Creating an ISV License File from MS Dynamics AX 2012 Model using AxUtil

Us ISVs( Independent Software Vendors) want to make our own customized Ax solutions to run on predefined licenses so we can better monetize our solutions, well thanks to Microsoft we now have an ISV licensing feature to do this and do not need to create our own licensing mechanisms. The ISV licensing feature includes the following key capabilities:

• ISVs can generate their own Boolean licenses.
• A run-time check that ensures an ISV-generated license key exists.

Dynamics AX ISV licensing

You can read more about ISV licensing here. In this post I will be showing you step by step how you can create your own ISV licence against a model. Before you can create a license you also need to have certificates in order to sign that license so here are the complete steps from start to end:

1. First and foremost make sure you implement the desired roles and security in your code and tie all objects in your solution to it.
2. Create a configuration key (or a parent-child configuration key hierarchy) for the solution.
3. All code elements must bind to a proper configuration key or a hierarchy of configuration keys.
4. Make sure all code written for this solution has been moved to ISV layer and to a particular model.
5. Create a license code in the AOT.
6. Set the Authenticode (x.509 Certificate) to the license file. Go to the license code properties and find the ‘CertificateName’ item and provide ‘cer’ file (the public part of the certificate, You will use the SPC.cer file for this). Keep the private key (.pfx) part secure as it will be used to generate license file. Here are some details on how to do this:
   • 1. Locate windows SDK on your machine, usually comes with .Net Framework, in my case I found it at following location

     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin

     2. Copy following files from above folder to a new folder D:\Certificate folder, this would avoid wasting your time trying to run command on C:\ with no rights
        1. MakeCert.exe
        2. pvk2pfx.exe
   • To create a test certificate you can use the makecert utility, this will give you the .cer and .pvk file; as some of you faced problems with certificates I would like to add something here that I previously missed to mention. To use our own certificate we first need to create a CA(Certificate Authority) and then publish  a code signing certificate through that authority. Creating a certificate authority is done through makecert as follows on power shell run the following command to create a CA:
     • .\makecert -r -pe -n “CN=CompanyName O=CompanyName” -ss CA -sr LocalMachine -a sha256 -len 2048 -cy authority -sky signature -sv CA.pvk CA.cer
   • Now to publish a code signing certificate from our created authority; on powershell run the following command:
     • .\makecert -pe -n “CN=CompanyName O=CompanyName” -ss ISVStore -sr LocalMachine -a sha256 -len 2048 -cy end -sky signature -eku 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.3 -ic CA.cer -iv CA.pvk -sv SPC.pvk SPC.cer
   • To create the .pfx file you will need to convert the pvk to pfx; run the following command:
     • pvk2pfx.exe -pvk SPC.pvk -spc SPC.cer -pfx FileName.pfx -po password
7. Assign the license code to the configuration key. In the parent configuration key, select the license code in the properties. This locks everything together if hierarchy is maintained among other configuration keys.
8. Generate a FULL CIL.
9. Export the model by going to Start > Administrative Tools > Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Management Shell. Enter following command: axutil export /model:[ModelName] /file:[modelfilename] /key:[keyfilename]
   1. [ModelName] is the name of the model
   2. [modelfilename] is the path with filename to export the model to.
   3. [keyfilename] is the strong name key generated using SN.EXE tool, in the case you want to sign the model with a strong named key. You can skip this part if you apply next step, which is to sign the model using a certificate.
10. Sign the model with certificate
    1. You need a tool ‘SignTool’. You can get by installing Windows SDK.
    2. Run following command:
       • signtool sign /f “[PFX file]” /p [PFX password] “[Path to the model file]”

Once you have implemented the code with the above approach, you can then generate a license for your solution as explained below:

