Navigating a CRM deployment without a cutover strategy is like driving a car without a steering wheel. You may know where you want to end up, but knowing you want to migrate over data is just not enough to steer you towards a smooth CRM deployment. Therefore, the cutover strategy is crucial. Here are some key points to think strategically about a a data migration: Understand that Dynamics does not have to be a replica of your old CRM system. Know the data inside and out Create some data maps and tests well in advance Think critically about what information [read more...]
Cutover Strategy
January 3rd, 2012Project User Adoption
December 9th, 2011Business initiatives are only successful when the team members involved are committed to the initiative’s success. To this manner, CRM projects, or any project which drives business process transformation, can live and die by user adoption. Whether we’re replacing a legacy CRM or implementing CRM for the first time, all system users, and even those folks who interact with system users, need to understand and embrace a process change. We’ve found in our 24 years implementing business systems that this single and simple statement can make a project wildly successful or a complete disaster. Many people are creatures of habit. [read more...]
Welcome to the new CRM Blog
December 5th, 2011Welcome to the Cole Systems blog focused on our CRM practice. My name is Mike Olsson and I am the practice manager for the CRM team. The purpose of this blog is not like so many others, to show off, but to invite you to participate in a conversation as we share some of the best practices and thought leadership we’ve developed over the years as a CRM partner. We hope that this blog inspires interaction, and new thinking about approaching the real business challenges solved with an effective use of Customer Relationship Management. We’ve put together a varied collection [read more...]
Modify Dynamics AX Standard Excel Import to Include – Update existing records – rule
June 20th, 2011Sometimes you will need to import an excel file that contains existing and new records. With standard Dynamics AX 2009 you don’t get an option (import rule) where you can specify ONLY to import and update existing records. Below are standard AX excel import rules: To add a rule that says “Update existing records” only: Modify Enum SysDataExcelImportRule to add a new element for update. Note: I have inserted a new Enum element with value 101, which is a much higher value than what Microsoft is using. It is a best practice to keep some distance between the enum values, [read more...]
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Book – Unleashed, SAMS
May 2nd, 2011For those of you who love to follow our blog, we have some great news! Cole Systems was selected by Pearson Education to author the book Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Unleashed. This reference guide for functional and technical consultants will be co-authored by our highly experienced consultant and executive teams here at Cole Systems. The book will serve as the recommended comprehensive guide and training tool for management, consulting, and technical professionals. The book will be available come late Summer/early Fall 2011, so pre-order your copy today. We are extremely excited to be developing this book for Dynamics AX 2012 [read more...]
Convert Dynamics AX Entity Private Address into Public GAB Address
April 21st, 2011In this article, I will show you how to convert Customer / Vendor’s private addresses into public GAB addresses. If you try to do so manually by clicking the public check box on a private address it will not allow you to do it. Here is the code to do so: static void CSA_ConvertPrivateAddressToPublic(Args _args) { #OCCRetryCount DirPartyAddressRelationshipMapping dirPartyAddressRelationshipMapping; Address address, address2; DirParty dirParty; DirPartyTable dirPartyTable; void convertAddress() { ; address.clear(); address = Address::findRecId(address2.RecId, true); //dir party associated with the entity dirParty = DirParty::constructFromCommon(address); dirPartyTable = DirPartyTable::find(dirParty.parmPartyId()); //update these values so that this private address now belongs to the party [read more...]
MS SharePoint 2010 with Dynamics AX 2009 SP1 Enterprise Portal
April 8th, 2011Many people wonder if Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is compatible with Dynamics AX 2009 EP. The good news is yes, these products are fully compatible with each other and you can deploy EP on SharePoint 2010. This can be more interesting when you want to install Dynamics AX 2009 and Dynamics AX 2011 on a single machine, since Dynamics AX 2011 EP only works with SharePoint 2010. If you would like to upgrade your current SharePoint (MOSS / WSS) to SharePoint 2010, both In-Place and Database attach upgrade methods are supported. Reference: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 with Dynamics AX 2009 Service Pack [read more...]
ActiveX Gantt Chart control in Dynamics Ax
March 23rd, 2011This article exposes two less frequently used, but very important features; Gantt Chart Reporting (data analysis based on different kinds of scheduling jobs) and use of ActiveX controls in Dynamics AX. This posting is for advanced Dynamics AX users, so we are going to assume that you all understand what we can achieve through Gantt Charts. And just to clarify, ActiveX controls are small programs that provide add-on functionality to your application; usually it provides a GUI which can be placed on your forms/reports. Note: This article is for advance Dynamics AX users. Dynamics AX uses a third party ActiveX control to [read more...]
Dynamics Ax Workflow (IIS 7 64 bit – Http error 405 – Http error 404.17)
January 11th, 2011This is the error you receive when trying to access ASMX web service from Windows 7 64-Bit/Windows 2008 Server 64-Bit and IIS 7. If you try to validate the Dynamics AX 2009 workflow web service from AX, you receive following error: The request failed with HTTP status 405: Method Not Allowed. When you validate the workflow from Dynamics AX, it actually tries to invoke ping method on the AxWorkflowInstance.asmx web service. If it is successful it returns true. Otherwise it returns false. And if you try to browse this ASMX web service directly, in most cases you will hit [read more...]
Dynamics AX Query Extended Range Value Expression
November 29th, 2010In this article we will explore how to define extended query ranges using expressions. These expressions can be used in any query where you need to express a range that is more complex than is possible with the usual range value notations. The rules for creating query range value expressions are: Enclose the whole expression in parentheses. Enclose all sub-expressions in parentheses. Use the relational and logical operators available in X++. Only use field names from the range’s data source. Use the dataSource.field notation for fields from other data sources in the query. Values must be constants in the expression, [read more...]
