Friday 27 November 2015

Why should SAP and Oracle consultants consider a career move into Microsoft Dynamics AX?

Microsoft Dynamics AX

Microsoft Dynamics AX was first sold in 1998 under the name Axapta, and since then it has been sold and implemented in a number of mid-tier enterprise markets. However, up until now, other ERP software such as SAP and Oracle has always dominated the market, meaning that Microsoft Dynamics AX has always been considered to be the ERP software lurking in the shadows. But now all this is due to change. For a number of years, Microsoft have been taking considerable steps to ensure that Dynamics AX is ready to compete against SAP and Oracle in multinational enterprise markets. Now, all the hard work that Microsoft have put into Dynamics AX is coming to fruition. This means that now is a great time for SAP and Oracle consultants to consider a career move into Microsoft Dynamics AX. Here are the reasons why this career move should be considered:

Organizations are now viewing SAP and Oracle in a different light

Microsoft have ensured that the functionality of Dynamics AX is no longer just on par with SAP and Oracle, but is actually more functional than them in a number of different ways. For example, Dynamics AX is now considered to be far easier and cheaper for businesses to implement, which has resulted in many clients now.

p erceiving SAP and Oracle to be expensive, complex and cumbersome pieces of software.

· The other major reason why organizations are viewing SAP and Oracle in a different light is because most of them already use other Microsoft products such as Outlook, Office, Excel and Powerpoint. This means that Microsoft Dynamics AX gives users a ‘familiar experience’, which a lot of organizations appreciate as it means that the software is easier to adopt—which in turn helps to drive efficiencies. This changing perception of SAP and Oracle is a fantastic reason why a career move into Dynamics AX is a great idea.

Dynamics AX is at the beginning of a huge growth curve

Within a twenty-page review released in June this year, Gartner the American information technology and advisory firm, stated that they considered Microsoft Dynamics AX to be a “leader” and “innovator” in the ERP software field. This was largely due to the functionality and scalability of Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Reviews like this really do suggest that Dynamics AX is evolving and is at the beginning of a large growth curve, perhaps where SAP and Oracle were a decade ago. Because of reviews like the one mentioned above, and the fact that Dynamics AX is bound to undergo exponential growth, it is extremely likely that Dynamics AX is going to be the upgrade of choice for many industry leaders.

There’s a lack of experienced Dynamics AX ERP consultants

The lack of experienced ERP consultants that have successfully implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX at enterprise level is a huge challenge for Microsoft. However, this means that there is a real demand for Dynamics AX consultants. Thus, there is a real opportunity for SAP, Oracle, JDE and Baan consultants, to use the undoubted emergence of Dynamics AX and to join the ‘upper end’ of the Dynamics channel and enjoy another decade of unrelenting demand.
All of the above are great reasons why if you’re a SAP or Oracle consultant you should consider a career move into Dynamics AX.

To find out how to make the switch and transition your ERP experience, get in touch:

Cognitive Group are specialists in Microsoft Dynamics jobs and recruitment with a focus on Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and other roles in the Microsoft Stack:

More Informastion Please Visit my WebSite:-http://shrishail.com/

ShriShail Technologies Pvt Ltd: Microsoft Dynamics AX 7.0 - Rainier By ShriShail T...

ShriShail Technologies Pvt Ltd: Microsoft Dynamics AX 7.0 - Rainier By ShriShail T...: MICROSOFT CONVERGENCE : DYNAMICS AX ROAD MAP AND STRATEGY – MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 7.0. Microsoft Dynamics AX 7.0 ERP Software H...

ShriShail Technologies Pvt Ltd: Microsoft Dynamics AX 7.0 - Rainier By ShriShail T...

Microsoft Dynamics AX 7.0 - Rainier By ShriShail Technologies pvt.ltd

MICROSOFT CONVERGENCE : DYNAMICS AX ROAD MAP AND STRATEGY – MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 7.0.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 7.0 ERP Software

Here’s a recording of the Dynamics AX roadmap session held at Convergence 2015 in INDIA.

It’s hard to believe that it was only a little over a year ago that AX 2012 R3 was released followed by AX 2012 R3 CU8 on Azure in November 2014.

As a reminder, AX 2012 R3 and R3 CU8 brought a lot of new functionality, more than average for an interim release. We saw the addition of:

· Advanced Distribution and Warehouse Management

· Transportation Management

· Advanced Demand Forecasting

· Modern Point-of-Sale (POS) interface

· Enhanced Servicing Capabilities so clients can minimize code deployment, i.e. choose which hotfixes you want to deploy

· Reduced friction to deploy dev & test in Azure

From this last release of AX, the following Guiding Principles of AX 7.0 were introduced to carve a path towards the new features that the next release would offer.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF AX 7.0

· Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more

· Create more personal computing

· Reinvent productivity and business processes

· Build the intelligent cloud

Let’s take a look at what was demonstrated in this important roadmap session.