11. Axutil genlicense /file:licensefile /certificatepath:filepath /licensecode:name /customer:name /serialnumber:number /password:value /expirationdate:date /usercount:count
    1. /file:licensefile specifies the name of the generated license file
    2. /certificatepath:filepath specifies the path to the certificate used to generate the license file. It is the private part of the X.509 certificate used on the licensed Code within AOT; basically the .pfx file.
    3. /licensecode:name specifies the name of the license code used to generate the license file.
    4. /customer:name specifies the customer name used to generate the license file. This will be provided by the Customer, it will be the Customer name on the AX license they have on their installation.
    5. /serialnumber:number specifies the serial number used to generate the license file. This will be provided by the Customer, it will be the serial number of AX license they have on their installation.
    6. /password:value is the value that must match the password of the certificate used to generate the license file.
    7. /expirationdate:date specifies expiration date of the generated license. This parameter is optional.
    8. /usercount:count specifies the number of simultaneous users for the generated license. This parameter is optional. (This is not supported anymore, so you can skip this)
    9. After running this command you can write “type [licensefilename]” to see the content if the license file.
12. After you have your license you will share the model file and license file with the customer, also if you have created a self signed certificate(as we did with the makecert utility) then your customer needs to trust your Certificate Authority before they import the model and license. To do this simply run the command below on your customers environment:
    • certutil -addstore Root CA.cer
      • This adds it into the Windows certificate store.

Hope this post was helpful, for any questions feel free to leave a comment. Here are some good resources that helped me understand ISV licensing.

• Implementing ISV Licensing in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 White Paper
• License file creation in AX 2012 using AXUtil
• Creating a self-signed certificate for AX2012 model signing and ISV licensing
• Licensing Framework for ISVs of Microsoft Dynamics AX [AX 2012]

UPDATED: To overcome the “Certificate associated with license XXX is not a trusted certificate.” Error while importing license file the complete steps for creating our own certificate have been update, please find the updates in blue text.

#EuropeTour Part 1: How to apply for a Schengen Visa

So you have planned to visit Europe; however if you are not a US, Canadian or UK resident chances are you are going to need a visa to enter the Schengen Area. I am not a visa expert/counselor so please take the following as my opinion and information based on my experience only.

Schengen Visa

The first step is to decide which country you are going to apply to, as the Schengen agreement is accepted by 26 states and you can apply to anyone of them considering that state is going to be your primary destination or first port of entry. I will be talking more about what is best and easiest for Karachites, but most of it will be generally applicable for Pakistanis and residents of a country who require a visa to enter into Europe.

Which country to apply to?

Schengen States

As I mentioned earlier, you should apply to the country you first want to visit. For example you would apply to Spain for a Schengen visa if you wish to start your tour from Spain. My tour did not include Spain and therefore I had the option to apply to Italy, Germany, Netherlands, France or Switzerland, please remember Turkey is not part of the Schengen agreement but yes you can easily get an E-Visa to Turkey if you have a valid Schengen visa stamp on your passport. I applied to Italy for a few reasons, first and foremost Italy has a consulate in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore so if you are called for an interview you will not have to travel to Islamabad where all consulates are of other Schengen states. Secondly relations between Pakistan and Italy are fairly good and lastly it is geographically a good point to start seeing Europe in my opinion.

What is going to be your length of stay?

The duration of stay is an important thing to consider before you apply for a visa. If it is your first time travelling and you have a blank passport, keep your duration as short as possible. A week is good to visit one or maybe two countries of your interest. The more days you apply to stay for, the harder it can be for you to get a visa and you will require to show you can afford your trip for the complete duration of your stay.

Should I apply for Single entry or Multiple entry?

Definitely a single entry visa if you have not been to Europe before.

How to apply?

After selecting the state you want to apply to, you will need to read all requirements to apply for a visit visa, some states require more things than others. For Italy, you should have:

1. 6 month Bank statement of all bank accounts you hold against your name.
2. Bank account holding certificates of all bank accounts you hold against your name.
3. A letter from your employer stating your proof of employment.
4. A letter from your employer stating the dates of your approved leaves and rejoining date.
5. Tax certificate (Must have)
6. A health insurance of upto $50,000 (Don’t be worried it is not so costly to get insured)
7. Confirmed travel tickets.
8. Confirmed accommodations.
9. Past 6 months Salary slips.
10. Any property documents you have (optional)
11. Recent passport size photographs (white background-non glossy paper)
12. Passport valid for at least 3 months after visa expiry date.

