Error Running report in AX 2012 – No such host is Known

Hey Guys,
During execution of any report if you will face below issue then I am sharing a resolution for that:

I identified the problem which was as a result in changing the AOS. The original AOS was uninstalled and replaced with a new one, but the old values remained in the registry. 

As a solution, we changed some values on the registry :

Root path: HKLM>SOFTWARE>Microsoft>Dynamics>6.0>Configuration>Original(Installed configuration)
Check values set on aos32, dbserver, internet : change from original AOS to current
HKLM>SOFTWARE>Microsoft>Dynamics>6.0>Configuration>Original(Installed configuration)>setup properties
check values on aos32, clientaosserver: change from original aos to current

*Double click on item to edit/change value
From there we unistalled BI tools and re-installed and deployed reports.

It will solve your issue.

"Financial Dimensions not defaulting from Site on Sales Order" Error in AX 2012 R3

Hi Guys,
For this error, yes we can set it functionally.
The path is: Management > Setup > Posting > Dimension

Security (XDS Part 1)

I’m sure a lot of people will agree that setting up AX and its security is no easy task. Therefore I’ve put together a guide to the information that you need to consider when working with AX 2012 security.
In this first part we will discuss and explain the concept of Role-based security within AX.
1 – Role-based security
At a high level Role-based security works to limit the areas/functions within AX to which a user has the ability to access/Run.
Essentially think of AX as a long corridor with doors on either side, AX security will dictate which doors the user can open and which actions they can take on contents of the that room (AX – records in a table).
These levels can be defined as follows:

Level	Definitions
Entry points	Entry points define the individual sections of code access.
Privileges	Privilege’s define the first level of grouping of entry points and should be used to define an individual tasks. Note – The privilege also dictates the level access available to that privilege.  See fig 2.
Duty	A Duty combines multiple privileges in order to provide a user with the appropriate access to perform a specific process within AX.
Roles	Roles combine multiple Duties in order to allow a user to perform the multiple process necessary to perform their specified day job.

Figure 1

AOT Name	Label	Description
No Access	No Access	Does not provide any access to data.
Read	View	An end-user can view data.
Update	Edit	An end-user can view and edit data.
Create	Create	An end-user can view, edit and create new data.
Correct	Correction	An end-user can view, edit, create new and correct date-effective record without creating new records.
Delete	Full control	An end-user can view, edit, create new and delete data.

Figure 2
2 – Example
The way I like to think of this is that Microsoft have put together a ‘Library’ of ‘Duties’ which can then be selected and placed into the appropriate roles. This is best explained using an example, take the example of the Buying agent whose role is defined as ‘Documents purchase events and responds to purchase inquiries’. If we find this role within AX we can see that the user is made up of the following:

Figure 3
We can see that Microsoft have used the concept of building a ‘Library of Duty’, we can see this if we investigate the duty  Inquire into import letter of credit which can also be found in the following roles:

• Accounting manager
• Accounts payable manager
• Accounts payable payments clerk
• Buying agent
• Chief financial officer
• Financial controller
• Purchasing manager
• Treasurer

Security (XDS)

Data security policies
Prerequisite – Please note to work through this lab you will need to have Admin rights to the system and have basic AOT navigation skills.
Microsoft have introduced an alternative to the ‘Record level security’ used in AX 2009 which caused huge performance issues. This alternative is known as ‘XDS’ (Extensible Data Security).
The concept is extremely simple and it doesn’t take long to setup a XDS query of your own. In this blog I will start by explaining the ‘concept’ behind XDS after which I will run through a simple lab.
Note – Microsoft have have made extensive notes on this feature. Please find the links at the bottom of this page.
Concept
“XDS limits a specific Role to only see a specific set of data within an AX table”  
Above I’ve attempted to summaries in one line the primary function of XDS. In essence the XDS security policy will apply a permanent filter onto a specific table within AX. To understand this better I will work through a simple business requirement.
Company A have two manufacturing sites (Site 1 and 2) they require the Production managers (Worker Z, Worker Y and Worker X) to see specific sets of data.

Worker	Site 1	Site 2
Z	Yes
Y		Yes
X	Yes	Yes

Above we are attempting to display that the share the same AX security roles (the ability to access the same forms and preform the same tasks) however they should only be able to see the data from their respective sites.
Requirement gathering for XDS
The first step in setting up an XDS policy is simply identify the table you would like to apply a filter too, the field you are filtering on and the variants of this filer. So working through this for the scenario above you would end up with:

• Table to be filtered?                                  Production order table
• Field you would like to filter on?               Site
• Variants required?                                     1 and 2

Next we will need to identify the Primary table and the Constrained tables. These have been defined below:
Constrained table – The constrained table act as the table you desire the filter to appear upon (Note – There can be multiple constrained tables as long as the primary table and the filtered field can been seen in that constrained table).
Primary table – The primary table can typically be defined as the field used to filter the constrained table.
In order to identify which tables meet the above definitions navigate to the table you desire to filter upon and identify the appropriate table relationships. Below I have worked through the example of filtering the production order table down by site. This should help you to apply the same logic to your desired business scenario.

