Deploy the Standard Cubes for Instant Business Intelligence

November 11, 2013
Dynamics AX
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Deploy the standard cubes for instant Business Intelligence

Deploy the standard cubes for instant Business Intelligence

Dynamics AX 2012 comes pre-configured with 16 reporting cubes that distills the data into a more user friendly view.  You can use these to create your own reports and dashboards from, and because they remove the need to be a database expert in order to understand the data, the general users are able to take advantage of them as well.

You may think that the creation of the cubes would be an arduous task, involving a lot of design & planning, and would require weeks or even months to get them up and running, but it’s not the case.  All you have to do is run a simple deployment wizard and you should be up and running within minutes.

What are you waiting for?

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Applying Templates To Multiple Products At Once

November 8, 2013
Dynamics AX
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Applying templates to multiple products at once

Applying templates to multiple products at once

Product templates are a great timesaver, because they allow you to set up one product, save it’s configuration as a template record, and then use it to create new records with those defaults, or apply it to existing records to update the key fields.

If you are updating existing records, you don’t have to do them one at a time though, if you select multiple product records, then you can apply the same template to them all in one fell swoop, saving you a lot of time, especially during the data setup phase.

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Create Reports for Dynamics AX from within Word

November 7, 2013
Dynamics AX, Word
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Create reports for Dynamics AX from within Word

Create reports for Dynamics AX from within Word

The Office Add-Ins for Dynamics AX are great, and most people are familiar with the Excel Add-In, but don’t forget about the Word Add-In.  This allows you to create documents that are use data from Dynamics AX, almost like a mail merge, giving you the ability to create custom reports without having to get your IT department involved.

This allows you to create summary documents, or internal reports that you are able to format just like you would any other Word document, and also reuse over and aver again if you need to.

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Have Dynamics AX Tell You When There Are Document Attachments

November 6, 2013
Dynamics AX
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Have Dynamics AX tell you when there are document attachments

Have Dynamics AX tell you when there are document attachments

Being able to attach documents to almost any record in Dynamics AX is a great tool to take advantage of because it allows you to move all of those files that you used to store on network shares or in local file folders, and puts them at everyone’s fingertips.

You can make it even more useful though by turning on the notification flag for document attachments in the client options, which will tell AX to highlight the documents button whenever there are documents associated with the record that you have selected.  Then you will know immediately if there are files that you can browse through.

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Create Collaboration Workspaces to Share Information

November 5, 2013
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Create collaboration workspaces to share information

Create collaboration workspaces to share information

There are times when multiple people are working on a project and you need a place to share all of the common documents, and also a place where everyone is able to collaborate and add their input.  Dynamics AX has an inbuilt feature that is designed just to allow that called Collaboration Workspaces, which are linked to a number of the functions such as Projects, Campaigns, Cases etc. allowing you from the record to create a SharePoint workspace that everyone is able to access and collaborate through.

Not only is this much better than the usual way of doing this which is usually through some sort of shared network folder, or even worse, a folder on someone’s desktop, it is more secure, and also gives you the ability to use all of the functions within SharePoint to really share information.

All you need to do is create the workspace and you are up and going.

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Create Reports Instantly with Autoreports

November 4, 2013
Dynamics AX
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Create reports instantly with Autoreports

Create reports instantly with Autoreports

Sometimes you need to send someone a copy of all the data that you have on your current screen for reference.  Although you can send them a screen shot, there is a much better option for you which is called an Autoreport.  To create it, all you have to do is press CTRL-P and Dynamics AX will do the rest for you.

Autoreports are great because they will create reports on all of the data that you have in the query regardless of if you have multiple pages, they have hyperlinks back to the main data such as products making drilling into the information easier, and they are more secure since they can be delivered as PDF documents.

Forget the ALT-PRINTSCREEN key combination, and just remember CTRL-P.

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Hide the Navigation and Fact Box Panes for More Workspace

November 1, 2013
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Hide the Navigation and Fact Box panels for more workspace

Hide the Navigation and Fact Box panels for more workspace

Although it’s good to see the Navigation Bar and the Fact Box panes within Dynamics AX, sometimes you just need a little space so that you can see all the information that you are working on.  That’s OK though because you can turn those pane on and off through the View options within the Dynamics AX client.

Now all of you that are shouting “Show me the data!” can get back to work.

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Use Cases to Track Customer Issues and Complaints

October 31, 2013
Case Management, Dynamics AX
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Use Cases to Track Customer Issues and Complaints

Use Cases to Track Customer Issues and Complaints

With the 2012 release of Dynamics AX, a new feature called “Cases” was introduced that allows you to create case files for just about anything that you care about within the business.  This is not just a logging system though, you can attach files to the cases, record activities against the case, and also create workflows and business processes that track the progress of the case so that things don’t slip through the cracks the way that the old fashioned paper method if prone to happen.

One way that you can use Cases is to track customer issues and complaints, because you can create cases directly from the main forms within Dynamics AX.

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Use Print Management to Automatically Email Documents to Customers & Vendors

October 30, 2013
Dynamics AX, Print Management
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Use Print Management to Automatically Email Documents to Customers & Vendors

Use Print Management to Automatically Email Documents to Customers & Vendors

The  Print Management feature within Dynamics AX lets you override the default document delivery options by customer and vendor.  One of the delivery methods is through email, all you need to do is specify the email address.

This allows you to have the system automatically email all of the common documents (i.e. sales order, purchase order, invoice etc.) without you having to generate the document, save it to your desktop, and then manually attach it to an email for the customer.

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Update Dynamics AX records through Excel using the Excel Add-in

October 29, 2013
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Tip Of The Day - Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Update Dynamics AX records through Excel using the Excel Add-in

The Excel Add-In does more than just download data to Excel, you can also use it to publish data back to Dynamics AX, making it a great tool for performing mass imports of records, and also for tweaking your data after you have it within Dynamics AX.

This is a much better option than ODBC connections, which has been the usual method that people use to connect and update data because all of the updates are performed through Dynamics AX, so if there are rules, or security considerations that have been put in place, then the update will honor them.