Please read the consulates website for any updated requirements or information.

How much money do I need to have in my bank account?

The easy rule is to add up the cost of your air tickets, your hotel accommodations and €100 per day for each travel day for example €1700 for 17 days. The total of all this is the minimum amount you should have in your account.

Am I ready to apply?

If you have all of the above, have been in employment for more than an year and have a bank statement to prove that, then your chances are very good. However, if you don’t have any one of the above even the optional stuff your chances will decline fairly. I personally would not advise students or those who are still dependent on others to apply. Most people do not know that if your Schengen visa is refused your passport is stamped with the rejection and certainly that is bad for any future travel plans you may want to fulfill. So please do consult a a good travel agent before applying and get all documents required.

As most of you have requested me for the travel agency I used, it was Pak Shaheen Aviation. They have been my travel agency of choice for the past 4 years, if you do call them ask for Mr. Amjad Ali (+92-343-2703803). You too can get your air tickets, hotels on promotional prices, travel insurance and any tours your would like from them as I did. If you have any further questions about the visa process, let me know through your comments below and stay tuned!

My 17 Day Tour of Europe: Planning, Cost and Useful Tips for Future Travelers

As an avid traveler, I too have a goal of visiting a specific number of countries during my lifetime but lets leave that for another day. I love to travel and last month I fulfilled one of dreams and had the opportunity to tour Europe. My destinations were Turkey, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, France and Switzerland in that order. I explored a small circle containing the best and most famous attractions of the world going from eastern Europe towards western Europe.

Map of the European Tour

It was an amazing experience, one that is hard to describe and can only be felt and witnessed. I would like to share part of that experience by describing how I planned and spent my time in the most beautiful and famous cities of Europe. I will be sharing my personal experiences, advice about what to pack, where to stay and the best and cheapest ways to travel, some pictures of course and any other useful tips I can think of. I aim to provide this information for future travelers in a series of posts to follow. I will be writing a blog for each city I visited, so readers can bookmark this page or follow me on Twitter if they would like to stay tuned. I will also be adding links to the complete tour series at the bottom of this post. Most importantly, I will be sharing valuable visa advice specifically for Pakistanis interested in creating their own travel adventures in Europe.

Where my great experiences began!

Now, for some basic details about the tour in general. The tour was  17 days days long, starting from 18th December 2014 and ending on 3rd January 2015, during the winter season. The trip cost me PKR  350,000 ($3500) and the breakdown of costs will be included in the series of posts to follow. The cities  I visited were Istanbul, Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and Zurich. I stayed mostly in 3 star hotels and one famous hostel in Berlin. I traveled using domestic airlines, buses and a high speed train to get from city to city. To conclude, I would like to mention that if anyone has any questions / any specific topic they would like me to address in detail in the following posts, they can simply comment below and I’ll try to answer as well as possible. Stay tuned!

 

UPDATE:

#EuropeTour Part 1: How to apply for a Schengen Visa

#EuropeTour Part 2: 11 Things You Should Not Forget To Pack

 

Difference between menu item types; Display, Output and Action in Dynamics Ax

 

Developers often ask me what the difference is between the three different menu item types shown in AOT and when should you use them as it appears that all menu items inside the three ‘folders’ I would say have the same set of properties and support the same object types. So what is the difference? The answer is that there is no difference, the difference is a conceptual one rather than a functional or a technical one.

1. Display Menu item

This folder is used to contain menu items that reference runnable objects which are primarily for presenting data to the user such as forms and dialog’s.

2. Output Menu item

An output menu item should have the soul purpose to print a result, mostly used for referencing classes.

3. Action Menu item

As the name says it, you should create a menu item under this folder if your runnable object has an action to perform, for example creating or updating data.

So choosing between these three is on the developers sole discretion and I hope now you’ll be able to make a better choice for your scenario. A basic rule of thumb is:

Display – for Form

Output  – for Report

Action   – for classes.

