Patrick Mouwen

Advanced RSAT I: How to run D365 RSAT from MS FLOW

We’re now in the new world of D365 “OneVersion” – A world in which we can benefit from continuous Microsoft investment without having to re-implement ERP ever again. But the new world also requires a solid Regression Testing Strategy to control the cost for consuming new updates. Here’s where Microsoft stepped in giving us the Regression Suite Automation Tool (RSAT). Although this tool is a good starting point, anyone who ever worked with RSAT will probably recognise one or more of the following limitations:

I don’t want to go into a VM to run test cases!
How can I test my D365 interfaces???
How can I run multiple test cases/test suites in parallel (in other words: multi threaded)??
I don’t want my chained tests to be scripted in Powershell, but in Azure DevOps (low code/no code solution!)
How can I run mixed tests of process and interface? – e.g. to support E2E scenarios like: my e-com platform creates a sales order through an interface into D365 which is Released to warehouse through RSAT?

We can of course wait for Microsoft to come up with solutions to overcome these limitations. In my case, I decided to accept the challenge to leverage the Power Platform to fill the gaps. In this series of blog posts I’ll gradually tackle each of the above limitations one by one.

Key step in the overall solution is to find a way to move away from executing our D365 test cases directly from the RSAT tool and to bring this into a higher control layer with broader capabilities than RSAT alone… Please welcome an RSAT connector for Microsoft Flow!

Get started with the QuickStart Guide I published on my OneDrive:

https://patrickmouwen-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/p/contact/Ebnvx0OR_mFPsnMqHZBFQN8BiAmehDVTl7oeCpLrdnHHsw?e=xwmi45

Patrick Mouwen | september 25, 2019 | AX - Technical - INT, Uncategorized| d365, D365FO, Dyn365FO, flow, microsoftflow, msflow, Regression Suite Automation Tool, RSAT | 10 Comments

Identify Configuration differences across D365 F&O environments

We’ve all seen it many times in our projects.. Being under pressure to close these last P1 and P2 bugs by making some quick config changes in UAT, we forget to keep a record of what we did and to bring this into our Golden Config environment. And then, after cutover to Production, our users are confronted with the same issues as before.. How great would it be if we can prevent this with an extra ‘lock on the door’?More

Patrick Mouwen | juni 11, 2019 | AX - Functional, AX - Technical - INT| AX, Compare, Configuration, D365FO, Difference, Dyn365FO, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Dynamics AX, Environment, ERP, Setup, Tool | 4 Comments

Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP interaction

Overlooking many recent Dynamics 365 implementations, it seems that Microsoft’s marketing strategy of ‘marrying’ Dynamics AX and CRM into one Dynamics 365 family is paying off. More and more customers are choosing for the package deal of Operations and Sales. However, as always, the marketing machine is ahead of the troops: with the current state of the integration of the products, we need to be creative in order to make the two systems feel like one.

In this blog post I’ll unveil an effective way to let Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales (CRM) interact with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (ERP)…

Patrick Mouwen | december 28, 2017 | AX - Functional, AX - Process, AX - Technical - INT| CDS, Common Data Service, CRM, D365FO, D365S, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Dynamics 365 for Sales, Dynamics AX, Dynamics CRM, ERP, Integrate, Integration, Interact, Interaction, Order hold, Process, Quotation, sales order | 0 Comments

1 year with AX7 Data Management - My top 10 learnings

1yr with AX7 Data Management – My top 12 learnings

We’re so used to the speed of current evolvements around Microsoft Dynamics AX (or should I say Dynamics 365 ;-)), that most of us who are interested in integrations have familiarized themselves for long with concepts like data entities and entity stores. In this blog post, I would like to go beyond the ‘obvious’ by sharing 1 year of personal project experience in working with AX7 Data Management.

To enable you to quickly scan this blog post according to your own points of interest, I have listed my experiences in a top 10-alike pattern in random order.

Patrick Mouwen | oktober 11, 2016 | AX - Functional, AX - Technical - INT| AIF, API, AX7, Customization, Data entity, Data Management, DIXF, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, event, Execution log, Export, Import, Integration, Interface, Load monitoring, Microsoft, Public cloud, Refresh, Staging log, Staging table, The new Microsoft Dynamics, troubleshooting, XSLT | 0 Comments

AX7 – My top 12 highlights

I onboarded the AX7 technical conference this week with the impression that AX7 was ‘just’ a new UI exposing AX2012R3CU9 code on a new platform with some adjustments to ‘make it work’ on the new Azure platform. But already after the first keynote I felt embarrassed about my initial thoughts which quickly made place for respect and amaze for this enormous leap in technology.

I can only compare the way Dynamics AX has developed in the last 10 years with a boxing game: initially, the boxers tease and challenge each other by some quick targeted moves. But the game really takes off when one of them finds his ‘punch’ (say with the release of AX2012) The opponent is driven towards the corner of the boxing arena and receives punch after punch, each punch having bigger impact. I think AX7 is at the core of this ‘momentum’. In this blog I’ll share the main ‘punches’ and my personal interpretation of what’s going on. If you want to dig deeper then visit the publicly available AX7 wiki.

