R3 is shipped with set of SDK tools which can help achieve the goal by avoiding making SQL changes or building an application to modify RetailPublishingJob config. If you have not deployed the SDK yet please do so now, the SDK can be found on the CD in the Msi\RetailSDK\RetailSDK.msi

It should be deployed by leveraging this command:

msiexec /i RetailSDK.msi directexecute=1

Once the SDK is deployed you will find its files in your Documents\Retail SDK, navigate there and open in Visual Studio the solution Online Channel\Tools\Tools.sln then build PublishingConfig project and run it

The section "CRT Initialization", can be found at top left corner, is what you need, make necessary changes and then click "Save" button. This completes Retail Publishing Job changes, in addition you will need to change Publishing Portal configuration by manually editing web.config file, please find details in the 2nd bullet in previous post - Pointing existing R2 eCommerce to a different CRT DB . Note that you can also use the same way of modifying the job's configuration as described in the post for R2 but in R3, with help of the utility, it just can be done simpler.

This page provides a centralized location to help you find code analysis best practices and tools, SQL Server configuration recommendations, monitoring resources and tools, benchmarks and benchmarking tools for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

It contains the following sections:

• Code analysis best practices and tools
• SQL Server configuration recommendations
• Monitoring Resources
• Monitoring Tools
• Benchmarks
• Benchmark SDK
• Blogs

Code analysis best practices and tools

Customization best practices white paper 

Lifecycle Services Customization analysis

An automated tool that validates the customer’s model files against Microsoft Dynamics AX best-practice rules for tables, classes, forms, and enums. It then generates reports, including a summary report display on the site, a detailed Microsoft Excel report that lists all issues, and a developer report that the developer can load in the Microsoft Dynamics AX development environment.

For more information, see: Customization analysis

Lifecycle Services Upgrade analysis

A tool that helps users plan a full-version upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 from Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 or Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, or a minor version or in-place upgrades from one version of AX 2012 to another.

For more information, see: Upgrade analysis

SQL Server configuration

Configure SQL Server and storage settings

SQL Server topology recommendations for availability and performance 

Monitoring Resources

Tools for monitoring performance

Performance Data Collection and Analysis Process

Plan for performance optimization and testing‎ 

Optimize performance‎ 

Tips to improve Enterprise Portal and Role Center Performance

Set up Performance Monitor counters

Manage AOS performance and availability

Monitoring and Analysis Tools

Performance Monitor

Performance Monitor is the basic tool for obtaining an overview of performance. You can review the CPU, disk, and memory counters to find performance issues. For more information, see:

Set up Performance Monitor counters

Collect AX 2012 event traces with Windows Performance Monitor

Trace Parser

Microsoft Dynamics AX Trace Parser consolidates information from multiple sources, such as remote procedure calls (RPCs) and Microsoft SQL Server, to provide an integrated view of application performance at run time. For more information, see:

Install the Trace Parser

Tracing Cockpit Form

Walk through major features of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Trace Parser (Part 1)

Walk through major features of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Trace Parser (Part 2)

Performance analyzer (DynamicsPerf)

DynamicsPerf can be used to collect information from Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft SQL Server. It consists of a database and a collection of scripts that are used to collect information from SQL Server and Microsoft Dynamics AX. Based on this information, you can find issues such as expensive queries, locking/blocking, and, after you gain some experience, inefficient code or business processes. For more information, see:

http://Dynamicsperf.codeplex.com

Setting up Performance Analyzer for Microsoft Dynamics

Systems Center Operations Manager Management Packs

The Management Pack for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 can be used to monitor your core system. It can automatically discover the servers in your environment, monitor server availability, and find setup best practice violations. For more information, see: System Center Monitoring Pack for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

The Management Pack for Microsoft Dynamics AX Retail 2012 R3automatically discovers the Retail components in your environment, and monitors the configuration and availability of those components. It provides early warnings that an operator can use to proactively identify issues that can affect the availability of the Microsoft Dynamics AX Retail system. For more information, see: System Center Management Pack for Microsoft Dynamics AX Retail 2012 R3

