Thursday, October 30, 2008

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

AX2009 layers and Architecure (Short Note)

You can consider AX layers anologous to transparent OHP slides placed on top of each other. Each slide has a name, range and a purpose. In AX 2009, the layers are (low to high)

USR User - Individual companies or companies within an enterprise can use this layer to make customizations unique to customer installations.

CUS Customer - Companies and business partners can modify their installations and add the generic company-specific modifications to this layer.The layer is included to support the need for in-house development without jeopardizing modifications made by the business partner.

VAR Value-added reseller - Business partners use this layer, which has no business restrictions, to add any development done for their customers.

BUS Business solution - Business partners develop and distribute vertical and horizontal solutions to other partners and customers.

SL1-SL3 Certified solutions - Partners certified under the Microsoft Dynamics Industry Solution (MDIS) program distribute their solutions in the SL layers.

HFX Hotfix - The Dynamics AX team delivers critical hotfixes using the HFX layer.

GLS Global solution - The Dynamics AX Global Development and Localization team provides a set of GLS layers that contain country-specific functionality for regions in which Dynamics AX is released.

SYS System - This is the lowest model element layer and the location of the standard Dynamics AX application. Only Microsoft has access to the element definitions at this layer.

Objects defined at higher levels of the stack override objects defined at lower levels of the stack. Means a USY Layer Object will cast a shadow on the same object in say VAR Layer. Objects are stored in a separate file (*.aod) on each layer whenever they are saved from the MorphX development environment client. Element definitions are read from these files and dynamically composed by the Dynamics AX runtime. Object instances are created on either the server or the client based on the model element definition.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

About Finance Dimension

Dimensions have the following characteristics:
• Provide a more detailed description of a transaction.
• Simplify the accounting process when you enable detailed analysis without the creation of a detailed Chart of Accounts.
• Resemble separate accounts for:o Departmentso Cost centerso Purposes
• Are defined to analyze and classify financial transactions as follows:
Financial transactions usually are organized according to voucher and account number. Additional grouping and classification options are available when you assign several dimensions to transactions.
• Enable you to view the data file from different perspectives to improve the effectiveness in tracking figures across accounts.
• Can be used throughout the system.
• Add dimensions to base data such as: Ledger accountso Customerso Vendors
• Are copied to transactions automatically. You can have max 10 dimensions in AX ( 3 are default). I'll take a simple example. Lets say you have a ledger account 100100 as Telephone Expenses and you have 2 departments (Sales & Purchase). You want to see all expense department wise. One way would be to have 2 Ledger Account Codes as 100100-1 as Telephone Expenses - Sales & 100100-2 as telephone Expenses - Purchase . However this would be inconvenient with larger departments and larger analysis criteria. Hence using dimensions (Sales & Purchase) and posting to same account 100100 will help you get expenses department wise. Help you keep a managable CoA.