How to use default dimensions as Dialog fields in dialogs [Dynamics AX 2012]

Friends,

This post will help you how to add default dimensions as dialog fields on the dialogs in AX 2012.

There is a new class that has been introduced in AX 2012 by name DialogFieldDimensionDefaultingController to handle this.

This class has been used in very few places in standard AX 2012 and is little tricky to pick the relevant code.

So this post will be handy for all developers at least at high level to get the default dimensions as dialog fields.

Below is the dialog with the default dimensions as dialog fields.

Code walkthrough:

Create a new class and methods as shown below one by one

class SR_DimensionDialog extends RunBase

{

 

    #DimensionDefaultingFieldSetElements

    DimensionAttributeValueSetStorage           dimAttrValueSetStorage;

 

    DialogFieldDimensionDefaultingController    dfDimDefaultingControllerChecksAndValues;

    DimensionDefaultingFieldSet                 dimensions;

 

    Dialog dialog;

   

    #DEFINE.CurrentVersion(1)

    #LOCALMACRO.CurrentList

          dimensions

    #ENDMACRO

}

 

Object dialog()

{

    dialog = super();

    dialog.caption("DialogFieldDimensionDefaultingController example");

    dfDimDefaultingControllerChecksAndValues = dialog.addDimensionDefaultingController();

 

    //dfDimDefaultingControllerChecksAndValues.initWithChecksAndValues(false, false, false, true, 0, "Dimensions as dialog fields example", "@SYS104593");

    dfDimDefaultingControllerChecksAndValues.initWithValues(false,false,true,0,"Dimension – dialog fields");

 

    return dialog;

}

boolean getFromDialog()

{

    dfDimDefaultingControllerChecksAndValues.save();

    dimensions = dfDimDefaultingControllerChecksAndValues.value();

 

    return super();

}

public container pack()

{

    ;

    return [#CurrentVersion, #CurrentList];

}

void run()

{

 

   // dimAttrValueSetStorage = DimensionAttributeValueSetStorage::find(Dimensions[#DimDefaultingFieldSet_AttrValueSetId]);

}

public boolean unpack(container packedClass)

{

    boolean     ret     = false;

    Version     version = RunBase::getVersion(packedClass);

 

    switch (version)

    {

        case #CurrentVersion:

            [version, #CurrentList] = packedClass;

            ret = true;

            break;

    }

    return ret;

}

static void main(Args args)

{

 

    SR_DefaultDimensionsDialog sr_DefaultDimensionsDialog;

 

    sr_DefaultDimensionsDialog = new SR_DefaultDimensionsDialog();

 

        if (SR_DefaultDimensionsDialog.prompt())

        {

            SR_DefaultDimensionsDialog.run();

        }

}

Some more methods you can try in the DialogFieldDimensionDefaultingController class are shown below.

I have used initWithValues as I am interested in only capturing the dialog values.

If you use InitWithChecksAndValues method, your dialog looks like below

However you need to write additional code to make it work though.

 

Explore the other methods based on your requirements.

 

That’s all for now.

 

Happy Dax6ng.

 

Duplicate SSRS reports [Dynamics AX 2012]

Friends,

We all know that we will have requirements to modify an existing SSRS report but would not like to alter the original, rather create a duplicate and work on it.

But, Do we have the option in AX 2012? The answer is “NO” and it’s a real problem/hectic job for a developer to create it from scratch. Even when we try to do this from visual studio 2010, it is not allowed to change the report name as it says it exists in another layer.

Well, I have created a utility to duplicate the SSRS reports from AX. It works all fine and gets built successfully and was able to render the data as well. Once the report is duplicated, you can change the design in Visual studio.

This really helps the developer in not creating the DP classes, contract classes etc. and can customize the existing DP classes by adding the new fields in temp tables.

Below is them new utility walk through:

Go to Tools >> Business Intelligence Tools >> Create duplicate SSRS reports

This will open all existing SSRS reports in the picker

Select any report : a new dialog will open with the new report name as “CopyOf” select report Name, you can modify the report name here
based on your requirements.Click on Ok button.

A new report gets created in SSRS reports as shown below

Nice right! Now lets us open this in Visual studio 2010 and you can play with the design.

