Statement of Direction for Dynamics AX 2012 "R3"

Microsoft recently released their latest Statement of Direction for Dynamics AX 2012 R3. This new version of AX will be available by Q4 of 2013 and will come with a number of benefits and new capabilities. These include:

Warehouse Management
Advanced warehouse management capabilities will be introduced including embedded RFID, improved warehouse processing and rate, and route and load planning.

Introduction of Demand Planning
There will be new functionality to support SKU-level demand planning based on the Time Series algorithm of SSAS.

Retail
R3 has a strong focus on retail capabilities, with key areas including mobility, clientelling, ecommerce and social.

E-Procurement
Capabilities for purchasing within complex organizations will be enhanced, specifically in the management and control of the RFX (RFI, RFP & RFQ) processes.

Budget Planning
There will be improvements in budget planning capabilities with a focus on supporting the planning needs of complex organizations.


R3 will offer many new and improved capabilities that AX 2012 R2 does not offer. This new version will benefit large and complex organizations the most, especially those with Distribution and Omni-Channel Retail.

The next major version of AX will be released at the end of 2014 and will be called “Rainier.”


Read the full Statement of Direction here.

Questions? Ask one of our consultants.

Ideaca's Dynamics AX Tips & Tricks - Product and Production Lead Times

Ideaca's AX experts provide answers to common AX 2012 questions, helping you leverage your Microsoft Dynamics AX investment. This video helps viewers understand how to see lead times on products and production in AX 2012. For more information or to contact us, visit www.ideaca.com

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Comparing AX 2012 Reporting with Standard SSRS

I have been a Business Intelligence (BI) consultant for a couple of years, and I have worked with the whole suite of Microsoft BI products:  Reporting Services (SSRS), Integration Services (SSIS) and Analysis Services (SSAS).  Dynamics AX 2012; however, was an alien entity to me.  When I was asked to do reporting in Dynamics AX, I thought that since this is a Microsoft product that uses SSRS and a SQL Server database, this should be a pretty standard task based on my experience.  While I was correct from a front-end design point of view, actually getting the data to the report was quite a different task.

The first noticeable difference is the setup.  AX 2012 uses Visual Studio 2010 as opposed to Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) to setup its reports.  BIDS leverages Visual Studio 2008 to launch and run SSRS and you make all of your connections, data sets and parameters directly in the report designer.  Visual Studio 2010 uses a tree view to manage all your data sets and parameters.  These objects must be added, modified or refreshed in the tree to translate over to the report designer. Changes can be made in report designer like in BIDS but they will not translate back to the tree and the changes will not stick.  BIDS creates an RDL file that can be reopened and edited.  With Dynamics AX 2012, everything is stored in the AOT and brought to the local machine by using temporary folders.

Ideaca Dynamics AX Tips & Tricks - Security in AX 2012

Ideaca's AX experts provide answers to common AX 2012 questions, helping you leverage your Microsoft Dynamics AX investment. This video discusses security in AX 2012. For more information or to contact us, visit www.ideaca.com

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Ideaca Dynamics AX Tips and Tricks - Workflow

Ideaca's AX experts provide answers to common AX 2012 questions, helping you leverage your Microsoft Dynamics AX investment. This video discusses 4 new workflow features in AX 2012. For more information or to contact us, visit www.ideaca.com

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Beginning with the End in Mind: The Solution Design Document

Imagine for a moment that you are building a house. You know you want 3 bedrooms, a functional kitchen, and extensive entertainment technology incorporated into every room. Go! Those are nice ideas, but they really don’t narrow it down much, and they certainly aren’t enough to communicate to the myriad of contractors, sub-contractors and trades. What would this house look like? Could your general contractor estimate on these requirements?

You wouldn’t expect such enigmatic ideas to be good enough for a construction project, so why would we expect IT projects to be any different? Most IT projects begin with similar vague ideas. Statements like “central information repository”, “seamless integration with the enterprise systems”, “easy to use graphical user interfaces”, and “improved business processes” are common high-level requirements. These types of statements are traditionally present in project charters and speak to the business goals. But just like that house you want to build, these are not enough to provide the required clarity to all of the stakeholders.

