dynamics day 2014: microsoft dynamics ax - business insight leveraging analytics
DESCRIPTION
A close-up look at how to leverage analytics functionality in Microsoft Dynamics AX, covering traditional BI, modifying role centres and Power BI. Dynamics Day is Australasia's leading event for users of Microsoft Dynamics. For those of you who couldn't make it along to the event, we have made all session content available online.TRANSCRIPT
Douglas Daley, Solution SpecialistAnna Tarasoff, Business Intelligence Practice Manager
Dynamics AX
Business Intelligence Insights
Traditional BI in Dynamics AX
Business Intelligence Insights | 3
Type of web partsNavigation
Links
Reports
Business Intelligence Insights | 4
Type of web partsAction
Work List
Cues
Business Intelligence Insights | 5
Working with datesRelative date functions
Function Parameters Example
day relativeDays (day(-1)) = yesterday
dayRange relativeDaysFrom, relativeDaysTo (dayRange(-6, 0)) = last 7 days (inc today)
greaterThanDate
relativeDays (greaterThanDate(0)) = greater than today
lessThanDate relativeDays (lessThanDate(0)) = less than today
monthRange relativeMonthsFrom, relativeMonthsTo
(monthRange(-1,-1)) = last month
yearRange relativeYearsFrom, relativeYearsTo (yearRange(-2,-1)) = last 2 years (not including current)
Business Intelligence Insights | 6
Type of web partsScorecard
KPIs
Indicators
Business Intelligence Insights | 7
Type of Web PartsReports and charts
High Speed Charts
High Speed
Reports
Business Intelligence Insights | 8
Types of Web PartsOther commonly used web parts
AX Report Viewer
SSRS Report Viewer
SharePoint
Library
iFrame
Modifying role centres
Business Intelligence Insights | 10
Modifying role centresPersonalisation
“Personalisation”
Business Intelligence Insights | 11
Get out of jail free.aspx?.........&contents=1
Adding a web part
can break a role
centre page.
This is how you
recover:
Business Intelligence Insights | 12
Modifying role centresDevelopment“Development”
Business Intelligence Insights | 13
Modifying role centresYou are updating this layer
Import into the AOT to add as
a “customisation”
This way it becomes an
“upgradable” object.
Power BI
Business Intelligence Insights | 15
Demand Forecasting and Planning in the Cloud
Simple and Fast
Mobile Access
Interactive Dashboards
Near real time inventory levels reports
Stay connected with your business
Business Intelligence Insights | 16
What is Microsoft Power BI for Office 365
Share in Power BICreate Insights in Excel
Analyze Visualize
Share Find
Q&A
MobileDiscover
Microsoft Power BI for Office 365
Self-service BI with the familiarity of Office and the power of the service
Business Intelligence Insights | 17
Data Management Gateway in Power BI
Enable a discovery with data search across on premise data
Monitor data usage across your organisation
On-Premise Data Access
Enterprise Data Search
Data Usage & Telemetry
Enable manual or scheduled data refresh for reports in Office 365 to on-premise sources
Business Intelligence Insights | 18
Power BI Solution Conceptual Architecture
Power BI for Office 365
Corporate Data Sources (AX, CRM, etc.)
Data Management Gateway
Corporate Data Catalog
Team sites, Interactive Dashboards, Q&A
Cloud Data Sources (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Analyst
Executive
Publish data sources or expose them as OData feeds
Automated Data Refresh
Data Refresh
Import data, Publish report and dashboards
Desktop and Mobile
Consume interactive reports, ask questions
Import Data
Business Intelligence Insights | 19
Data Refresh Process from Power BI Sites
Data Management
Gateway
Excel Workbook in SharePoint
OnlineGateway
Cloud Service
(1) Data refresh is triggered from Power BI Sites
(2) Connects to Gateway Cloud Service
(3) Checks whether user is authorized to perform a refresh
(4) Sends command (SQL statement, connection string) to on premise Gateway
(5) Sends SQL to SQL Server
(6) Return Results
(7) Compress, chunk and return the data
(8) Returns data to Excel Workbook
Advice:
Power BI is an add-on to Office 365 and requires an additional subscription on top of Office 365 subscription. The subscription is per user per month. You can assign these licenses only to the users who require an access to interactive dashboards.
Business Intelligence Insights | 21
Secure Mobile Access
Requires add-on subscription
Access to your business data from anywhere
Consider data volumes
Stay connected with your business
Power BI Key Considerations
Business Intelligence Insights | 22
BI Architecture
AX DB (Replica)
CRM DB (Replica)
Data Warehous
e
Custom Cubes / Reports
Standard AX Cubes
Data Manageme
nt Gateway(DMG)
Step 2: ETL from OLTP data sources via SSIS.
Standard AX cube processing from OLTP AX database.
Step 3: Custom cube processing / report generation off data warehouse.
O365 Power BI
AX DB (OLTP)
CRM DB (OLTP) Step 1:
Replication of OLTP database.
Step 1: Replication of OLTP database.
Note: Standard AX and CRM SSRS reports would continue to execute against the OLTP databases.
Power BI and Replication
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