1. Open Production control > Common > Production orders > All Production orders.
2. Make sure you have the field site displayed to do this click View > Dimensions
3. Select site and save the changes
4. Firstly we will identify the Constrained table, right click on the field ‘Production order number’ and click ‘Personalize’ in the menu
5. Within the Personalization screen identify the table used (this can be seen in the screen shot below)
   
   
6. Next we will need to identify the primary table and field. In our case the field ‘Site’
7. Right click the field ‘Site’ and select ‘Personalize’
8. Within the Personalization screen identify the table and field used (this can be seen in the screen shot below)
   
   
9. This information has been summarised below:
   

   	Primary table	Filtered field	Applier filter	Constrained table
   XDS – Production orders – Site 1	InventDim	InventSiteID	=”1″	ProdTable
   XDS – Production orders – Site 2	InventDim	InventSiteID	=”2″	ProdTable

10. If you can create an advance query to represent your desired outcome you will also be able to create this using XDS. Also it will help you understand how the relationships work.
    

Pre-XDS setup
Prior to setting up the XDS policy you will also need to create a new Role within AX. This will generate less maintenance than applying the XDS directly to an existing security role. If you were to apply the XDS security policy directly to the production manager security role you would need to then create two production security roles and therefore maintain two production manager security roles rather than the one security role with an additional XDS role on top of that. Instead I would suggest that you create three new security roles one called ‘XDS_Site_1’, ‘XDS_Site_1_2’ and ‘XDS_Site_2’.
To do this follow these steps:

1. Open the AOT (Ctrl+D)
2. Navigate to Security > Roles
3. Right click on the ‘Roles’ node and select New Role
4. Name the roles appropriately (remember to change the name and the label)

Setting up XDS
In this next section we will run through the steps you would need to take in order to create the XDS policy.

1. The first thing you will need to do when creating an XDS policy will be to create a project within the AOT. This will help to keep your work together and simplifies the deployment of code too.
2. Open the AOT (Ctrl + D)
3. Open the projects screen (Ctrl+Shift+P)
4. Right click the ‘Shared’ folder and select New > Project
5. Select an appropriate name for the project (XDS_PRODUCTION_ORDERS_SITE_1)
6. Right click and Open the project

Now we have created a suitable work space to create our policy we will now need to build the query that we would like to run. This should mirror the query set-up in step 10 above.

1. Right click you project and click New > Query
   
   
2. I find it helpful at this point to also name the query to do right click the query and select ‘Rename’ (XDS_InventDim_SITE_1)
3. Next we need to define the primary table
4. Expand the query and right click the ‘Data source’ and select New Data Source
5. This will create a new node called ‘INVALID TABLE_#’
6. Selecting this node should bring up a properties plane on the right hand side of the development screen
7. In the properties screen first select an appropriate name and then specify the table you would liking this node should bring up a properties plane on the right hand side of the development screen
8. In the properties screen first select an appropriate name and then specify the table you would like to filter on.
   
9. We have now selected the primary table but we still need to define the ‘Range’ (Criteria) for the filter.
10. Expand the data source you created and right click on the ‘Ranges’ node and select New Range.
    
    
11. Again using the Properties screen amend the following fields:

Name	XDS_Site_1
Field	InventSiteId
Value	=”1”

1. Next select the field’s node and again in the properties amend the property ‘Dynamic’ to ‘Yes’.
   

Now we have set the query up we need to setup the XDS policy to apply the query to the constrained tables and relate to a specific AX role.

1. Right click the main project ‘XDS_Production_Orders_Site_1’ and then click New > Security > Security Policy
   
   
2. Select the ‘SecurityPolicy1’ node and modify the properties to be:

Property	Value
Name	XDS_Production_Site_1
Label	Restrict Production orders to site 1
PrimaryTable	InventDim
Query	XDS_InventDim_Site_1
PolicyGroup	Production
ConstrainedTable	Yes
Enabled	Yes
Operation	All operations
Context Type	RoleName
Role Name	XDS_Site_1 (setup in step 14)

1. Next we need to define the constrained table. Expand the security policy node to reveal the ‘Constrained table’ node right click this node and select New > Add table by relation
2. Within the properties set the following values:

Property	Value
Constrained Table	Yes
Table	Prodtable
Table Relation	InventDim

1. We have now setup out XDS policy. Remember to COMPLIE THE WHOLE PROJECT! To do this right click the project and click ‘Compile’ this should then remove the red line next the project. (If it doesn’t try closing the window and navigating to it again)

Now we have successfully created the XDS security policy we will need to test that it works to do this you will need a test user account (Don’t apply it to your user as you will then not be able to change yourself back to admin!)

