Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Development Cookbook - Fourth Edition E-Book
Deepak Agarwal
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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Over 80 effective recipes to help you solve real-world Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations development problems
About This Book
- Learn all about the enhanced functionalities of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations and master development best practices
- Develop powerful projects using new tools and features
- Work through easy-to-understand recipes with step-by-step instructions and useful screenshots
Who This Book Is For
If you are a Dynamics AX developer primarily focused on delivering time-proven applications, then this book is for you. This book is also ideal for people who want to raise their programming skills above the beginner level, and at the same time learn the functional aspects of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. Some X++ coding experience is expected.
What You Will Learn
- Explore data manipulation concepts in Dynamics 365 for Operations
- Build scripts to assist data migration processes
- Organize data in Dynamics 365 for Operations forms
- Make custom lookups using AOT forms and dynamically generate them from X++ code
- Create a custom electronic payment format and process a vendor payment using it
- Integrate your application with Microsoft Office Suite and other external systems using various approaches
- Export and import business data for further distribution or analysis
- Improve your development efficiency and performance
In Detail
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations has a lot to offer developers. It allows them to customize and tailor their implementations to meet their organization's needs. This Development Cookbook will help you manage your company or customer ERP information and operations efficiently. We start off by exploring the concept of data manipulation in Dynamics 365 for Operations. This will also help you build scripts to assist data migration, and show you how to organize data in forms. You will learn how to create custom lookups using Application Object Tree forms and generate them dynamically.
We will also show you how you can enhance your application by using advanced form controls, and integrate your system with other external systems. We will help you script and enhance your user interface using UI elements. This book will help you look at application development from a business process perspective, and develop enhanced ERP solutions by learning and implementing the best practices and techniques.
Style and approach
The book follows a practical recipe-based approach, focusing on real-world scenarios and giving you all the information you need to build a strong Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations implementation.
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Seitenzahl: 346
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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Fourth Edition
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Development Cookbook
Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2017 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: December 2009
Second edition: May 2012
Third edition: April 2015
Fourth edition: August 2017
Production reference: 1100817
ISBN 978-1-78646-886-4
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Authors
Deepak Agarwal
Abhimanyu Singh
Copy Editor
Safis Editing
Reviewer
Santosh Paruvella
Project Coordinator
Prajakta Naik
Commissioning Editor
Aaron Lazer
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor
Denim Pinto
Indexer
Francy Puthiry
Content Development Editor
Lawrence Veigas
Graphics
Abhinash Sahu
Technical Editor
Mehul Singh
Production Coordinator
Nilesh Mohite
About the Authors
Deepak Agarwal is a Microsoft Certified Professional who has more than 6 years of relevant experience. He has worked with different versions of Axapta, such as AX 2009, AX 2012, and Dynamics 365. He has had a wide range of development, consulting, and leading roles, while always maintaining a significant role as a business application developer. Although his strengths are rooted in X++ development, he is a highly regarded developer and expert in the technical aspects of Dynamics AX development and customization. He has also worked on base product development with the Microsoft team.
He was awarded the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award from Microsoft for Dynamics AX four times in a row, and he has held this title since 2013.
He shares his experience with Dynamics AX on his blog Axapta V/s Me.
Deepak has also worked on the following Packt books:
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Reporting Cookbook
Dynamics AX 2012 Reporting Cookbook
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Programming: Getting Started
Abhimanyu Singhworks as a Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations consultant. Since the start of his career in 2012, he has worked in the development and designing of business solutions for customers in supply chain management, banking, and finance domain using Microsoft technologies. He has several certifications, including the Microsoft Certified Dynamics Specialist certification.
About the Reviewer
Santosh Paruvella has 12 years of experience in Dynamics AX, and he has worked on various versions of it, from 3.0 to 2012, and Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. He is presently working as a Technical Architect and Lead for various implementation projects, designing the solutions and leading the team towards successful implementations.
