Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics

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Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics

• Mamdouh Al-Enezi

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What is Microsoft Dynamics?

• Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated,
  adaptable business-management solutions that
  works like and with other Microsoft software to
  help you drive success.
• From www.microsoft.com/dynamics
• It is a suite of systems for typical business
  management needs
• Supply Chain Management
• Customer Relationship Management
• Financial Management

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Microsoft Dynamics Adding Value
Strategic Value
Aligned
Accountable
Productive

• Roles based
• Out of the Box
• Easy to Use
• Embedded
• Scalable
• Customizable

Familiar
Agile
Integrated
Sharable
Consistent
Scalable
Personal and Team Insight
Sound Data
Corporate Decisions
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Supply Chain Management

• SCM covers a wide variety of ERP (Enterprise
  Resource Planning) applications, including
  automation of
• Inventory management
• Order processing, including self-service portals
• Production project management
• Distribution
• Vendor management

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Customer Relationship Management

• Sales and marketing automation, including
• Lead tracking and profitability assessment
• Contact management
• Opportunity generation
• Campaign management
• Service delivery tracking
• Problem resolution

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Financial Management

• Main applications include
• Accounting support with regulatory compliance
• International dealings with multiple currencies
  and languages
• Business performance monitoring
• Business intelligence analytics for decision
  making

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Microsoft Investment

• Microsoft has invested over 1bn in Microsoft
  Dynamics, mostly through a number of acquisitions
  over the past decade
• Great plenty of features, many abilities and
  huge expertise in the product suite available
  today
• Confusing overlap of functionality, different
  development approaches, unclear choices
• Be patient!

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Business Wants Management Automation

• The value of accounting packages is well known
  and proven
• Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Resource
  Planning, and Customer Relationship Management
  are well established in medium and larger
  business
• Traditionally, this was difficult for smaller
  organisations due to cost and lack of flexibility
• Smaller organisations rarely formalise their
  business processes
• But clever modularisation of management systems
  your ability to customise them value for
  every organisation

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Product Application ComparisonA Somewhat
Subjective and Generalised Opinion
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Future of Microsoft Dynamics

• November 2006 in Munich, Bill Gates announced
  Microsoft Dynamics Live, starting with CRM, in
  late 2007
• Presents a serious hosting and re-sale
  opportunity, especially in conjunction with
  consulting services that are likely to be
  required
• Overall, Microsoft have to integrate all the five
  products into a unified offer, but this will take
  time, perhaps another 3 years at least
• In particular, it will be necessary to unify the
  developer side of Dynamics, which is made a
  little easier by the gradual move of the suite
  towards Web Services and .NET
• This move is already under way

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Microsoft Dynamics RoadmapSlide From Convergence
2006 Conference
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Architectural OverviewAX, CRM, GP, and NAV but
not SL (as not available outside US and Canada)
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Microsoft Dynamics NAVReview ERP, CRM, and
financials for a smaller to medium business, with
a great self-service portal for partners and
customers
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Architecture of NAV (1/2)

• Traditional client-server application, with
  business logic on the server, and to some extent,
  client
• Client has a feel of Outlook
• You can integrate with Office Outlook and Word
  (for mail merge)
• NAV Application Server
• Installs and runs with SQL Server 2005 (or 2000)

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Architecture of NAV (2/2)

• Integration within NAV with
• NAV Commerce Portal
• Microsoft Commerce Server customised by NAV
• Customer-self service
• NAV Commerce Gateway
• Microsoft BizTalk Server customised by NAV
• Partner integration

• External integration
• BizTalk Server
• ERP with other systems, such as SAP R/3

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Customising NAV

• Two choices today
• Use C/SIDE (Client/Server Integrated Development
  Environment)
• C/AL is an event-driven programming language for
  above, a 4GL combining data access and usual
  imperative programming semantics
• They are easy creating bespoke NAV applications
  for small and medium clients has to be efficient
  to be profitable!
• Develop .NET components
• As of NAV 5.0 (shipped March 2007) we have
  support of native .NET development
• In a 3-tier model

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NAV and Microsoft Servers

• NAV 5.0 fully supports SQL Server 2005 features
• New abilities include Business Intelligence and
  Data Mining, based on SQL Server 2005
• With NAV 4.0 use SP3 for same purpose
• SharePoint server integrates well (NAV WebParts)
  for creating custom portals

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Microsoft Dynamics AXReminder AX is an
application for mainly SCM-ERP, with financial
abilities for larger organisations
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Dynamics AXArchitecture

• An object-oriented 3-tier application
• Client is a .NET 1.1 application
• Integrates with Office for analysis services (not
  required)
• Server, called AOS (Application Object Server)
  uses .NET 2.0
• Requires SQL Server 2000 or 2005 or an Oracle
  database
• Requires Active Directory
• Everything could be installed on just 1
  workstation
• Logically, AX can model a hub-and-spoke
  departmental structure of an organisation

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Customising AXApplication Object Layers

