Since the end of December, we have published new online Help content for the Inventory and warehouse management module.

Walkthrough: More than 16 InventDim Dimensions Despite Index Limit [AX 2012]  View this article to learn about a new work-around to use more than 16 dimensions in the InventDim table and its DimIdx index. The work-around uses a new hash field that was added as part of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2.

This content is primarily for developers.

A new feature introduced in AX for Retail R2 CU7 is password maintenance in the POS.  This means that users can change their own password and store managers can reset passwords for staff in their store.  Here are a few tips to get started with this new feature.

First of all there is a minor issue that you need to take care of in AX before you can add the new operations to buttons in the screen layout.  If you go to your button grid layout designer and attempt to add either of these two operations to a button you will notice that the operations do not appear in the selection list.  This list is defined by the RETAILOPERATIONS table, which is normally populated during the Initialization process (Retail Parameters window).  However, the two new operations and permissions were left out of the seed data (we'll get that taken care of in a future release) so they need to be created manually.

To create the Permission IDs:

Open a new Developer Workspace and navigate to Data Dictionary > Tables > RetailPermissions.  Right-click on the table and select Open.  Create the two new records below. 

PermissionId = 1028, PermissionName = "AllowPasswordChange"

PermissionId = 1029, PermissionName = "AllowResetPassword"

Note:  the PermissionName must be spelled exactly as shown as it must match the column names in the RetailPosPermissionGroup table.

To create the Operations:

Open the Operations window (Retail > Setup > POS > Operations) and create two new records:  

Operation ID = 1215, Operation Name = "Change Password", Permission ID = 1028 (AllowPasswordChange), Check User Access = true, User Operation = true

Operation ID = 1216, Operation Name = "Reset Password", Permission ID = 1029 (AllowResetPassword), Check User Access = true, User Operation = true

To give users access to either of these two operations open the Permissions Groups window (Retail > Setup > POS > Permissions Groups) and mark either of the two new permissions for a permission group:

To add the operations to a button open the Button Grids window (Retail > Setup > POS > Button Grids) and open the Designer for one of your grids.  Right-click > Properties on any button and then open the Action drop-down.  You should now see your Change Password and Reset Password operations:

After creating the two new buttons push down all changes to the POS databases using either the N-1090 or A-1090 job (the subjobs for RetailPermissions and RetailOperations are included in these jobs) and either the N-1060 or A-1060 job (which includes the RetailPOSPermissionGroup table).

Once everything has been pushed to the POS you can now see the operations available to the user.  The two forms are pretty standard "change password" forms:

When the user changes either their own or someone else's password it will be changed in both the local database and in HQ (using the Real-time Service).  Passwords will not replicate to other stores until the either the N-1060 or A-1060 job is run for other stores.

In addition to letting users and store managers change passwords in the POS, an administrator in AX can force the user to change the password on their next login.  This is done by going to the worker form and marking the "user needs to change the password at next logon" checkbox:

After the N-1060 or A-1060 job as has run the user will get prompted the next time he or she logs into the POS:  

Some miscellaneous notes:  

• The Change Password operation uses the standard POS security model; the user will be prompted for manager credentials if he or she does not have access.  However, in order to use the Reset Password operation the user has to have the permission explicitly granted.  Manager privileges are not sufficient.


• If you are upgrading from a version previous to CU7, the new columns in the RetailPOSPermissionGroup table will be missing from subjobs and will not replicate.  This can be corrected by re-initializing the Retail seed data (Retail > Setup > Parameters > Retail Parameters > Initialize button) or by manually updating the Transfer Field List for the BDDP-RPPG and ADDP-RPPG subjobs.


• Changing the password from the POS requires an active link to HQ via Real-time Service.  This is true even if you are not using local authentication ("Commerce Data Exchange: Real-time Service staff" is unchecked on the Real-time Service profile).


• This new feature also includes the ability to define password strength requirements.  If you are using numeric PINs for authentication at the POS, this will mainly mean minimum password length, but you may also require uppercase letters, special characters, and numeric characters if you are allowing text passwords.  These settings are in the Retail Parameters window and are only enforced at the POS (temporary passwords set for new workers in AX do follow these restrictions).
  