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Table of Contents
Preface
What this book covers
Exceptions and considerations
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Sections
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Errata
Piracy
Questions
Processing Data
Introduction
Creating a new project, package, and model
How to do it...
There's more...
Creating a new number sequence
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Renaming the primary key
How to do it...
How it works...
Adding a document handling note
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Using a normal table as a temporary table
How to do it...
How it works...
Copying a record
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Building a query object
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Using the OR operator
See also
Using a macro in a SQL statement
How to do it...
How it works...
Executing a direct SQL statement
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Enhancing the data consistency checks
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Using the date effectiveness feature
How to do it...
How it works...
Working with Forms
Introduction
Creating dialogs using the RunBase framework
How to do it...
How it works...
Handling the dialog event
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating dialogs using the SysOperation framework
Getting ready
How to do it...
Building a dynamic form
How to do it...
How it works...
Adding a form splitter
How to do it...
How it works...
Creating a modal form
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Modifying multiple forms dynamically
How to do it...
How it works...
Storing the last form values
How to do it...
How it works...
Using a tree control
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding the View details link
How to do it...
How it works...
Selecting a form pattern
How to do it
Full list of form patterns
How to do it...
Creating a new form
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Working with Data in Forms
Introduction
Using a number sequence handler
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating a custom filter control
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating a custom instant search filter
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Building a selected/available list
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a wizard
How to do it...
How it works...
Processing multiple records
How to do it...
How it works...
Coloring records
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding an image to records
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Displaying an image as part of a form
Saving a stored image as a file
Building Lookups
Introduction
Creating an automatic lookup
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a lookup dynamically
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Using a form to build a lookup
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Building a tree lookup
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying a list of custom options
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Displaying custom options in another way
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Building a lookup based on the record description
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Building the browse for folder lookup
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a color picker lookup
How to do it...
How it works...
Processing Business Tasks
Introduction
Using a segmented entry control
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Creating a general journal
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more
See also
Posting a general journal
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Processing a project journal
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating and posting a ledger voucher
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Changing an automatic transaction text
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a purchase order
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Posting a purchase order
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a sales order
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Posting a sales order
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating an electronic payment format
How to do it...
How it works...
Data Management
Introduction
Data entities
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Building a data entity with multiple data sources
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Data packages
Getting ready...
How to do it...
There's more...
See also
Data migration
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Importing data
How to do it...
How it works...
Troubleshooting
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Integration with Microsoft Office
Introduction
Configuring and using the Excel Data Connector add-in
How to do it...
How it works...
Using Workbook Designer
How to do it...
How it works...
Export API
How to do it...
How it works...
Lookup in Excel - creating a custom lookup
How to do it...
How it works...
Document management
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Integration with Power BI
Introduction
Configuring Power BI
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Consuming data in Excel
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Integrating Excel with Power BI
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Developing interactive dashboards
How to do it...
How it works...
Embedding Power BI visuals
How to do it...
How it works...
Integration with Services
Introduction
Authenticating a native client app
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Creating a custom service
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Consuming custom services in JSON
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Consuming custom services in SOAP
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Consuming OData services
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Consuming external web services
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Improving Development Efficiency and Performance
Introduction
Using extensions
How to do it...
How it works...
Caching a display method
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Calculating code execution time
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Enhancing insert, update, and delete operations
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Using delete_from
Using update_recordSet for faster updates
Writing efficient SQL statements
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Using event handler
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a Delegate method
Getting ready...
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Preface
As a Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations developer, your responsibility is to deliver all kinds of application customization, whether small adjustments or a bespoke modules. Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is a highly customizable system and requires a significant amount of knowledge and experience to deliver quality solutions. One goal can be achieved in multiple ways, and there is always the question of which way is the best.
This book takes you through numerous recipes to help you with daily development tasks.
