MSDynamicsWorld.com AX Community Full Articles

Dynamics Introspective: Where should Microsoft Dynamics customers begin their BI journey?

2013-04-25T04:00:50Z

By Jason Gumpert, Editor When the question of whether or not we are failing our software arises, one of the warning signs to ponder is whether individuals, teams, or executives can measure performance beyond the transactions captured by the systems. In other words, can the business use their ERP, CRM, and other solutions to answer strategic questions and help drive improved outcomes? For Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM solution owners with zero business intelligence (BI) investment, today's...(read more)

Strategic Out of the Box: Avoiding Customization with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and Winning

2013-03-22T18:57:35Z

By Jason Gumpert, Editor The CIOs of Convergence 2013 customer excellence award winners CEDA International and Revlon have each led complex ERP replacement programs recently with successful outcomes. And they credit their commitment to avoiding ERP customizations as a key success factor that has allowed them to help contribute to the business objectives of their organizations. Planning for major change At oil and gas services provider CEDA International , CIO Jerome Beaudoin was facing an initiative...(read more)

The Microsoft Dynamics AX Consultant's Role in BI Planning: Building Data Sources from the Ground Up

2013-02-20T17:08:20Z

By Mohamed Aamer, Business Applications Consultant In previous articles I have explored the implementation planning challenges that Microsoft Dynamics AX project teams face, the roles of implementation team members , and the reporting needs at different levels of the enterprise . In this article I will explore the information sources that ultimately determine the strategic value of business intelligence (BI) reporting and analytics. At its roots, BI relies on capturing accurate transactional...(read more)

Identify Data and Reporting Needs Early - Your Microsoft Dynamics AX Project's Success May Depend On It

2013-01-08T22:01:52Z

By Mohamed Aamer, Business Applications Consultant In my last article I looked at some of the essential planning related to ERP implementation team formation. I have walked through the planning challenges that should go into a Microsoft Dynamics AX project and explored the roles of implementation team . In this article I will explore the different reporting needs and perspectives for each level in the organization. The main principles for reporting are reliability of business information and...(read more)

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Rises to the Occasion for Sematic's Global Operations

2012-12-07T20:25:18Z

By Linda Rosencrance To help its business grow globally, Sematic Group, a Italy-based maker of elevator components has deployed a single instance of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 to coordinate operations in the UK, China and Italy. It is a success story that Microsoft featured prominently in the announcement of the new release general availability due to the company's success in centralizing data and consolidating the processes of teams in vastly different locations around the world, with more...(read more)

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Reaches General Availability

2012-12-03T15:03:33Z

By Jason Gumpert, Editor "Today, I am pleased to announce that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 is generally available in 36 countries!" - that was the message late Friday from Dynamics general manager Christian Pedersen on the Edge blog late on Friday, as the December 1 release date approached. Awareness of the Dynamics AX 2012 R2 release has been growing for the last few month. In Pedersen's view, the top improvements of R2 is the improved multi-language and multi-locale support...(read more)

5 Ways to Make Microsoft Dynamics AX Role Centers Work for Your Business

2012-11-12T13:16:17Z

By Jason Gumpert, Editor At the recent AXUG Summit , Hal Howard, corporate vice president of engineering for Microsoft Dynamics ERP, stood before over 800 AX users and showed off the latest advances in Microsoft Dynamics AX Role Centers , coming in the AX 2012 R2 release, among other improvements. The R2 release will feature several new pre-configured roles, new database cubes, new business intelligence (BI) and reporting features picked up from the latest SQL Server technology, as well as interesting...(read more)

In Search of Product Development Efficiency: Integrating Microsoft Dynamics AX and PLM

2012-11-05T21:23:59Z

By Linda Rosencrance Engineering teams have enough headaches to deal with in developing winning designs for their company's products. So once they've dotted all the "I's" and crossed all the "T's" on the design, they don't want to fight with laborious manual processes to push that design's bill of material (BOM) to ERP and the manufacturing floor. But pushing that data correctly in today's product development company requires the integration...(read more)

Winning Strategies for Surviving a Dynamics AX 2012 Project: An Interview with AX Veteran Nima Bakhtiary

