Microsoft Dynamics AX

Microsoft Dynamics AX was one of Microsoft's enterprise resource planning software products. It is part of the Microsoft Dynamics family. In 2018, its thick-client interface was removed and the web product was rebranded as Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations as a part of Microsoft's Dynamics 365 suite.

History

Microsoft Dynamics AX was originally developed as a collaboration between IBM and Danis
Damgaard Data
as IBM Axapta. Axapta was initially released in March 1998 in the Danish and U.S. markets. IBM returned all rights in the product to Damgaard Data shortly after the release of Version 1.5. Damgaard Data merged with Navision Software A/S in 2000 to form NavisionDamgaard, later named Navision A/S. Microsoft acquired the combined company in July 2002.

In September 2011, Microsoft released version AX 2012. It was made available and supported in more than 30 countries and 25 languages. Dynamics AX is used in over 20,000 organizations of all sizes, worldwide.

The newest version, released in February 2016, dropped the nomenclature of year and version and was simply called AX, although was widely known as AX7. This update was a major revision with a completely new UI delivered through a browser-based HTML5 client, and initially only available as a cloud-hosted application. This version lasted only a few months, though, as Dynamics AX was rebranded Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations in October 2016, and once more as Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations in July 2017. An additional version is available focusing on Retail branded as Dynamics 365 for Retail. This has a slightly different licensing price than Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.

Development centers

MDCC or Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen was once the primary development center for Dynamics AX.

Features (modules)

Microsoft Dynamics AX contains 19 core modules:

Traditional core (since Axapta 2.5)

* General Ledger – ledger, sales tax, currency, and fixed assets features
*Bank Management – receives and pays cash
* Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – business relations contact and maintenance (customers, vendors, and leads)
*Accounts Receivable – order entry, shipping, and invoicing
*Accounts Payable – purchase orders, goods received into inventory
*Inventory Management – inventory management and valuation
*Master Planning (resources) – purchase and production planning
*Production – bills of materials, manufacturing tracking
* Store, manage, and interpret data.

Extended core

The following modules are part of the core of AX 2009 (AX 5.0) and available on a per-license basis in AX 4.0:
*Shop Floor Control
*Cost Accounting
*Balanced Scorecards
*Service Management
*Expense Management
*Payroll Management
* Environmental Management

MorphX and X++

Code samples

X++ integrates SQL queries into standard Java-style code. The following three examples produce the same result, though the first has generally better performance. Samples 2 and 3 hint at an object-like behavior from table buffers.

Sample #1

///

/// This job is used as an X++ sample
///

public static void xppTest1(Args _args)

Sample #2

///

/// This job is used as an X++ sample
///

public static void xppTest2(Args _args)

Sample #3

///

/// This job is used as an X++ sample
///

public static void xppTest3(Args _args)

Presence on the Internet

Information about Axapta prior to the Microsoft purchase was available on technet.navision.com, a proprietary web-based newsgroup, which grew to a considerable number of members and posts before the Microsoft purchase in 2002.

After Microsoft incorporated Axapta into their Business Solution suite, they transferred the newsgroup's content to the Microsoft Business Solutions newsgroup. The oldest Axapta Technet post that can be found dates to August 2000.

Events

Extreme Conferences

extreme365 is a conference for the Dynamics 365 Partner Community which now includes Dynamics AX, featuring an Executive Forum.

Personalization and predictive analytics

At the National Retail Federation (NRF) Conference 2016 in New York, Microsoft unveiled its partnership with Infinite Analytics, a Cambridge-based predictive analytics and personalization company.Infinite Analytics' Cutting-Edge Personalization Engine now on Microsoft Dynamics AX Platform
"PR Newswire"

References

External links

Microsoft Dynamics AX Official Website

{{Microsoft Dynamics

AX
ERP software