Each recipe contains detailed step-by-step instructions along with the application screenshots and in-depth explanations. The recipes cover multiple Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations modules, so, at the same time, the book provides an overview of the functional aspects of the system for developers.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Processing Data, focuses on data manipulation. It explains how to build data queries, check and modify existing data, read and write external files, and use data effectively.
Chapter 2, Working with Forms, covers various aspects of building forms in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. In this chapter, dialogs and their events are explained. Also, various useful features, such as splitters, tree controls, and checklists, are explained.
Chapter 3, Working with Data in Forms, basically supplements Chapter 2, Working with Forms, and explains the data organization in forms. The examples in this chapter include instructions for building filter controls on forms, processing multiple records, and working with images and colors.
Chapter 4, Building Lookups, covers all kinds of lookups in the system. This chapter starts with a simple, automatically generated lookup, continues with more advanced ones, and finishes with standard Windows lookups, such as the file selection dialog and the color picker.
Chapter 5, Processing Business Tasks, explains how to use the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations business logic API. In this chapter, topics such as how to process journals, purchase orders, and sales orders are discussed. Other features, such as posting ledger vouchers, modifying transaction texts, and creating electronic payment formats, are included as well.
Chapter 6, Data Management, explains the data management and data entity concepts, how to build a data entity, data packages, and import and export in Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations.
Chapter 7, Integration with Microsoft Office, explains how to configure and use the Excel Data Connector add-in, and design Excel workbooks with the data feed from Dynamics 365 from Operations using OData. It also covers how to use the export API and document management.
Chapter 8, Integration with Power BI, explains the configuration of Power BI and its integration with Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations to develop interactive dashboards and embed them in Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations workspaces.
Chapter 9, Integration with Services, explains how to use services in Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations. This chapter covers how to create services, authentication, SOAP applications, JSON applications, and OData services. It also demonstrates how to consume external services.
Chapter 10, Improving Development Efficiency and Performance, presents a few ideas on how to make daily development tasks easier. It discusses how system performance can be improved by following several simple rules. This chapter explains how to calculate code execution time, how to write efficient SQL statements, and how to properly cache display methods.
Exceptions and considerations
The code in this book follows the best practice guidelines provided by Microsoft, but there are some exceptions:
No text labels were used to make the code clear
No three-letter code was used in front of each new AOT object
No configuration or security keys were used
Object properties that are not relevant to the topic being discussed are not set
Also, here are some considerations that you need to keep in mind when reading this book:
Each recipe only demonstrates the principle and is not a complete solution
The data in your environment might not match the data used in the recipes, so the code might have to be adjusted appropriately
For each recipe, the assumption is that no other modifications are present in the system, unless it is explicitly specified
The code might not have all the possible validations that are not relevant to the principle being explained
The code might have more variables than required in order to ensure that it is clear for all audiences
Sometimes, unnecessary code wrapping is used to make sure the code fits into the page width of this book and is easily readable
What you need for this book
All the coding examples were performed in a Microsoft Azure-hosted Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations environment. The following list of software from the virtual image was used in this book:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations (Update 6)
Microsoft Visual studio 2015
Microsoft Windows Server 2015 Enterprise
Microsoft SQL Server 2016
Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Office Excel 2015
Microsoft Office Word 2015
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Windows Notepad
Although all the recipes have been tested on the previously-mentioned software, they may work on older or newer software versions with minor code adjustments. As Microsoft is continuously evolving on Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations, we might see some differences while using the same code in older or newer updates of application. Stick to the concept and customize or extend the application.
Who this book is for
If you are a Dynamics AX developer primarily focused on delivering time-proven applications, then this book is for you. This book is also ideal for people who want to raise their programming skills above the beginner level, and, at the same time, learn the functional aspects of Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations. Some X++ coding experience is expected.
Sections
In this book, you will find several headings that appear frequently (Getting ready, How to do it, How it works, There's more, and See also).
To give clear instructions on how to complete a recipe, we use these sections as follows:
Getting ready
This section tells you what to expect in the recipe, and describes how to set up any software or any preliminary settings required for the recipe.