Lifecycle Services System diagnostic service

The System diagnostic service helps administrators monitor and understand the health of one or more Microsoft Dynamics AX environments. It can be configured to: discover on-premises Microsoft Dynamics AX environments, collect data from the environments that were discovered, run rules on the collected data, report rule violations on a dashboard, and provide reports. For more information, see: System diagnostic service

Microsoft Visual Studio Profiling Tools

The Visual Studio Profiling Tools help you identify performance issues in source code and compare the performance of possible solutions. For more information, see:

Microsoft Visual Studio Profiling Tools

Find Application Bottlenecks with Visual Studio Profiler

Beginners Guide to Performance Profiling

Benchmarks

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Day in the Life Benchmark

Enterprise Portal Benchmark for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

High Volume Inventory Benchmark for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in a Retail Environment

Hyper-V Benchmark for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Retail Benchmark for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack

Retail Benchmark for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2

Performance Benchmark Software Development Toolkit (SDK)

The Benchmark SDK provides partners and customers with extensible features to develop benchmarks that closely mimic their custom implementation. The Benchmark SDK lets partners and customers quickly develop managed tests that simulate multiple-user activity on Microsoft Dynamics AX. The Benchmark SDK is available for download from InformationSource.

Blogs

Dynamics Ax Performance Team Blog

Dynamics AX in the Field

We’re very excited to have released the AXUG Q2/Q3 2014 Magazine. Check your mailbox if you haven’t gotten yours yet!

This edition features:
- The importance of enterprise risk management in our ever changing technology environment
- How to update your pricing journals through Excel
- Tips to help plan for a successful business transformation
- Ways to successfully cope with change
- 10 ½ tips for making more connections
- Understanding Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services
- Spicing up the Food & Beverage Industry
- One-on-one with Microsoft’s Pepijn Richter

If you haven't received your edition or just prefer to read it electronically, check it out here. You can also access past editions here.

AXUG Premium Members receive hard copies of the AXUG Magazine.

Hi,

I recently ran into this predicament while trying to select a worker to which I wanted to enter an absence entry.

I had created an absence journal, but when i created the absence request I was getting the below error:

"There are no open absence journals for worker."

AX will not create an absences journal for a worker unless the worker has the following information specified:

• Absence Setup - must be specified for the worker
• Absence Date (...which is the 1st date an absence can be recorded for the worker) - must be specified.

Unless those items are defined for the worker...you will get this error message.

Experience even greater value from AXUG Summit 2014 by taking advantage of pre-conference training from AXUG Academy on Monday, October 13, and Tuesday, October 14.

AXUG Academy training courses offer in-depth, focused training on a variety of critical Dynamics AX topics.  You’ll learn from expert instructors in a hands-on environment, and have a chance to practice your newly acquired skills right in the classroom.

Here’s a sampling of the AXUG Academy courses being offered in St. Louis this October (check out the full list of training courses).  And remember that you and your teammates are welcome to participate in these courses…whether or not you’re attending AXUG Summit!

ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT

• Managing Your Dynamics AX Environment
• Understanding the Dynamics AX 2012 Security Model
• Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Financials Setup & Validation
• Plan Your Deployment Using Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Methodology

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

• Management Reporter – Introduction and Advanced
• KPIs and SQL Analytics Services (SSAS) in Dynamics AX
• Understanding the Dynamics AX 2012 Data Model

MANUFACTURING & SUPPLY CHAIN

• Master Planning in Dynamics AX 2009
• Master Planning in Dynamics AX 2012
• Process Manufacturing for Dynamics AX 2012
• Warehouse Management I & II for Dynamics AX 2009 and Dynamics AX 2012
• Retail Management for AX 2012 R3

PROJECT ACCOUNTING

• Understanding Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Project

OTHER (NON-DYNAMICS AX) TOPICS

• Microsoft Office Excel Basic
• Microsoft Office Excel Intermediate
• SharePoint 2013 for Site Administrators (2 Days)
• Building BI Solutions using Excel and SharePoint 2013 (2 Days)
• Building Business Solutions with SharePoint 2013 (2 Days)

…AND MORE!

