Built into Dynamics AX is a feature for managing the setup of new Vendors which allows users to request for new vendors to be added, for the purchasing group approval process by the way of workflows, and finally automatically create new vendor records. Additionally, if you are using the Vendor Portal, the on-boarding process will allow you to co-ordinate the setup of the vendor users, and if you want to, you van also have the prospective vendors update and approve their information before they are approved to ensure that their details are correct, and that they want to do business with you as...

Everyone has used Pivot Tables within Excel at one point in time to create simple reports against Dynamics AX, and some of you may have also used Power Pivot to create more elaborate dashboards and charts. Recently Microsoft extended out the query and reporting capabilities within Excel with the Power BI suite. In addition to extending the Power Pivot capabilities, they also added three more tools called Power Query, Power View & Power Map, and that means that you have a whole new set of reporting options. In this blueprint we will show you how you can use all of the Power BI tools to analyze...

The Lean Manufacturing capabilities are new with Dynamics AX 2012, and they give you a different way of managing your manufacturing processes as compared to the traditional discrete manufacturing models of BOM's and Routes. Don't be scared away though by its new terminology and constructs that it uses to model the manufacturing processes. It shares a number of the processes that the traditional manufacturing models use, and is pretty easy to configure if you know the right steps. Also, you don't have to be a pure "Lean" organization to use the Lean manufacturing processes that are built into...

Dynamics AX 2012 now has a retail module that includes store management, and also the ability to set up Retail Point of Sales (POS) terminals to take orders, manage store inventory and also track customers. It may seem a little bit daunting to set up, but it's really not that hard. In this blueprint we will go through all of the steps that are required for you to set up your first retail store and then configure the POS register so that you can take orders through the touch screens.

The Sales and Marketing area within Dynamics AX does a lot more than just track Customers, Sales Orders and Invoices. It has a whole lot of CRM functionality included that that allows you to track Activities, Cases, Contacts, Prospects, Opportunities, Leads, Campaigns, and also Telemarketing Call Lists. In most cases, it is just as good as (if not better than) any of the other stand-alone CRM system, especially because you don't need to buy any more licenses, or load any more software, because all of the functionality is delivered with the system. In this blueprint we will show you how to all...

The Service Management area within Dynamics AX allows you to track all of your service order contracts and service orders for your customers, will track all of your time and expenses against the service orders, and will also pass along any chargeable items to the receivables department for automatic invoicing to the customer. Service Management has additional functions as well that allow you to track the items that are being serviced, define the tasks that are allowed to be performed against a service order, and also track the symptoms, diagnosis, and resolution to service order issues,...

Lifecycle Services is a new offering from Microsoft that changes everything related to the lifecycle of the Dynamics AX projects - allowing you to track and manage not only the Implementation phase of the Dynamics AX projects, but also manage the Pre-Sales phase as well, incorporating in the prospects into the project. Because this is a cloud based service, there is no additional software that needs to be loaded in order to give prospects and customers access to all of the information that is available through this service, and also this is a tool that is available for any Customer and...

Dynamics AX is chock full of features that you can implement at the module level, but the true power of the product comes from the boat load of smaller features that are built into the user interface, the modules themselves. Also you can make Dynamics AX even more powerful by taking advantage of the other foundation products such as SharePoint and Office. The real trick is to know that these capabilities are there, and that is what this book is aimed to do. In this third volume in the Tips & Tricks series we have compiled 50 more tips that you can take advantage of within Dynamics AX 2012...