AX 2012 Integrations - using Microsoft Connector for Dynamics

Although MS Connector for Dynamics' purpose is to connect and integrate products from MS Dynamics family it is possible to use it to integrate AX and 3rd party's systems.

We are currently using Connector this way. I faced several problems through AIF services development to be able to use them with Connector. Here are some points.

AX 2012 R3 Demo running on Azure

I was thinking how to try new release of AX 2012 when the test environment (virtual machine) provided by Microsoft is quite demanding and I have no server with required configuration.
I found this article about how to set up AX 2012 R3 demo on Azure. Hope it will help.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axinthefield/archive/2014/05/01/setting-dynamics-ax-2012-r3-demo-with-lcs-and-azure.aspx

Note: You will need acces to Dynamics Lifecycle Services (https://lcs.dynamics.com/) and some Azure subscription.

Microsoft Office for iPad

I've just tested Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint for iPad. Attached documents are created on iPad mini.

For me Microsoft Office for iPad is quite perfect software.

PowerPoint sample

Excel sample

Ax 2012: Pass printer settings from class dialog to SSRS report

For one project I needed to create standard runnable class which calls SSRS report in a while loop. The question was how to work with the printer/destination settings.

Solution: 

1. Create your runnable class "YourController" from which you will control calls of your report "YourReport".

2. Create your printer setup class "YourPrinterSetup".

class YourPrinterSetup extends RunBase
{
    Map                     mapPrinterSettings;
    YourController   baseClass;
    Args                    args;

    #define.CurrentVersion(1)
    #localmacro.CurrentList
        mapPrinterSettings
    #endmacro
}

void new(Args _args)
{
    ;
    mapPrinterSettings = new Map(Types::Enum, Types::Container);
    Args = _args;

}

public container pack()
{
    return [#CurrentVersion, [#CurrentList, mapPrinterSettings.pack()]];

}

public boolean unpack(container _packedClass)
{
    Version     version;
    container   packedPrinterSettings, packedOutPaymRecordList, packedValues;

    version = RunBase::getVersion(_packedClass);

    switch (version)
    {
        case(#CurrentVersion) :
            [version, packedValues] = _packedClass;

            [#currentList, packedPrinterSettings] = packedValues;
            break;
        default :
            return false;
    }

    if (packedPrinterSettings)
    {
        // Recreate the object from the packed values.
        mapPrinterSettings = Map::create(packedPrinterSettings);
    }
    else
    {
        mapPrinterSettings = new Map(Types::Enum, Types::Container);
    }

    return true;

}

static void main(Args _args)
{
    YourPrinterSetup printSetup = new YourPrinterSetup(_args);

    printSetup.run();

}

updatePrinterSettings is used to store chosen settings.

public void updatePrinterSettings(container _printerSettings)
{
    mapPrinterSettings.insert("1", _printerSettings);

    baseClass.setPrinterSettings(_printerSettings);

}

In run method the standard SRSPrintDestinationSettings class is called. 

void run()
{
    SrsPrintDestinationSettings printSettings;
    FormRun                     printSettingForm;
    boolean                     ok = true;
    Object                      caller = args.caller();

    baseClass = caller.runbase();

    printSettings = new SrsPrintDestinationSettings();
    printSettings.unpack(this.getPrinterSettings());

    printSettings.fromPage(1);
    printSettings.toPage(99999999);

    args.caller(printSettings);
    args.name(formstr(SRSPrintDestinationSettingsForm));

    printSettingForm = classfactory.formRunClass(args);
    printSettingForm.init();
    printSettingForm.run();
    printSettingForm.wait(true);

    ok = printSettingForm.closedOk();

    if (ok)
    {
        this.updatePrinterSettings(printSettings.pack());
    }

}

3. Create Menu item "YourPrinterSetupMenuItem" of type Action. Object type Class, Object "YourPrinterSetup" class.

4. Add "YourPrinterSetupMenuItem" to the dialog of your "YourController" class. Something like this:

dialog.addMenuItemButton(MenuItemType::Action, "YourPrinterSetup", DialogMenuItemGroup::CurrentGrp);

5. Don't forget to implement setPrinterSettings method to your "YourController" class. It is used to pass chosen printer settings to "YourController".

public void setPrinterSettings(container _settings)
{
    printerSettings = _settings;

    printDestinationSettings = new SRSPrintDestinationSettings();
    if (conlen(printerSettings) > 0)
    {
        printDestinationSettings.unpack(printerSettings);
        dialogReportDestination.value(strFmt("%1", printDestinationSettings.printMediumType()));
    }
}

6. Pass printer settings to your "YourReport". Use it in that place where you call the report. See example below.

public class YourController extends RunBaseBatch
{
    container       printerSettings;
}

public void run()
{
    SrsReportRunController      srsReportRunCont;
    SRSPrintDestinationSettings printDestinationSettings;

    printDestinationSettings = new SRSPrintDestinationSettings();

    if (conlen(printerSettings) > 0)
    {
        printDestinationSettings.unpack(printerSettings);
    }

    srsReportRunCont = new SrsReportRunController();
    srsReportRunCont.parmReportName('YourReport.Report');
    srsReportRunCont.parmReportContract().parmPrintSettings(printDestinationSettings);
}

Hope it will help someone.
Mind that you can modify SrsPrintDestinationSettingsForm to enable/disable possibilities.