If you’re interested in these great training courses, don’t wait to reserve your seat…we cap the courses to provide an optimal learning environment, and they tend to sell out! Browse the full schedule of AXUG Academy courses and sign up today.

This is an error message that presents itself in a variety of formats...typically when you are first configuring AX, but it can pop up later depending on how you have AX configured. The actual message is:

"Account number for transaction type Vendor (or customer, bank, etc.) balance does not exist."

This page provides a list of resources to help you integrate Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).

This page contains the following sections:

• Recent news
• Getting started
• Common problems and solutions
• Featured videos
• Other BI tools
• Related blogs
• Still having trouble?

Recent news

What's new in CU7 

Cumulative Update 7 for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 recently released. It contains many new reporting features, including:

• Windows PowerShell command for integrating multiple SSRS instances—on one computer—with AX 2012
• New class that improves the performance of the report server
• Ability to email reports to specific people using tokens
• New methods for setting advanced printer properties
• Ability to use the Compare Tool to compare report designs
• Ability to install Management Reporter

For more information about these features, see: What’s new: Reporting.

Lifecycle Services

Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services provides a cloud-based collaborative workspace that customers and partners can use to manage Microsoft Dynamics AX projects from pre-sales to implementation and operations. Based on the phase of your project and the industry you are working in, the site provides checklists and tools that help you manage the project. It also provides a dashboard so that you have a single place to get up-to-date project information.

Lifecycle Services is available to customers and partners as part of their support plans. You can access it with your CustomerSource or PartnerSource credentials. Go to Lifecycle Services.

Issue search

Issue search is a search engine that you can use to quickly search for KB articles, hotfixes, and workarounds for reported issues in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2. You can see which reported issues are in the process of being fixed and see notifications when a hotfix is released for a specific functional area in Microsoft Dynamics AX. You can download released hotfixes, see which code objects are affected, and see the code changes introduced by the hotfix.

Issue search is a part of Lifecycle Services. Go to Lifecycle Services.

Getting started

To learn more about how to integrate Microsoft Dynamics AX with SSRS and SSAS, review the following resources:

Common problems and solutions

The first step in troubleshooting is to use Issue search. Issue is a search engine that you can use to quickly search for KB articles, hotfixes, and workarounds for reported issues in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2. You can see which reported issues are in the process of being fixed and see notifications when a hotfix is released for a specific functional area in Microsoft Dynamics AX. You can download released hotfixes, see which code objects are affected, and see the code changes introduced by the hotfix. Issue search is a part of Lifecycle Services. Go to Lifecycle Services.

The following table lists common issues encountered when integrating Microsoft Dynamics AX with SSRS and SSAS. 

For more troubleshooting information that is regularly updated, see Troubleshooting reporting and Troubleshooting analytics on TechNet.

Featured videos

Check out the videos that are posted on the Dynamics AX BI Videos channel on YouTube.

Other BI tools

Although SSRS and SSAS are the primary solutions used for reporting and analysis in Microsoft Dynamics AX, other tools can be used, as well. For example:

• To create financial reports, you can use Management Reporter.
• To query data and export the data to Excel, you can use the Microsoft Dynamics AX add-in for Excel.

For more information about business intelligence tools that can be used with Microsoft Dynamics AX, see Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 White Paper: Business Intelligence Capabilities and Tools and Types of reports.

Related blogs

The following Microsoft blogs may provide assistance to you:

• Microsoft Dynamics AX Business Intelligence
• Microsoft Dynamics AX Support

Still having trouble?

If you’re still having trouble, you can get assistance in the following ways:

• Post your questions on the Ask the Community site and a member of the Microsoft Dynamics AX community might respond.
• Contact your partner.
• If enrolled in a support plan directly with Microsoft, enter a new support request with Microsoft Dynamics Technical Support.

You can enter a support request on CustomerSource or PartnerSource by selecting Support> New Technical Support Request.

You can also contact Microsoft Dynamics Technical Support by phone using these links for country specific phone numbers:

• • Partners – Global Support Contacts (requires PartnerSource login)
  • Customers – Global Support Contacts (requires CustomerSource login)

This page provides you with a consolidated list of published documentation, sources of information, known issues, solutions and tips and tricks for troubleshooting the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2, and Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3.