You can see the new report in the Application Explorer as shown below:

Add this report to your project and build it. It builds successfully and is ready for preview as well.

Interested ones, please shoot me an email. I will send the XPO.

Happy Dax6ng,

CurrencyExchangeHelper class in Dynamics AX 2012 [X++]

Friends,

In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, the currency and exchange rate framework has been enhanced to share information across multiple legal entities.

There is a new class by name CurrencyExchangeHelper that has been introduced in AX 2012 to support this.

This class will help you to do some calculations between currencies. Some important methods to use:

calculateTransactionToAccounting

Example : This method will convert the transaction currency in to accounting currency defined in ledger Table.

static void SR_CEH_Example1(Args _args)

{

    CurrencyExchangeHelper currencyExchangeHelper;

    CurrencyCode transCurrency = ‘EUR’;

    AmountCur amountCur = 500.00;

    AmountMst amountMST;

   

    currencyExchangeHelper = CurrencyExchangeHelper::newExchangeDate(Ledger::current(), systemDateGet());

    amountMST = currencyExchangeHelper.calculateTransactionToAccounting(transCurrency, amountCur ,true);

    info(strFmt(‘%1′,amountMST));

}

 

Result :

calculateAccountingToTransaction

This method calculates the transaction currency amount from an accounting currency given.

static void SR_CEH_Example2(Args _args)

{

    CurrencyExchangeHelper currencyExchangeHelper;

    CurrencyCode transCurrency = ‘EUR’;

    AmountCur amountCur;

    AmountMst amountMST = 500.00;

   

    currencyExchangeHelper = CurrencyExchangeHelper::newExchangeDate(Ledger::primaryLedger(CompanyInfo::findDataArea("DUM").RecId), systemDateGet());

    amountCur = currencyExchangeHelper.calculateAccountingToTransaction(transCurrency, amountMST ,true);

    info(strFmt(‘%1′,amountcur));

}

Result :

While searching through, I found that there are  parmExchangeRate1 and parmExchangeRate2  methods that to calculate based on the exchange rates that have been provided. Please refer to the below example which calculates the misc charges [markup amount] based on the exchange rates defined.

 

 

Class Name : Markup >> calcMarkupAmount

Exploring more…will post soon!

 

Happy Dax6ng,

 

FormAutoLookupFactory class and methods in AX 2012 to perform form lookups

Friends,

FormAutoLookupFactory class has been newly introduced in AX 2012 which will help for form lookups on controls [strings, integers], Reference controls etc. by returning formRun class object

Create a new form as shown below with a new string edit control

Override the lookup method of the String Edit and add the below code

public void lookup()

{

    HcmWorker               selectedRecord;

    Args                    args;

    FormRun                 formRun;

    Form                    workerLookupForm = new Form(formStr(HcmWorkerLookup));

    FormControl             control = this;

    FormStringControl       stringControl       = control as FormStringControl;

 

    args = new Args();

    args.name(formStr(HcmWorkerLookup));

    args.caller(this);

 

    args.parmObject(this);

 

    // position the lookup to highlight the current record

    // a string control supposed to contain a personnel number value

    selectedRecord = HcmWorker::findByPersonnelNumber(stringControl.text());

 

    if (selectedRecord.RecId != 0)

    {

        args.lookupRecord(selectedRecord);

    }

 

    // perform form lookup on the caller form control

    formRun = FormAutoLookupFactory::buildLookupFromCustomForm(stringControl, workerLookupForm , AbsoluteFieldBinding::construct(fieldStr(HcmWorker, PersonnelNumber), tableStr(HcmWorker)), args);

    stringControl.performFormLookup(formRun);

 

    //selectedRecord = formRun.selectRecordModeSelectedRecord();

 

}

There are 4 static methods in FormAutoLookupFactory to explore

 

For any reference controls lookups : use

 

formRun = FormAutoLookupFactory::buildReferenceLookupFromCustomForm(referenceControl, workerLookupForm, args);

 

Below is the lookup

 

Also, There are 2 new methods added in AX 2012 to formrun class as well selectRecordModeSelectedRecord() and selectrecordMode()  that will help to get the selected records.