For more information visit :  Msdn Menu Items Best Practices [AX 2012]

11 Key Reasons Why Businesses Should Use ERP

1. Interaction between departments – flow of information from department to department will no longer be a hassle. Departments that have no interaction with each other but are dependent on data from each other will become efficient.

2. Redundancy protection – Data redundancy is never a problem. Customer, vendor or any similar data that is usually very redundant and hard to keep updated across the company will be taken care of by the ERP system in place by having a single store and multiple access points for its users.

3. Business process automation – complete business processes can be automated regardless of cross department or cross company worries. Using workflows and assignment capabilities available in all leading ERP systems.

4. Detailed Reporting – due to consolidation and presence of all data in a single place, extensive reporting can be performed from the manufacturing to the marketing end. Which enables insights into reasons and predictions of success and failure.

5. Manageability of the system – it is far easy to maintain and manage a single system that is used by the whole organisation than to manage different independent systems.

6. Better auditing – Tighter controls over data enable better and complete auditing.

7. Efficient product development – When the marketing department can access manufacturing data and make decisions over it, efficient and timely product development is easy to achieve.

9. Easier alignment with customer demands – ERP systems like Microsoft Dynamics Ax contain CRM modules that give insight to the organizations customer base and their needs.

10. Forecasting powers – With such detail and accuracy in data across the organization comes the power to forecast budgets and more over forecast positions which has been included in the upcoming release of Dynamics Ax R3. Companies can forecast budgets and it can be done for as many future years as needed.

 11. Tracking and visibility – Workflows with ERP systems provide tracking and visibility to various areas from a Purchase requisition to a purchase order.

These are some key reasons why a business should use ERP, depending on the industry there are several specific reasons to use an ERP system to support the organization in meeting its needs. If you are still questioning whether your company really does need an ERP system like Microsoft Dynamics Ax feel free to contact me onLinkedin or tweet to me and I will try to hook you up with one of our experts at mazikglobal.

Debugging workflow event handlers in Dynamics Ax 2012

To debug X++ code written in event handler classes of a workflow, you need to follow these steps:

1. Run an incremental IL if you have made any changes to the class.

2. Visit Application explorer in visual studio and open the class you want to debug.

3. In VS goto Debug option and click on Attach to Process and change code type to Manage v4.0

4. Select show all process in all sessions and select Ax32Serv.exe
(note: you might see more than one Server process, if you cant determine which one to select then select all Ax32Serv process) and attach.

 

5. Now place breakpoints on the code you want to debug and run the workflow, execution will stop in visual studio once the event is fired.

 

For more information visit : Msdn How to: Debug X++ Code in Workflow [AX 2012]

ProTip: If you would like to see the workflow going into and out of the process que use the form Tutorial_WorkflowProcessor and run it before starting the workflow.

 

7 Major problems that businesses can overcome by using an ERP solution

1. Data Redundancy

By using an ERP system like Microsoft Dynamics Ax you say bye to any redundant or contradictory data. One system maintains all data across the company and eliminates the chances of duplicates.

2. Inventory Inaccuracy

A major problem faced by companies handling inventory on paper or on separate software solutions which are not integrated with manufacturing and sales. ERP systems have proven to provide accurate inventory numbers which in turn help many folds in making sales and marketing a product.

3. Insufficient Reporting

A pain that is rarely addressed in a perfect manner without using an ERP. Insufficient reporting is related to the lack of complete reporting with cross department data and also real time visibility into the status of all processes from quote to cash for decision makers.

4. Manual Paper Processes

Believe it or not companies still handle paper which is a problem in itself. Large to medium corporations that do have electronic systems in place for manufacturing, inventory management and sales still have to use paper to run through processes of finance, human resource management and budgeting. So why use paper and different solutions when the answer to all pains of a company are in ERP solution.

5. Organizational Scalability Issues

When it comes to implementing an ERP decision makers often ask the question as to why they need it if they have functioned well without it.  This is right for companies that do not foresee growth and expect to stay static but growth can have effects on the business that require everything to be scaled up in proportion to growth, this is where an ERP system can support your company well and be a back bone behind the growth rather than being a back pain.

