AX2012R3 in highly integrative scenarios

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Dear experts,

we actually do consider/analyze approaches to position AX2012R3 in a higly integrative scenario with the old erp system based on a host system.

Reason would be to plan a affordable, well plannable initial step to move functionality from old to new erp system.

Are there experiences with scenarios like this. e.g. incoming goods handled by old-erp and outgoing goods handled by AX.

Any architectual guidance, experiences or living proofs that this might be a good idea?

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

KR.

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Vilmos Kintera 46,149 on at

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AX is an integrated ERP system, which means the individual modules are tightly coupled. Financials setup is the backbone of getting things moving, that is why most customers who are not ready for a big bang implementation on all areas first go live with financials module. Once they are comfortable, they move on to implement the rest.

What this means is that in order to be able to get your AX inventory in once you do goods in on your old ERP, you need some ways to put it in AX. There are many solutions to that from raising an actual PO based on what the source system feeds in, or doing an inventory journal to put the quantities straight to the warehouse.

So what you want is feasible, however AX does need to be fully configured not just for your inventory management and sales areas for goods out, but the rest should be there too ie. for ledger and financials postings, reporting etc.

Because of this most implementation partners would say why bother keeping the old system and not just do everything in AX?!

There are a couple of companies out there I believe who just configured for example simple accounting/financials for AX then push the journals and transactions out to SAP for some heavier financial consolidation or crunching.

To summarize: yes, there are some hybrid solutions, however it is not worth the effort to maintain 2 systems both for licensing, cost and operational reasons - better to just do the whole lot in a single integrated ERP system, if it can deliver.

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Thank you very much - Mr. Kintera. I appreciate your valueable experiences and thoughts you do share out.

I totally understand that the bing bang Approach is most often less expensive and easy to do.

In our given Scenario three negative factors do influence the Picture:

1. A new stock is being constructed and the new ERP should surely control the stock Management Software. (-> Focus on outgoing goods)

2. A lot of processes and functionality around the given ERP (Host applications) do not allow to have a full blown big bang Approach (as the timeline for going live is determined by the availabilty of this new stock)

3. Acccounting is done outside given ERP in SAP and cannot easily integrated in AX (at least it would take a lot of efforts)

That means: We are looking for the smallest possible introduction step for AX which is able to handle the new stock.

We do think about a highly integrated Approach (leveraging a Middleware like BizTalk).

What do you think? Are we on the right track? Or do you still think a replanning and rescoping of deals (which would allow a big bang) would be the right Option?

Kind Regards.

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Vilmos Kintera 46,149 on at

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You can always involve your regional Microsoft Dynamics sales team to ask for input whether they are comfortable with such a layout, and even provide references to show it in effect if they are aware of anyone, who has implemented it similarly to your requirements.

AX is a tool which is much more flexible on how you configure, develop and use it compared to most ERPs so I am not saying it isn't possible what you want, since it is most likely doable if the partner knows what they are doing. Rather than is it worth it to buy an integrated ERP, use only 15-20% of it's capabilities and do a whole lot of integrations to do functionality which is possible in it already?

What I am saying is that you do need to set up a lot of those accounting areas in order to be able to use AX as a sales front-end system anyway, you cannot go around it, then why not push out the deadlines and implement it properly?

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nunomaia 25 Moderator on at

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In terms of performing online integration's between AX and SAP, you might have some challenges about posting documents. SAP has a 999 line limitation per voucher and AX don’t have that limitation. Meaning that you must perform some restrictions from AX side you want to book line by line in SAP.

Please, kind in mind that in such hybrid solutions you might need a DHW or similar solution for reporting, because data will be disperse between systems. In the past I have made a similar solution where there has a ERP for accounting and Dynamics for “operational ERP”. But most of the solutions first started with General Ledger and gradually migrated remaining business process.

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