2012-10-30T20:20:10Z

By Jason Gumpert, Editor The origins of southern California's Arbela Technologies mirror, or perhaps foreshadow, the evolution of Microsoft Dynamics AX toward the enterprise space over the last decade. Founded by a group enterprise ERP consultants and Dynamics AX veterans, the company has been pushing AX toward global and complex upper mid-market and enterprise businesses for years. And with the Dynamics AX 2012 R2 release ready for launch , Arbela's AX focus has perhaps never been...(read more)

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Present and Future Releases Driven By User Input: Hal Howard

2012-10-17T20:26:02Z

By News Editor Microsoft Dynamics AX R&D is working to meet two demands these days. On the one hand there are the needs of current customers, communicated to Microsoft through various channels. On the other hand, they have to look to the future and chart a course in their products that also fulfills Microsoft's broader vision for services and solutions in the style of a "business solution from Microsoft". This balanced view to the short and long term was reflected in today's...(read more)

The Webcasting Week Ahead: Content Management, Data Integration, CRM Adoption, Supply Chain Costing, and Inventory Management In Focus

2012-10-05T18:55:55Z

By News Editor Been to any good free Microsoft Dynamics events recently? The MSDynamicsWorld.com fall event series is kicking into high gear next week with five new Dynamics-focused webcasts on a range of topics, all focused on improving the value of Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM solutions. Here's a quick look at the events coming up: Automate Your Content-Intensive ERP and CRM Processes and Unclog Your Business (Thursday, Oct 11 2012 @ 12pm EDT) Content creation is not a problem...(read more)

This Week in Microsoft Dynamics ERP Webcasts: Manufacturing, AP Automation Experts Weigh In

2012-09-17T16:03:26Z

By News Editor It's been a busy fall for MSDynamicsWorld.com webcasts so far. Hundreds of Dynamics users and professionals have joined us already for several unique sessions, which are available now on demand . But our fall event schedule is just getting started. Here's a brief rundown of this week's Microsoft Dynamics webcasting schedule, which highlights two independent experts at the top of their respective fields of ERP and AP automation. As usual, these live webcasts are...(read more)

Rethinking Inventory Management: More Than a Formula

2012-09-11T13:15:21Z

By Ann Grackin, CEO, ChainLink Research [ Editor's Note: For more on the latest research findings in inventory management, join Bill McBeath, ChainLink's Chief Research Officer for Thursday's free webcast, Dimensions of Inventory Management: Holistic Strategies for a Volatile World ] Much of the focus on inventory management in the business literature is on basic formulae approaches-how forecasts, lead times and such affect inventory. And they do. But the fact is lurking across...(read more)

Exploring Discrete Manufacturing in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012: An Interview with Scott Hamilton

2012-09-05T12:36:00Z

By News Editor Over recent releases, Microsoft Dynamics AX has maintained a clear and continued focus on the needs of discrete and process manufacturers. This focus is reflected in Microsoft's R&D investments which have significantly accelerated the rate of new capabilities added to Dynamics AX, most recently with the release of AX 2012. Scott Hamilton has written about this progression in recent articles about using AX 2012 in food products manufacturing and discrete manufacturing...(read more)

For Microsoft Dynamics AX Veterans, Just Learn What's Different About Discrete Manufacturing in AX 2012

2012-09-02T17:44:45Z

By Scott Hamilton, Consultant and Author Editor's Note: The following article is drawn from Scott's new book about discrete manufacturing using Dynamics AX 2012. A similar article reflected Scott's book about food products manufacturing using AX 2012. Many Microsoft Dynamics AX solution architects are trying to ramp up their expertise with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. Two questions they frequently ask are "What's different about AX 2012 from what I already know?"...(read more)

An Analytics Approach to Supply Chain Risk Management

2012-08-23T15:37:56Z

By John H. Hughes, Vice President of Product Management, Silvon Risk management is no stranger to CFOs whose job it is to guard their companies against surprises and crippling business failures. Much of that job is to measure the company's susceptibility to failure by constantly looking at the threatening factors, which are sometimes easily overlooked if accurate, update-to-date information is not available. In many cases, that means looking below the surface of the topical data to underlying...(read more)

Microsoft Dynamics AX Users Share Manufacturing Experiences on Features, Best Practices

2012-08-07T14:05:23Z

By News Editor Manufacturing is always a hot topic of conversation within the Microsoft Dynamics AX User Group ( AXUG ). And that was evident at a recent online meeting where attendees peppered experts and peers with manufacturing-related questions. An attendee new to MRP wanted to know where Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 fell in the spectrum of MRP (material requirement planning), MRP II (manufacturing resource planning) and DDMRP (demand-driven material requirement planning). In other words:...(read more)

