Release of AX 2012 R2 CU7 and upcoming release of AX 2012 R3 on Cloud

AX 2012 R2 CU7

The release of CU7 for R2(KB2885603 - 6.2.1000.4051) signifies a lots of fixes, feature additions and updated user experience of the core modules. Please find below link from the Microsoft community for the detailed changes in each of the modules.

AX 2012 R3 released in April 2014

A good MSDN article on what we can expect on the upcoming new functionalities on both the verticals and core modules. Most importantly the AX 2012 R3 can also be hosted on the cloud using Windows Azure services. This means that the Dynamics AX can be hosted at a remote site and customers can access the services as a subscription.
The folks attending the Technical conference in February will seem to have hands on access to R3, that would be really interesting to hear about their thoughts.
Here is the MSDN community link where the new features are briefly described.
The tag line of AX 2012 R3 seems to be
1. Engage Customer on their own terms
2. Satisfy changing customer needs
3. Serve your customers better and expand your business

SQL Synchronization Errors

I was facing some AX synchronization issues this week for my R2 instance which had Projects module license configuration off. Below are the errors that were generated during the sync from AOT.

ProjJournalTransHourUnpostedView	Error	Synchronize database Specified field Qty of datasource ProjJournalTrans does not exist in the database or the configuration key on the field or on Extended Data Type used by the field is off. The view ProjJournalTransHourUnpostedView can not be created in the database.
ProjTransBudgetCube	Error	Synchronize database Specified field StatementPLHourCost of datasource ProjParameters_1 does not exist in the database or the configuration key on the field or on Extended Data Type used by the field is off. The view ProjTransBudgetCube can not be created in the database.
ProjTransBudgetCube	Error	Synchronize database Specified field StatementConsumpHourCost of datasource ProjParameters_1 does not exist in the database or the configuration key on the field or on Extended Data Type used by the field is off. The view ProjTransBudgetCube can not be created in the database.
ProjTransPostingCube	Error	Synchronize database Specified field StatementPLHourCost of datasource ProjParameters_1 does not exist in the database or the configuration key on the field or on Extended Data Type used by the field is off. The view ProjTransPostingCube can not be created in the database.
ProjTransPostingCube	Error	Synchronize database Specified field StatementConsumpHourCost of datasource ProjParameters_1 does not exist in the database or the configuration key on the field or on Extended Data Type used by the field is off. The view ProjTransPostingCube can not be created in the database.

All the errors are pertaining to the views created in the backend for the Projects module. Did the usual checks for the ProjJournalTrans.Qty field and the related EDT config settings, but still the errors were not resolved. Also explored turning on/off for each of the nodes in Configurations form to check if the error can be removed and direct queries to the SQLDictionary table. Then checked in the AX forums and came to know that this is a known issue in Dynamics AX 2012 R2, and can be safely ignored as AX checks the Project module configurations for these views. However there is no data loss due to these views hence this issue is not quite serious.

The original explanations can be found under these links at support forum.

https://community.dynamics.com/ax/f/33/p/70070/127960.aspx

Dynamics AX 2012 Retail Demo VM 3 - POS users list

A quick and a handy reference for the Dynamics AX 2012 Retail POS users list, avoiding time consuming search in the application for the different demo stores, users and access profiles. Please note this list is applicable only for Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Demo VM version 3.0. The default password for the users is 123

Seattle (AW)

000150 - Sales associate

000154 - Store manager

000165 - Sales associate

000175 – Non-drawer

New York (AW)

000152 - Sales associate

000156 - Store manager

000159 - Sales associate

000179 – Non-drawer

Boston (Electronics)

000100 - Store manager

000110 - Sales associate

000111 - Sales associate

000120 – Non-drawer

Paris (AW)

000221 – Store manager

000222 – Sales associate

000229 – Sales associate

000225 – Non-drawer

Houston (Fabrikam)

000160 – Store manager

000161 – Sales associate

000164 – Sales associate

000168 – Non-drawer

Dynamcis AX 2012 CU6

The last CU update version for AX 2012 R2 was CU1 and the latest version is CU6. Wondering if you have missed a lots of updates in between have no concern. Microsoft is consolidating all versions of the AX 2012, FP & R2, so the next updates would be in a single sequential series rather than individual updates for each version. So it is perfectly ok to update your new AX 2012 R2 instance to CU6 after the CU1.