Hopefully you will find this a very useful new feature in the product – it should definitely be appreciated by AX administrators working with many workers across many stores!  Feel free to leave comments below if you have any questions.

When trying to settle several vendor invoices at the same time in a vendor payment journal you can run into following infolog message:

Several transactions have been selected for settlement with various values, all marks have been removed

This message is being thrown out by AX when the invoices you are trying to settle have different Payment IDs in them. The Payment ID must be the same for each invoice in order for those invoices to be settled through the same payment journal.

You can quickly check and adjust the Payment ID of the invoice that you are trying to settle by going to Accounts Payable > Common > Vendors > All Vendors, then selecting the vendor and clicking the Transactions button in the top menu. From the Vendor Transactions window, select the invoice in question and switch to the Payment ID. Note that the Payment ID in the Vendor transactions forms can be freely updated by the user.

The Payment ID is a free-text field and can have any value entered in it (there are not pre-defined values that you select for this field).You can set a default Payment ID for the vendor record through AP | Vendors | Payment tab | Payment ID. The Payment ID defined here then defaults to the new AP Invoice Journals and Purchase Order Invoices.

The Payment ID is being populated with different values for each new invoice, then this will be the cause of the message you are seeing. The options to resolve this issue would be to manually adjust the Payment ID, or to continue using the Payment Proposal functionality, which does bypass some of the logic around the payment ID to allow multiple invoices with different payment ID values.

Today, people are flooded with more information than they can possibly take in. For example, a quick search on Bing.com for "Dynamics AX 2012" will get you almost 3 million results. How can you find all of the important information that you want about a specific subject without spending loads of time searching the web? Curah! is there to help. While Curah! is not a Microsoft Dynamics AX specific site, I believe it will be a valuable tool for us Microsoft Dynamics AX professionals now and in the future.

What is Curah!? Think of Curah! like Pinterest, except for text. Instead of curating a board of images from all over the web, you're curating links from all over the web.

For example, I've created my first curation at Curah! called "Microsoft Dynamics AX:  SEPA mandates". With this curation I have compiled all of the useful links - that I could find - to information about SEPA and Microsoft Dynamics AX specific SEPA functionality into one article. I have links to important white papers, hotfixes, support articles, and blog posts; all of which are about SEPA and Microsoft Dynamics AX. Now, I may not have found all of the important information to link to, but that is what the "feedback" link is for. If you know that there are other useful articles, blog posts, or web sites that would be good to list among the other links, send me feedback saying so.

Below are just a few additional Curah! articles related to Microsoft Dynamics AX that you might also find useful:

• How to successfully install Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
• How do I host Microsoft Dynamics in Windows Azure Virtual Machines?

If you are a Microsoft Dynamics AX expert yourself, I bet that you have your own informal curations of useful AX-specific websites, blog posts, forum posts, or white papers that you currently have saved as favorites in your browser, or links in a OneNote document. If you do, I challenge you to create your own Curah! profile and share your favorite Microsoft Dynamics AX web resources with the rest of us Microsoft Dynamics AX professionals. 

If you do create your own curation, check out the Curah! FAQ first and then be sure to comment on this blog post and share any AX-specific curations that you create. Happy Curating!

We are pleased to announce the availability of the Financial consolidations and currency translation whitepaper which can be found here.

This white paper walks through the steps you’ll need to complete in both Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics ERP to create consolidated financial statements. This white paper describes:

• Multi-company reporting
• Aggregation
• Eliminations
• Minority interest scenarios
• How to handle legal entities with different fiscal periods or different charts of accounts
• How to access data sources outside Microsoft Dynamics ERP products
• Calculating balances with currency translation
• Prerequisites for AX 2012

Please send any questions or comments about this document to adocs@microsoft.com.

For more information on how to print reports by using Management Reporter, see Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics ERP.

Description:

After copying DLL files from another location, the POS is not loading the extensions because of the error:" This
file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this
computer" :) - 

The POS does not give any indication about the error as it does not try to load it.

The Message is only shown when you right click on each file, in the general tab under the "Read-only and
"Hidden" attributes.

We ran into this problem when copying files to a POS computer for a customer via SkyDrive and the extensions
files did not kick in. The error can only be seen on each file, not when you select all.   

