Three simple tips to customize Dynamics AX

Running a successful business today means constantly reacting to external influences, staying well informed about what is happening in the company, and adapting quickly to your environment.

Selecting the right information system is complex. You must assess standard features, the system’s flexibility and ability to adapt to your needs and modern trends. A friendly user interface also matters so employees stay focused on daily tasks and enjoy their work.

In this article I briefly introduce ways Microsoft Dynamics AX can adapt to you and become a better partner for everyday work.

Tip 1: User personalization

Modern information systems must deliver all necessary information to users, ideally in real time. This requires a UI that feels natural so users can get maximum value. The era when UIs showed data only as structured in the database is gone. Navigating such data is hard and forces users to be skilled in both business and IT.

Modern information systems are designed from the start to ensure sufficient comfort for daily user work.

Modern systems like Microsoft Dynamics AX are designed so the entire UI provides enough comfort for daily work without heavy “IT” demands. To get the most from people and IT you must consider how each user feels in the system. It is easier to work with something you like, that adapts, and that grows on you.

The new Microsoft Dynamics AX offers broad user personalization. The UI runs on laptops, phones, and tablets. Visual theming of pages is standard.

Your accountant can view key information on a tablet and even in a favorite pink theme:

Some may say this is cosmetic, but given personal aesthetics even a “detail” can make using the system more pleasant.

Another great personalization feature in the new Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the ability to tailor visible data in any window to what matters for your work. A long-standing standard in Microsoft Dynamics AX is adding/removing and reordering columns in lists. This is now enhanced with a very useful control panel.

The cherry on top is creating your own workspaces with overviews of the data that matter most. Imagine checking a custom screen on your tablet at breakfast showing only what you need. Everything is in one place.

Your screen could look like this:

If things change and you need to adjust the layout or add/remove information you do not need IT support. You can do it yourself. It will look exactly as you need.

Tip 2: Adjust business processes

The right IT partner for your business is a system that is as flexible as you and robust enough to handle the heaviest load. To meet this you should change business functionality without needing an IT expert or developer.

If you dread implementing a simple change in your system, for example a logistics tweak, or you fear lengthy change management with your vendor, read on.

In the new Microsoft Dynamics AX none of that awaits you. For example all warehouse processes are user-defined so you can create or modify them on the fly.

A simple example:

Tomorrow a large shipment leaves for a key customer. It requires repacking all goods due to air transport limits. We need an extra stop at a staging location to repackage before dispatch.

This process is rare in your warehouse and not fully configured. In Microsoft Dynamics AX you can easily create it using simple, fully user-defined rules.

The standard process moved goods from the rack directly to the shipping location. Only two steps.

We add one intermediate stop for repacking.

We achieve this by creating a new picking rule:

We add a condition so it applies only to orders for our specific customer. Other processes remain unchanged. When picking starts for that customer the system routes warehouse work automatically per the new rules.

Such flexibility is not limited to logistics. You can steer most key processes across the company from purchasing to production, sales, and finance.

Tip 3: Flexibility through customizations

If your requirements exceed standard functionality you will ask what to do. Modern systems allow broad customization. Microsoft Dynamics AX is unique here. It offers fully open source code for all modules and components. It is a kind of “open source” model.

Accessible code ensures almost anything can be adapted, yet you may worry about vendor lock-in. The answer: the entire system is built on .NET, one of the most robust and widely used frameworks.

The combination of accessible code and the framework gives confidence that any requirement can be implemented. The system imposes no limits.

Such openness also risks “wild development,” even rebuilding functionality already in standard. A skilled partner will consult every change and keep you from redeveloping what exists.

The right partner is crucial to overall flexibility. They do not just build whatever you point at. They co-create solutions with you within system capabilities so you do not block future development and upgrades.

The right partner solves system flexibility by creating solutions aligned with system capabilities, not just fulfilling ad-hoc wishes.

If you read this far you care about what your system can offer, how it adapts, and how it helps deliver better results.

Much more could be written about Microsoft Dynamics AX, but such topics are best discussed directly. If you want to see Microsoft Dynamics AX in action, fill out the contact form and we will arrange a meeting.

I look forward to meeting you soon either in person or here on our blog with the next topic from the Microsoft Dynamics AX world.

Jiří Hosenseidl works as a Dynamics AX consultant at Blue Dynamic.