EXPECTED AX FUNCTIONALITY ENHANCEMENTS

Productivity:

· Modern, web-based user experience based on HTML5 technology. The client is device-independent and has a panorama view / dashboard and next generation role centres. In addition, it can support mouse or touch screen!

· User adoption still remains a focus. Data input screens look similar to AX 2012 R3 so users can easily transition after a Dynamics AX upgrade.

· Hover over task and preview mode reveals underlying data, reducing the number of clicks that are required to view underlying data.

· Integration of the Windows “Hamburger” navigation pane for ease of navigation on screens with limited real estate. You can add or subtract favorites, view recent screens you have visited, etc.

· New metadata search experience enables the use of metadata search to find an application screen very quickly (dashboard, navigation pane or Metadata search) without having to navigate menus.

· Run multiple screens – you can dock windows and use side by side screens. A great feature for those in production who typically run multiple screens, like MRP side by side.

· Personalization has not been overlooked. Microsoft understands that there is an emotional connection with the application user experience and this can make a huge difference in how much you enjoy work or how much you don’t.

ANALYTICS:

Power Business Intelligence (BI):

· Data entities will expose an OData (Open Data Protocol) feed and can be consumed by Power BI.

· Embedded Power BI – drill from one box to transactional information – in memory (Read Real-time Analytics).

Task Guides – AX documentation built on the fly:

· The old Task Recorder gets reimagined into Task Guides.

· End-user can now walk through a process end-to-end in a guided fashion.

· Has annotation capability to provide feedback on a business process. This gives users the ability to add notations as they walk through the guided process.

· So many uses:

· Useful for increasing productivity

· Helps users manage change

· Use it for testing

· Use it for training

· Use it for support – send a Task Guide to Microsoft to ask them to get something working

DEVELOPMENT:

· Visual Studio is used for development. Classic MorphX and model experience is still available.

· Microsoft has enabled a WYSIWYG, multi-window environment to aid in developer efficiency. Utilities can work in both the web page and the designer at the same time.

· Exceptionally rich customization environment.

microsoft dynamics AX by ShriShail Technologies pvt.ltd

DATA MANAGEMENT:

Version 7.0 significantly improves the capability to do data load tasks that are common in a heterogeneous environment where you want to have a single version of the truth.

· Bring in incremental data loads and do name and name pattern matching. This reduces the amount of work that a consultant/business analyst needs to do to import data.

· Drag and drop field mapping.

· Data uses staging tables and can be mapped either in a visual or tabular format.

· View a side-by-side comparison of records in the live system.

· Bring imported data into forms for preview and validation.

UPGRADING FROM OLDER VERSIONS OF DYNAMICS AX?

If you are interested in upgrading from your current version of Microsoft Dynamics AX to AX 7.0, here are some important details that may help in your decision process:

· Business logic and Data Model in Dynamics AX 2012 R3 CU8 is the same as in AX 7.0. This will make the transition from AX2012 R3 to AX 7.0 relatively straightforward. AX 7.0 is more about the modern user interface and new tools and less about the underlying business logic and data models.

· Direct upgrade path from AX 2009 & AX 2012.

· Support for AX 2009 has been extended to 2018 because Microsoft wants all their customers to be able to upgrade to AX 7.0 at their own pace.

· Functionality in CU8 will be made available to AX R2

AVAILABILITY OF DYNAMICS AX VERSION 7.0

· End of 2015 year release.

· Initial launch will be in the Microsoft Cloud only. This will be followed by an on-premise release.

· Microsoft is fully committed to support running Dynamics AX in the public or private cloud and on-premise and Hybrid.

· Reminder as above that the data model and business logic is the same.

Thursday 26 November 2015

Financial Consolidation Tools for Microsoft Dynamics AX

In this article, modern financial consolidation solutions for Microsoft Dynamics AX customers will take center stage, with an in-depth look at primary features and functionalities.By ShriShail Technologies Pvt.Ltd.

Financial Consolidation Tools for Microsoft Dynamics AX-

There is a population of Microsoft Dynamics AX users out there who are responsible for parent company financials consolidations of multiple subsidiaries. Bringing together organizationaldata from a number of legal business units, especially if there are different currencies involved, can be challenging without a powerful financial reporting writing and consolidations tool. As data grows in size and importance to decision-making for roadmap planning, executives are looking for a business user friendly solution for the routine task of consolidating information into a singular set of financial reports. If you are responsible for aggregating subsidiary data with Dynamics AX, this article will discuss the options you have that will bring together ease of use, modernity, and power.