Please note: This is just a quick example and you need to customize it based on your requirement from the calling control

 

Happy Dax6ng,

How to handle SSRS reports which will take long time to run with the messages to the user [Dynamics AX 2012– preRunValidate() method]

Friends,

We know that there are/will be some reports which will take more time to render due to the many rows/transactions. This post will help you to show appropriate warning/error messages to the end user while running the report.

The number of records that are processed by report might be large and the user experience will be affected, because the client will be locked up if printing to the screen. [msdn]

In this case, you might want to return a warning message to the user that indicates that time to process the report might be long and confirm that they want to run the report. [msdn]

Another case could be where the number of records being processed is very large and a time-out might occur in report processing and clearly we should not run this report. [msdn]

In this case, we should not run the report and therefore, should return an SrsReportPreRunState::Error enumeration value with the error message.

In AX 2012, SSRS reports , through SrsReportRunController we can easily let the user know that the report will take more time with warnings or error messages through preRunValidate method.

Example : General Journals report

Let me take the standard example of Print journal from General Ledger >> Reports >> Journal >> Print journal.

I am using standard LedgerJournalController class to help you understand preRunValidate method: this validates container before running the report. We have to override this method to do custom pre-validation for any report. Typical use of this method will be to validate if the time taken to run the report is acceptable.

In this standard example: If the query is going to retrieve more than 1000 rows, a confirmation Box will be displayed to the user as shown below.

To get the confirmation box and for the sake of the demo/understanding: I have hardcoded the rows count to 1001 as shown below. There is a new static method in QueryRun::getQueryRowCount that will get the row Count of the query.

Please note: Remove hardcoded values later. This is hardcoded only for the sake of demo/Walk through

Clearly in the below standard example : warning limit is 1000 and error limit is 100000. However this is customizable based on your requirement.

Now let us run this report as shown below : Click on the Ok Button.

Here comes the confirmation Box: If your report is long running, it may time-out. Do you want to continue?

In order to resolve/by pass this confirmation Box, a developer can change the macro #define.warningLimit to greater value

Example : #define.warningLimit(2000);

Now lets increase the row count : to 1000001.

Please note: Remove hardcoded values later. This is hardcoded only for the sake of demo/Walk through

Let us run the report One more time as shown below.

Here comes the error message: Running the report has been cancelled due to the time it will take to run. Adjust the parameters of the report and retry.

In order to resolve this problem, Increase the ErrorLimit macro value in the preRunValidate method.

Please note, it is not recommended to increase as it will take more time and your box cannot handle load.

Example : #define.ErrorLimit(150000);

That’s it for now.

Happy Dax6ng,

Extensible data security Framework– Create Policies [Dynamics AX 2012]

Friends,

This is really interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed learning Policies and implementing them.

The extensible data security framework is a new feature in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 that enables developers and administrators to secure data in shared tables such that users have access to only the part of the table that is allowed by the enforced policy. This feature can be used in conjunction with role-based security (also supported in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012) to provide more comprehensive security than was possible in the past. [MS Help]

Extensible data security is an evolution of the record-level security (RLS) that was available in earlier versions of Microsoft Dynamics AX. Extensible data security policies, when deployed, are enforced, regardless of whether data is being accessed through the Microsoft Dynamics AX rich client forms, Enterprise Portal webpages, SSRS reports, or .NET Services [MS help]

Let me walk through with a simple example:

Requirement is to show a particular user only those Bank accounts that belongs to the Bank group “BankCNY”

Below are the Bank accounts that are available in my system. By using policy framework on roles , I can restrict user to view only bank accounts that belong to Bank group “BankCNY”

First of all , where are these policies in AX? They are actually in the AOT >> Security >> Policies

 

Before we create policies, we need to create a query to use it in policies. Remember, try to optimize the queries to the best otherwise it might lead to performance issues.

To keep it very simple, Create a Query by name SR_BankAccountTable by adding data source[PrimaryTable] as “BankAccountTable” and add a range on BankGroupId field and set it to “BankCNY” as shown below

 

Now let us create a new Role by name SR_BankController as shown below

Go to AOT >> Security >> Roles >> New Role

Set the following properties of the newly created role by right clicking and going to properties

Now lets create duties for this role: In this example I will create one simple duty called “SR_BankAccountsMaintain”

Go to AOT >> Security >> Duties >> Right click >> New Duty

Set the following properties for the newly create duty. Name it as “SR_BankAccountsMaintain” and provide label and description as shown below

 

Now, let us create a new privilege and add entry points [Menu Items] to it to provide only access to the user

Go to AOT >> Security >> Privilege >> New Privilege.

