Personal Windows OS toolbar overlaying full screen RDP session issue

This is a basic one folks but addressed something that was driving me NUTS.

I was using Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) and had the bottom of the screen cutoff by my actual physical desktop toolbar even when in full screen (Figure 1 below).

The fix, for me at least, was to go into the RDP settings, move the sizing from full screen to a fixed size, then move the slider back to the full screen setting (Figure 2 below)

I literally was doing all sorts of things before this to fix the issue with no success. It was the only thing that consistently addressed the issue.

Figure 1 - My desktop toolbar overlaying the RDP full screen session

Figure 2 - Adjust the display configuration

A guide to debugging the Microsoft Dynamics AX Debugger

Debugging the AX Debugger can be a little bugger'. Here are a few things to check for as to why you aren't able to debug some code.

• Make sure your user is added to the Debugger group on the instance your in
• IMPORTANT: You'll want to log out and back into your instance. This means actually logging out and not just close and reopen AX and/or the RDP session. 
• This might be the issue if the debugger pops up but is greyed out and AX seems to have acknowledged the breakpoint but breezed right past it
• Make sure your breakpoints are set and enabled and not 'disabled'. 
• There is a button next to the set breakpoints in the toolbar that allow enable/disable
• Assure the code where your breakpoint is is actually being hit.
• This is a make sure its plugged in type response but you'd be surprised how common it is...
• In your user options under Development tab, make sure the 'Debug mode' is set to 'When Breakpoint'
• The breakpoint might be set in a spot that the debugger can't hit. For example, the clicked method on a button.
• adding a line of code for 'breakpoint;' rather than using the red dot breakpoints will allow you to debug these methods
• If the code is running in the CIL, you may need to make the code run on the client. 
• Go to your user options > 'Development' tab and uncheck 'Execute business operations in CIL'. 
• If the code is running in batch, you'll need to debug this process via Visual Studio. The breakpoints in AX are for client processes only generally. 
• You may need to adjust the breakpoint check boxes in the Dynamics AX Configuration Utility under the Developer tab. There are two settings there: 'Enable user breakpoints to debug code in the business connector' and 'Enable global breakpoints to debug code running in the Business Connector or client'
• Check the AOS debugger settings. Dont remember what this check box(es) are called but there is something on the AX AOS config that can be a factor. 

AXUG Summit 2016

This years Dynamics AX User Group (AXUG) Summit http://www.axugsummit.com/home in Tampa, FL from October 11th-14th will be great!

I'm presenting the below sessions there.

This year will be a vastly different experience for the presenters. ConferenceHarvester.com is being used and its pretty cool. It assures that all presenters are well prepared. There are even training videos about how to present. They'll also assist in sending out tweets during your presentation.

For the AX users, there will be significantly more speakers from Microsoft and AX customers over previous years, which tended to be partner heavy.

All in all, very impressed! Hope to see you there!

Issue with Excel word being replaced (HSA converted to HAS automatically)

I was having an issue typing HSA in Excel and it being constantly 'corrected' to 'HAS'. I literally could not type HSA, which stands for health savings account (HSA).

You can correct this by two steps: 1) Create the word in the custom dictionary and 2) remove the autocorrect option for HSA/HAS combination.

Step 1 - Add HSA to the custom dictionary

1. In Excel
2. File > Options (Figure 1) > Proofing > 'Custom Dictionaries' 
3. Select the dictionary you'd like to add the word to (Figure 2)
4. Click 'Edit word list'
5. enter 'HSA' in the word field 
6. Click 'Add' 
7. Click 'Ok'

Step 2 - Autocorrect removal for HSA/HAS

1. In Excel
2. File > Options (Figure 1) > Proofing >  'AutoCorrect Options'
3. Type the word you are trying to type (HSA for me) in the 'Replace' field
4. Look for the replace/with combination you are hitting (HSA/HAS for me)
5. Highlight the record, click 'Delete', then click 'Ok'

Figure 1

Figure 2 

Figure 3

AX POS Error: Step 4: Creating Device Token failed

When I was trying to activate a cloud POS (CPOS) terminal, I was getting the error: 'Step 4: Creating Device Token failed' or something similar to that. I didn't take a screen shot of the image unfortunately. But it was similar to that.

The error is because the CPOS wasn't able to hit the AX '7' database. The CPOS uses a single AxDB database, in my case in the 'all in one' server, which the CPOS needs to have access to.

The environment was the AX 7 Update 1 using upgraded data from the AX 7 RTW release.

The Update 1 data changed in regards to some setup information. Event Viewer gave me some information into this essentially saying that the axruntimeuser wasn't able to access the DB. This, among other things, led me to believe the channel database setup was wrong.

To reconfigure the channel database 'connection string', you'll need the connection string (duh). I used Visual Studios Server explorer to create a connection to the database with the AxDB database for the CPOS, then clicked 'Properties'. The connection string will be right there. (Figure 1)

Paste this value into the appropriate connection string (Figure 2). Mine was the 'Default' one. Run the 1070 job (I think that's the channel job... if not, run that one).

You'll need to cycle the Retail Server application pool also (Figure 3 below).

There were a few other random settings I had to change from RTW configs to update 1 but the above was the main one. I think there were only 3-4 other places.

Hopefully this helps someone else jump past this issue!

Project Maderia Updates

Project Madeira is a new Office 365 product which is aimed as a SMB (Small-Medium sized Business) ERP offering based on Microsoft Navision (as you will see from the default demo Cronus data :-) )

Its still in Beta and not officially implemented as a 'Release to Web' (RTW) version (as of August 2016) so there are constantly changes being made on a monthly basis. It can be hard to keep up, especially if you are working on ISV extensions to the product.

Make sure to book mark the below link to see an actively updated list of what is new to the product on a month by month basis. Very informative!!

What's New in Project "Madeira"

AX 2012 R3 Retail Error when running a retail distribution job: 'Failed to create a session; confirm that the user has the proper privileges to log on to Microsoft Dynamics'

[Going through old notes in my retail folder and posting here]

I was attempting to run a Retail Data Distribution job in AX 2012 R3 to a POS and got the below error. It was 'Failed to create a session; confirm that the user has the proper privileges to log on to Microsoft Dynamics'. I recently ran the generate classes and create staging tables functions so there was new code in place. 

I did a little debugging as the error was not retail specific and it was odd it was being thrown where it was. Sure enough, the CIL wasn't recognizing my current user which is why it wasn't working... Obviously this isn't a bug but rather something within AX. Come to find out, I had previously built the classes and staging tables for the jobs in the USR layer, deleted them, then rebuilt them in the proper layer/model. That threw some issues into the system.

A compile, usage data clear allowed me to get the new error in Figure 3. Obviously that told me to do a full CIL build. I did that, problem solved!

 Figure 1 - The error in question

 Figure 2 - Line 51 is where the error was being thrown.

Figure 3 - The actual error in question. Its actually quite helpful!