Microsoft Dynamics AX – dyntips.com by Fredrik Sætre

AX7 – Employee self service Workspace

Posted on December 18, 2015December 18, 2015 by Fredrik Sætre

Gone is the old and dreaded Enterprise Portal. We welcome the new Employee Self Service workspace!

It is pretty nice and gives a great overview of all your needs and requirements.

It looks nice and is a very informative dashboard experience.

It shows a picture and some contact information to the far left. You can also here enter your own information and keep it up to date. Addresses, Contact information, Picture, Personal contacts (ICEs ++) and identification numbers like Social security numbers and so on.

Under the section of My information you find:

Work items assigned to you.
An overview with a small status update on your expenses with a quick add function.
Your Timesheets.
Certificates that are about to expire
Internal discussions and meetings
Performance goal status and tracking
Latest updated skills
Compensations has a nice show/hide function in case a co-worker is looking over your shoulder.

Under Company information you’ll find the company directory with all the contact information to your co-workers and an overview of open jobs within the company which one could quickly apply to.

Under Additional information there are links to several more forms regarding you as an employee.

This looks very nice and will move a lot of data entry work from HR to the employee them selves.

AX7 – Default dashboard

Posted on December 17, 2015December 18, 2015 by Fredrik Sætre

The default dashboard is what you end up on when you click the Dynamics AX icon in the top right corner or go to Common > Common > Default dashboard.

It has a banner on top that is set for configurable for each company with the company name printed on it.

There are three subsections: Left, middle (biggest) and right.

The left section contains a calendar with todays date circled and your session date showing. By selecting a date you’re prompted with a dialogue to change session dates.

Below the calendar are two groups with your menu favorites and recent menu items showing.

The center section is a view of the Work spaces. Each work space has a very nice little picture next to it to make it easier to find what you want.

The right section has a list of your work tasks.

I believe that this is a configurable dashboard and can be configured. But I like the ease of use and overview it gives.

AX7 – What’s new manufacturing

Posted on December 16, 2015December 18, 2015 by Fredrik Sætre

Disclaimer: The information is gathered from a pre released version of AX7 and might be subject for change before final release.

It has been stated that the next AX version will be equal to AX 2012 R3 when it comes to features, but there are some new knick knacks you should be aware of.

Mainly it’s the new user interface that offers some very nice new opportunities to interact with the existing data model. There are some new features as well.

Workspaces

Workspaces are the new dashboard experience that Microsoft is introducing. It is basically a combination of different elements. The consist of PowerView reports, Tiles (Replace cues), A list of some tables with their own action menus and a set of links/functions.
Together it is a very powerfull tool when used correctly.

Production floor management workspace is created for the manufacturing shop floor manager or formen. A one-stop-shop for all their needs from releasing, prioritizing, managing the workers, managing feedback and so on.

The visual impression is pretty nice and it gives new possibilities to combine insight and action.

General improvements to the UI

It is no surprise that the new interface is totally transformed and it takes some getting used to, but when you can grasp the new combination of forms and processes that it supports it is pretty obvious that Microsoft has been listening to their customers to gear the solution towards actual processes.

Like this beauty above which you are presented when clicking the “Production orders to release”-tile in the Workspace.

In a glance it shows the critical on-hand which is crucial when releasing jobs to the manufacturing floor.

Also they have moved away from the constraints of the menu structure (Common, Reports, Journals…) as well. Like accessing Manufacturing Execution.

Talking about Manufacturing execution…

Job Card Device and Terminal = Shop Floor Terminal

The job registration form is still present, but now it is called “Job card Terminal“. The new interface called “Job Card Device” is an alternative to the Shop Floor Control Job registration form and is actually very similar to the Windows New UI app that they developed.

The interface is snappy and very intuitive!
Production related buttons on the left side and actions related to the user on the right side. It works just like the Job card Terminal and is handling time and attendance with absence, work times, breaks and so on. Nifty!

Looking forward to implementing this!

Time and Attendance (Special): Adding new menu items

Posted on December 11, 2015March 14, 2016 by Fredrik Sætre

As the JobRegistration form is pretty special and is über configurable, you have to do some magic to add new menu items to it.
Don’t just go ahead and add new buttons directly to the form it self as this can mess it up. You should to add the new buttons to the configuration tool so you can select them and handle them as any other configurable button.

Here’s the quick guide:

Add new element to Enum.JmgSignInButtonFunction
Add functions to Class.JmgRegistrationForm

Example for a menu item for printing labels:

Create a new menu item that is to run the action
(Remember to find a smashing icon to go with it)
In Class.jmgMESClientSelection
- Add the enum element to case switch in buttonFunction2MenuItemStr
- Add the new menu item in the case switch buttonFunction2MenuItemType
- Add the method string return in menuItemStr2MethodName

Thank you Dag Arild for helping on this one.