Let’s start with the definition. Financial consolidation refers to combining and reconciling transactional and operational data into unified financial reports for the parent company. These reports combine subsidiary data that make up the parent company’s overall financial health in a straightforward statement. Consolidations often involve eliminations of inter-company transactions, currency conversions if diverse currencies are involved, and any added adjustments that have to be performed manually in Dynamics AX or directly within the financial consolidation solution in order to achieve a complete picture of the parent company. This is a great time to look at today’s consolidation software for multiple reasons, but two might stand out for a lot of companies.

Two basic reasons to shop for an automated, modern consolidation tool involve age. Some companies are ready to get rid of older consolidation software that is too simple for modern business needs, like FRx, Management Reporter or Prophix. Others would like to retire their older tools are that are too complex for business end users to manage, like Hyperion or Cognos. There are also Dynamics AX customers that implemented the native consolidation module that came with AX2012 – and simply found it to be too cumbersome or not able to meet their needs.

Recently, I spoke with a controller who relies on Dynamics AX to oversee multiple subsidiaries around the globe for a multi-national parent corporation. This controller is charged with meeting domestic and global standards, in addition to currency conversions, like the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles adjustments (GAAP), commonly referred to as IFRS to GAAP. Some consolidation tools provide flexible sub-ledger analyses and are part of a comprehensive Business Intelligence (BI) suite, completely integrated with other solutions like ad-hoc reporting, budgeting, forecasting, modeling, data visualizations, and BI data storage. Let’s drill down into what financial consolidations look like for Dynamics AX customers, including what you should know when considering solutions to best meet your company needs.

This blog has covered data integration methods before, but it is your call whether you pull data live from AX with a potentially slower real-time analysis, depending how many users are querying data from the AX server – OR you can rely on the higher performance integration that a BI data store offers, but it will involve regular replication of your data to an online analytical processing (OLAP) cube or a data warehouse.

Companies with less subsidiaries to consolidate, with little or no currency conversions necessary, and/or without the concern of a sluggish AX server due to substantial and sometimes simultaneous data queries would probably do very well with a live integration. Furthermore, if you don’t plan to bring in other data sources, don’t need to post elimination entries or other adjustments beyond what AX offers, you can just stick with Dynamics. On the other hand, plenty of OLAP cubes and data warehouses host consolidations by bringing GL information directly from AX, so this is a helpful alternative for organizations with different demands. Sometimes, subsidiaries running other ERP systems are acquired and even if there is a future plan to move them over to AX, they need to be consolidated from the time they are acquired, and this is possible with the most specialized consolidation solutions.

Replicating your data to an OLAP cube or a commercial data warehouse is easy with scheduled, regular refreshes, or you can manually push a button. AX data will replicate, typically with Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), to the BI data store, and consolidations can be performed at a higher performance because of the stability of an OLAP cube or a data warehouse. If you have more complex currency conversions to perform, have concerns about the sluggishness of the AX server with your regular data queries, and/or if the amount of data you need to consolidate is substantial, a BI data store will serve you the best. You’ll additionally want to evaluate which of today’s consolidation functionalities are requisite for your particular business demands.

Intercompany eliminations. Here and there, one subsidiary might buy or sell goods or services to another subsidiary, which means both line items cancel each other out for both entities. Intercompany eliminations cancel out and remove these exchanges from the P&L and balance sheet, and this can be performed within Dynamics AX or a BI data store, via the tool you implement. Some BI software even come equipped with fully configurable Excel or web input forms that you can use to manually adjust or eliminate transactions in business user friendly ways.

Currency conversions and consolidation adjustments. Currency conversion enables international companies to consolidate their transactional data into unified financial statements in a single currency through this function. Consolidation adjustments, including IFRS to GAAP, help professionals meet national and international accounting rules, update inventory, or temporarily correct incomplete subsidiary information, amongst others. These are simple functions that assist you when completing statutory statements. And there are more user-driven elements.

Allocations, reconciliations, and modeling organizational changes. Some organizations opt to allocate particular expenses or revenues to a department, a division, and/or a specific subsidiary. You can perform these allocations within AX, before loading data to a BI solutions, or within some data warehouses and OLAP cubes, you can design allocation processes of various complexity levels. Should you decide that the BI data store option is best for your needs, plenty of organizations prefer to have subsidiary or parent company staff reconcile the information to ensure accuracy, which can be completed with AX, a BI front-end software, or in the BI data store. And finally, some data sources allow you to perform some modelling by replicating and alternating however many company trees or hierarchies necessary to see the impact of acquisitions, divestments, and/or reorganizations. You can visualize the effect of particular changes on the parent company portfolio with this functionality.

There are plenty of aspects to consider when shopping around, due to the complexity of consolidations. Solver, Inc. is happy to answer questions and generally review BI360’s easy-to-use, Excel-powered consolidation tool for Microsoft Dynamics AX with both real-time or data warehouse integrated analysis, comprehensive reporting and collaboration as a way to accelerate company performance management.

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