1. Open System administration > Common > Users > Users
2. Select the test user you would like to apply the policy too
3. Select Assign roles and select the roles Production manager and XDS_Site_1
   
   
4. Close your AX application and open again as a different user to do this hold down ‘Shift’ and right click the AX application and select ‘Run as different user’
5. Navigate to the appropriate area and test that the filter has been applied.

Summary
To recap on out original requirements we had 3 users Z, Y and X with the following requirements:

Worker	Site 1	Site 2
Z	Yes
Y		Yes
X	Yes	Yes

To achieve the requirements of Z and Y you would need to create two policies as we did in the example above. However, it should be noted that you CANNOT STACK XDS policies by this I mean if you wanted user X to see sites 1 and 2 but not site 3 you should not apply both two policies created above as they will cancel each other out and you will end up with no data displaying you would need to create a new policy with a query such as =”1”,”2” in a new XDS security role.
The final outcome should be as follows:

	AX ROLES
	Production manager	XDS_Site_1	XDS_Site_2	XDS_Site_3
Worker Z	Yes	Yes
Worker Y	Yes		Yes
Worker X	Yes			Yes

AX 2012 ASN setup

Below I have detailed the steps involved in setting up ASN for AX 2012 R1/R2:

1. Open System administration > Setup > Services and AIF > Outbound ports
2. Create a new Outbound port 
3. Give the Port a name and description e.g. ASN
4. In the field Adapter Select the option ‘File system adapter’
5. Setup a URL/File location for the XML file to be saved to
6. Click Service operations
7. In the Popup window find the service ‘InventASNSerivce,read’ and move it to the left hand pane using the chevron ( < )
   a) If you cannot find the service ‘InventASNSerivce’ you will need to register this via                    the AOT. To do this follow the steps below:
   i.    Open the AOT and navigate to Services > InventASNService
                ii.    Right click Add-ins > Register service
                iii.   If you refresh your service operations in the outbound port setup these services                     should now be available.
   
8. Tick the option ‘Customise documents’ and then select the Data Policies option
9. Within the Data Policies click Enable all
   
10. Then click Close
11. You can chose to setup different value mappings at this point such as:
    1.  Customer numbers (internal or external)
    2. Address information (internal or external)
    3. Item codes (internal, external and Barcodes)
    4. Units of measure (internal or external)
    5. Currency codes (internal or external)
    6. Delivery methods (internal or external)
    7. Terms of delivery (internal or external)
    8. Charge codes (internal or external)
    9. VAT codes (internal or external)
12. Activate you outbound port

Now you will need to create a batch job to process your ASN’s, to do this follow these steps:

1. Open System administration > Setup > Batch groups
2. Create a new batch group called ASN
3. Add the appropriate AOS’s to this batch group
4. Save your changes
5. Open System administration > Inquires > Batch Jobs > Batch Jobs
6. Click Ctrl + N, Enter a name for the Job and then click F5
7. Click View tasks
8. In the Overview section crate two line with the following setup:

Task description	Company accounts	Partition Key	Class name	Class description	Has conditions	Run location	Batch group
ASN	[Your legal entity]	initial	AifOutboundProcessingService	AIF outbound processing service	No	Server	ASN
ASN2	[Your legal entity]	initial	AifGatewaySendService	AIF gateway send service	No	Server	ASN

9. Close the task screen
10. On the Batch Job screen select Recurrence and set the job to process ever minute (optional time frame)
11. Click OK
12. Now you will need to set your batch job to the appropriate status now. To do this click Functions > Change status
13. Select the status Waiting

Now this has been setup we will be able to validate that this works. to do this follow the steps below:
1. Outbound rule setup as follows:

	Auto Send Shipment	Deliver Picked Items	Description	Outbound Rule	Set Picking Line Status To
	No	Yes	WMS	WMS	Staged

2. Create a shipment template to automatically create shipments using the outbound rule above
3. Generate a Sales order with an item which will be picked up by the template created in step 1. Sales and marketing > Common > Sales orders > All sales order
4. Generate the output orders for the sales order
5. Open the shipment screen Inventory and warehouse management > Common > Shipment
6. Find the shipment created from your sales order.
7. Activate your shipment Functions > Activate
8. Open your picking route and pick your order. Inquires > Picking list then Update > Update all
9. Deliver the items
10. On the shipment screen click Shipment staging
11. In the shipment overview click Functions > Load entire shipment
12. On the shipment screen click Functions > Send 
13. On the shipment screen click Functions > Delivery note
14. On the shipment click Functions > Send ASN 

If you now giver the service and the batch job time to process you should find that the XML document has now been created in the designated file location.