Name the privilege as “SR_BankAccountTableMaintain” and set the label and Description as shown below

Now drag and drop some menu items on to Entry points from AOT >> Menu Items >> Display as shown below

Now add this newly created privilege  “SR_BankAccountTableMaintain” to the duty “SR_BankAccountMaintain” which we have created.

Then, add SR_BankAccountsMaintain duty to the Role SR_BankController

Now, let us create a new Policy by name “SR_BankAccountPolicy” and set the properties as shown below

Set the below properties

In the above screen, Select the context type as “RoleName“ and the role “SR_BankController” and select the query as ”SR_BankAccountTable”

PrimaryTable : should always be the first data source Table which you have added in the query. So, select BankAccountTable

A constrained table is the table or tables in a given security policy from which data is filtered or secured, based on the associated policy query. For example, in a policy that secures all sales orders based on the customer group, the Sales Order table would be the constrained table. Constrained tables are always explicitly related to the primary table in the policy [MS Help]

Context [MS help]

A policy context is a piece of information that controls the circumstances under which a given policy is considered to be applicable. If this context is not set, then the policy, even if enabled, is not enforced.
Contexts can be of two types: role contexts, and application contexts. A role context enables policy application based on the role or roles to which the user has been assigned. An application context enables policy application based on information set by the application

we are almost done, we need to add this role= to some user and verify whether he is able to see only Bank accounts that belongs to BankCNY group

Go to System Administration >> Users >> select any user >> Click on Assign roles.

Select “Bank Accounts controller”  and click on Ok Button.

Now , let us log in with the user credentials for which we have assigned the new Role and verify the Bank accounts.

As you see, the user can only see the Bank accounts which belong to “BankCNY” group.

That’s it for now.

Happy Dax6ng

Get the latest exchange rates in Dynamics AX 2012 [Using X++]

Friends,

Below small snippet will help you to get the latest exchange rates as on today.

I am using x-rates URL to pull the exchange rates for this example. Please check/verify the URL before using it [free source or not].

static void SR_getExchangeRates(Args _args)

{

    int         curPos, endPos, startPos;

    TextBuffer  tb = new TextBuffer();

    System.Net.WebRequest webRequest;

    System.Net.WebResponse webResponse;

    str page;

    System.IO.StreamReader streamReader;

 

    try

    {

        webRequest = System.Net.WebRequest::Create("http://www.x-rates.com/d/INR/table.html");

 

        // this will throw an webexception if cannot be reached.

        webResponse = webRequest.GetResponse();

        streamReader = new System.IO.StreamReader(webResponse.GetResponseStream());

 

        tb.setText(”);

        page = streamReader.ReadToEnd();

 

        streamReader.Close();

 

        tb.setText(page);

        curpos   = 1;

        startPos = 1;

        tb.regularExpressions(false);

 

        tb.find(‘<a href="/d/INR/USD/graph120.html" class="menu">’, curpos);

 

        startpos = tb.matchPos();

 

        tb.find(‘</a>&nbsp;</font></td>’, startpos);

        endpos = tb.matchPos();

 

        page = tb.subStr(startpos, endpos – startpos);

        info(strFmt("1 USD = %1 INR",strreplace(page,‘<a href="/d/INR/USD/graph120.html" class="menu">’,”)));

 

        // Close the webResonse

        webResponse.Close();

    }

    catch(Exception::CLRError)

    {

        throw error(AifUtil::getClrErrorMessage());

    }

}

Below is the output:

If anyone is interested in integrating the exchange rates in to the tables ExchangeRate , ExchangeRateType , ExchangeRateCurrencyPair  

[AX 2012] , please drop me an email/message.

 

Well, to get exchange rates for other currencies you need to modify the URL  as shown below. [Change INR to EUR etc.]