On this page:

• Top Downloads
• Critical Hotfixes
• Resources
• Best practices
• Troubleshooting tips
• Still having trouble...

Top

Top

Top

Top

Top

I caught up with AXUG Program Director Frank Vukovits to chat about the upcoming AXUG Summit, happening this October in St. Louis, MO.  This year’s event marks a great milestone for AXUG – it’s the 10th annual conference for the group, and according to Frank, it’s sure to be the best one yet.

Michelle (MS): Frank, you’ve been with AXUG since the beginning.  First of all, congratulations on 10 years! How have the user group and this event continued to grow and thrive over the years?

Frank (FV): AXUG was founded on a simple idea around a table at Convergence ten years ago – the idea that Dynamics AX (then Axapta) users could learn a lot from talking to one another, swapping stories from the front lines, and sharing things they’ve learned through their use of the product.  That idea remains at the core of what we do year-round in AXUG and at AXUG Summit.  What really makes it work is all the members of the community who’ve been willing to step up and share their experiences, lead roundtable discussions, champion our local Chapters, present Summit sessions  – that’s the heart and soul of what we do. 

MS: You mentioned that the members deliver Summit sessions.  How do you come up with the content that gets presented at AXUG Summit?

FV: It’s a culmination of what we hear members talking about all year.  We do hundreds of interactive webinars and in-person Chapter meetings throughout the year, which allows us to have a constant pulse on what’s top of mind for Dynamics AX users.  We also keep a close watch on AXUG Collaborate, our online community, to discover what topics members are discussing there.  There’s also a formal call for proposals every year to give Dynamics AX folks an opportunity to submit topic ideas that they’d like to learn about or topics they’d be willing to present.  From there, we have a planning committee and track leaders – including Dynamics AX users, Partners and subject matter experts – who help determine the sessions for each track.

MS: So what are some of the hot topics that Dynamics AX users can expect to learn about in St. Louis this October?

FV: AX 2012 R3 was released earlier this year so, of course, there’s a lot of interest in the new version, which has some nice new functionality for retail, warehousing, transportation, and business intelligence.  The Microsoft team will be on hand to help us understand the ins and outs of this new release.  But we also recognize that there is a large percentage of users out there who aren’t on the new version, and maybe don’t even have an upgrade on the radar yet, so you’ll find a good selection of sessions that focus on AX 2009, AX 2012, and version-agnostic sessions as well.  We’re also seeing some chatter on the Power BI Tool with Office 365, which is giving Dynamics AX users some new options for business intelligence.  We also have added more executive leadership sessions this year, along with more theoretical sessions, which are less about using Dynamics AX, and more about trends in specific job roles and industries that user group members can learn from.

MS: We see a lot of attendees that come to AXUG Summit year after year.  What new things can the veterans expect to see in 2014?

FV: They’ll see more sessions than ever at this year’s event – there are more than 200 planned in 23 different tracks or focus areas.  We’ve added new tracks based on feedback we’re hearing from the community, including AX 2012 R3, Order to Cash, Procure to Pay, Workflow, Retail, the Cloud, International deployments, and AX 2009.  We’ve also doubled the number of ‘Optimizing AX’ sessions, where we take a deep dive into specific areas of the product, and users share real-life stories of how they’re effectively using the different components and the impact it’s making for their organization. 

MS: What can attendees expect from this year’s host city, St. Louis, MO?

FV: I’m very excited about hosting the event in St. Louis.  It’s a great, centrally located city for our U.S. attendees and, for me personally, I’m looking forward to driving to St. Louis from my home in Indianapolis.  We’ve visited the hotels and the America’s Center (Convention Center) several times in preparation for the event – everything is within walking distance and it will be easy for folks to navigate throughout the week.  The city is ready and anxious to welcome our group to St. Louis and I’m confident it will be a great experience for our attendees.  If we are lucky, my baseball team - the Reds - might even be playing the hometown Cardinals in the MLB playoffs during AXUG Summit, too!

You can learn more about AXUG Summit 2014 and register at www.axugsummit.com.  Experience It!