6. Low Customer Retention

ERP has proven to have positive effects on customer retention. Well connected and aware departments are able to react faster to the customers needs and make timely and accurate decisions.

7. Maintaining Separate Systems

If a company is not using an ERP then they will likely be using accounting applications, spreedsheets, desktop applications, home grown applications and disparate applications. All of these systems increase the chances of contradictory data because they are hard to maintain and update and have an overall larger cost for doing so.

 

Lastly, the benefits of using an ERP outrun the effort that is needed to implement and adopt it. Companies that have adopted ERP systems have witnessed reduced operating costs, reduction in administrative cost, improvement in on time delivery and improvement in inventory turnout. So If you are still questioning whether your company really does need an ERP system feel free to contact me on Linkedin or tweet to me and I will try to help you or get you connected with one of our experts at Mazikglobal.

 

Bismillah!

Bismillah, hope this blog is beneficial for you and for me, as I plan to write useful stuff about technology, ethics, some life pro tips and whatever I think might be beneficial for a reader.

I’m a software development engineer working on customizing and implementing Microsoft Dynamics Ax by day at Mazikglobal, aspiring entrepreneur by night and CEO at Dispatch Survey. I have also worked with Microsoft and Tyler Technologies Seattle as part of the core Dynamics Ax 2012 development team before which I was diving into php and played with erlang while I worked on building Tradekey‘s real time communication platform known as Trademate. I aspire to build a successful business of my own, making more money is not my aim; I’m passionate about creating stuff and leading it to success . I live in Karachi, my family matters a lot to me and I like to keep them happy and proud. I like pets, have a cat and two parrots. I’m passionate about learning, whether it be about history, culture or how things are made. Connect with me on Linkedin and have a great day!

The art of learning and the rule I follow..

“Learn what you can, when you can”

This is the rule I follow, the rule that has helped me learn about things I knew nothing about. So whether it be about that new programming language you just heard of or a how to make a wooden table video you came across, if it gives you knowledge that you didn’t have before, I say take it! and one day you will be thankful for it.

How to live better? This is how I do it.

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

Travel as much as you can, when you can.  Here are some good and affordable places to travel to while not draining your account.

1. Nepal

Easy to get a visa from Pakistan and very affordable indeed. According to my contacts in the travel agency business, a tour to Nepal for a single person can cost you as low as 80,000 PKR this of course depends on the hotels you choose to stay at but that is a minimum for a good week long tour.

2. Cambodia

Not a developed country but this is a place that is near and as cheap as they come, the ticket might be a bit more than a ticket to Thailand but the place sure is cheap, you can pass a week here in less than 50,000 PKR; haven’t been there yet but its on my go to list for sure.

3. Thailand

One of the best indeed, its affordable, it is too much fun. If you didn’t know it yet I will tell you, Bangkok is one of the most visited cities in the world and it is the place to be when you want to get out of your routine life and be somewhere fun, this place takes parties to a whole new level. Visa’s are issued within a few days, I went there in 2013 for about a week and it cost me 70,000 PKR and that was when I stayed in 4 star hotels.

4. Prague

This is Europe so yes you cant expect to get a visa easily from Pakistan and yes it is a bit expensive but keep in mind Prague is one of the cheapest cities in Europe therefore it has to be included in this list. Ticket is gonna cost you but you can keep it affordable if you dont go for fancy hotels and get this done within 200,000 PKR. One of the places I plan to visit very soon Inshallah!

5. Colombia

Great Colombia, oh I wish it wasn’t that far. Visa’s are not so easy but you can get them if you have an invite from a Colombian. Its an affordable place to go if you ignore how much the ticket costs, as far as I have heard you need to be careful and also keep a Spanish dictionary with you not many people speak English there. Cost of a weeks tour without the ticket of course would be approx 150,000 PKR

 

Go plan your next visit, get out of your daily routine and see the world as much as you can. Yes that’s how you live, Thank me later!