let you know once it’s there.

Posted By Fee Nolan

You’ll find the following document a help in having conversations around Upgrade for SBE and PRO customers.

It explains in a modular format the additional functionality included in AX 4 and AX 2009, as well as those modules that aren’t available if upgrading on SBE or PRO.

Definitely something to have stored in your AX documents for future reference.

Posted By Fee Nolan

A very interesting site entitled http://saphorrorstories.com/ from which I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions.

Posted By Fee Nolan

At this time of year, when the pressure is on, I always find a joke helps – so here is one of my favourite jokes:

“The other night I was invited out for a night with the "girls." I told my husband that I would be home by midnight, "I promise!" Well, the hours passed and the margaritas went down way too easily. Around 3 a.m., a bit loaded, I headed for home.

Just as I got in the door, the cuckoo clock in the hallway started up and cuckooed 3 times. Quickly, realizing my husband would probably wake up, I cuckooed another 9 times.

I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a quick-witted solution, in order to escape a possible conflict with him. Even when totally smashed ... 3 cuckoos plus 9 cuckoos totals = 12 Cuckoos - MIDNIGHT!

The next morning my husband asked me what time I got in ... I told him "MIDNIGHT".... He didn't seem pi**ed off in the least. Whew ... I got away with that one!

Then he said "We need a new cuckoo clock."

When I asked him why, he said, "Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said "oh sh_t." Cuckooed 4 more times, cleared its throat, cuckooed another three times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then tripped over the coffee table and farted.”

I hope it provides at least a little relief to you all.

Posted By Fee Nolan

Just to let you all know, the Pre-release BETA is now available on Partner Source and Customer Source. As with some of our previous releases, we’re releasing the BETA version to get feedback over the next few months as the Product Teams build the capabilities into the existing framework.

Manage a Dynamics AX Database
The Intelligent Data Management Framework allows our customers to reduce their database sizes by a centralized intelligent purge method and by  managing the database indices using Microsoft SQL Server DMV based intelligence. We support Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 and Microsoft Axapta 3.0 on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

Easy Configuration and Management
Rich Dashboard, Intuitive Analytics, Collaboration thru Alerts and emails, Purge Object Discovery and Configuration for ease of customizability. Ability to build Partner Solution Add On Purge Objects. Configure a Purge object by leveraging the Dynamics AX Database in a fast and efficient manner.

Simple Administration and Reporting
Ability to manage database connections (test and production environments in one hood), restrictions on tables, alert configurations, detailed audit tracing and reporting, efficient asynchronous scheduling

You can give it a whirl from the following links:

feedback on Dynamics AX IDM Feedback Forum

PartnerSource - https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/downloads/releases/AX_IDMF.htm

CustomerSource - https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/downloads/servicepacks/AX_IDMF.htm

Posted By Fee Nolan

We have released the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Management Pack for Systems Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007 to the SCOM Catalog and also to the Dynamics Customer and Vendor portals. The AX management pack provides superior monitoring capabilities to monitor AX Application Object Servers (AOS) and makes an IT administrator’s job easier in AX deployments monitored by SCOM. This release is the first step in the direction of providing AX specific monitoring capabilities in SCOM environments and leveraging the existing SCOM infrastructure to provide a better-together experience for AX Customers.

The following are some of the highlights of what the management pack provides to SCOM users

· Integration with the SCOM Console to monitor the availability of AOS instances in an AX environment

· Ability to view detailed information about all AOS instances in an AX environment such as configuration, number of active users, AOS version etc

· Ability to receive alerts when an AOS instance stops running

· Ability to start and stop AOS instances from the SCOM console

· Ability to view AOS events, users connected to an AOS and status of batch jobs and tasks

The Management Pack for AX 2009 is available for download from the SCOM Management Pack Catalog and at AX Customer Source & Partner Source sites.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6937a1ed-cd58-4361-bb70-76dafcdcb832&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/downloads/releases/AX_SCOM_Pack.htm (Partner Source)

https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/downloads/servicepacks/AX_SCOM_Pack.htm (Customer Source)

We’re looking to include a piece on this at the next Partner Roadshow which will be scheduled for September once everyone’s back from holidays.

Posted By Fee Nolan

Hello All,

Product Suggestions have come up recently on the radar, and how to capture them. You can actually put your suggestions into Microsoft Connect where a page has been specifically set up for Product Suggestions for Microsoft Dynamics.

You can search existing suggestions as well as creating new suggestions, with the ability to vote on those suggested.

You can link to Microsoft Connect here

Posted By Fee Nolan

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Midmarket and Tier 2-Oriented ERP for Product-Centric Companies
• In Down Economy, Microsoft Is Up on Innovation
• Green Software: The Partner Opportunity - Warren Wilson, Ovum
• "X" marks many spots in xRM - Warren Wilson, Ovum
• Convergence New Orleans Underlines Microsoft Focus on ERP and CRM, but No Major Products Were Unveiled - Christian Hestermann, Chris Pang, Sharon Mertz, Gartner
• Microsoft Moves Dynamics Forward with New Releases and Simplified Pricing Strategies - Ray Wang, Paul Hamerman, Bill Band, Forrester

Please do make use of the Analyst Evidence Kit – it pulls together all reports over which we have distribution rights.

Posted By Fee Nolan

Hello All – you may see this link on Download pages at times – if you’re not aware of it, and are in a technical role, it’s definitely worth a butchers, providing links back to technical content, videos, downloads and Microsoft Blogs:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/ax/default.aspx

Posted By Fee Nolan

Not sure if you’ve noticed but the case study site has gone through a bit of a change – i.e. it’s a bit more shiny and new. It’s also quite extensive on search queries now which can add a little bit more complication to the process.

So when you navigate to the site:

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/

Firstly make sure you click on “More Search Options” as snipped in the pic below:

I would then also click on “advanced search options” which you’ll find at the bottom of the snip below in the search pane:

This will then take you to a search screen where you can build up some query type logic to your search.

In the “Select Software & Services” highlight Microsoft Dynamics AX – by doing this you’ll get a nested view that then enables you to select a particular version:

Clearly there’s a lot more to this than what I’ve posted – but just wanted you to be aware of the further Advanced option (which Steve Farr has named the Advanced-er Option)

Posted By Fee Nolan

Hello All, there’s a new “Inside AX 2009” publication which has been recently published.

If you have a look at the following link you’ll find 3 AX 2009 titles available:

Dynamics AX 2009 Publications

Posted By Fee Nolan

Hello all, please find below the latest hot topic with regards Project Server Integration:

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?publisher=12&delivery=268575

Posted By Fee Nolan

Rapid project type in Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step provides guidance to partners on implementing Microsoft Dynamics solutions in 20 activities or less.  Join us for this webinar to learn more about this simple approach; and how you can implement, within reduced timeframes, without the perceived overhead of project management and with more consistency – all within fixed customer budgets. 

This webcast will present both a simple process and an example of how such a process can be implemented in collaborative SharePoint project sites.  Please select either one of the two webcasts.

June 18, 2009:

Time: 8am PST, 11am EST, 4pm GMT

Register: http://www.brightwork.com/forms/webinar_registration_form.asp?event=8

ICS: http://www.brightwork.com/ics/Live_Webcast_Rapid_Implementations_with_Sure_Step_June18.ics

Brightwork also invites you to try pmPoint for Sure Step, BrightWork’s SharePoint based project management plug-in for Microsoft Dynamics partners.  Partners can also click here to access our online TrialZone and take pmPoint for Sure Step for a test drive!  There is no software to download and access is enabled immediately.

Posted By Fee Nolan