 

Thank you to x-rates.com

 

Happy Dax6ng,

 

 

Display Barcode in SSRS report [Dynamics AX 2012, X++]

Friends,

Today let us learn how to quickly display barcode(s)  in SSRS report, AX 2012.

I will be using report data provider as a data source type. First , let us create a query by name SR_InventItemBarCode and drag and drop InventItemBarCode table as data source. Set the dynamic property on fields to “Yes”

Create a new DP class and methods as shown below:

[

    SRSReportQueryAttribute(queryStr(SR_InventItemBarCode))

]

class SR_InventItemBarCodeDP extends SRSReportDataProviderBase

{

    SR_TmpInventItemBarCode sr_TmpInventItemBarCode;

    BarcodeSetupId  barcodeSetupId;

    BarcodeSetup    barcodeSetup;

    Barcode         barcode;

    FontName        barcodeFontName;

    FontSize        barcodeFontSize;

}

/// <summary>

/// Initializes barcode elements.

/// </summary>

protected void initializeBarcode()

{

    barcodeSetupId  = InventParameters::find().BarcodeSetupIdPick;

    barcodeSetup    = BarcodeSetup::find(barcodeSetupId);

    barcode         = barcodeSetup.barcode();

 

    if(barcodeSetup.BarcodeType != BarcodeType::NoBarcode)

    {

        barcodeFontName = barcodeSetup.FontName;

        barcodeFontSize = barcodeSetup.FontSize;

    }

    else

    {

        barcodeFontName = ”;

        barcodeFontSize = 0;

    }

}

 

/// <summary>

/// Validate and format barcode value before it can be displayed

/// </summary>

/// <param name="_barcodeValue">String which should be encoded to a barcode format</param>

/// <returns>Encoded barcode string</returns>

public BarCodeString encodeBarcode(Str _barcodeValue)

{

    if (barcodeSetup.validateBarcode(_barcodeValue))

    {

        barcode.string(true, _barcodeValue);

        barcode.encode();

    }

    else

    {

        throw(error(strfmt("@SYS41409", barcode.barcodeType(), _barcodeValue)));

    }

 

    return barcode.barcodeStr();

}

/// <summary>

/// Processes the report business logic.

/// </summary>

[

    SysEntryPointAttribute(false)

]

public void processReport()

{

    QueryRun                queryRun = new QueryRun(this.parmQuery());

    InventItemBarCode       inventItemBarCode;

 

    this.initializeBarcode();

    while (queryRun.next())

    {

        inventItemBarCode = queryRun.get(tableNum(InventItemBarCode));

        this.insertIntoTmp(inventItemBarCode);

    }

}

 

protected void insertIntoTmp(InventItemBarcode _inventItemBarCode)

{

    // encode barcodes

    sr_TmpInventItemBarCode.ItemId         = _inventItemBarCode.itemId;

    sr_TmpInventItemBarCode.BarCodeString  = this.encodeBarcode(_inventItemBarCode.itemBarCode);

    //sr_TmpInventItemBarCode.BarCodeString  = this.encodeBarcode("packing12345"); // you can use any value as barcode string

    sr_TmpInventItemBarCode.insert();

}

/// <summary>

/// Fetches data from SR_TmpInventItemBarCode Table.

/// </summary>

/// <returns>

///  SR_TmpInventItemBarCode Data for the report.

/// </returns>

[SRSReportDataSetAttribute(tableStr(SR_TmpInventItemBarCode))]

public SR_TmpInventItemBarCode getTmpInventItemBarCode()

{

    select sr_TmpInventItemBarCode;

    return sr_TmpInventItemBarCode;

}

Now lets open visual studio 2010 and create a new report as shown below: [I hope you all know by now how to create a report from Visual studio, If not please follow my earlier posts]

In the below screen, I have added new report and a dataset, set the data source type as Report data provider and in the query I have picked the data provider class “SR_InventItemBarCodeDP”

 

Once you select the DP class in the query and fields from the temporary  Table “SR_TmpInventItemBarCode” you should find the fields in the Dataset Node as shown below.

 

Now drag and drop the dataset on to Designs node. it will create a auto design as show below.