Enter the Solution Design Document

Sandwiched between the project charter and detail technical design documentation, the solution design document fulfills a critically important role in any IT project. Why do we need pretty pictures? What’s all this non-technical stuff good for? What does WebDAV mean? These are the types of questions I’ve received over the years and here is my response;

• It provides the big picture to a broad audience.
• It communicates what the outcome will look like and how it will be achieved.
• It provides sufficient detail to allow project sponsors to make informed decisions.
• It uses language that is not exclusionary or overly technical while at the same time contains detail to be of value to technical resources.

Want a career not a "job"?!

In 2012 Ideaca ranked at #17 on Great Place to Work Canada. Want a "Great Place to Work"? Want to learn about the perks of being an Ideacan? Check out our extended version of our company video which features what it's like to work here!



Visit our careers page for more details!

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Ideaca Wins Business Intelligence Partner of the Year at 2012 Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards!

 

Ideaca has been selected as the winner in the Business Intelligence Partner of the Year category at the 2012 Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards! Ideaca was also named a finalist in the Dynamics ERP Partner of the Year category. We are extremely excited for this win and cannot wait to continue to compete next year! For more details read here: http://bit.ly/W9TP7P

 

For more finalist read here: http://goo.gl/cFk11

 

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Ideaca's Company Video

Ideaca is proud to be launching our first ever company overview video! Designed with clients, prospects, and employees in mind, we have built something that truely reflects what Ideaca is all about...
 

We would love to hear what you think...leave us a comment!

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Ideaca Dynamics AX Tips and Tricks - Turning off unwanted functionality in AX 2012

Ideaca's AX experts provide answers to common AX 2012 questions, helping you leverage your Microsoft Dynamics AX investment. This video helps users learn how to turn off unwanted functionality in AX 2012. For more information or to contact us, visit www.ideaca.com

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Creativity in Leadership

 

Creativity is the individual way in which our mind generates our views, ideas, style…or any other facet of the imagination. Through this comes expression which is the product of creativity and exists in many forms… one of which is leadership.

Being a leader is an immeasurable opportunity for growth.  You are being given the chance to influence and be influenced, learn as well as teach, and guide in your own unique way.  Of course there are some basic guidelines, but each individual will bring their own flare to leading a team to a successful finale.  What you choose to do and say will inevitably create an experience for everyone on the team, including yourself, and give you the capacity to profoundly shape a project and the people who are a part of it.  Your creative abilities may come as new strategies to tackling a tight schedule, your technical understanding, or sheer ability to make people feel important.  Wherever your inherent virtues lie, being put into a lead role will assure they have the chance to develop and shine.

It’s important to have a foundation to build upon, so consider these points the canvas for your creative endeavor:

Be confident  -  You must believe if you want others to believe in you. Carry yourself in a manner that exhibits strength, encourages excitement, and gives a sense of stability.  The way you step forward as a leader permeates the air around you, and has a profound effect on how people see you.  Their belief in your ability to guide instills confidence in them as well, and inspires great performance.  In the midst of this exchange of recognition is the creation of trust, which in the aspect of a project will go a long way.

Know your team - Just as you have your own way of being in the world, so do your team members and recognizing the exceptional qualities that each team member brings to the table will tremendously further your ability to attain success.  Pinpointing a person’s strengths in the beginning will allow you a broader insight down the road into delegating appropriately to utilize the team’s greatest powers when and where they are needed.  In doing this you are aligning with efficiency by pushing forward peoples talents. It gives people a sense of purpose when they know they are essential and why, it drives ambition and productivity and a sense of self. This is a great form of expression.

Know where you are headed – Visualize the end result, or final product.  Know in your mind that you will achieve the best final result possible and exceed expectations and how it will look when you’re there. If you can imagine it, you can make it and this is a force to be reckoned with.  Every project is susceptible to encountering obstacles along the way, but having a vision will help you navigate around roadblocks thus maintaining a clear path to success.

Keep in touch – Communication is vastly key to so much in life and especially in a collaborative situation.  The ebb and flow of a project is directly associated with straight up talking to and amongst one another.  The individual components that each team member is responsible for will amalgamate to form the final, tangible result and in order for that to happen there needs to be a streamline of conversation.  It is vital to not only deliver project updates to the team but to exchange thoughts and ideas. In doing so you are creating an environment of constant awareness of the state of the project as well as combining the team’s brainpower to solution any challenges that may arise. Not to mention it unifies the group socially, which can create an immensely dynamic team when they are called to duty.