The direct partnersource link for the downloading the update is at https://mbs2.microsoft.com/Knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b2850972

The version of the application will be set to 6.2.1000.1437, which means
6 - Dynamics AX Major Version

2 - Minor Version
1000 - Build Number
1437 - Revision released for CU 6

UtilElements Table - SQL Database Error

SQL Error Message:

 "Cannot select a record in Application Model (UtilElements). The SQL database has issued an error. SQL error description: [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 10.0][SQLServer]"FASTFIRSTROW" is not a recognized table hints option. If it is intended as a parameter to a table-valued function or to the CHANGETABLE function, ensure that your database compatibility mode is set to 90."

SQL statement: SELECT T1.NAME,T1.RECORDTYPE,T1.PARENTID,T1.UTILLEVEL,101090 FROM UTILELEMENTS T1 WHERE ((RECORDTYPE=?)

AND (NAME=?)) OPTION(FAST 20)

Reason:

UtilElements table is not properly synchronized with the DB server, this issue is most likely to occur when you are transferring and restoring AX in another environment or server. To fix you would need to re-initialize the model store schema. Can be achieved by using either Powershell or AxUtil commands

Resolution:

Power Shell Command(Preferred for AX 2012 R2)

Start the Dynamics AX 2012 Powershell window

Initialize-AXModelStore

AXUtil Command(esp AX 2012 RTM)

Start MS command prompt and navigate to the axutil exe location, it is normally available at

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\Server\AXR2_DEV\bin or under Management utilities,  then execute the below command

Command :- axutil schema

Shrink the Dynamics AX Database Log Files

The Database log(.ldf) can be shrunk to recover some of the disk space on the DB server. Just ensure you have appropriate backups of the data file(.mdf)

The command can be executed when the database recovery option is set to Simple. The recovery option can be found under Database Properties > Options > Recovery Model

Just be mindful these settings should not be changed in the production without consulting DBA as it will affect the recovery time incase of a crash. More appropriate to do it on Test or Development machines to catch up on disk space.

Use <DatabaseName>

GO

DBCC SHRINKFILE(Database_Log,100)

GO

The first parameter is the logical name for the DB log, which can be found from the Database Properties > Files > Logical Name Column. The second parameter is for size in MB to be set.

Microsoft Dynamics AX Build numbers and Versions

A single place to look up for all the versions released and build numbers, extremely useful if you are doing an upgrade and wanted to know the Hot fixes/Cumulative updates/Application/Kernel build numbers installed. Refer here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2012/03/29/overview-of-ax-build-numbers.aspx

Dynamics AX Retail Store DB is not able available

A quick post on troubleshooting issues for the connectivity between the AX 2012 Retail POS and Store DB.   

This error thrown by the application is "Dynamics AX Retail Store DB is not able available", You might run into this issues especially if the components communicating are located in different domains. 

Check first the POS config file, focus on the value for the StoreDataBaseConnectionString attribute. If you think that the issue might be due to domain issues, complete avoid the Domain authentication and try to leverage on the SQL login id/password in the connection string.

Example:- 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<configuration>

    <configSections>

        <section name="AxRetailPOS" type="LSRetailPosis.Settings.ConfigFile.AppConfiguration, SystemSettings, Version=6.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856adxxxxxx" />

    </configSections>

    <AxRetailPOS OfflineDatabaseConnectionString="" StoreDatabaseConnectionString="Data Source=XXXXXX;Initial Catalog=AXRetailXXXX;User id=sa;Password=XXXXXX"

        StoreId="Store" TerminalId="Term-01" DATAAREAID="CERW" />

</configuration>

I have left just the important settings in the connection string like Server name, Database name, SQL Id and Password.

Now if you notice that the application connects to the database properly work with your networking team to identify and resolve the domain authentication failure issue. And finally make sure to change back the settings in the config with the appropriate security level.

Cumulative Update 1 (KB2807685) Released for AX 2012 R2

Cumulative update 1 for the Dynamics AX 2012 R2 has been released. It is very important to download and update this fix for your AX 2012 R2 environments as it has all the previous hotfixes for the known issues resolved in this cumulative update.

As usual the Cumulative update is accessible via Partnersource or Customersource, for complete release notes, setup installation and the hotfixes covered, visit the CU1 release page.

There will be two self extracting Exe's for this Cumulative update, one for Binary files and the second one for the Application. After the environment is update with CU1 the build number would be 6.2.1000.156