Arrival overview (none pallet contolled)

In this post I’m going to be running through the steps required to process an arrival journal using the arrival process. I will cover the pallet receiving process in a separate blog as it has a few additional parameters to consider. (This is AX 2012 R1/R2).
The first task in setting up our receiving process will be to setup a Basic Item, to do this follow these steps:

1. Open Product information management > Common > Released products
2. Click New > Product
3. Enter the following:
   1. Product type – Item
   2. Product subtype – Product
   3. Product name – Receive-Test
   4. Item model group – FIFO (or similar)
   5. Item group – (any)
   6. Storage dimension group – (Site, Warehouse and location controlled)
   7. Tracking dimension group –  (Batch physical inventory)
   8. Stock/Purchase/Sales/BOM unit – (any)
   9. Purchase/Sales VAT group – (any)
4. Click OK.

Now you will need to setup the warehouse. To do this use the Warehouse check list.
Once you have set the information above up you will need to setup an arrival journal type, this will be used by AX to dictate how the item reacts through the system. To do this follow the instructions below:

1. Open Inventory and warehouse management > Setup > Journal names, warehouse management 
2. Create a new Item arrival and select confirm that the following parameters are un-ticked:
   1. Pallet transports – If you have this tick you will need to be using pallet controlled items. This will generate pallet transports.
   2. Check picking location – If you want to use ‘2 stage receive’ i.e. receive the stock onto the inbound dock first then put the stock away to the items default picking location tick this tick box.
   3. Check bulk location – If you are using pallet controlled items you can select this tick box to manage the bulk location put away.
3. Save the journal name.

Next you will need to create a Purchase order for the item created before and confirm the purchase order. This should then generate a record within the arrival overview screen.

1. Open Procurement and sourcing > Common > Purchase orders > All purchase orders
2. Create a new purchase order for an supplier and select the item created above.
3. Confirm this purchase order. Note – You don’t need to confirm for the order to show in the arrival overview. However you will need to confirm if you want to generate the purchase receipt from the arrival overview.
4. Open the arrival overview screen Inventory and warehouse management > Periodic > Arrival overview
5. Click Setup and select the setup as follows:
   1. Restrict to site – Set to the site create above
   2. Journal : Name – Set the arrival journal created above
   3. Purchase orders – Select the Purchase orders tick box
      
6. Next we can choose to save this setup, to do this click Modify > Save as Select a name and click save.
7. Navigate back to the overview tab.
8. In the Display options section there should be an option called Setup name this should allow you to select the setup selected and other versions you might look to setup.
9. Set your date range to pick up the purchase order created.
10. Select this purchase order and click Start arrival.
    
11. This should bring up an info log detailing the arrival journal created, double clicking this will take you directly to the arrival journal. If you need to find this selection at a later date click Journals > Show arrivals from receipts 
12. Once in the arrival journal click Lines 
13. Once on the arrival journal lines enter the required information including:
    1. Site and warehouse
    2. Put away location
    3. Batch ID
    4. Quantity etc..
14. On the head click Post This should then post the arrival journal.
    NOTE – If you had the item model group parameter Supplier batch – Purchase registration selected an additional window would appear at this point allowing you to key in the vendor batch details.

Next you will need to post the product receipts, the Arrival overview screen will allow you to do this task for multiple arrival journals. To do this follow the steps below:

1. Open Inventory and warehouse management > Periodic > Arrival overview
2. Click Journals > Product receipt ready journal 
3. Select the arrival journals you would like to generate the receipt for and click Functions > Purchase receipt
   
   
4. The purchase receipt screen will then be loaded and present the user with the opportunity to enter the different purchase receipts:
   
5. Click OK to post these receipts.

SUMMARY
Above we have completed the following business processes:

• Overview screen of purchase order scheduled to arrive
• Start the arrival for these orders and specify the put away locations
• Update multiple product receipts in one go after checking the stock into its location.

Arrival overview (Pallet controlled)

In this post we will be looking at the arrival overview process whilst using pallets.
I will run through an example to satisfy the following business scenario:

In our example our warehouse will be using a standard put away methodology whereby a warehouse worker will unload the pallet onto a receiving station, register the stock  to this inbound dock and generate the necessary pallet movements within the system for the warehouse staff to complete. 

The first step in this walk through will be to create our Item, warehouse and our arrival journals.
You will need to setup the warehouse. To do this use the Warehouse check list.
NOTE – Make sure your locations have sufficient space and max pallet quantities to receive the pallets. In this example we are using the contoso pallet 42″x42″ which has a width of 42. you will also need to assign pallet types groups into your locations. See the screen shot below for an example of the setup:

