Mouse pointer disappers on AX Virtual machines (RDP)

Occastionally really minor can bring in lot of frustration in our daily work. One such incident with me was the annoying behaviour of Mouse pointer in the Virtual machines when connected to Remote desktop.

Whenever, I hover over a notepad, SQL database query window, Visual studio, I don't see my mouse pointer anymore.
The only things I have changed are:

1. Started using High resolution laptop/surface.
2. Started using Microsoft Remote desktop connection manager

Upon little investigation, the reason seems to be that the small "|" Text select mouse pointer is almost vanishing when used in High resolution. So in other terms, the mouse pointer shape changes and it exists on the screen - but we don't see it anymore :)

Workaround in Windows 8 and above:

1. Right click on the Remote desktop
2. Select Personalize > Click Mouse pointers
3. And in the various cursor options, find "Text Select" and change the mouse pointer shape to a normal mouse pointer.
   Click "Browser" and select "arrow_m.cur" shape
4. Now you should be able to see the mouse as usual.

Workaround in Windows Server 2012 R2:

1. Open start menu by clicking "Windows" button on your keyboard
2. Search for "Mouse"
3. Select "Change how the mouse pointer looks"
4. Follow above mentioned steps (Step #3 in the above section).

Hope this helps.

Let's welcome - Microsoft's Dynamcis 365.

On November 1st 2016, Microsoft has officially released Dynamics 365, which in my view is a very good futuristic and innovative move. D365 unites ERP, CRM and Office365 using a concept called Common Data Model (CDM). It is a true cloud service on Microsoft Azure platform - https://home.dynamics.com/

How D365 relates to AX7, The NEW Dynamics AX:
Dynamics 365 brings together a suite of Microsoft products, like CRM online, the NEW Dynamics AX (AX7), PowerBI, Office365, Cortana Intelligence and several hundreds of Apps from AppSource. Now with D365, Dynamics AX is integration together with other applications - which means that you can access the data stored in Dynamics AX from various applications and is called as Dynamics 365 for Operations (D365O).

Common data model:
One of the core concepts behind D365 is the use of Common Data Model. CDM basically is intended to surface data that is stored within Dynamics 365 across all the different business apps (Sales, Marketing, Operations etc.) into a set of data entities that can model the data between these different apps. It can also connect to entities outside Dynamics 365 such as Office 365 and more.
Think of CDM as a parallel data repository and will sync with Dynamics AX and other database of different business apps of Dynamics 365.Then services like Microsoft PowerApps and Microsoft Flow can use this to create powerful events automation and business apps connecting multiple applications and services. Thus eliminating complex integration across major elements of your business applications hosted on Microsoft Azure platform .


An illustration of this could be the example, which Microsoft shared during the first look of D365.
If you take a scenario that you are on a Skype call with one of your customer and you are asked to provide an price quote of an item and also confirm a date of delivery. With Dynamics 365,  you will be able to use embedded access in Outlook to immediately look up previous activities with your client, the requested item quote, and will get the availability of the item inventory, and potential shipping schedule from your company’s ERP and CRM systems from within Outlook.

Seamlessly, you can generate a quote with other relevant information in Microsoft Word and email it to your client. All of this is enabled using your Outlook interface without jumping between applications or copying information between systems. This takes a regular user of Dynamics 365 to an effective stage where he/she can concentrate on the real deal. 


You can watch related videos First look event and moreover most of the D365 videos are released in Youtube: Microsoft Dynamics 365.


Some useful links which can help you get going with D365 Operations:

• Link for the history of D365O (AX7) - https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/manage-microsoft-dynamics-ax-online-updates/
• Link for what's new in D365O platform (update 3) - https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/whats-new-or-changed-in-dynamics-ax-platform-version-7-3/
• Link for what's new in D365O (latest - 1611) - https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/whats-new-or-changed-in-dynamics-365-for-operations/
• Link for the released features and upcoming developments in D365 - https://roadmap.dynamics.com/ 
• AX7 wiki is now D365O wiki which is updated with the latest information - https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/ 

I will try to explore more of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and will post my findings here. Do share your views/comments and visit again :)

What is Cloud. And what are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS?

The word "Cloud" is getting more heard and used with days passing by. So what actually is a Cloud (or) a Cloud platform (or) Cloud computing (or) Cloud services. Basically these are platform, computing ability, services respectively which are hosted in some part of the world and are accessible over Internet.

To understand the best, we can take an example like electricity. In general, You just use electricity as an utility and pay according to the usage. You would seldom have to build, maintain and generate your own electricity - because of the comfort you receive using electricity as an utility. Cloud services can be mapped to the same concept.

Cloud computing services can be of three kinds, private, public and hybrid. And they act as the name suggests. Many articles can be found in the internet on the definitions, pros and cons.

Three such major cloud service providers are:

1. Microsoft Azure - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/ 
2. Amazon web services - https://aws.amazon.com/ 
3. Google cloud - https://cloud.google.com/ 

Related to cloud, you might usually hear about three kinds of services (or) service providers.

1. IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service
2. PaaS - Platform as a Service
3. SaaS - Software as a Service

The picture below can be a great illustration with an example "car". And is quite self-explanatory.

Important points to note:

• As you move away from "On premise" environment/service to "SaaS". The control you have over your the environment/service will be lesser.
• And at the same time, as you move away from "On premise" environment/service to "SaaS", the cost per hour could be greater as it involves multiple parties and is moving more towards service oriented approach.
  However, this necessarily need not be true, as the total costs involved could be optimized with proper analysis and design.
• One notable advantage I would like to highlight regarding moving towards "SaaS" approach is the amount of Research and development the Cloud servicing partners would do is much more than an "On premise" team. So if you want to be up to speed in this ever-changing technology race, Service oriented approach could be the way to go.

Hope this helps. Please share your feedback/questions, if any. Thanks.

AX7 Tip #1: Info needed for AX7 Microsoft VM login

Hello all,

I have started to work on "The NEW Dynamics AX", also code named as AX7. And would like to share the information I have, also the info I obtain during the troubleshooting.

I plan to write short posts, prefixed with AX7 Tip #. Hope this helps you.

AX7 Tip#1: Basic Info needed to login to MS AX7 VM:

Going forward, a Developer working with an AX7 implementation will have use a local VM, with source code synced to a Team foundation server.

1. So let's start with the links to download Microsoft VMs. The below Microsoft help link should help you to find your way through to download necessary VHD files.
   https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/access-microsoft-dynamics-ax-7-instances-2/#vm-running-on-premises
2. After downloading (link) the VHD files. You can use Hyper-V (or) Oracle Virtual box in order to setup your own VM.
3. The credentials needed in order to login to the Microsoft AX7 Virtual machine once up and running are the Microsoft Standard username (Administrator) and password (pass@word1).
4. Once you are in the system, check if the AosWebApplication is up and running. Remember with AX7, the AOS is no longer a windows service. |
5. You can try to login to AX7, by opening the link: https://usnconeboxax1aos.cloud.onebox.dynamics.com/.
6. The standard credentials which you would need to login to AX7 are username (administrator@contosoax7.onmicrosoft.com) and password (Pass1Word)
7. Most likely you won't be able to get in. At least, I couldn't. When I tried to login, if had the below error message.
   "Your account has been temporarily locked to prevent unauthorised use. Try again later, and if you're still having trouble, contact your support person."
8. I have solved this by overwriting the Admin privileges to my own ".onmicrosoft.com" account. If you have the same issue, follow the below steps.
   And if you don't have this issue - skip to step #11
9. On the VM's desktop, you can find a Microsoft provided application named 'AX 7' Preview admin user provisioning tool. What this tool does is to update the necessary security permissions/tables with the account you provide. So to continue, just enter your own ".onmicrosoft.com" account and click Submit.
10. In case, you don't have an account. You should be able to register for a new one here: https://portal.office.com/
11. And that's it - you should be logged into the AX7 home page now. And should see something like the below (mine is "Dynamic 'AX 7' Preview VM, atm).

Will post more tips as and when I find something useful to post. So keep looking and keep DAXing. Please do leave your comments/suggestions below. Thanks much.

Error: ProcessTargetRequestHeader failed in AX Retail:Download Session

Dynamics AX Retail has an intense Architecture behind the scenes, so some issues could take much more time to troubleshoot and fix the problem. So I am just writing down about this issue I faced today working with AX Retail Channel Integration. 

When trying to perform a Full sync for the Job-1070 for a Channel data Group, I encountered the below error. 

Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.Request.SQLHandler.ProcessTargetRequestHeaderException: ProcessTargetRequestHeader failed to execute all delete requests ---> Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.Request.SQLHandler.ProcessDeleteRequestException: Delete request on table:[ax].[ACCOUNTANT_BR] failed to execute. ---> Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.Request.SQLHandler.RunException: Query: DELETE FROM [ax].[ACCOUNTANT_BR] ;; filterNameList: ;filterValueList: ; ---> System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'xp_cmdshell', database 'mssqlsystemresource', schema 'sys'.

Also later when I checked the eventvwr, I could see that this error was existing from the time I have set up the Channel Database. 

Usually we won't face this kind of issues if we are working on a Single-box setup (or) Microsoft provided Virtual machines, as the permissions need not be taken care separately. However such issues are more frequent if you setup multiple-box environments and one main reason is that not every minute detail are documented. 

However, the solution for this issue in my scenario was that "to provide the user (Async client service account) the permissions to run 'xp_cmdshell stored procedure'." 
This can be done in two ways, 

1. Identify the service account used for running Async client windows service. And add that particular account as a SysAdmin in the Channel database. More details about CDX Async client in here.
2. Grant access to that particular account to run 'xp_cmdshell' extended stored procedure. More details in here. 

Hope this helps. Please do leave your comments, observations and any other solutions. Thanks.