When you consider these concepts and ignite them with a passion to do great work and do it with your own style, you can come through the other side having not only delivered an intended product, but having done it with the rare qualities only you possess.  Your character and personality make you a leader unlike any other seen before, or that will be seen.  It is the chance for you to leave a mark that will impact others in a positive way, and hopefully make a difference in some way…somehow.  Because once the project is over what people have left (besides a fantastic new…….[insert your project delivery here]) is the memory of how it came together and the people who made it happen.

- Joelle Thrasher, Portals & Collaboration Consultant

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BYO...laptop?

BYOD..."Bring-Your-Own-Device" seems to be the biggest strategy that companies are now trying to master. Employees expect to be able to bring their own mobile phones, laptops and tablets into the office setting without having a "company device" to also manage but having the convenience of using their own device from home. Sure this seems quite convenient, and maybe cuts some costs here and there, but what does this really mean for companies?

We have outlined some new challenges that will come with this policy from The Globe and Mail's article that provides some more insight on how BYOD will change your business:

 Some issues that IT may run into:

- Employees expect the same degree of advanced technology and services integration in the workplace that they already experience in their personal life

- Employees may threaten you "give me the advanced technology that I know I can have, or I will do it myself"

Aberdeen Group found that the top 20% of performers (defined as Best-in-Class organizations):

- provide mobile access to almost all employees

- recover all but 5% of lost or stolen mobile devices
- improved their personal speed of decision-making by 14% over the prior 12 months, 3.5 times the improvement of Industry Average

Is your company in this top 20%?

If your business has not thought about BYOD or even a mobile strategy as a plan for the next coming months, you are sure to face some struggle with the new demands of the "tech savvy" employee.

To find out some more benefits and reasons to Go-Mobile, check out our previous posts on mobility and our event slides from a previous event we held in Waterloo based on building a mobile strategy NOW!

 

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Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2012: Toronto

Last week, the City of Toronto was flooded with more than 16, 000 people representing Microsoft Partners from all over the world! Partners from coast to coast took  part in the biggest ever Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). 
WPC travels the globe to take place in a new city every year giving Microsoft Partners a chance to discover the latest technology and trends to come in the year ahead. It also provides a valuable forum to gain industry knowledge, and learn new strategies to ensure Microsoft Partners, like Ideaca, can continuously deliver the highest standards of care and information to our customers.


This year, the conference was held in Toronto at the Metro Convention Centre and the Air Canada Centre. The conference was said to bring in the most traffic throughout the GTA that Toronto has ever seen for a conference, and even brought in a whooping $500 million to the City of Toronto! 

Each day Ideacans experienced  dozens of sessions and key note speakers that helped us to learn new strategies and product knowledge. There were even a few ground-breaking announcements, such as a demonstration shown on Kinnect that scanned a person to virtually produce them in 3D, then their 3D image was printed out into a 3D mold!  Truly a thing to see!  We also spotted new laptops that can convert into a tablet; which will be beneficial to all those stubborn people who cannot part without their keyboards. There was also a great deal of hype around the new Windows 8 phone and operating system that is sure to make many smartphone and Windows 7 users change their mind about what they currently have. Windows CMO and CFO Tami Reller announced at the conference that the new Windows 8 operating system will be launch in 231 markets worldwide, starting in October 2012.

The 5-day conference kicked off with a stunning performance by Cirque du Soleil and wrapped up Thursday night with a packed concert by the Grammy Award winning band Train. What a week! Ideaca is proud to have been apart of it and we look forward to sharing our new learning with our customers in the year to come.

Were you at WPC this year? What was your favourite part?
 

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SharePoint Saturday Toronto - July 7th

The 2012 SharePoint Saturday North American tour is on and will be hitting Toronto on Saturday, July 7th. This year Ideaca will be a sponsor!

SharePoint Saturday Toronto will be an educational, informative & lunch hour filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics. SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

Come out and join Ideaca in this fun-filled day of SharePoint...We look forward to seeing you there!