1. Open Product information management > Common > Released products
2. Click New > Product
3. Enter the following:
   1. Product type – Item
   2. Product subtype – Product
   3. Product name – Receive-Test
   4. Item model group – FIFO (or similar)
   5. Item group – (any)
   6. Storage dimension group – (Site, Warehouse, Location and Pallet controlled)
   7. Tracking dimension group –  (Batch physical inventory)
   8. Stock/Purchase/Sales/BOM unit – (any)
   9. Purchase/Sales VAT group – (any)
4. Click OK.
5. Open your item main form, you will need to specify the pallet type defaults and quantities that can be loaded onto that pallet. This will be entered in the ‘Manage inventory’ fast tab, populate the fields below:
   • Pallet type – 42″x42″
   • Pallet quantity – 10
   • Min. Output pallet quantity – 1
   • Quantity per layer – 2
     
6. On your item selection the ribbon bar option click Manage inventory > Warehouse > Warehouse item 
7. Create a new line in this form for the warehouse created, then click the tab ‘Locations’ and setup the following information:
   • Store Zone – Select a zone with the store areas your locations can be found in.
   • Default receipt location – Select an inbound location
   • Default issue location – Select an outbound location
   • Use consolidated picking method – According to warehouse setup
   • Picking location – Select your picking location
     
8. Save your setup and exit the item screen.

Once you have set the information above up you will need to setup an arrival journal type, this will be used by AX to dictate how the item reacts through the system. To do this follow the instructions below:

1. Open Inventory and warehouse management > Setup > Journal names, warehouse management 
2. Create a new Item arrival and select confirm that the following parameters are ticked:
   1. Pallet transports – If you have this tick you will need to be using pallet controlled items. This will generate pallet transports.
   2. Check picking location – If you want to use ’2 stage receive’ i.e. receive the stock onto the inbound dock first then put the stock away to the items default picking location tick this tick box.
   3. Check bulk location – If you are using pallet controlled items you can select this tick box to manage the bulk location put away. (If your picking location is full AX will allocate a Bulk location to put the pallet away).
3. Save the journal name.

Next you will need to create a Purchase order for the item created before and confirm the purchase order. This should then generate a record within the arrival overview screen.

1. Open Procurement and sourcing > Common > Purchase orders > All purchase orders
2. Create a new purchase order for an supplier and select the item created above.
3. Confirm this purchase order. Note – You don’t need to confirm for the order to show in the arrival overview. However you will need to confirm if you want to generate the purchase receipt from the arrival overview.
4. Open the arrival overview screen Inventory and warehouse management > Periodic > Arrival overview
5. Click Setup and select the setup as follows:
   • Restrict to site – Set to the site create above
   • Journal : Name – Set the arrival journal created above
   • Purchase orders – Select the Purchase orders tick box
     
6. Next we can choose to save this setup, to do this click Modify > Save as Select a name and click save.
7. Navigate back to the overview tab.
8. In the Display options section there should be an option called Setup name this should allow you to select the setup selected and other versions you might look to setup.
9. Set your date range to pick up the purchase order created.
10. Select this purchase order and click Start arrival.
           NOTE – The pallet quantity has been calculated at this point
11. This should bring up an info log detailing the arrival journal created, double clicking this will take you directly to the arrival journal. If you need to find this selection at a later date click Journals > Show arrivals from receipts 
12. Once in the arrival journal click Lines 
13. Depending on how many units you ordered you should receive multiple line on this journal (one line for each 10 units representing a pallet each)
14. On each line you will need to click Functions > Pallet ID 
15. This will generate a pallet ID for your lines. Upon entering this information click Post
16.  This should confirm that the journal has been posted.

At this point the inventory will be located at the inbound dock and with a pallet transport on the system awaiting a warehouse worker to put away. Therefore then next step is to pick up and process the pallet transport.

1. Navigate to Inventory and warehouse management > Common > Pallet transports 
2. In this screen you should find the pallet transports required to put your stock away
3. Select the line you would like to put away and click ‘Start transport‘
   
4. You can select the work who will then process this transaction etc… Click OK in this screen
5. At this point the transport will be in a status of ‘Started‘ you can complete the transport if the location is as expected, if not you can always use the ‘Change destination location‘ function to amend the put away location.
6. Clicking Complete transport will physically move the stock from the Inbound location to the destination location in a status of ‘Registered’

We now need to post the product receipt to change the status of the stock from Registered to Received 
Next you will need to post the product receipts, the Arrival overview screen will allow you to do this task for multiple arrival journals. To do this follow the steps below:

1. Open Inventory and warehouse management > Periodic > Arrival overview
2. Click Journals > Product receipt ready journal 
3. Select the arrival journals you would like to generate the receipt for and click Functions > Purchase receipt
   
   
4. The purchase receipt screen will then be loaded and present the user with the opportunity to enter the different purchase receipts:
   
5. Click OK to post these receipts.

AX 2012 Shipments (Dispatch with pallets)

Hi All,
In this post we will be looking at the standard functions available within AX around shipments using the Pallet transport functionality.
Suggested reading:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dynamicsaxscm/archive/2010/12/21/wms-related-question-and-answers-on-dynamics-ax.aspx
http://kurthatlevik.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/shipping-container-labeling-guide/
https://patrickhawker.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/ax-2012-asn-setup/
Firstly we will need to look at our setup for shipments.  Shipments are created and managed through the shipment template, this template will dictate multiple attributes such as the reservation sequence, shipment building logic and the required shipment stages.
SECTION 1
Lets start by setting up our shipment reservation sequence/combinations. AX use’s this shipment reservation screen to control the order in in which AX should reserve the stock attached to your shipment based on warehouse and location type (NOTE – AX will also apply FEFO/FIFO rules too).