Patrick Mouwen | februari 27, 2016 | AX - Functional, AX - Methodology, AX - Technical - DEV| AX7; The new Microsoft Dynamics; implementation; support; what's new, Dynamics 365 | 0 Comments

Dynamics AX Retail: how to automate processes and interfaces in a combined way

Business processes and interfaces often go hand in hand: it’s often either a business event triggering an interface or a business event following up on incoming interface data. For example: automatically creating pick orders and updating the related order statuses in the E-commerce frontend. In our aim for maximum comfort for both the business user as well as the system administrator, how can we automate this type of business events and interfaces in a combined way?

In this blog post I’ll boil the necessary standard AX ingredients into a configuration which allows you to reach this goal. I’ll also show you how to leverage this configuration to completely automate the following example flows:

Flow 1: importing transactions from a (3rd party) sales channel, converting the transactions to sales orders and sending an acknowledgement to the channel that the order import was successful or unsuccessful.
Flow 2: updating the on hand stock for the different channels and sending the stock levels to the sales channels.
Flow 3: creating picking lists for the incoming orders and informing the sales channel on the ‘picking’ status.
When you have this running, it’s like simulating a factory with Lego: when your order pickers come in in the morning they’ll find the picking lists on the printer; the sales channels can work with the latest stock levels and order statuses and by leveraging role center your system administrator sits in his control room waiting for any exception to occur which requires intervention – Sounds almost like a real factory… right?

Patrick Mouwen | december 23, 2015 | AX - Functional, AX - Process, AX - Technical - INT| Automate, Automation., AX, AX for Retail, Batch framework, Batch job, Batch task, CDX, Commerce Data Exchange, Dynamics AX, Integration, Interface, Microsoft, Patrick Mouwen, Point-of-sale, POS, Process, Retail, Solution architect, webshop | 0 Comments

Financial dimensions on web orders vs non-Retail orders

Say we have non-Retail B2B sales and B2C weborders in 1 company. We sell the same items through these channels. We expect the financial dimension values for the same financial dimensions to appear on our order lines but… they differ between these scenarios… HUH?And at invoicing we get stuck (posting is cancelled) as in the B2C scenario we miss a mandatory financial dimension value CostCenter… ARGGGGG!
More

Patrick Mouwen | oktober 27, 2015 | AX - Functional, AX - Technical - DEV| AX, AX for Retail, Dynamics AX, E-commerce, Finance, Financial dimension, header, Inheritance, line, Microsoft, order, Patrick Mouwen, Point-of-sale, Retail, sales order, Solution architect, web order, webshop | 0 Comments

Dynamics AX Retail 3rd party POS and E-commerce integration – Introduction

With the ongoing hunt for implementing ‘omnichannel strategies’ by Retail companies and the booming Microsoft Dynamics AX market, there must be a huge demand for integrating Microsoft Dynamics AX Retail with 3rd party POS and 3rd party E-commerce platforms. But when I google the internet for keywords like “AX 2012”, “Integration”, “3rd party”, “POS” and “E-commerce”, there are not too many hits. And if I find any hits, discussions quickly seem to head for the same solution: AIF (Application Integration Framework).

In my vision leveraging AIF in the Dynamics AX Retail area is a missed opportunity. To prove this and to provide more information regarding Dynamics AX Retail/3rd party integration in general, I’ve decided to write a series of blogs regarding this topic. In this blog post you can find the solution which I’ve recently implemented for a globally operating Retailer based on: Standard AX Retail CDX (Commerce Data Exchange). Here’s a picture of the entire architecture as described in the blog.

Patrick Mouwen | oktober 18, 2015 | AX - Functional, AX - Technical - INT| 3rd party, AX, AX for Retail, CDX, Commerce Data Exchange, Dynamics 365, Dynamics AX, E-commerce, Integration, Interface, Microsoft, Patrick Mouwen, Point-of-sale, POS, Retail, Solution architect, webshop | 0 Comments

Business Content Of Jigsaw Puzzle_shadow

Dynamics AX Retail 3rd party POS and E-commerce integration – Solution Design

So here’s the challenge… we have Retail CDX up-and-running… how do we hook up any middleware to integrate with 3rd party POS systems, E-commerce and other sales channels?

Hmmm… let me add one nuance here which we might overlook: how do we hook up middleware without touching the integrity of Retail CDX?

In order to answer this question I think it’s good to shortly refresh our minds about Retail CDX. Then we’ll take a look at my solution for both the batch processing as well as transactional types of interfacing.
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Patrick Mouwen | oktober 18, 2015 | AX - Technical - INT| 3rd party, AX, AX for Retail, BizTalk, CDX, Commerce Data Exchange, Dynamics 365, Dynamics AX, E-commerce, Integration, Interface, Microsoft, Patrick Mouwen, Point-of-sale, POS, Retail, Solution architect, webshop | 1 Comment

Dynamics AX Retail 3rd party POS and E-commerce integration – Trigger mechanism

In my main blog post regarding Dynamics AX Retail 3rd party sales channel integration I presented the mechanism to trigger BizTalk to take action after an AX scheduler job run. In this blog I’ll provide some more details on this particular topic. Let me first explain how the change tracking mechanism is leveraged on AX HQ side and let’s then take a closer look on how change tracking can be leveraged on the channel database and Async client database for use by middleware like Microsoft BizTalk.

Patrick Mouwen | oktober 18, 2015 | AX - Technical - INT| 3rd party, AX, AX for Retail, BizTalk, CDX, Commerce Data Exchange, Dynamics AX, E-commerce, Integration, Interface, Microsoft, middleware, Patrick Mouwen, Point-of-sale, POS, Retail, Solution architect, SQL, Trigger, webshop | 0 Comments