Dynamics AX (Ax7) Layout

Here is how it looks with RTW (Release to Web) for Dynamics AX

Search

New Dynamics AX Layout - Search Bar

Tiles

The tiles are the main component of the office themed layout where you can put the links to your own workspace and also filter the tiles based on the role assigned to user.

New Dynamics AX Layout - Title

Collapsible Menu

The collapsible menu lists all the Modules, Workspaces and recent browsed pages for quick access. The menu can also be pinned down to make it stick.

New Dynamics AX Layout - Menu

The Layout as a Whole

New Dynamics AX Layout

Hope this gives some technical resources more appetite to look at this new amazing Microsoft’s AX release.

Enjoy !!!

 

Advertisement

AX7 / VM running on-premises (Web Application gives 500 error)

After all the wait in the world, we finally have hands on the VM for AX 7.

VM Download: https://connect.microsoft.com/site1321/Downloads

You will need to login from partner source account

AX7 Wiki URL: https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/access-microsoft-dynamics-ax-7-instances-2/

While setting up the VM, almost everything went smooth enough. However had single road blocker issue while running the web application for the AX7, the Batch Service and all other services ran pretty well.

Will elaborate issue below …

Issue:

When you try to access base URL for the VM https://usnconeboxax1aos.cloud.onebox.dynamics.com, you get an error saying it is unable to connect to server, with 500 error.

Solution:

Run the “User Provisioning tool” as Administrator and provide the email address administrator@contosoax7.onmicrosoft.com and hit Submit.

Submit - User Provision

After running the tool, it will update the settings and will show you success message. If there is any error, restart the system and try again.

After getting message for provisioning, hit the URL https://usnconeboxax1aos.cloud.onebox.dynamics.com, give credentials from wiki page and you should be able to launch AX7.

Enjoy the new way of AX !!!

Update December 26, 2015:

While I am using Oracle VM Virtual Box – every time state was saved for the VM, I have to restart the machine again fully to AX 7 Web Site to work. Otherwise it will give 500 error as well. Just a point to note!

 

 

Dynamics AX 2012 – Reports – “No data available”

Problem:

A working report suddenly stops working for a “User” in production environment with message “No data available”.

Research:

While report worked for every other user and only that particular user seems to had a problem while running the particular report. While he was able to run other reports in that same module fine.

This was a strange enough situation for us, while we checked code, security etc… at first we were not able to find the exact cause of this behavior. But we were sure it has something to do with the security that is finally applied when running the report. So, we created a test user with same roles assigned on lower environment.

During our debugging and profiling the calls to actual database saw a strange behavior.

The query generated from X++ was same for user who was able to run the report and the user who wasn’t able to run the report, but interestingly the SQL Profiler showed EXTRA parameters added to where clause of SQL that was getting executed. The extra condition caused the data to not appear – the condition was always going to result in a FALSE.

The query generated was something like below notice 1=3

SELECT ………. FROM InventTable T1 Inner Join InventDim T3 … WHERE 1=3

This cause the data to not appear for that user, AX kernel seems to validate the permissions and inject the condition to make sure that data doesn’t come from the source – making the sure that data is being security and row level security is applied though this.

Solution:

The solution to the problem was to add all used tables used in the Query for the report in the user’s privileges in AX.

HTH

CREDIT: #awesome #team #visionet #findingsolutions

70-486 Experience

Just successfully completed 07-486 exam in first attempt. Total Hours logged in preparation were about near to 20.

As i can’t spill every bean that was in the test, but still can give general idea about how it was.

  1. 3 Case Studies – i thought those would be less. But it was fun doing it, each had more questions than i expected. 6, 10 and than 7.
  2. 22 Multiple Choice/ Code completion questions.
  3. Custom Mvc Model Binder related to composite value
  4. No SignalR question. I thought there would be one.
  5. Multiple design questions related to css/ html
  6. Web Farms 
  7. State management
  8. Azure Worker Roles and RDP Configuration management/ X509 Certification
  9. Authorization/ Authentication, how to limit access to user.
  10. MVC Routing/ Mapping
  11. Some questions related to http Handlers and Module implementation choice based on the problem given.

Overall, it was nice experience and if i hadn’t been working with asp.net mvc/ asp.net – it would be really hard to pass it through. Still, i could have done better if i studied as some of the questions were so in depth and we rarely use those kind of stuff and real application, or not care too much about how small things work. So, please analyze your expertise with asp.net mvc and try following study guides out there.

I did follow, http://www.bloggedbychris.com/2012/11/06/microsoft-exam-70-486-study-guide/ and also go through tutorials at asp.net site for mvc4 and mvc5. The exam also includes the questions related to MVC5.

Helpful links: 

  1. http://www.bloggedbychris.com/2012/11/06/microsoft-exam-70-486-study-guide/
  2.  http://www.asp.net/mvc
  3. http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/aspdotnet-mvc-advanced-topics
  4. http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/mvc4
  5. http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/aspdotnet-mvc5-fundamentals

Thanks,

Riz

AngularJS – Feed Reader (SPA)

An AngularJS feed reader based on 10 minute awesome video by Jeremy Likness 

It’s single page app (SPA) with all source code in one file, you can right click and copy source as you want and use it anywhere or play with it. It uses google ajax api and does JSONP callback for your feeds. It shows how quickly you can start working with AngularJS. 

Visit http://rizwanahmed.net to see the sample implementation and you can copy code by right clicking from there as well…

Thank you and I hope your will enjoy this. Please do visit Jeremy Likness and watch the video…

 

 

Default FTP Server at Mac…

in OX Lion the default FTP Server is hidden but it still exists. You just have to enable it. Use following command

sudo -s launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

I had to transfer a big (4GB) file over to windows system and i found this was the only QUICKEST way of doing it.

You can use any ftp client at windows system and connect to the ftp server from mac.

Host = IP Address of your mac (use ifconfig from termial)

User = Your Mac User name

Password = Your Mac Password

And Connect

It will list all mac user’s directories and you can transfer whatever you want… 

Enjoy,

Riz

Mac – Node.JS Headache …

When installing nodejs from http://nodejs.org – everything goes smooth but at the end when you terminal and type “node” it says invalid command. !@!@#@#@#@#

Now, you need to check

  1. $PATH variable being set properly. It should have /usr/local/bin in it. If not than you need to add it through export command. This would be a great help https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/cs348/unix_path.html
  2. Ok now you added it if it wasn’t there – BUT still it didn’t work … What the heck??? I re-installed node js but the same result after point # 1. So, at this point do point # 3 🙂
  3. type ls /usr/local/bin in terminal – and to my amusement i got “ls: bin: permission denied“.. now that was really stressing 🙂
  4. But now you just have to give permissions to your self to this folder …  sudo chmod 775 /usr/local/bin
  5. That was itttttt !!!! :), type node and it will show you > in terminal…
  6. run node –v to check version

I am not mac expert but spent some time to make it happen – so just sharing if it helps anybody.

Thanks,

Riz