What's new in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 cumulative update 8 [AX 2012]

In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Cumulative Update 8, we added and changed several features. This topic lists the feature changes by module and by country/region, and provides links to related topics.

New features for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Cumulative Update 8

The following table outlines the features that were added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Cumulative Update 8.

Module	What’s new
Human resources	You can now do the following for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): Define and view eligibility and benefit limits for your organization. Set up case security. Create and manage FMLA cases. Run reports. You can now do the following for forecast positions: Copy the worker's fixed compensation earnings to the forecast position's earnings budget cost element. Copy a forecast position with its attributes to a different budget planning scenario. Add cost element lines that include compensation increases to the forecast position. Use the forecast position’s cost element start date as the effective date of the budget plan line. Enter upcoming compensation table increases so that the budgeted earnings costs will include the increases.
Payroll	You can automatically calculate regular rate of pay earnings that comply with the rules specified by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). You can set up a process to automatically determine when workers qualify for premium earnings such as shift differentials or certifications, calculate the amount of the earnings, and add the appropriate lines to worker pay statements. You can automatically generate retroactive earnings statement lines when a worker receives earnings for past services at a new rate. New options allow you more flexibility to define when accrual plan benefits are accrued and used.
Procurement and sourcing	You can create a contact record from the record of an unsolicited vendor. As part of the process for creating new users, Vendor portal administrators can add a vendor who will sign into the portal by using an email address from various providers, such as Yahoo.com or Live.com. Microsoft Dynamics AX authenticates the user via email. Vendor portal signup improvements include being able to specify a default country for vendors, require specific fields in the signup forms, and specify levels of product categories for vendors.
Production control	You can now use recycled products in formulas, and additional production processes are available when working with warehousing, including the definition of more specific input and output locations for materials that are consumed and created in production.
Project management and accounting	Enhancements to revenue recognition performance enables you to: Set up recurring revenue recognition for fixed price projects Recognize revenue on a straight line basis for fixed-price projects. Calculate and post the percent complete revenue recognition on a fixed-price project more quickly.
Public Sector	In Procurement and Sourcing: You can specify that a published RFQ having a specific solicitation type is visible only to vendors who are included on the RFQ. You can specify which elements to allow vendors to see on the Closed requests for quotations page. For public sector users, the Send button on the RFQ Action Pane has been replaced by a Send and publish button, which allows one-step distribution to vendors. Vendor users can search the Vendor portal to see whether their organization is already registered, and add themselves to that record. This can streamline the signup process. In Accounts Payable, when approval or a contract in the form of a purchase order is not required, you can quickly create invoices at the same time as creating records for the vendors. You can generate an account for a vendor directly from the Invoice form. You can also import a file of information for multiple one-time vendors and corresponding invoices, and create vendor accounts and accompanying invoices.
Retail	Shared shifts can be used in Microsoft Dynamics AX Retail and Modern point-of-sale (POS) devices. You can create role-based screen layouts for Modern POS on Windows phones. You can apply filters to product searches on any Modern POS device. You can search for products by using product categories or from within a retail product catalog on any Modern POS device. You can compare product details side by side and provide an enhanced product details view on any Modern POS device. You can resize columns on the Modern POS transaction screen. In Retail essentials, you can migrate and view transactions that have been migrated from Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System. Modern POS clients can now seamlessly shift to offline processing mode. A much simplified self-service deployment option is now available for stores. Retail Hardware Station and Modern POS offline databases can be deployed by using the mass deployment toolkit.
Transportation management	You can now use a load building workbench to automatically build loads based on the templates and strategy that you define.
Warehouse management	Enhancements in warehouse management include the ability to: Use cross-docking to move packages of products through a warehouse while using limited or no storage. Set up a company policy for sales order fulfillment and create batch jobs to release sales orders and transfer orders to the warehouse. Allocate batch numbers. Receive items at a different warehouse than expected. Use product variants in warehouse management processes.

Developer features

Changes that affect developers were introduced in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Cumulative Update 8.

Feature area	What’s new
Microsoft Dynamics AX developer tools for Visual Studio 2013	After upgrading your development computer from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Cumulative Update 8, you must use Microsoft Dynamics AX developer tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 to develop: Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services reports Enterprise Portal for Microsoft Dynamics AX components These tools require Visual Studio Professional 2013, or a better version, such as Ultimate. If you already know how to model reports and Enterprise Portal components by using the development tools for Visual Studio 2010, no new training is required. The Microsoft Dynamics AX development experience does not change after you upgrade. Designing and previewing reports requires Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools – Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2013. You must also install Report Viewer 2012. Side-by-side installations of the development tools are not supported. You must uninstall the Visual Studio 2010 development tools before you install Visual Studio 2013 development tools. Visual Studio 2010 remains the supported version for use with earlier versions of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. Microsoft will end mainstream support for Visual Studio 2010 on July 15th, 2015.
MPOS extensibility	The new Retail POS includes extensibility capabilities that let you customize MPOS for your specific needs. These capabilities address a new user interface, changes to workflow, extending entities, and adding new flows.
E-Commerce	The E-Commerce SDK is extended to support other content management systems and websites along with supporting SharePoint 2013 as a user-interface portal. This includes a Catalog Publishing Connector and Checkout and Order management service.
Commerce Runtime	Commerce Runtime is now extended to support the new Retail POS. It is Portable Class Library compliant, which means you can enable its use across devices. There is also better performance and support for customization.
Hardware Station	The hardware station is included in the SDK to provide access to the hardware station service. In order to support traditional, fixed, and Modern POS scenarios, the hardware station allows MPOS to use peripheral devices over Internet Information Services (IIS) or inter-process communications.

Country-specific new features

In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Cumulative Update 8, we added and changed several country/region-specific features.

Country/region
Brazil
China
India
Japan
Malaysia
Russia
Sweden