Microsoft Dynamics ERP Faster to Implement, But Joins SAP, Oracle in Missing Project Deadlines: New Report

2012-07-13T19:19:34Z

By Linda Rosencrance If you compare the ERP offerings of SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics, you'll see that each of the big three has both strengths and weaknesses. If you're the type who needs a clear winner, then maybe you'll get the answer your looking for next year. When it comes to market share, SAP ranks highest of the three vendors, with more than one-fifth (22%) of total market share, followed by Oracle with 15% of total market share and Microsoft with 10% of total market...(read more)

US VARs Ramping Up New Hires on Dynamics AX 2012 Faster with Microsoft's Fast TrAX Program

2012-06-13T21:12:30Z

By News Editor Dynamics AX 2012 was a big release for both Microsoft and the AX partner channel. Consultants were eager to learn about the latest and greatest features and architecture from the moment Microsoft threw open the doors to 1,000 AX professionals at the January 2011 AX Technical Conference in Redmond. For the US Dynamics partner team, the increasing demand for AX 2012 in the marketplace has put pressure on Dynamics AX resellers grow their AX consulting teams. But without growth in...(read more)

Understand Your Product Structure Options in Dynamics AX 2012

2012-06-12T17:17:55Z

By Scott Hamilton, Consultant and Author Editor's Note: Join Dr. Scott Hamilton at Decisions Spring 2012 on June 18 at 9am EDT for the session Managing Food Products Manufacturing Using Dynamics AX 2012 . Product structure information is a key aspect of producing a manufactured item. The product structure is typically called a bill of material (BOM) in the context of discrete manufacturing, and a formula in the context of process manufacturing. These terminology differences have a...(read more)

Kirill Tatarinov Discusses Microsoft Dynamics AX Strategy, Opportunities in the Enterprise Market

2012-05-17T14:59:16Z

By News Editor While there may be concern in some corners of the Microsoft Dynamics ERP partner channel about Microsoft's ability to segment its ERP products and prospects between small, midmarket, and enterprise, Microsoft Business Solutions president Kirill Tatarinov repeated his existing strategy for Dynamics AX in the enterprise market this week at the JP Morgan Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. "We are going head to head [with Oracle and SAP] but we are also going...(read more)

Compliance and Microsoft Dynamics AX: What You Need To Know Before The Auditors Ask

2012-04-23T17:42:30Z

By Linda Rosencrance What's driving your compliance needs? That's the question companies have to ask and answer before they can define the steps they define their compliance needs, according to members of the Microsoft Dynamics AX User Group . Is it a third party like external auditors or a bank or funding company? Or maybe your compliance needs are driven by an internal audit staff with a schedule of audits that need to be conducted each year to review the internal control system;...(read more)

New Mobile Warehouse App for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Highlights Benefits of Model Driven Architecture

2012-04-19T14:07:50Z

By News Editor Kurt Hatlevik is a true warehouse management and distribution veteran in the Microsoft Dynamics AX community. Now an executive consultant for Columbus based in Norway and a newly awarded Microsoft MVP , Hatlevik focuses on vertical solutions and strategic development around Dynamics AX with Columbus customers, partners, and Microsoft. You may also known Hatlevik for his role as "founding father" of To-Increase's warehouse management and distribution offering. ...(read more)

Understanding the Responsibilities and Motivation of the Microsoft Dynamics Application Consultant

2012-04-10T17:47:22Z

By Mohamed Aamer, Business Applications Consultant Application Consultant, Functional Consultant - the job title may different from one company to another, but whatever the title, the person doing this job around financial and ERP software is considered the middle man between the application and the technology, as well as the key role for driving adoption of new technology by the business. The application consultant could start his or her career after graduation from a university; the...(read more)

Lessons from a Real Comparison of Microsoft Dynamics ERP Solutions for the Services Industry

2012-04-10T03:02:41Z

By Jack Boyer, Founder, Boyer & Associates Microsoft wants its partners to verticalize . Having added 6 consulting firms to our client list in the past 3 months, we think we are getting the knack for how to do this. My firm's recent " Dynamics Shootout " certainly helped us to continue down this successful path by giving our existing customers and prospects a chance to see a range of Dynamics ERP products demonstrated in a side by side comparison. As you might expect, the three...(read more)