Click here for more information and to register for free!

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Ideaca is proud to sponsor this year's Calgary International Children's Festival

The Calgary International Children's Festival collaborates with like-minded companies to celebrate creativity, education and family. Ideaca has chosen to sponsor the festival this year in order to help the Festival provide an educational experience that improves student's critical thinking skills. Students gain a unique awareness of their place in the world around them. These experiences inspire innovative thinking, which is the driving force of tomorrow's leaders.

"With the help of companies such as Ideaca, we are able to ensure that economic circumstances are not a barrier to a family’s ability to attend Festival performances and workshops,” said David Anderson, Executive Director at the Calgary International Children’s Festival. “Our sponsors help us achieve our goal, which is to bring children and families to an inclusive community event that sparks imagination, inspires creative thought, encourages cultural understanding, and fosters a lifelong passion for the arts.”

“Ideaca is dedicated to improving the health and quality of life of Canadians by investing in our communities,” said Mike Alkier, Managing Partner, Ideaca. “We strive to be strong corporate citizens, and be involved in ways that benefit the regions in which we operate.”

The festival runs from May 22-May 26. We look forward to seeing you there!

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Hang up on the past...dial into mobility NOW!

Last Wednesday evening in Waterloo, Ontario, Ideaca hosted a cocktail event "Mobility...Canada's most overlooked priority & why it is crucial to business success!".

This event focused on the urgent need for Canadian businesses to step up their initiaves in creating a mobile platform for both their employees and for their customers.

Brad Blaskavitch, Sales Director at Ideaca, touched on the many ways a company can develop different mobile strategies to better their customers experience, as well as satisfying the everchanging needs of their employees.

Christa Nesbitt, Sales Director at Ideaca,  also wowed the audience with a few demos showcasing submitting expenses on the go, tracking store productivity and sales in real-time and a virtual tracking program to discover and maintain issues in the field.

If you missed out on this event, it will be hosted again in Fall 2012 in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Stay up-to-date for event details in your city!

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SC Magazine Feature Article - Canada's Cloud Opportunity

Gord Smith, Partner at Ideaca, was recently quoted in an SC Magazine feature article called Canada's Cloud Opportunity. 

Although Canada has traditionally been considered a follower in the computing space, there is growing evidence that suggests our cloud computing industry may be different due to rising concerns over privacy and government scrutiny in the United States. 

Gord was quoted in the article stating, "If you operate in the U.S., there's a legal right to have access to that data, and there's a precedent around that. The data is accessible if you operate in the U.S., period."

Could Canada become a new storage haven for international companies fearful about cloud storage in the U.S.? 

Read the full article here.

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York Technology Alliance New Member

Ideaca has recently become a member of the York Technology Alliance.

The YTA is represents the York Region's tech cluster - supporting business developers, innovators, suppliers, and providers. Every month the YTA hosts Peer 2 Peer sessions like "Women in Technology", "Marketing Leadership" and "Leaders in Emerging Companies" just to name a few. These sessions are catered to people in the technology industry to come together from different sectors and discuss hot topics of the month in groups of about 20 people.

Check out the YTA for more details!

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Ideaca one of Canada’s top ICT Companies in the 2012 Branham300 Rankings

Ideaca have been listed in the 2012 Branham300 ranking of top Canadian ICT companies.  The Branham300 highlights the top Canadian and Multinational ICT companies operating in Canada, as ranked by revenues. 

“Ideaca managed to weather the difficult economic times by building and maintaining trusted relationships with our customers,” said Mike Alkier, Managing Partner, Ideaca.  “With the market rebound, we were able to grow our organization in 2011 and are poised for continued success in 2012 and beyond.” 

Check out the news release!

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Best Workplaces in Canada Second Year in a Row!

Today it was announced that Ideaca was recognized for the second year in a row as 2012's Best Workplaces in Canada - Medium organizations. Best Workplaces in Canada is ranked using the results from employee surveys and comments. This year, we ranked at number 17 surpassing last year's number of 69! What an amazing accomplishment and an outstanding achievement for Ideaca and our employees!

The full list of companies will be posted in today's Globe and Mail and also can be viewed here.

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