1. Open Stock and warehouse management > Setup > Distribution > Shipment reservation combinations
2. Within this screen we will define the location priories for our reservations, e.g. Try to reserve against the items picking location first followed by bulk locations etc..
3. In this screen click New
   
4. Create your self a new combination, Below I’ve attached an example of a combination I created which would look to create pallet transports/reserve from the bulk area and then reserve stock in the items primary picking location followed by any picking location followed by bulk locations, outbound location and inbound locations. I have also set my item picking location to trigger pallet refills (we will not generate any in this blog but it will be covered separately at some point!).
   NOTE – For more information on this I would suggest reading this blog: http://axrachit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/ax2012-r2-cu7-pallet-transports-part-iv.html
5. 
6. NOTE – To understand these methods better I’d suggest reading the msdn article here:  Reservation methods 
7. Next we need to create the shipment reservation sequence,  the reservation sequence will define which warehouse’s within your site you should reserve against (in order of priority) based on the reservation combination created above.
8. Open Stock and warehouse management > Setup > Distribution > Shipment reservation sequence 
9. Create a new sequence, click New 
10. Enter a Sequence Id, description and Site for this rule (these rules are restricted by site).
11. In my example I have two warehouse’s a main Sales warehouse (PHAW-W) and a bulk storage warehouse (PHAW-B)
12. Against these warehouse’s select the combination rule created in 4, this should look like this:
    
13. Once you have done this close the forms.

SECTION 2
We have now setup out reservation logic for AX to use when reserving stock against our shipments. Next we will need to create our Outbound rule, the outbound rules define how you work through the shipment, such as will loading be required in order to send the shipment.

1. Open Stock and warehouse management > Setup > Distribution > Outbound rules
2. Click New 
3. Give your rule a name and description.
4. Next you will need to configure the parameters on this screen, these are as follows:
   1. Deliver picked items – Allows you to set your shipment to a status of staged – NOTE – this will not move the picked stock from the stock location into the outbound location. 
   2. Allow send from shipment status – This will enable the ‘Send’ function on the shipment functions screen depending on a specific status.
   3. Auto send shipment – Based on the allow send shipment status AX will automatically post the shipment. (I do not suggest using this as you cannot reverse the sending of a shipment)
   4. Print shipment list – Pre-selects the option to print the shipment list when sending the shipment
   5. Create bill of lading – Pre-selects the option to create the bill of lading
5. For my example I will be forcing my users to load the shipment prior to sending the shipment and I will be sending it manually. This setup looks like this:
   
6. Save and close this form.

SECTION 3
We have now setup the different controlling factors for the shipment we can now setup the shipment template. The shipment template acts as a ‘template’ for the processing of shipment which can be controlled based on the output stock transactions, for example if you have a specific customer that you always consolidate their orders rather than sending order by order, or you sell a specific item that needs to be sent in one shipment.

1.  Open Stock and warehouse management > Setup > Distribution > Shipment templates 
2. I will be creating a shipment template for my main sales warehouse, PHAW-W, I will also be creating this for a specific customer, 1103. 
3. Create a new shipment template, Click New 
4. Set the priory to 1 (Priorities are used by AX to determine the order in which template should be found, so for example you could have a priority of 100 as a sweeping shipment template to pick up and output orders that ‘fell through the net’)
5. Enter a shipment template in my case “Cave Wholesales – TEST” (This will be the name that appears on your shipment later)
6. Next will need to fill in the appropriate fields:
   1. Site – Select your site
   2. Warehouse – Select the warehouse this template should be active for
   3. Outbound dock – This will be the default outbound dock on the shipment when generated
   4. Reservation requirement – This will require the entire shipment to be available for reservation when activating, if un-ticked AX will create a picking rout for the stock that can be reserved.
   5. Sequence ID – [Use sequence created above] *see Section 1 of this post
   6. Outbound rule ID – [Use outbound rule created above] *see Section 2 of this post
   7. Joint packing – Select All – This will guide AX how the orders should grouped when you create picking routes.
   8. Automatic shipment creation – Set this to Ticked – Automatically create shipments using output orders generated in AX.
   9. Automatic addition status – Select Activated – Status in which output orders can be added to the shipment.
   10. Data criterion – Select All days – This will group shipments based on their requested ship date e.g. Today all for today, Next week All orders with request ship date today +7
   11. Joint shipping – Select All – This decides how shipments should be grouped.
       
