1)Install the AIF component. Go to the installation setup of AX 2012 and run the setup.exe . From the Form select the option highlighted in the snap shot below

2)If the perquisite failed in the running the installation wizard above for the IIS web services and WCF, go the server manager and click Add Role for web server

3)Add role services by right clicking the webserver role and Check mark all the components except the FTP one. Make sure you got ASP.net checked.

4)For WCF installation, you need add feature for the web server . Click Add feature by right clicking the web server role and check WCF Activation in the .NET framework 3.5.1 features

You are good to go now from the installation of point of view, Now go back to the setup utility and complete the setup. The installation wizard will be fairly simple.

Now the Ax configuration:-

To view the web services in the explorer, you need to do some configuration in Ax. Dynamics Ax 2012 now gives this capability to administrator that he can restrict access to the web services and expose web services for their customized needs

Depends on the type of your web service you need to create inbound or out bound port. In this post , I will be just talking about the inbound port

1. Go to System Administration –> Setup -> Services and Application integration framework

2. Create the inbound port from here and click service operations to select the web services that you want to expose. And click Activate for your web service. If you are not able to find the service operations that you are looking for, move the Step below.

3. If you are not able to see your web services in the service Operations then you need to go to AOT and use AIF services Form from there and click refresh, This would bring your web services on the original Form of service operations.

4. Use the URI that you created in the step 3 to view in internet explorer. If you are not able to view it and gets the following error, Go to step 5. otherwise you are good to go now

5. Run this command c:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv4.0.30319aspnet_regiis.exe -i

Solution: There is an interesting method in the Args class that is used to achieve the above scenario. There are methods with prefix lookup in the args class

args = new Args();

args.caller(_caller);

args.record(TestTableBuffer);

args.lookupRecord(testTablebuffer);

menuFunction = new MenuFunction(menuitemdisplaystr(TestMenuITem), MenuItemType::Display);

menuFunction.run(args);

Answer: You might need to refresh your cache. There are two ways of doing that

1)Tools –> cache in the development work space for Ax 2012

2) Restart the AOS

I wrote a job today that can list all the fields that are mandatory and belongs to particular tables that have particular configuration key. I thought I should share the code here, it might be helpful.

#static void findMandFIelds(Args _args)

#{

# Dictionary dictionary;

# TableId tableId;

# Dicttable dictTable;

# DictField dictField;

# int fieldCounter;

# TextBuffer textbuffer = new TextBuffer();

# str fieldpath, previousText;

#

#

# dictionary = new Dictionary();

#

# tableId = dictionary.tableNext(0);

#

# while (tableId)

# {

# info(int2str(tableId));

#

# tableId = dictionary.tableNext(tableId);

# dictTable = new DictTable(tableId);

#

# if (dicttable && dictTable.configurationKeyId() == configurationKeyNum(‘Bank’))

# {

# fieldpath = “”;

# for (fieldcounter = 1; fieldcounter <= dictTable.fieldCnt(); fieldCounter++)

# {

# dictField = new dictField(tableId, dictfield.fieldCnt2Id(fieldCounter));

# if (dictField && dictField.mandatory() == true)

# {

# fieldpath += dicttable.name() + “:”+ dictField.name() + “\n”;

# }

# }

# previousText = textbuffer.getText();

# textbuffer.setText(previousText + fieldpath);

# }

# }

# textbuffer.toFile(“c:\\Test.txt”);

#}

I made this utility long time back, I thought I should share this. This is not a big utility, it just minimizes the repeating task time.

