Longer Support Timelines for Key Microsoft Dynamics Service Packs

See the old and the new timelines here: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean41

Troubleshooting missing EP Development Tools

If you cant see the Dynamics AX Web Project template in Visual Studio, please go through the following list:

1. Read the blog article "EP Visual Studio Add-In" to check if all components are correctly installed.
   As you can read in the article you must copy the installed templates from the My Documents folder of the user who installed the EP Developer Tools. The files and locations are listed in the article.
   
2. You may need to refresh Visual Studios cache of templates after copying them:Open the Visual Studio command prompt (Start \ Programs \ Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 \ Visual Studio Tools \ Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt) and type devenv /installvstemplates.
   
3. If you still don't see the template, remember that you need to select C# as your project programming language before it shows up.

If you can see the template but can't connect to the AX AOS from Visual Studio check the following:

1. Check that .NET Business Connector has been correctly installed and that the configuration points to the correct AOS instance.
   Check that the user you run Visual Studio with, has login and proper development permissions in AX.
   
2. Check that the "Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal Tools" Add-in is correctly installed in Visual Studio. Open Visual Studio / Tools / Add-in Manager to verify that Add-in is correctly installed and configured. If you can't see it, you must reinstall the EP Development Tools.

Intelligent Data Management Framework For Microsoft Dynamics AX (Pre-Release)

The Intelligent Data Management Framework for Microsoft Dynamics® AX helps administrators optimize Dynamics AX database layout by intelligently monitoring index usage, index layout, fragmentation and query patterns thru indices. The framework allows reduction of the database size by purging transaction records from a set of related entities, while maintaining the consistency and integrity of production data. The Intelligent Data Management Framework provides customers and partners the ability to identify and discover related entities based on Microsoft Dynamics AX metadata and to determine the purging criteria for entities and transactions. The Intelligent Data Management Framework also analyzes the production database to determine current usage patterns and assesses the health of the Microsoft Dynamics AX application. This Framework is compatible with all supported versions of Dynamics AX (Axapta 3.0 SP6 with latest kernel, Dynamics AX 4.0 SP2, Dynamics AX 2009 SP1). Customers on an active maintenance plan can implement this framework to build an efficient data management solution for their implementation.

At RTM, this Framework will include “Archive to Offline” Instance Support.

You can download the framework from PartnerSource (requires PartnerSource login)

This is a pre-release non production build.

AX 2009 Hotfix rollup 2 for SP1 is released

Check the description here: https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;971536 (requires partnersource login)

The SYP build number of the rollup is 5.0.1500.809

Reading PDF's from the PC

I have just read the training material for a couple of the AX certifications. I didn't want to print it, so I tried to read it directly off my laptop, which with Adobe Reader is a completely disaster. It is completely unpredictable when the reader changes pages while scrolling the document and after reading very few pages you just get tired. I moved the material to my Mac which has a good PDF reader.

Today I found this free reader, which allows me to read PDF's proper on the PC:
http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer

Dialog error when adding batch tasks to a batch job

If you enter a new batch task to a batch job manually, AX might not initialize the Parameters dialog properly.

AX call unpack of the task class, with the contents of the Batch.Parameters field, but since we are creating a new entry to the table this field is empty.

What AX should do, and what RunBase normally does, is then to call initParmDefault of the task class to initalize it with for example a base query.th for example a base query.

Here is the code to insert in \Data Dictionary\Tables\Batch\Methods\showDialog in order to fix this issue.

Replace:

runClass.unpack(this.Parameters)

With:

// As RunBase normally would do, we need to
// call initParmDefault here, if there are no
// values to unpack
if (!runClass.unpack(this.Parameters))
{
    runClass.initParmDefault();
}

Product builder performance tip

I recently had the client/server trace on, while opening the production builder configuration form. Boy, I wish I didn't…

Depending on how complex your product model is, this for generates an excessive number of calls between the client and server.

In my case, the largest group of calls was calls made to \Data Dictionary\Tables\PBALanguageTxt\Methods\label.

The method is tied to be executed on the server, with the "server" keyword.
But, the table itself is cached as EntireTable, and this means that the client is likely to holds its own cache of the values and thus there is no need, and in particular, no gain of forcing AX to run the method on the server.

When I remove the "server" keyword from this method, I get rid of the majority of client/server calls while opening and navigating in this form.

There is however still room for improvement, as the form still generates a huge amount of calls.