axStart: Dynamics AX and Office Business Applications (OBA)

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Источник: http://axstart.spaces.live.com/Blog/...C0A0!402.entry
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I receive many questions from people with regards to a variety of topics related to Dynamics AX. Questions such as:

1. Why do we need Visual Studio Report for AX, when we have our own?
2. What is Dynamics Snap and why is it important? Why do we need all those AX components built into SharePoint?

In order to answer these questions, we need to look at the Office Business Integration. Yes, you're reading this correctly. Business! And you always thought that business was handled by Dynamics Ax.
So what is the difference between Dynamics AX and OBA? The focus of Dynamics AX is generally related to ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) whereas the focus of OBA can be on any process within the business organization. From the OBA perspective, Dynamics AX is the system's back bone. The following diagram, sourced from MSDN, illustrates at a very high-level, how the different areas of a business system are generally organized within a company.


*** LOB refers to Line of Business
All current OLAP, SQL and SharePoint integrations within Dynamics AX are required for the implementation as shown in the diagram above. This also includes Dynamics Snap. In order to successfully complete this integration, it is necessary and required to implement all these new AX2009 features and components. In addition, please be aware that only 20% of the business' employees use Dynamics AX.
The following diagram illustrates the process of automating customer sales. In this diagram integration between MS CRM and MS AX is needed (AIF).


Another example could be posting employee work hours. The customer also needs an additional approving process. Entering the hours in to AX could be done on 4 different ways:

1. In AX
2. On a SharePoint Page (web parts)
3. Dynamics Snap (.net client)
   InfoPath (AIF)

The correct solution depends on the needs of that particular customer. As you can see, our AX 2009 world is getting bigger and bigger. So is this goodbye to easy Axapta 3.0 with all the technical solutions in one tool? Yes, but with these OBA integration possibilities we can finally support all customer needs.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, please read Programming Microsoft Office Business Applications.

Источник: http://axstart.spaces.live.com/Blog/...C0A0!402.entry