Time and attendance (Part 20/31): Advanced pay agreement delimitation

Posted on March 20, 2015March 22, 2015 by Fredrik Sætre

You want to create as much automation in creating payment lines as you possible can and in some cases it does get quite complicated.
As covered earlier in “Time and Attendance (Part 8/31): Pay agreements Delimitation” you can do standard delimitations on one or a combinantion of several different types of parameters like profile settings, job settings, employee compatancies, time and attendance parameters and more. But in some cases you need more then one or an and/or scenario of delimitations or in some cases you want to use other parameters from the referenced post like the absence group or Project type. That is where the Advanced delimitations come in to play. Using this there are virtualy no limitations to the configurations you can do.

You can find the “delimitations” setup under the pay agreement lines form at the top.

There are eight different types of classes for delimitations available and you can create you own or update these if needed.

Certificates
Skils
Absence codes
Aktivities
Profile table
Activities in Projects
Projects
Operations

You can create combinations of multiple delimitation classes for one pay agreement line.

First pick the class you want in the overview grid.

Then in the conditions at the bottom of the screen you create your own little set of Advanced conditions. The example I’ve created here is based on the Absence class.

Pick from any of the transactional data or the referenced post, so there are A LOT of options here.

Time and attendance (Part 19/31): Electronic timecard setup

Posted on March 19, 2015March 18, 2015 by Fredrik Sætre

Timecards are used to manualy enter time and to let the users change their raw registrations.

It can be entered in three ways:

From/to timestamps
Elapsed time
Net time

You can also select if the from and to dates should be shown if work normaly goes on for several days.

Setup for the timecard is done at Human Resources > Setup > Time and Attendance > Time and Attendance parameters | Display options > Electronic timecard.

Activate the user:
Check the timecard checkbox on the workers time and attendance settings under employment.

Now the user can use the timecard features.

Time and Attendance (Part 18/31): Switch codes

Posted on March 18, 2015March 12, 2015 by Fredrik Sætre

Switch codes are used for swapping different pay types in pay agreements. Most often used to switch between flex and overtime or no pay (break) and overtime or some pay account build up.

A switch code is set up as an indirect activity in a group marked with the switch code type. This is found at: Human Resources > Setup > Time and Attendance > Indirect Activities

Switch codes can be used together like overtime before and overtime after profile time. You can also set them up to cancel one or more other switch codes. For instance if the user has descided to apply overtime to his work after regular profile hours, but then descide that he wants to do a flexi or work account build-up. In that case the user register a “build-up switch code” which cancel the earlyer registered overtime switch code.

Time and Attendance (Part 16/31): Planned absence

Posted on March 16, 2015March 12, 2015 by Fredrik Sætre

For long term absence and vacation planning I would recommend doing the absence registration as early as possible.
To create absence for a worker you can click the menu item as showd below:

You can view, delete and create new absence for the user in this form.

Create new and select the from and to date as well as a absence group and/or code.
Ticking the “Interrupt” check box will cancel the absence the next time the worker clocks in canceling the rest of the absence. If the absence is interrupted the Interrupted flag will be tagged making this absence not active anymore.

Bulk creation:
You can also do quick and bulk updates of absence. This is good for doing vacation planning.
Go to Human Resources > Periodic > Time and Attendance > Create planned absence

Select the from and to date for the intervals and select the absence job. REMEMBER TO SELECT THE WORKERS by clikcing “Select”.
Ticking the “Interrupt” check box will cancel the absence the next time the worker clocks in canceling the rest of the absence.
Ticking the “Compose” check box will create one line for each day for the durration of the absence.

Messed up?
If you some how create absence for to many users (forget to limit the filter) there aren’t a way to see absence for all users as a menu item. Then you would need to open the JmgAbsenceCalendar table and work in that one.

You can arrange the absence to be automaticaly transfered to Human resources Absence journals by ticking the check box in the time and attendance general parameters. Make sure you have an open absence journal to make sure that the data has a place to go. Go to: Human Resources > Periodic > Absence > Create absence journals to create these tables.

The planned absence will be filled as absence for standard work time for users when applicated.

Time and Attendance (Part 15/31): Profile group Profile relations

Posted on March 15, 2015March 24, 2017 by Fredrik Sætre

Profile relations:
The profile relations can be used to dynamicaly change between profiles based on the time when the user clocks in. I use this for shift workers and also where they don’t have flexi hours but can work either from 5, 6 or 7.

The profile relations override the standard profile for the user.

Time and Attendance (Part 14/31): Profile calendar

Posted on March 14, 2015March 12, 2015 by Fredrik Sætre

The profile calendar is used to make planned changes to the default profile that is used for calculation. When doing the profile calculation the system checks the Profile calendar to override the default profile and this is loaded as the profile for that journal. So you can predetermin the profile that the user is going to have at calculation by creating a record in the profile calendar table. You can set this up for special work days that deviate from the standard work hours, but it is also a very nice tool to handle complex profiles where the profile changes from week to week. Go to Human Resources > Setup > Time and Attendance > Time Profiles > Profile Calendar to add new records.

You can do changes for entire profile groups or for all workers as well by changing the Profile calendar code collumn to Group or All. Use special day collumn to trgger the special day in the pay agreement. For instance if a Monday is Christmas Day and if someone comes in and does work, they will get the special day pay instead of a simple Monday.

There is a great graphical tool for handling profile calendar which is called job planner. I will look into that later.