You can find the utility here

Hi Readers,

I implemented the number sequence consumption part today on the Form. So here are the steps that are needed to implement the number sequence. I would be more helpful, if we divide the number sequence Consumption in following two ways

For Generation

A method is needed to be made on the Form level with name “numberSequenceHandler” as below

NumberSeqFormHandler numberSeqFormHandler()

{

if (!numberSeqFormHandler)

{

numberSeqFormHandler = NumberSeqFormHandler::newForm(NumberSeqReference::findReference(extendedTypeNum(TestNumberSeqIdOfTheTable)).NumberSequenceId,

element,

TestTable_ds,

fieldNum(TestTable, DocumentNumber)

);

}

element.isValid();

return numberSeqFormHandler;

}

Note: You don’t have to write any statement like testTable.TestNumberGenerated = API.NumberSequence, the API will assign the number automatically to your table.

For Consumption

The written, validateWrite, create, closeCancel on the data source that has the number sequence edt that was created as mentioned in the last blog.

public void written()

{

//

// have to wrap NumberSeqFormHandler method with ttsbegin and ttscommit

// in case number sequence’s continuous is set

//

ttsbegin;

element.numberSeqFormHandler().formMethodDataSourceWrite();

ttscommit;

super();

}

public boolean validateWrite()

{

boolean ret;

ret = super();

ret = ret & element.numberSeqFormHandler().formMethodDataSourceValidateWrite();

return ret;

}

public void create(boolean _append = false)

{

element.numberSeqFormHandler().formMethodDataSourceCreatePre();

super(_append);

element.numberSeqFormHandler().formMethodDataSourceCreate();

}

public void closeCancel()

{

//

// have to wrap NumberSeqFormHandler method with ttsbegin and ttscommit

// in case number sequence’s continuous is set

//

ttsbegin;

element.numberSeqFormHandler().formMethodDataSourceDelete();

ttscommit;

super();

}

Trouble Shooting:

1)Check number sequence generated or not

2)If you have updated the code, make sure you delete the row for it from the numberSequenceDataType table before you are going regenerate.

Today. this post is about the “Number sequence framework in Ax 2012”. I did get a chance to work on it yesterday and I implemented the number sequence using the white paper available at msdn. I won’t be discussing the core concepts here, as they are already discussed comprehensively in the white paper, however I will be focusing on the implementation details. I found couple of problems during the implementation and I thought I should discuss those issues and solutions for those. Also I tried simplifying the steps for the uptake of the number sequence, by classifying the steps in categories and providing “a, b, c, d” steps to uptake it.

So firstly the broader picture

To simplify, There are three areas that are controlled by number sequence API as shown in the picture and for each area you need to do code specifically to that particular area to achieve the functionality.

The first two areas(A and B) are related to the Setup and ( C ) part is related to the consumption.

A. Number Sequence Module Setup

i. Create an extended data type that will be storing the Number sequence generated number for your table. We mostly make it string type since we may want to store the company Id with generated number.

ii. Append the module name in the NumberSeqModule

iii. Make a new class with your module name prefix so if you are making Module Abc, you class name would be named NumberSeqModuleABC. This class will add the area in the number sequence administration page.

iv. You need to extend this class with NumberSeqApplicationModule class.

v. Override the loadModule method and add your extended data type reference here. The dataArea line is only needed if you want to provide the user an option in the Module parameters Form, this is my understanding, please correct me on this if I am wrong. This method will create the data types in the NumberSeqDataType data table

protected void loadModule()

{

NumberSeqDatatype datatype = NumberSeqDatatype::construct();

/* Setup application numbers */

datatype.parmDatatypeId(extendedtypenum(TestEdt));

datatype.parmReferenceHelp(literalstr(“@testHelp”));

datatype.parmReferenceLabel(literalstr(“@testLabel”));

datatype.parmWizardIsContinuous(true);

datatype.parmWizardIsManual(NoYes::No);

datatype.parmWizardIsChangeDownAllowed(NoYes::No);

datatype.parmWizardIsChangeUpAllowed(NoYes::No);

datatype.parmWizardHighest(999999);

datatype.parmSortField(1);

datatype.addParameterType(NumberSeqParameterType::DataArea, true, false);

this.create(datatype);