7. Next we will need to set the criteria for this template as I will be setting this template for one customer (To give me the correct shipment description), to do this click Criteria this can be found in the tool bar on the shipment screen.
8. In your inquiry screen click Add and select the following:
   1. Table – Inventory order
   2. Derived table – Inventory table
   3. Field – Customer
   4. Criteria – 1103 (in my example)
      
9. Click OK and save your shipment template.

SECTION 4 
We have now setup our shipment template and other areas around it. Next we will raised the sales order which will generate our shipment. NOTE – You will need to have a pallet controlled item in stock, also your item model group should have ‘Consolidated picking’ selected.

1. Click Sales and marketing > Common > Sales orders > All sales orders 
2. Click New 
3. Raise an order for the customer defined in your shipment template, in my example this would be 1102 
4. Next raise an order for your required pallet item. The pallets in my example are 100 unit pallets so I’m going to raise an order for 275, 2 full pallets (100 units each) and 75 units pick.
5. Make sure your order is set to the site and warehouse as defined in your shipment template and click Pick and pack > Picking list (NOTE – you might need to refresh your screen).
6. Click OK 
7. Navigate to Stock and warehouse management > Common > Shipments 
8. You should be able to see a shipment created with your shipment description.

If you want to play with the auto consolidation try creating another sales order for either a different item order the same item and see how this accumulates within the shipment.
SECTION 5
So, we’ve created our shipment based on our sales order/orders. Next we need to pick our shipment, generate our pallet transports  and ship or shipment.
Before you do this make sure that you have stock of the product you are shipping in a Bulk location (this will then generate the required pallet transports).

1. Find the shipment generated in section 4 and click Functions > Activate. This will Releasing the picking routes and the pallet transports that are associated with the delivery of this shipment.
   NOTE – The shipment, pick and pallet transport should be in a status of Activated.
   
2. From here we now have a 2 tasks:
   1. Picking route for the 75 units – This would typically be handed to manual picker.
   2. Pallet transport for the 2 full pallet moves.  – This would be handed to the Forklift driver.
3. We will first deal with the pallet moves, to do this navigate to Stock and warehouse management > Common > Pallet transports 
4. There should be two pallet transport required for this shipment, one at a time click Start transport and Complete transport to preform the pallet transport.
   
5. This will now have the set the bulk stock to a status of Picked but it will still be held in the bulk location rather than the destination ‘Outbound location’
   NOTE – This isn’t ideal but for companies that stage their stock and require clear visibility of it, you can however always inquire on the shipment staging screen to see the outbound location of the stock. The stock will be un-available to other pickers and will not show up on counting journals.
   
   
6. Next we will need to complete the picking route for the remaining 75 units. To do this navigate to Stock and warehouse management > Common > Picking routes
   
7. For my picking route I will be using a picking pallet to pick the remaining quantity, 50 units will come from a picking location the other 25 have actually been manually picked from the bulk location. On the Picking route screen select the picking route you would like to work on and click Create picking pallet, Select the pallet type to be used and click OK
   
8. Next the picker will need to confirm the picked goods, to do this click Approve details, in the screen that open validate the information (e.g. make sure that the pallet being picked from does in-fact have the required goods) and click Pick Selected 
9. Do this for all lines created, upon posting the final line you will be presented with the option to deliver the items.  When this comes up click Deliver items 
10. If you navigate to your shipments again you will notice that the shipment has now moved to a status of shipped and the pick and pallet transport should be completed.
11. On your shipment click Shipment staging, This should display you with an overview of the pallets picked.
    
12. We have now picked and staged our shipment. The final step will be to load the pallets onto the shipment, to do this you can either click Functions > Load entire shipment or Load (pallet by pallet)
13. Upon loading all pallets the shipment will be ready to Send, you can at this point print of your consolidated delivery note and send your ASN. This can be done from the shipment screen by clicking Functions > Delivery note, On the delivery note you then have the option to print the shipping labels generating the delivery note from here will also generate the ASN document. (you can re-send the ASN through the functions Send ASN).
14. The  final step will now be to set that shipment to ‘Sent’ to do this click Functions > Send from the shipment. This will change your shipment to a status of Sent.

AX 2012 R3 – WAX – Locations

Hi,
This blog is going to cover the location setup within AX 2012 R3 WAX.
To best demonstrate this I’m going to deign a simple warehouse with 2 location zones a Nut zone and a Nut free zone.

NOTE – Make sure that your warehouse has been activated to use the warehouse management process.

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Zone group
The first area you will need to setup will be the zone group, Zone groups group multiple zones.

1. Navigate to Warehouse management > Setup > Warehouse setup > Zone groups
2. Click New
3. Create 2 groups NUT and NUT FREE
   
4. Close the form

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Zones
The first area you will need to setup will be the zones, each zone need to belong to a zone Group.