How to do it...
This section contains the steps required to follow the recipe.
How it works...
This section usually consists of a detailed explanation of what happened in the previous section.
There's more...
This section consists of additional information about the recipe in order to make the reader more knowledgeable about the recipe.
See also
This section provides helpful links to other useful information for the recipe.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Then, to override the data source's write() method."
A block of code is set as follows:
[FormDataSourceEventHandler(formDataSourceStr(CustGroup, CustGroup), FormDataSourceEventType::Written)] public void CustGroup_OnWritten(FormDataSource sender, FormDataSourceEventArgs e) { this.numberSeqFormHandler().formMethodDataSourceWrite(); }
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen."
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Customer support
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Downloading the example code
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tab at the top.
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.
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Errata
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Questions
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at [email protected], and we will do our best to address the problem.
Processing Data
In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:
Creating a new project, package, and model
Creating a new number sequence
Renaming the primary key
Adding a document handling note
Using a normal table as a temporary table
Copying a record
Building a query object
Using a macro in a SQL statement
Executing a direct SQL statement
Enhancing the data consistency checks
Using the date effectiveness feature
Introduction
This chapter focuses on data manipulation exercises in all new Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. These exercises are very useful when doing data migration, system integration, custom reporting, and so on. Here, we will discuss how to work with query objects from the X++/C# code. We will also discuss how to reuse macros in X++ SQL statements and how to execute SQL statements directly to the database. This chapter will explain how to rename primary keys, how to merge and copy records, how to add document handling notes to selected records, and how to create and read XML and comma-separated files. The chapter ends with a recipe about the date effectiveness feature.
Creating a new project, package, and model
Elements in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations represent every individual element of AOT such as class, table, form, and so on. Elements in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations are stored on disk as XML files; these files contain the metadata and source code for the element. The XML files are the unit of Source Control.
Projects works the same as AX2012, but in D365 an element can be customized only once they are added to a specific Visual Studio project. The project may only belong to one model.
A Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations model is a group of elements. Standard elements are part of a standard model; you can add them into your model and do customization. A model is a design-time concept. An example of models: warehouse management model, a project accounting model, and more. Models can have one or more projects. Models may only belong to one package.
A Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations package is a deployment and compilation unit of one or more models. It includes model metadata, binaries, cubes, and other associated resources. One or more D365 packages can be packaged into a deployment package, which is the vehicle used for deployment on UAT and production environments. Packages are packaged into a deployable package file for deployment to Sandbox or production environments. A package can have one or more models. Packages can have references to other packages, just like .NET assemblies can reference each other.
How to do it...
To create a new project, follow these steps:
Open Visual Studio as admin.
On the
File
menu, point to
New
, and then click
Project
.
In the list of template types, expand the
Installed
node.
Expand the
Templates
node.
Select the
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations
category.
Select the
D365 Project
template.
Enter the name and location for the new project.
Select
Create directory for solution
if you want to create a new solution for this project, uncheck if you want to add in your current solution.
To create a new model, follow these steps:
Open Visual Studio as admin.
On the
Dynamics 365
menu, point to
Model management
and select
Create model
.
Give a model, publisher name, and other values:
Now here you can create a new package or select any existing package. We could create a new package and select the required package as referenced packages:
Double-check the summary with details. Select
Create new project
if you want to create a new project in this model once created. You can mark this model to all your new projects by selecting options:
There's more...
As you saw, there was one more step while creating a model, Select referenced packages. When you create your own package you can select from an existing package to add them as references in your new package. You may need to add some standard package reference if you want to add them into your customization.
Here are the steps to create a new package:
Open Visual Studio as admin.
On the
Dynamics 365
menu, point to Model management and select
Create model.
Give a model, publisher name, and other values.
On the next step select
Create new package
Give a name to your package.
Next select the existing package as a reference to this new package.
Click on
Finish
.
So now you have your own model with a new package.
