Here we have information about AX7 / AX2015 / Rainier!

AX7 / AX2015 / Rainier, we have heard many names for the upcoming and much awaited Microsoft Dynamics AX Product. Seems like Microsoft has settled with the name AX7 now.

While looking out for information about AX7, I have bumped into this Microsoft Convergence Video: http://convergence.evo-td.com/library/CS15A000 . Although the site demands you to login, I think it is pretty easy to register. Check it out!
Microsoft aims to release this product by End of 2015 and has clearly stated the Guiding principles for AX 7.0.

1. To Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more
2. To create more personal computing
3. To Reinvent productivity and business processes
4. To Build the intelligent cloud

Below is some key information on AX Functionality enhancements from the above roadmap session.

Productivity:

• Modern, web-based user experience based on HTML5 technology. The client is device-independent and has a panorama view / dashboard and next generation role centres. In addition, it can support mouse or touch screen!

• User adoption still remains a focus. Data input screens look similar to AX 2012 R3 so users can easily transition after a Dynamics AX upgrade.
• Hover over task and preview mode reveals underlying data, reducing the number of clicks that are required to view underlying data.

• Integration of the Windows “Hamburger” navigation pane for ease of navigation on screens with limited real estate. You can add or subtract favorites, view recent screens you have visited, etc.

• New metadata search experience enables the use of metadata search to find an application screen very quickly (dashboard, navigation pane or Metadata search) without having to navigate menus.
• Run multiple screens – you can dock windows and use side by side screens. A great feature for those in production who typically run multiple screens, like MRP side by side.

• Personalization has not been overlooked. Microsoft understands that there is an emotional connection with the application user experience and this can make a huge difference in how much you enjoy work or how much you don’t.

Analytics:

 

Power Business Intelligence (BI):

• Data entities will expose an OData (Open Data Protocol) feed and can be consumed by Power BI.
• Embedded Power BI – drill from one box to transactional information – in memory (Read Real-time Analytics).

Task Guides – AX documentation built on the fly:

• The old Task Recorder gets reimagined into Task Guides.
• End-user can now walk through a process end-to-end in a guided fashion.
• Has annotation capability to provide feedback on a business process. This gives users the ability to add notations as they walk through the guided process.
• So many uses:
• Useful for increasing productivity
• Helps users manage change
• Use it for testing
• Use it for training
• Use it for support – send a Task Guide to Microsoft to ask them to get something working
• Step by step snapshots of how Task guides work will follow soon. 

Development:

• Visual Studio is used for development. Classic MorphX and model experience is still available.
• Microsoft has enabled a WYSIWYG, multi-window environment to aid in developer efficiency. Utilities can work in both the web page and the designer at the same time.
• Exceptionally rich customization environment.
• More details regarding Dev enhancements will follow soon.

Data management:

• Data management in AX 7.0 has implemented everything from DIXF / DMF from AX 2012 with a rich user experience.
• Version 7.0 significantly improves the capability to do data load tasks that are common in a heterogeneous environment where you want to have a single version of the truth.
• Bring in incremental data loads and do name and name pattern matching. This reduces the amount of work that a consultant/business analyst needs to do to import data.
• Drag and drop field mapping.
• Data uses staging tables and can be mapped either in a visual or tabular format.
• View a side-by-side comparison of records in the live system.
• Bring imported data into forms for preview and validation.

Upgrading from Older versions of Dynamics AX?

If you are interested in upgrading from your current version of Microsoft Dynamics AX to AX 7.0, here are some important details that may help in your decision process:

• Business logic and Data Model in Dynamics AX 2012 R3 CU8 is the same as in AX 7.0. This will make the transition from AX 2012 R3 to AX 7.0 relatively straightforward. AX 7.0 is more about the modern user interface and new tools and less about the underlying business logic and data models.
• Direct upgrade path from AX 2009 & AX 2012.
• Support for AX 2009 has been extended to 2018 because Microsoft wants all their customers to be able to upgrade to AX 7.0 at their own pace.
• Functionality in CU8 will be made available to AX R2

Availability of Dynamics AX Version 7.0.

• End of 2015 year release.
• Initial launch will be in the Microsoft Cloud only. This will be followed by an on-premise release.
• Microsoft is fully committed to support running Dynamics AX in the public or private cloud and on-premise and Hybrid.
• Reminder as above that the data model and business logic is the same.

 

Data collected from: In here & from here.

Cumulative update 9 (CU9) for AX 2012 R3

Microsoft has recently released Cumulative update 9 (CU9) for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 very recently and here some information around it.

The Knowledge base (KB) article number is 3063879 and the Build number after installation would be 6.3.2000.326. There is lot of information on TechNet – here is the link.

CU9 is the second Cumulative Update for Dynamics AX 2012 R3 after CU8. It only applies to R3 at this moment. However Microsoft has made the Cumulative Update 8 for Dynamics AX 2012 R2.  There by enabling users of AX R2 customers to directly upgrade to AX7 in the near future.

In addition to containing several hotfixes that have been recently released, CU9 also includes new features across several different module sets. The details on the new features can be found in the above TechNet article link - do look to the bottom of the page of the “What’s New” link to see the content that’s specific to CU9.

Starting with Dynamics AX 2012 R3, you can now slipstream the update using Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services. The step by step process of doing so is detailed in the Installation guide from Microsoft – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=613553  

For a detailed walkthrough of the installation process, please check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNg3pHWxoik&feature=youtu.be 

Note: The best part now with CU9 is that you can actually choose the updates you want to install. This is very helpful in case you have an ISV solution on top of the standard in your implementation. You can wisely choose the update based on Customer requirements and not disturb the underlying code used by the ISV code. I strongly recommend to watch the above video in order to get a visual sense of the installation process.

Good luck.

Harddisk full: But don't see any specific file which has grown big?

Occasionally, I ran into this issue in my Virtual machine - that the Harddisk becomes full and I couldn't find any specific huge file like, a over-grown database (.mdf, .ldf) files and neither do I have huge amount of backup files (.bak).
 
After a little searching, I found about the Windows.edb file has grown exponentially and was taking up all the hard disk space. This file is a result of Windows Search service. Below is the problem statement from one of the Microsoft sites:
 
Problem statement:
In Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, the Windows Search Service may bloat the Windows.edb file. When this issue occurs, the Windows.edb file grows to a very large size and consumes lots of disk space. In some instances, the file size can be larger than 50 gigabytes (GB).
 
Resolution:
To resolve this issue, install update rollup 2836988 for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. For more information about how to obtain this update rollup package, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:2836988: Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 update rollup: May 2013
 
How to delete / shrink the huge size of Windows.edb:

1. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search. Or, if you are using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, and then click Search.
2. Tap or click Settings.
3. In the search box, type indexing options.
4. Tap or click Indexing Options.
5. Tap or click Advanced.
6. Tap or click Rebuild on the Indexing Settings tab.
7. Tap or click OK to confirm.
   
   

Information collected from here.