How to become an ISV with my own solution?

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Guys, I am very new to Dynamics AX. I didn't like the 2012 version, but I am in love with AX7. I am like fish in the water with new HTML5 controls and I am building sort of solution in my free time for SQL SSRS reporting for 2012/AX7 versions. I don't like the concept of writing x++ reports. I think reports should be outside of the system and should never be part of the system code. It is just my opinion and that's why I am building my solution.

The thing is, I am not sure if anybody will be interested in this solution and I have no idea how to become an ISV on my own. Tried to search Microsoft sites, and only getting some general info.

My questions are:

1) Do you think somthing what I am building, would be usefull to use?

2) How to become an ISV on my own? How much it would cost me?

PS: This is not advertising and If I am breaking some rules here, happy to remove the link quick. http://dax365.com/2016/08/11/getting-a-new-report-available-for-users-in-5-minutes/

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Mea_ 60,284 on at

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Hi nicksav,

It's probably better to ask questions about ISV on partner community community.dynamics.com/partner

Talking about 3rd party reporting tools for me they have couple of disadvantages:

1) You cannot reuse AX businesses logic that could cost you days of extra development

2) They don't honor AX role base security and XDS

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In the solution I am building, you can assign roles to reports. I agree with disadvantages about re-using ax logic. Can take some time... However, you will get x10 better performance.

What is XDS? Sorry, I am still new to it...

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Mea_ 60,284 on at

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XDS overview https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh272123.aspx

However, you will get x10 better performance.

1) In AX you can have quite complex reports so I can either reuse existing code that is already tested or spend couple of days trying to reimplement same using T-SQL. And I'm not sure that customers want to pay for theoretical performance benefits :)

2) Another problem is support, I would have to support x++ code and it's representation in T-SQL. In case of any HotFixes it could be a nightmare to track all reports that should be revisited and updated.

3) What about print management and batch execution ? This days it become quite good in AX do you have\are planning to have something similar or reuse existing ?

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Thank you Ievgen for you reply. Could be good to have a discussion here:)

What I have built, reuses AX for 90%. All batching capabilities, print management stays in AX. Only execution of actual report is happening on SSRS. Also, you can have many SSRS servers and all reports will be integrated in one system. Assume you have old 2005 SSRS server with bunch of reports that you still need. Now you can run and batch those reports from AX. You can have one security model for all your different systems with their own reporting, integrated into AX.

I was thinking a lot about re-using logic of X++ and personally, for me it is better to rewrite reports in T-SQL. I would say it is much easier to find a good SQL dev than x++ dev. Another thing, I think managing reports source code in VS prject with TFS is much easieir than in MorphX and you can get a big team of devs to work on the project wthout issues. Changed and deployment become much easier, as your reports are no longer part of the model etc... Finished changes -> deploy. Users get updated report.

For the performance, I have n example. In AX we have standard Customer Account Statement report. So, with Standard AX code I get medium Customer Statement printed in about 1-2 minutes. (Around 200 transactions). I have rewrited Customer Statement in SQL, (took me a a week actually), now I get around 8000 Customer Statements in 2 minutes. The thing is, once you moved away from AX, and you start using SQL, you can start playing with SQL to optimize it, without hitting the main transactional DB. Your system stays safe, and you take the whole payload from the system as your DB can be snapshoted and used especially for reporting. This is what is done now in AX7. You will get almost real time secondary DB. Why not use it for SSRS and leave system to peform well, while users running heavy finance reports..:)

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Mea_ 60,284 on at

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If we are talking about AX 7 there is no MorphX any more, it's all in VS and TFS\GitHub already so it's not a benefit really.

Talking about developers, in standard case you can have one x++ dev to do all the mods, now you need two: one for your reporting and another for everything else + to explain DBA (first one) how things works in AX, because it's nearly impossible to build complex reports without looking into x++.

If one report need week of efforts for rewriting and I need to rewrite 50 it's cheaper to invest into hardware and to buy extra cores\RAM\SAN, because I don't need to test anything and fix any bugs in this case and all components of my solution will benefit from it, not only reporting.

For heavy finance reporting we already have management reporter that is performing quite well.

However, it's only my opinion :)

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Ievgen, thank you for opinion. It is really good to get any feedback.

I have just been seen, when company goes live, they don't want to touch the system at all. After a year, you come and see how they start building SSRS reports with handreds folders on the SSRS portal and complex security, nobody can understand. You ask them, why you just dont build it in X++, and they say, it is working and we dont want to touch it.

Another thing I have been expiriencing, is when you get a developer to change X++ code, you need to have somone really good, because those people will touch your system code. I have seen when devs adding new fields to existing classes and after users couldnt get a simple GL refresh, just because somebody introduced simple two lines of loop not in the right place. So, for sure you should get the best devs, but do you think best devs would like to write reports? So, reusing the code can have a big negative impact and I totally with you for saving time on re-using code. T-SQL might be tricky, but It wont let your system down in any way. Even if somebody did a mistake somwhere.

Thank you for good conversation!

Nick

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Julio Luzardo 85 on at

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Well you have to be a Microsoft Partner to start with, it's free. Then you have to download and sign the Microsoft Dynamics Partner Registration Agreement (2015), there's an outdated version (2009) published on the web. Don't send the outdated version because they will not accept it. You have to mail the Microsoft Dynamics Partner Registration Agreement to Fargo, North Dakota, and voila you'll be a Dynamics Partner, it won't cost you anything. The thing is that AX7 is still not showing up in my partner source, only 2012.

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