}

vi. Override numberSeqModule method and return your module just like below

public NumberSeqModule numberSeqModule()

{

return NumberSeqModule::TestModule;

}

vii. Run the job to load your module since the module loading code in Ax 2012 has moved to the check list part, in Ax 2009 the service restart used to perform this action. This is the tricky part because the code written in the whitepaper didn’t work for me and I ran the following job.

static void Job1(Args _args)

{

NumberSeqModuleTestModule obj = new NumberSeqModuleTestModule();

obj.createReferencesForScope();

obj.load();

}

viii. After running job, go to Organization Adminsitration à Number sequences à Number sequences à generate wizard button. Note, whitepaper for Ax 2012 states that there is no need to restart Aos service after that, however you will encounter error here that the module you made does not exist, so you need to restart AO and you are done.

B. Number sequence for the parameter Form

i. If you want to just add your edt to an existing module, just create the edt data type in Module specific number sequence module as mentioned above and include the DataArea there in the parameter type to show here.

ii. One useful tip is, if you are doing try and run on load module code, the changes won’t reflect as each time load module code run, it creates a row for the Number sequence data type in the data type table so you need to remove the row and make sure there is one row for your data type so that API doesn’t get confused when you update the code for your data type.

iii. Go to parameters Form now, add the numberSequencePreInit() method in the Form, just like below

void numberSeqPreInit()

{

runExecuteDirect = false;
numberSequenceModules = [NumberSeqModule::Payroll]; numberSeqApplicationModule = new NumberSeqModulePayroll();
scope = NumberSeqScopeFactory::createDataAreaScope();
NumberSeqApplicationModule::createReferencesMulti(numberSequenceModules, scope);

tmpIdRef.setTmpData(NumberSequenceReference::configurationKeyTableMulti(numberSequenceModules));

}

iv. Add numberSequenceReference data source in the Parameter form and add numberSequence table as reference in the data source

v. Make three methods on the data source as above, you can copy it from other Forms like CustParameters and VendParameters Form and you are good to go

C. The consumption part

I have just compiled a utility that can implement the new financial dimension control on the Form. This control is generated dynamically through classes in Ax 6 and it needs code at various location to function properly. I feel, with new frameworks coming, it is hard to remember them so it is better we make utilities that can provide a developer appropriate options and can do work for them, it would not only save their time but also let them learn the other important stuff about Ax then just UI.

You can find the reference about it on msdn. http://ax2009developer.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-add-financial-dimension-on-forms.html. This utility is currently specific to default dimension tab. Please provide me your feedback, if you want more options. I have a plan to automate the segment entry control also if I find positive feedback from this post. I feel, with new frameworks coming, it is hard to remember them so it is better we make utilities that can provide a developer appropriate options and can do work for them, it would not only save their time but also let them learn the other important stuff about Ax then just UI.

So what does my utility do?

This utility automates the steps for up taking the financial dimension control on the Forms and it allows to uptake on multiple Forms at a time. It also csv file support so you can specify the form name in the csv file and the utility will creates control on multiple form and speeds up the development time.

How does it work?

Just right click on any Form and you would have the option there to open a Form just like below

You would find the Form just like below, click ok for the uptake

After uptake you would find code with Todos, so it is easy to track the code

You can download the utility from the link below

Why a different class for reference control?

That’s a good question. The simple answer of this question is reference control behaves in a different way than normal control. It shows a different value on the UI to the user but it saves different value at the back-end. If you google it for analyzing the msdn view about this class, you would find definition something like “A sibling of SysTableLookup that is used to generate Grid-style custom lookups for Reference Controls. According to my point of view, if you don’t use this class in case of Reference control and drag the RecId foreign key directly on the Form and override the lookup in the normal way, then on selecting the value from lookup, it would show the RecId to the user on UI.

Ok, how can I implement this?

You need to override the lookup reference method of the control or the foreign key field on the data source level. This method returns a table record and it is not void as SysTableLookup class.