The following enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics AX ‗6‘ focus on simplifying the entire product life cycle of the application, enabling customers to be more productive and reduce TCO.
Implementation and deployment
Reducing TCO for customers remains a top priority for Microsoft Dynamics AX ‗6,‘ and we will continue to simplify the implementation from design, installation, and setup through operation and upgrade. The implementation and deployment investments include:
Simplifying the security setup, including the support of a role- and task-focused security administration model that can be applied across multiple companies.
Automation of business processes using a graphical workflow editor.
Support of centralized management and diagnosis of Microsoft Dynamics AX implementations. Enhanced infrastructure support for companies that operate in a global environment. This includes
the ability to model simple and complex organizations with business units and legal entities that can span different countries, supporting centralized transaction processing and sharing of master, transactional, and reference data.
RoleTailored user experience
For Microsoft Dynamics AX ‗6,‘ we will work to increase user productivity even more by further
investing into providing a familiar user interface that works like Microsoft Office and by enhancing the RoleTailored user experience so users can quickly find the right data and information on how to perform tasks through system-wide search capabilities. Some of the major enhancements include: An improved data viewing experience, which will provide users with information at a glance that
helps them make better decisions faster.
Ability to have a read-only representation of data that reduces the risk of accidental changes. Enhanced viewing capabilities will provide the user with details without the need to switch to a
different form.
Enhanced RoleTailored user experiences for key roles: Collections for the credit and collections manager
Manufacturing execution – touch screen interface for a machine operator Lean Kanban boards for the shop supervisor
Improvements in the online help system that explain the scenarios thoroughly to help users to perform tasks, as well as help system customization options that enable companies to easily extend topics and resources to fit their specific business processes.
Users will benefit from the enhanced user interface and navigation experience in both the Microsoft Dynamics AX Windows client and on the enterprise portal.
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MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX STATEMENT OF DIRECTION Business intelligence and reporting
Microsoft Dynamics AX uses the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) platform. The Microsoft BI platform includes industry-leading offerings from Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Office. We will continue to provide functionality that leverages the strengths of the Microsoft BI platform while providing an integrated experience for the Microsoft Dynamics AX user. By relying on familiar tools and technologies to deliver BI content to users, we avoid the need for users to ―learn yet another tool‖ and to manage ―yet another technology.‖
Our goals for BI and reporting include:
Pre-built analytical content: We will deliver pre-built analytical content tailored to roles and
business scenarios to reduce the time it takes to implement a BI solution. We will invest in self- service business intelligence capabilities that enable users to personalize the content and experience.
Interoperability: We will invest in interoperability of Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality and
analytic content with tools such as Microsoft Excel PowerPivot to enable users to gain visibility and faster insight by supporting richer visualization (such as maps, gauges, and charts) of data across business units, legal entities, and geographies.
Enriched developer experience: We will provide an enriched experience to the developer
community through a model-driven development approach for BI content that Microsoft Dynamics AX developers are familiar with. We will provide features that enable developers to reuse Microsoft Dynamics AX business models in Microsoft development environments.
Enhancements to the BI infrastructure: We will invest in enhancements to the BI infrastructure
that will help simplify the administration, setup, and deployment of BI in Microsoft Dynamics AX. SSRS Reporting environment: Microsoft Dynamics AX ‗6‘ will use SQL Server Reporting Services
as the primary reporting engine to enable visually richer, more interactive, and more flexible reporting. We will ship all pre-built production reports, currently developed using the MorphX engine, as SSRS reports. We will provide tools, training and guidance to enable customers to migrate existing custom-developed MorphX reports to the SSRS reporting environment.
Ad-hoc reporting tools: We will continue to invest in technologies that enable users to derive the
power of ad-hoc reporting tools such as Microsoft Excel PowerPivot without compromising on the business and security rules defined in Microsoft Dynamics AX. In Microsoft Dynamics AX ‗6‘ we will retire existing integration technologies such as secure views by providing simpler, higher-
performance alternatives that use SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Office 2010 capabilities. Microsoft Office interoperability: Microsoft Office interoperability enhancements will enable
information workers to get secure access to Microsoft Dynamics AX business data and help them build reports by using familiar visualization tools. The interoperability with Microsoft Excel will help to easily export data sets to Excel for reporting, analysis, and collaboration. Data in spreadsheets can be validated and imported back to Microsoft Dynamics AX. Integration to Microsoft Word supports the creation of templates for frequently used communications to increase productivity and reduce the potential for errors. The integration to Word can also be used to incorporate Word documents into business processes. Templates, which support the interoperability scenarios, will be hosted in SharePoint Foundation libraries for easy collaboration and version control.
32 MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX STATEMENT OF DIRECTION Developer productivity enhancements
Enhanced alignment with Microsoft platform tools and technologies will enable developers to more easily extend and customize Microsoft Dynamics AX. Enhancements include:
Enhanced database model framework.
Advanced programming model through web services and a simplified, yet extensive approach to integration.
The ability to extend Microsoft Dynamics AX using managed code. Event-driven customization.
SQL Server database storage for application metadata. Better support for co-existence of multiple customizations. Easier deployment of customizations.
Workflow processing enhancements.
Usability improvements for developers working in Visual Studio.
Better support for the application development life cycle using Visual Studio for example testing. X++ code editor enhanced with the Visual Studio code editor for productivity improvements.
IT administrator productivity enhancements
Enhancements can be expected in areas such as data management, performance enhancements for large transaction processing, optimization around industry end-to-end scenarios, accelerated multiversion data upgrades, and real-time 24/7 optimization to support the system administrator. Additional enhancements include:
New integrated management studio.
Consolidation of Application Integration Framework (AIF) service implementation under the application object server (AOS).
Hosting the Windows Workflow under the AOS.
Implementation of a new role-based and task-based security model.
Extensible security system for supporting non-Active Directory-based authentication for external users.
Server deployment on 64-bit-only operating systems.
Web-based help system to avoid client-side deployment of help files. Application files moved to the SQL Server model database.
Web services-based interoperability with Microsoft Office.
Consolidation of reporting to SSRS to enable the scale and flexibility of the SSRS deployment architecture.
ISV code sharing
Long asked for by ISV partners, we are investigating a way to enable partners to share their solutions and better track the sale and usage of those solutions. This will be enabled with a code-signing technology available as part of the Microsoft Dynamics AX developer tools.
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MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX STATEMENT OF DIRECTION