Release Notes for Business Integration Solutions 7.1.1602

for Microsoft Dynamics AX 7 Release Notes

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Table of Contents

1. General ...................................................................................................................................... 4

1.1 Purpose ..................................................................................................................................... 4

1.2 Audience ................................................................................................................................... 4

1.3 Installation Notes ...................................................................................................................... 4

1.4 Software Requirements ............................................................................................................ 4

1.5 Documentation ......................................................................................................................... 4

1.6 Support ..................................................................................................................................... 4

1.7 Labels ........................................................................................................................................ 4

2. New Features ............................................................................................................................ 5

2.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 5

2.1.1 Upgrade results .......................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Connectivity Studio ................................................................................................................... 6

2.2.1 Design dashboard ....................................................................................................... 6

2.2.2 Operation dashboard .................................................................................................. 6

2.2.3 File support via Azure file storage .............................................................................. 6

2.2.4 Parameter form requires a link to one Azure file store .............................................. 7

2.2.5 Windows share setup ................................................................................................. 8

2.2.6 ODBC agent ................................................................................................................ 8

2.2.7 Guids added to each record ....................................................................................... 9

2.2.8 URL share .................................................................................................................. 10

2.2.9 Formulas are added to the mapping ........................................................................ 10

2.3 Depreciated features .............................................................................................................. 11

3. Other Improvements and Fixes ................................................................................................ 12

4. Known Issues ........................................................................................................................... 13

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Document Information

Title Release Notes for Business Integration Solutions 7.1.1602 for Microsoft Dynamics AX 7

Subtitle (Subject) Release Notes

Solution Suite BPA; Business Process Automation

Category Release Notes

Author BIS team

Published Date 9/27/2016

Status Final

Comments --

© Copyright To-Increase 2015. All rights reserved. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of To-Increase B.V. To-Increase B.V. assumes no liability for any damages incurred, directly or indirectly, from any errors, omissions or discrepancies between the software and the information contained in this document.

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1. General

1.1 Purpose This document describes the new releases 7.1.1602 of To-Increase Business Integration Solutions for Microsoft Dynamics AX. Please read this document carefully before installing. If you are interested in the practical how-to information we provide on the To-Increase blog, you can follow the links we provide in some sections of the document. You find our blog at www.to-increase.com/blog/.

1.2 Audience The document audiences are consultants and customer end users.

1.3 Installation Notes To install Business Integration Solutions you need a valid license key. The following five licenses are available:

Business Integration Solutions

Connectivity Studio

1.4 Software Requirements Business Integration Solutions components are released on the following kernel build.

Version Kernel build Application version

Microsoft Dynamics AX 7 update 1 6.2.158.0 6.2.158.0

1.5 Documentation Help documentation for Business Integration Solutions is available in U.S. English.

1.6 Support You can obtain information regarding technical support from your Microsoft Dynamics AX partner. You can also contact To-Increase through the Partner Portal or send email to productsupport@to-increase.com.

1.7 Labels This release is shipped with U.S. English labels. Please contact your Microsoft Dynamics AX partner for labels in other languages.

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2. New Features

In this latest release, the Business Integration Solutions suite includes multiple new features. Section 2.1 describes features that apply across several of the solutions. The later sections discuss solution-specific features.

2.1 General

2.1.1 Upgrade results Connectivity Studio is migrated from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to Microsoft Dynamics AX 7. The migration is done with some results in mind.

The solution is migrated “as is” without changing existing functionality

The kernel is still the same, so the mapping and file API didn’t change. Therefore the risk is pretty low and the result is the same as in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

The user experience is almost the same. Exceptions are due to the following reasons o Everything runs in the cloud, therefore file access and ODBC required a redesign. o The best practices required some changes to the UI

The configuration of projects can be exchanged from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to 7

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2.2 Connectivity Studio

2.2.1 Design dashboard Designers can use the dashboard to get access about the information of their own project.

2.2.2 Operation dashboard IT department can watch the integrations per application. You can easily see the inbound and outbound messages for AX, for CRM or another application.

2.2.3 File support via Azure file storage Accessing files from a cloud application can be a challenge. Azure file storage helped us to achieve our goals and is a better choice than the blob storage. It supports SMB (Server Message Block) protocol which gives us a lot of benefits:

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1. Connect to the Azure File Storage and use files as usual with the windows explorer (copy, paste, drag and drop)

2. Connect from your Azure machine or on premise server and use it as a windows share. 3. The file API could remain the same, therefore XML, JSON, text files or Microsoft Excel files work as

before. 4. In Connectivity Studio we can define and use the windows shares similar to before.

Create a new Azure file storage via: https://portal.azure.com

A VPN connection can be used to connect to your own on premise servers too.

2.2.4 Parameter form requires a link to one Azure file store To enable version management, a connection to a Azure file storage must be setup. The folders in this share can be added and linked as below.

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2.2.5 Windows share setup The windows shares are used to define a share for your integrations or migrations. This can be used to specify multiple connections to different Azure file storage shares. It’s not limited to one! That means a direct connection to your business partner is possible too.

2.2.6 ODBC agent ODBC is difficult from the cloud. A VPN connection can solve that in an easy way but requires a lot of setup on the Azure server. A VPN tunnel is not possible today as the server is currently managed by Microsoft.

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The agent is the easiest way to connect from the cloud to any ODBC database on premise. From AX7 and the agent a connection will be setup and used to the Azure Service Bus. With that a connection can be made via the agent to any database. It’s easy to setup and to implement.

A connection to the service bus is similar to ODBC but with the addition of the properties for the Service Bus connection.

Read more here: <URL for the definition>

2.2.7 Guids added to each record Data management cannot handle complex relations in an easy way. It makes it hard to get data in and out. Therefore a guid is introduced per record. It’s a technical implementation which is designed to help us later to compare data.

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It’s possible that you get an error in the setup which can be solved with the “Auto fix” option. This option is added to the project form as well to make it easy to fix documents, connectors and all related setup.

2.2.8 URL share Generating parameterized URLs is one of the most common requirements. Using the URL share functionality, you can easily define parameterized URLs per environment, per company, per message, and per HTTP action (verb).

Please load the tutorial project “Tutorial – REST” to see how to set up the messages and the file actions on the Windows folder connector.

2.2.9 Formulas are added to the mapping As Microsoft Dynamics AX 7 runs in the cloud and it’s more difficult to deploy code between environments. To avoid code changes a new option for formulas is added:

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The formula is using dataset functionality from .Net.

It’s one row with the variables as columns

Can be used to calculate amounts

String manipulation

Condition checking

Date calculations are not supported https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.datacolumn.expression(v=vs.110).aspx

2.3 Depreciated features Some features are depreciated due to the new design of Microsoft Dynamics AX 7

The AIF service document (AIF documents are not supported anymore)

The changelog connector

Direct SQL as production environments are maintained by Microsoft.

Staging tables are not generated by the system due to the disconnect of the dev / user interface

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3. Other Improvements and Fixes

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4. Known Issues

There are no known issues.