Creating a new number sequence
Number sequences in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations are used to generate specifically formatted numbers for record identification. These number sequences can be anything from voucher numbers or transaction identification numbers to customer or vendor accounts.
When developing custom functionality, often one of the tasks is to add a new number sequence to the system in order to support newly created tables. Adding a number sequence to the system is a two-step process. First, we create the number sequence itself; second, we start using it in some particular form or from the code.
D365 contains a list of NumberSeqApplicationModule derivative classes, which hold the number sequence's setup data for the specific module. These classes are read by the number sequence wizard, which detects existing number sequences and proposes to create the missing ones or newly added ones. The wizard is normally run as a part of the application initialization. It can also be rerun any time later when expanding the D365 functionality used, where a setup of additional number sequences is required. The wizard also has to be rerun if new custom number sequences are added to the system.
In this recipe, we will do the first step, that is, add a new number sequence to the system. In a standard application, the customer group number is not driven by any number sequence, so we will enhance this by creating it. The second step is explained later in the Using a number sequence handler recipe in Chapter 3, Working with Data in Forms.
How it works...
We start the recipe by adding a number sequence initialization code into the NumberSeqModuleCustomer_packt class. As understood from its name, the number sequence initialization code holds the initialization of the number sequences that belong to the Accounts receivable module.
The code in the loadModule_Extension() method defines the default number sequence settings to be used in the wizard, such as the data type, description, and highest possible number. Additional options such as the starting sequence number, number format, and others can also be added here. All the mentioned options can be changed while running the wizard. The addParameterType() method is used to define the number sequence scope. In the example, we created a separate sequence for each Legal entity.
Before we start the wizard, we initialize number sequence references. This should be done as a part of the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations initialization checklist, but in this example, we execute it manually by calling the loadModule_Extension() method of the NumberSeqApplicationModule_packt class.
Next, we execute the wizard that will create the number sequences for us. We skip the welcome page and in the second step of the wizard, the Details button can be used to display more options. The options can also be changed later in the Number sequences form before or even after the number sequence is actually used. The last page shows an overview of what will be created. Once completed, the wizard creates new records in the Number sequences form for each company.
The newly created number sequence reference appears in the Segment configuration form. Here, we can see that the Data area checkbox is checked, which means that we will have separate number lists for each company. The number sequence setup can be normally located in the module parameter forms.
See also
The
Using a number sequence handler
recipe in
Chapter 3
,
Working with Data in Forms
Renaming the primary key
Most of you who are familiar with the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations application, have probably used the standard Rename function. This function allows you to rename the primary key of almost any record. With this function, you can fix records that were saved or created by mistake. This function ensures data consistency, that is, all the related records are renamed as well. It can be accessed from the Record information form (shown in the following screenshot), which can be opened by selecting Record info from the right-click menu on any record:
A new form will open as follows:
Click on the Rename button to rename the Vendor Account field value.
When it comes to mass renaming, this function might be very time-consuming as you need to run it on every record. An alternative way of doing this is to create a job that automatically runs through all the required records and calls this function automatically.
This recipe will explain how the record's primary key can be renamed through the code. As an example, we will create a job that renames a vendor account.
How it works...
In this recipe, we first select the desired vendor record and set its account number to the new value. Note that only the fields belonging to the table's primary key can be renamed in this way.
Then, we call the table's renamePrimaryKey() method, which does the actual renaming. The method finds all the related records for the selected vendor account and updates them with the new value. The operation might take a while, depending on the volume of data, as the system has to update multiple records located in multiple tables.
Adding a document handling note
Document handling in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is a feature that allows you to add notes, links, documents, images, files, and other related information to almost any record in the system. For example, we can track all the correspondence sent out to our customers by attaching the documents to their records in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. Document handling on most of the forms can be accessed either from the Action pane by clicking on the Attachments button and selecting Document handling from the Command menu under File or selecting the Document handling icon from the status bar.
