String Concatenation Performance – Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
Have you heard of System.Text.StringBuilder? It is a .NET class which specializes in faster string manipulation. Can we use it in X++? Is it faster? How much faster? When is the break-even point on using the StringBuilder class? String concatenation (+) actually allocates, and populates a new variable in [...]
Set up Business Events with Microsoft Flow – Finance & Operations
This post describes the functionality of Business Events in a prior version. Since this post, the Flow/LogicApps connector has been much improved and does not require manual registration within F&O; therefore, power users are able to subscribe to events without IT administrator assistance! The F&O platform is improving every [...]
Identify Merge Candidates Efficiently in Azure DevOps Version Control
Which branches have changes which need to be merged? I am currently on a project with a large development team. Some of the developers are learning how to code X++, so one feature can turn into six check ins. Therefore, I needed a way to review all non-promoted changes [...]
Using Postman to Test AX 2012 Web Services
Postman is a great tool for debugging web sites and web services. For developing web services the free edition works well and is a great proof of concept that can be given to the development team doing the integration on the other side. In this post we'll walk through how [...]
Track Emails Received in Excel using Azure Logic Apps
Over the years I’ve considered the number of emails received to be a gauge of how busy I am. For two years I’ve been using Microsoft Flow to track the number of emails received and basic details about the email. I realized recently that I have many flows triggered by [...]
In Depth look at Azure Sphere
I have been anxious to get my hands on a Microsoft Azure Sphere MT3620 development kit and Santa didn't disappoint! I have written down what I have learned including many revelations which were not immediately apparent.
Best Practices on Printing from Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations
For decades printing has been relatively easy for AX users because we were running a client application. So all the normal troubleshooting techniques worked: drivers, print settings, et cetera. Now that our beloved Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (FinOps) runs as Software as a Service (Saas) we need [...]
Set Up Email Notifications for Your Favorite Blog
Over time I have found myself going back to ten or twenty blogs related to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. I am very active on Twitter, however it is convenient to forward posts from my phone to my colleges. Using Microsoft Flow, I can set up a flow [...]
Automatically Prepare a Development VM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
When you deploy a VM, not only does it take some time, once you get your hands on it there are a slew of things that need to be configured, installed, and set up before you can truly be productive on the machine. Considering this 'wasted effort' I created a [...]
The Ultimate AX 2012 Table and Field ID Fix for Synchronization Errors
It is very frustrating to have a table ID conflict which causes AX to drop a table with data that is needed. As anyone with AX 2012 experience will tell you, these things can be a major pain, even with two developers writing code at the same time. I think [...]
SysOperation Framework – Six years later where are we at with implementing it?
It has been six years since the SysOperation framework was made available for development in Dynamics AX 2012. The SysOperation framework replaced the RunBase Framework. It promised to run faster by limiting which code runs on each tier of the system and limiting the network communication which became common with [...]
Defragment indexes on D365 Finance & Operations Virtual Machine
After downloading the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations 8.1 PU 20 VHD from LCS, I went about optimizing its performance. So far I used it a bit without doing a full compile and it seems to run less than 15 GB of RAM, although I have allocated much more. [...]
Parse the Missing Values from Validate (DIXF)
I like to validate the data as much as possible throughout the process of migrating data into AX. Usually this means reviewing the input file, loading the file, and clicking "Validate all" before actually running the data into the target table. During the "Validate All" you may receive a plethora [...]
Latency Testing for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
Recently I went on a journey testing the latency of the Azure dark fiber backbone between data centers. This is crucial for a global Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations ("FinOps") implementation. In general bandwidth can be purchased but latency is hard to influence. There are some resources online which provide [...]
Debug AIF Document Service within AX
Sometimes it is a pain to create a .NET application and attach a debugger to the AOS service just to diagnose a problem with an AIF service. It is possible to do all debugging inside of AX. This example is for a standard AIF document service, however, you can also [...]
Validate AX DLL Versions on Multiple Machines
List the versions for all DLLs which will load in AX using the Get-AxDllVersions. Download the PowerShell script. Run this script against all machines running the AX client (RDP/Citrix/end-user) and servers. This is useful to confirm that all DLLs deployed match in file version.Example 1: Export DLL Versions for Local Machine.Get-AxDllVersions.ps1Example single [...]