Create New Purchase Requisition is disabled AX 2012

In AX 2012, when attempting to create a new purchase requisition record, the button can be disabled (greyed out) and the user is unable to create any new records (Figure 1 below). Alternately in one of the purchase requisition list pages, the user can click on 'Edit in Grid', then New Purchase Requisition (it will actually be enabled even though it should not be), enter a name, and be met with the error 'Field 'Preparer' must be filled in' halting any further progress (Figure 2 below).  

SOLUTION: These two issues are due to one and the same configuration issue. See below Figure 2 for the solution.

 Figure 1 - Create New Purchase Requisition button is greyed out (disabled)

Figure 2 - The error 'Field 'Preparer' must be filled in.

The solution to this is just a setup issue involving the actual user who is encountering the issue. The user logging into the system must be linked to an AX worker. 

AX has the concept of 'Workers' and actual AX users. AX users are directly linked with Active Directory accounts and Workers are just setup in AX. A user can be both, an AX user and not be a worker, and a worker and not an AX user. If the user will never log into AX, why make them an AX user? The reason that these users are split up is that there will be many users doing things where they will never access AX but still need to be labeled in transactions (e.g. creating orders in AX for Retail POS or through external applications).

Here is how to fix the issue:

1. Navigate to the System Administration -> Common -> Users -> 'Users' form  (Figure 3)
2. Highlight the AX user who is having this problem and click on 'Relations' in the ribbon. This must be the user that is hitting the issue as their AX user needs to be linked to a worker. (Figure 4)
3. Select the HRM Worker setup for that user in AX in the field 'Person'. The 'User Id' field will already be populated with the user selected in the AX user list. Make sure the 'Effective dates are for before today's date and sometime in the future. If the dates don't encompass the current date, the user won't be able to create purchase requisitions. (Figure 5)

Step 3 above populates the DirPerson and DirPersonUser tables.  After these steps are done, you should be in the clear! Note: If the HRM worker of interest in Step 3 can't be seen in the 'Person' field drop down, the user will need to have a worker setup for them or make sure they are not assigned to another user. I won't go into creating an HRM worker as that is a whole other process... Plenty of stuff out there about how to do that...

 Figure 3 - Navigate to the System administration 'Users' form

Figure 4 - The 'Relations' setup in the AX ribbon

Figure 5 - Setup the link between the HRM Worker and the selected AX user