Implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

Rahul Mohta, Yogesh Kasat, JJ Yadav

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781787121010
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business intelligence
• Index: Business

Harness the power of Dynamics 365 Operations and discover all you need to implement itAbout This Book• Master all the necessary tools and resources to evaluate Dynamics 365 for Operations, implement it, and proactively maintain it.• Troubleshoot your problems effectively with your Dynamics 365 partner• Learn about architecture, deployment choices, integration, configuration and data migration, development, testing, reporting and BI, support, upgrading, and more. Who This Book Is ForThis book is for technology leaders, project managers solution architects, and consultants who are planning to implement, are in the process of implementing, or are currently upgrading to Dynamics 365 for Operations. This book will help you effectively learn and implement Dynamics 365 for Operations.What You Will Learn• Learn about Microsoft Dynamics 365, it's offerings, plans and details of Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition• Understand the methodology and the tool, architecture, and deployment options• Effectively plan and manage configurations and data migration, functional design, and technical design• Understand integration frameworks, development concepts, best practices, and recommendations while developing new solutions• Learn how to leverage intelligence and analytics through Power BI, machine learning, IOT, and Cortana intelligence• Master testing, training, going live, upgrading, and how to get support during and after the implementationIn DetailMicrosoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition, is a modern, cloud-first, mobile-first, ERP solution suitable for medium and large enterprise customers.This book will guide you through the entire life cycle of a implementation, helping you avoid common pitfalls while increasing your efficiency and effectiveness at every stage of the project.Starting with the foundations, the book introduces the Microsoft Dynamics 365 offerings, plans, and products. You will be taken through the various methodologies, architectures, and deployments so you can select, implement, and maintain Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition. You will delve in-depth into the various phases of implementation: project management, analysis, configuration, data migration, design, development, using Power BI, machine learning, Cortana analytics for intelligence, testing, training, and finally deployment, support cycles, and upgrading. This book focuses on providing you with information about the product and the various concepts and tools, along with real-life examples from the field and guidance that will empower you to execute and implement Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition.Style and approachThis book is a step-by-step guide focusing on implementing Dynamics 365 Operations solutions for your organization.

Integration Planning and Design

ERP is in the middle of the ecosystem of business facing applications, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations will need to directly or indirectly integrate with other applications. Accuracy and timely update of this information is very important for business success and growth. It is important to ensure that the technical analysts and developers in your project are familiar with integration technologies, so that they can support the design process and identify the best integration solution for your project. This chapter is about integration planning, understanding integration technologies, and integration design/development.

In this chapter, the following topics are covered:

• Integration architecture
• Basic integration concepts
• Integration tools, midleware, and scenarios
• Dynamics 365 data integrator
• Integration planning
• Integration design and development
• Best practices and recommendations

Integration architecture

As enterprises move toward using more and more specialized applications rather than having an ERP do everything for them, you need a robust framework and strategy to manage integrations within the ERP system. Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition provides robust frameworks and functionalities to integrate with third-party applications using modern techniques. Integration framework is completely changed in Dynamics 365 for Operation from the earlier version. In the previous versions, Application Integration Framework (AIF) was the main integration platform of integration with third-party applications. AIF used SOAP-based XML technology and had the following drawbacks:

• SOAP message exchanges are bulky and not suitable for cloud-based integration
• The AIF framework has performance overhead
• The duplication of business logic due to different frameworks for integration (AIF) and data management (DIXF)

Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition supports the modern HTTP-based RESTful model of integration, along with recurring integration for high-volume asynchronous integration models. The new integration framework is based on the OData 4.0 protocol and supports the JSON format for data exchange.

The following diagram shows the conceptual architecture of integration architecture in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition:

As shown, data entities are the key components of integration frameworks in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition, and serve multiple integration scenarios through data management platforms and OData endpoints. The other integration option is Custom X++ classes, which lights up custom services with the SOAP and JSON endpoints.

To understand integration architecture in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition, let's take a deep dive to know some of the basic integration concepts and how they are related to Finance and Operations.

Basic integration concepts

To understand the integration concepts in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition better, it is important to know the basic web integration concepts first. In this section, we will learn the basic web concepts, such as RESTful APIs, SOAP, OData, JSON, and OAuth.

RESTful APIs

Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architecture style that relies on six guiding constraints: stateless, client-server, cacheable, layered system, code on demand (optional), and uniform interface. Web server APIs that adhere to the REST architecture are called RESTful APIs.

Many modern internet applications, such as Microsoft Azure, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Paypal, and Amazon, use RESTful architecture style in their APIs, which allows easy integration over HTTP communication protocol. The primary reason RESTful APIs are useful in cloud and web applications is because the calls are stateless. This means each requests or interactions are independent, there can be nothing saved that has to be remembered by the next request also any request can be directed to any instance of a component.

A RESTful API explicitly takes advantage of HTTP methodologies. They use GET to retrieve a resource, PUT to update a resource, POST to create that resource, and DELETE to remove it. A resource can be an object, file, or a table row in a database. HTTP-based RESTful APIs are defined by the following key aspects:

• Base URL: Such as http://YourDynamics365ForOperationsURL/data/
• Media type: Such as application/JSON and application/XML
• Standard HTTP methods: Such as GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE

SOAP

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is a specification for exchanging structured information for web service implementation. SOAP uses XML as a message format and relies on application layer protocol, such as HTTP, TCP, and SMTP, for message transmission and negotiation. SOAP defines a message format based on envelop, header, and body. All request and response messages must be serialized into this message format.

The following diagram shows the structure of the SOAP message:

A SOAP message always starts with an envelop that contains the mandatory SOAP header block and SOAP body block. SOAP header contains the application-related information, such as message ID and soap action. The SOAP body block contains the actual message intended for the recipient.

Dynamics AX 2012 AIF uses SOAP over NETTCP and HTTP protocol. When an AIF integration port is deployed on the AOS, it uses the NETTCP protocol, and to use it over the HTTP port, it needs to be deployed on an Inte...