Now , let us set some styles and layout templates on the Design and the data Region as shown below

 

Right click on the AutoDesign1, select properties and set the Layout template as “ReportLayoutStyleTemplate”

 

 

Right click on the DataSet1Table, select properties and set the Style template as “TableStyleTemplate”

 

Now , we will set up some properties on the data field “BarCodeString” to look like Barcode. Right click on the BarcodeString field >> properties >>

 

Select Style >> click on the ellipses button as shown below

 

This will open Cell Style editor and select BC C128 Wide and Size as 20 pt as show below. [Chose based on your requirement]

 

For more information on the type of barcodes, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode#Types_of_barcodes

 

 

 

Right click on the AutoDesign1 and chose preview: Below is the Barcode rendered on to the report.

 

Happy Dax6ng,

Get list of printers in Dynamics AX 2012 for SSRS reports [Using X++]

Friends,

Below code snippet will help to get the list of available printers in AX 2012.

static void SR_AvailablePrinters_SSRS(Args _args)

{

    Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Framework.Reporting.Shared.PrinterHelper printerHelper;

    System.Collections.ArrayList names;

    System.Collections.IEnumerator enumerator;

    str name;

    // BP Deviation documented

    printerHelper = new Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Framework.Reporting.Shared.PrinterHelper();

    names = printerHelper.get_PrinterNames();

    if (names != null)

    {

        enumerator = names.GetEnumerator();

        while (enumerator.MoveNext())

        {

            name = enumerator.get_Current();

            info(name);

        }

    }

}

However, the code which we have learnt to get the list of printers in AX 5.0 will still give the same results in AX 2012.

Just wanted to show another way of getting the printers information in AX 2012 for SSRS printer destinations.

static void SR_2009AXPrinters(Args _args)

{

    PrintJobSettings pjs;

    SysPrintOptions options = new SysPrintOptions();

    int i;

    str printerName;

    ;

 

    pjs = new PrintJobSettings();

       

    for (i = 1 ; i <= pjs.getNumberOfPrinters() ; i++)

    {

        printerName = pjs.getPrinter(i);

        pjs.deviceName(printerName);

        info(printerName);

    }

}

Happy Dax6ng,

Save SSRS report to pdf that uses Controller classes [Dynamics AX 2012]

Friends,

This is the most commonly asked requirement of saving the report to pdf and send it to through email.

We all know that SRSReportRun class is helpful in combination with printDestinationsettings to save to pdf file.

But tricky requirements are those which uses controller classes for the report. Below is the small snippet which will help to save the sales invoice report to pdf that actually uses controller classes.

 

static void SR_SaveReportToPDFFromController(Args _args)

{

    SalesInvoiceController  salesInvoiceController;

    SalesInvoiceContract    salesInvoiceContract;

    Args                    args = new Args();

    SrsReportRunImpl        srsReportRun;

    CustInvoiceJour         custInvoiceJour;

    ReportName              reportName = "SalesInvoice.Report";

    ;

 

    select firstOnly custInvoiceJour;

    args.record(custInvoiceJour);

   

    salesInvoiceController = new SalesInvoiceController();

    salesInvoiceController.parmReportName(reportName);

   

    salesInvoiceContract = salesInvoiceController.parmReportContract().parmRdpContract();

    salesInvoiceContract.parmRecordId(custInvoiceJour.RecId); // Record id must be passed otherwise the report will be empty

    salesInvoiceContract.parmCountryRegionISOCode(SysCountryRegionCode::countryInfo()); // comment this code if tested in pre release

    salesInvoiceController.parmArgs(args);

 

    srsReportRun = salesInvoiceController.parmReportRun() as SrsReportRunImpl;

   

    salesInvoiceController.parmReportRun(srsReportRun);

    salesInvoiceController.parmReportContract().parmPrintSettings().printMediumType(SRSPrintMediumType::File);

    salesInvoiceController.parmReportContract().parmPrintSettings().overwriteFile(true);

    salesInvoiceController.parmReportContract().parmPrintSettings().fileFormat(SRSReportFileFormat::PDF);

    salesInvoiceController.parmReportContract().parmPrintSettings().fileName(‘c:\\SR_SalesInvoice.pdf’);

    salesInvoiceController.runReport();

}

Below is the pdf file output:

Happy Dax6ng,