Preface

As a Dynamics AX developer, your responsibility is to deliver all kinds of application customizations, whether it is a small adjustment or a bespoke module. Dynamics AX is a highly customizable system and requires a significant amount of knowledge and experience to deliver quality solutions. One goal can be achieved in multiple ways and there is always the question of which way is the best.

This book takes you through numerous recipes to help you with daily development tasks. Each recipe contains detailed step-by-step instructions along with application screenshots and in-depth explanations. The recipes cover multiple Dynamics AX modules, so at the same time the book provides an overview of the functional aspects of the system for developers.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Processing Data, focuses on data manipulation. It explains how to build data queries, how to check and modify existing data, how to read and write external files, and how to use date effectiveness.

Chapter 2, Working with Forms, covers various aspects of building forms in Dynamics AX. In this chapter, dialogs and their events are explained. Also, various useful features such as splitters, tree controls, checklists, and others are explained.

Chapter 3, Working with Data in Forms, basically supplements the previous chapter and explains data organization in forms. Examples in this chapter include instructions on how to build form data filters, process multiple records, and work with images and colors.

Chapter 4, Building Lookups, covers all kinds of lookups in the system. The chapter starts with a simple automatically-generated lookup, continues with more advanced ones, and finishes with standard Windows lookups such as the file selection dialog and color picker.

Chapter 5, Processing Business Tasks, explains the usage of the Dynamics AX business logic API. In this chapter, we cover topics on how to process journals, purchase orders, and sales orders. Other features such as modifying transaction text and creating electronic payment formats are included too.

Chapter 6, Integration with Microsoft Office, shows how Word, Excel, Outlook, and Microsoft Project applications could be integrated with Dynamics AX.

Chapter 7, Using Services, explains how to use services in Dynamics AX. The chapter covers standard query, metadata, and document system services. It also demonstrates how to create custom services and how to consume external services.

Chapter 8, Improving Development Efficiency, presents a few ideas about how to make daily development tasks easier. This chapter demonstrates how to build code templates, modify the tools and the right-click context menus, use search in development projects, and how to customize the personalization form.

Chapter 9, Improving Dynamics AX Performance, discusses how system performance could be improved by following several simple rules. This chapter explains how to calculate code execution time, how to write efficient SQL statements, how to properly cache display methods, and how to use Dynamics AX Trace Parser and SQL Server Database Engine Tuning Advisor.

What you need for this book

All coding examples were done using a virtual Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Image from the Microsoft Learning Download Center. The following list of software from the virtual image was used in this book:

• Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 (kernel: 6.0.947.0, application: 6.0.593.0)

• Microsoft Dynamics AX Trace Parser (version: 6.0.947.0)

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

• Microsoft Office Excel 2010

• Microsoft Office Word 2010

• Microsoft Office Outlook 2010

• Microsoft Office Project 2010

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

• Notepad

Although all recipes were tested on the mentioned software, they might work on older or newer software versions without any implications or with minor code adjustments.

Who this book is for

This book is for Dynamics AX developers primarily focused on delivering time proven application modifications. Although new X++ developers could use this book alongside their beginner guides, this book is more focused on people who are willing to raise their programming skills above beginner level and at the same time learn functional aspects of Dynamics AX. So, some Dynamics AX coding experience is expected.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "Dynamics AX contains a list of NumberSeqApplicationModule derivative classes, which holds the number sequence setup data for the specific module."

A block of code is set as follows:

static void CustAccountRename(Args _args)
{
CustTable custTable;
select firstOnly custTable
where custTable.AccountNum == '1103';
if (custTable.RecId)
{
custTable.AccountNum = '1103_';
custTable.renamePrimaryKey();
}
}

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Run the number sequence wizard by clicking on the Generate button in Organization administration | Common | Number sequences | Number sequences."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Note

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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