Dynamics AX Axapta Customization Projects

Jun 3
08:23

2011

Andrew Karasev

Andrew Karasev

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Current Version is 2012, previous one is 2009. AX has its own IDE MorphX and programming language X++.

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The number of installations is steadily growing in the USA,Dynamics AX Axapta Customization Projects Articles Canada and internationally.  Opposite to other Microsoft Dynamics family members, such as GP, SL and NAV, AX is available internationally for the majority of regions and it is supporting such important technologies as Unicode (hieroglyph based alphabets: Chinese, Japanese, Korean), plus it is localized in the key countries, such as Brazil, Russia, China, India, UK, Continental Europe.  Traditionally Axapta is very popular and strong in Process and Discrete Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management and Logistics.  With version 2012 Microsoft Business Solutions offers AX for non-profit organizations with Fund Management functionality enable in General Ledger.  Being very flexible and ready to custom business processes directly in settings, AX implementation still commands higher number of programming, integration and reports design hours, comparing to its relatives, such as GP on the US Corporate ERP market.  The reason why might be simple to understand.  Great Plains Software encouraged its VAR, ISV channel to extend its native modules via Dexterity custom programming, frozen in Add-ons.  Such legendary companies as Intellisol, Matchdata, Icontrol, Mekorma, Alba Spectrum were able to catch the trend and later one some of these ISV partners were in the position to sell its ISV modules to Microsoft Business Solutions (Great Plains Software successor).  Daamgard Software and later on Navision (Axapta was acquired by Navision in late 1990th) were not pursuing such an aggressive VAR and ISV channel stimulation policy.  But comparing to GP Dexterity or similar programming shell ABAP from SAP, Axapta is enabling custom programming in X++, which is generic programmer friendly coding language.  Let’s take a look at details:

1. MorphX and X++.  Of course it is difficult for mid-market ERP vendor to deploy standard programming languages, such as C++. C, Java to enable full featured custom programming.  One of the options is custom libraries (this was way realized by SAP Business One in its SDK, where C# or VB.Net libraries could be included into Microsoft Visual Studio .Net project).  Another approach is to enrich the programming language prototype.  Axapta followed the second way.  It took C++ (Object Oriented Programming), Java (Exception handling), plus its own additions, such as Three Tier Programming (end user client interface, application server and database layer).  Plus, of course AX MorphX X++ could not be decoupled from AX forms, tables and reports (this is why it has SQL Select construction, even considering the fact that direct database update access is not recommended).  X++ programming is currently one of the most popular ways to customize and modify AX

2. Dynamics AX Metadata Exposure in version 2012.  This release allows you to hook up MorphX metadata in Microsoft Visual Studio project, plus it is very simple now to wrap new custom table query in Web Service.  Web Service could be called from such popular MS Office tools as Excel.  However on the other hand Web Service wrapper is a good way to open AX methods and master records to Linux based eCommerce applications (programmed in PHP and hosted in MySQL)

3. Reporting.  Here you have to understand the difference between Financial Reporting (Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Statement, Cash Flow Position).  Financial Statements are typically consolidated in multinational corporation environment (be sure that you understand such concepts as multicurrency)

4. Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904 (for international customers, where our representative pick up the phone in St. Joseph, MI call center).  help@efaru.com  We have local presence in Chicagoland, Southern California, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed). Our consultants speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese.  Our core expertise is in International Business