1. Navigate to Warehouse management > Setup > Warehouse setup > Zones
2. Click New
3. Create 2 zones NUT and NUT FREE
   
4. Close the form

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Location formats 
Next you will need to create the location formats which will make up the naming convention for the locations.

1. Navigate to Warehouse management > Setup > Warehouse setup > Location formats
2. Click New
3. Create 2 location formats one for the Nut zone and one for the nut free zone
4. In the details section create a new segment.
   1. Segment description – Enter any description
   2. Length – In my example I’m going use a number sequence length of 3 characters
   3. Separator – This acts as a suffix to the number sequence, I’m going to setup the following:
      1. Nut free = “F”
         1. Example – 000F
      2. Nut zone = “N”
         1. Example – 000N
5. This should leave you with the following:
   
6. Close the form.

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Location profiles 
Next we need to setup the location profiles, these control some of the characteristics of the location.

1. Navigate to Warehouse management > Setup > Warehouse Setup > Location profiles
2. Click New
3. Create 2 profiles NUT and NUT FREE
4. Create the profiles and ensure that the following are selected:
   1. Use License plate tracking – This enables license plate tracking (more info here)
   2. Allow mixed items – Allows mixed items to be stored in a location
   3. Allow mixed inventory status – Allows mixed inventory status in the location
   4. Allow cycle counting – Allows the user to cycle count the location
      
5. Save and close the form

NOTE – AX 2012 R3 WAX does offer the ability to define the location dimensions too.

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Location setup Wizard 
Now that we’ve configured the zones and profiles we’re ready to generate our locations.

1. Navigate to Warehouse management > Setup > Warehouse setup > Location setup Wizard 
2. We are going to be doing two time’s (One for the Nut zone and one for the Non-Nut zone)
3. NUT setup:
   1. In the wizard screen define the following:
      1. Warehouse – [Your warehouse]
      2. Zone ID – NUT
      3. Location profile ID – NUT
   2. This should generate a line in the grid below in this grid we can now define the number of locations we would like. In my example I’m going to create 4 locations so from location 1 to location 4.
      
   3. Once here click Build to generate the locations
   4. This should generate an info log confirming the locations created:
      
4. Repeat this setup for Nut Free zone, the only difference should be:
   1. Zone ID = NUT FREE
   2. Location profile Id = NUT FREE
   3. Select the locations 5 to 10
      
   4. Click Build, and confirm the info log:
      
   5. Close the info log.

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Validate the locations
Next we need to validate that the locations have been created correctly:

1. Navigate to Warehouse management > Setup > Warehouse Setup > Locations 
2. Validate that you have the following:
   
3. close the form.

AX 2012 – Batch Shelf life control

Hi,
This post looks at explaining the ‘Shelf life periods’ in AX 2012.
Through this post we will look at the following areas:

• Terminology
• Shelf life setup

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Terminology
Before we move onto the shelf life setup in AX we should first understand each of type of date which is available in AX 2012.
The below diagram shows you the four date types in AX 2012 and how each of these periods are calculated:

The Manufacturing date in AX acts as the starting point to the in calculating the other dates. The manufacturing date can be captured/generated at multiple points:

• Receiving:
  • Today’s date (this will be the default when the batch is created)
  • Supplier batch date (If the item model group has been setup to use supplier registration the user will have the opportunity to enter a supplier batch date which can then override the manufacturing date)
• Production:
  • Today’s date (this will be the default when the batch is created)

*NOTE – This depends on when you create the batch. This can either be done manually or by using the item ‘Batch number group’ see the tech net article Number groups.
From the Manufacturing date the following dates can be calculated:

• Expiration date: The Expiration date is calculated forwards from the manufacturing date using the Shelf life period in days. 
• Best before date: The Best before date is calculated backwards from the expiration date using the Best before period in days
• Shelf advice date: The shelf advice date is calculate forward from the manufacturing date using the Shelf advice period in days

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Shelf life setup
The Shelf life periods can be setup against a product using the steps below:

1. Open your products
2. Click Edit
   
3. Scroll to the tab Manage stock and look for the heading Item data
   1. Shelf advice period in days = 3
   2. Shelf life period in days = 10
   3. Best before period in days = 2
      
4. Save and close the form

Examples: Using the item setup above I will now run through the dates that would appear if I were to receive this product via a Purchase order:
Today’s date = 01/08/2015

1. Without supplier batch registration:
   1. Manufacturing date = 01/08/2015
   2. Shelf advice date = 04/08/2015
   3. Best before date = 09/08/2015
   4. Expiration date = 11/08/2015
      
2. With Supplier batch registration (30/07/2015)
   1. Manufacturing date = 30/07/2015
   2. Shelf advice date = 02/08/2015
   3. Best before date = 07/08/2015
   4. Expiration date = 19/08/2015