• AOL is an approach to application modelling
  through predefined layers, each with a different
  scope of ownership and responsibility
• E.g. Some of the layers are predefined by
  Microsoft, another can be modified by the system
  integrator/solution provider, yet another by the
  clients own in-house developers
• Interesting logic for in-depth customisation
• You would modify one of the layers at
  organisational level, another at departmental and
  so on

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Deep Tailoring of AXMorphX, IntelliMorph, and X

• If you want your developers to tailor Dynamics AX
  in-depth, they have two choices
• MorphX is the Microsoft Dynamics AX Integrated
  Development Environment the way you develop
  natively for AX
• To do that, you program in X, which is a
  C-like language which integrates a number of
  database-like (SQL SELECT-like) statements
• However, you can create components using .NET
  Framework, due to CLR integration in the current
  version
• This is made easier by the IntelliMorph component
  which you use with Visual Studio it adds
  support for data types and debugging

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Dynamics AX and OLAP Reporting

• Microsoft Dynamics AX can make good use of SQL
  Server 2005 Analysis Services to generate OLAP
  cubes and reports
• You can also use SQL Server 2000 SP4
• The interface is in the AX client, allows you to
  directly configure and build cubes
• Indirectly, this leads to interesting development
  opportunities for applications based on business
  intelligence originating from your ERP system
• Consider the power of Data Mining of SQL 2005 in
  conjunction with Dynamics AX as a base for
  application development without or with OLAP
  cubes

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Microsoft Dynamics CRMReminder As name
suggests, it handles Customer Relationship
Management for sales and marketing automation,
lead and opportunity processing, and contact
management
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Architecture of Microsoft Dynamics CRM
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Architecture of CRM

• Architecture of CRM is based on a composite
  client and a 3-tier-server
• Client runs within Microsoft Outlook and connects
  to the server directly...
• ...or asynchronously through messages, utilising
  Microsoft Exchange as a Router
• CRM introduces its own model for this form of
  service-orientation
• Or, you can use a web client...
• Both client and server can be deeply customised
• Dependencies
• Office Outlook and MSDE for clients (optional)
• Exchange Server 2003
• SQL Server 2000 or 2005
• Dynamics CRM will run on Small Business Server
  2003, too

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Customization

• Represent your organisations customer processes
  as
• .NET (1.1) components (using CRM 3.0 SDK)
• .NET Workflow Assemblies
• BizTalk pipelines (using BizTalk Adapter for CRM)
• You represent clients processes as objects in
  CRM
• Integration with your systems can be accomplished
  through use of Web Services
• All CRM logic can be accessed using web services

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Microsoft Dynamics GPReminder Accounting and
financial management system for medium and larger
organisations
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GP Architecture

• A more traditional thick client-db server
  application
• Client runs majority of tasks
• Task processing can be allocated to another,
  peer, workstation, or
• It is possible to designate a server
  workstation for processing computationally
  intensive tasks
• Server is a SQL Server 2000 or 2005, which
  contains a number of stored procedures
  representing server-side logic of GP
• Further, GP application is optimising for
  Terminal Server deployment

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Interesting Features of GP

• Can use digital signatures on financial
  transactions to enable stricter compliance
• Interoperates with Microsoft CRM
• Allows integration of financials within the sales
  process

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Customizing GP

• Two choices
• In-depth tailoring requires use of Dexterity
  environment
• Form Designer and Report Writer within a
  development environment that also has a debugger,
  source code control etc.
• sanScript language English-like programming
  language
• Function library to use with sanScript
• COM support
• UI customisation
• VBA for Microsoft Dynamics GP, or
• Modifier (simpler customisation)
• Of all Dynamics, GP, arguably, requires the least
  in-depth customisation

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Analytics in GP

• In addition to built-in analytics, OLAP cubes can
  be built over the underlying GP SQL database
• Good support in the product for this task

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eConnectEnterprise Application Integration with
GP

• eConnect, originally created on top of .NET
  Framework 1.0 and SQL Server 2000, allows you to
  build applications for data and transaction
  integration
• It is a set of stored procedures in SQL allowing
  import/export of transactional data
• BI and Data Mining opportunity
• You interact with it using any of the following
• eConnect .NET Assembly (typically!) or COM Object
• BizTalk Adapter
• or directly, if you are SQL developer

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Conclusions
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So, where are we now?

• In transition
• Microsoft is interconnecting and unifying the
  product suite
• All of the Microsoft Dynamics products provide
  good business value today as proven by
  Microsoft partners
• If you need Business Management Automation try
  it for free
• As consultants or partners, now is a good time to
  get involved, to benefit from the crest of Wave 1
  and to get ready before Wave 2 of the products
  hits
• Find out more at
• www.microsoft.com/dynamics
• www.microsoft.com/dynamics/community - many
  external resources (click at the bottom-right)
• Your localised Customersource Partnersource
  sites

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Summary

• Microsoft Dynamics family provides solutions for
  business management automation
• As an enterprise, you can benefit from it now
• As this field grows, the scope for opportunities
  seems boundless
• If you want to develop this area as your service
  business become a Certified Partner in Microsoft
  Dynamics to get support