Solution:

When dll files are moved. Take the properties on the individual files and press the Unblock button

Author: Kim Truelsen

Date: 29/1- 2014

We want to make sure that you know about the end of support for Windows XP which is coming on April 8, 2014.  For most people, the only immediate impact is that Microsoft will no longer release updates for the operating system. However, for retailers (especially in the United States) the impact can be higher. For example, because the PCI Security Standards Council does not consider systems that use out-of-lifecycle operating systems to be PCI compliant, retailers running Windows XP, regardless of their payment software, could encounter issues with their banks.

The better news is that, as soon as the operating system is upgraded, implementations of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail 2009 that were running on Windows XP remain PCI compliant. Please be aware that Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail 2009 is supported on more recent operating systems, including Windows 8.1.

For more information about Windows XP end-of-support and upgrading to Windows 8.1, see this page:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help

The AX documentation team will be at the Tech Conference in Bellevue next week. Our big day is Wednesday:

• From 1-2:30, we’ll staffing a content publishing focus room, at which we’ll be happy to take feedback, answer questions, and ask you questions!
• At 2:45, we’ll have breakout session called Finding and creating help. It’s an updated session that explains where all our content is now, what our resources are, how to create custom help, and how to use Task Recorder to creating training documents.

We’d love to get your feedback! If you’d like set up a private meeting, feel free to contact Margo Crandall. (Margo.Crandall@microsoft.com)

With cumulative update 7 for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2, you can email reports to specific people by using tokens. When you use this feature, you don’t have to enter the email addresses of all recipients. Instead, you simply enter a token. The token instructs Dynamics AX to retrieve the appropriate email addresses from worker, customer, or vendor records.

Here’s how it works

Here are the details about how it works:

You can email reports to workers in your organization who have a specific job title

You can use the @<Job Title>@ token to email reports to workers in your organization who have a specific job title. For example, suppose that you want to email the Recruitment Projects report to all workers in your organization who have the job title of Staffing Specialist. In this scenario, you would enter the @Staffing Specialist@ token in the To field when you email the report.

The @Staffing Specialist@ token instructs Dynamics AX to perform the following tasks:

1. Retrieve a list of all workers who have the Staffing Specialist job title.
2. Retrieve the primary email address for each worker who is identified in step 1.
3. Email the Recruitment Projects report to each worker who is identified in step 1 by using the email addresses that are retrieved in step 2.

You can email reports to customers and vendors who have a specific purpose

You can email reports to customers and vendors who have a specific purpose by using the @<Purpose>@ token. In Dynamics AX, contact information (such as email addresses) for customers and vendors has a purpose associated with it. For example, a customer may have an email address where the purpose is Billing and another email address where the purpose is Delivery. Now suppose that you want to email a sales order to a customer. In this scenario, you would enter the following token in the To field when emailing the sales order: @Billing@

The @Billing@ token instructs Dynamics AX to perform the following tasks:

1. Identify the customer that this sales order must be sent to.
2. Retrieve a list of email addresses for the customer that have the Billing purpose.
3. Send the sales order to the customer by using the email addresses that are retrieved in step 2.

For step-by-step instructions about how to insert tokens when you send a report as email, see Print or email a report.

Here’s how you can customize the functionality

If you’re a developer, you can customize the functionality of the tokens by using the SysExtension framework. For example, you can develop an additional customization to retrieve titles from an external address book and send a report to the list of addresses that is retrieved externally.

You can also customize tokens to specify other print destinations by using print management. For example, you can use tokens to specify a printer that is based on location. In this scenario, a token such as @wh printer@ can be used to specify a warehouse printer.

For more information about how to extend tokens, see Customizing tokens for emailing and printing reports.

Description:

 It can happen that you need to downgrade the AOS kernel in a system. Depending on the build you are going back to, you might get an error message.

Error message:

Object Server 01:  Fatal SQL condition during
login. Error message: "The internal time zone version number stored in the
database is higher than the version supported by the kernel (4/1). Use a newer
Microsoft Dynamics AX kernel."

Solution:

You need to change the value for the column value SYSTIMEZONESVERSION in the table SQLSystemVariables. If you look in
the event viewer you can see that it finds the value 4, but expected 1 (4/1).
So the solution is to change the value to 1.

Author: Kim Truelsen

Date: 3/2-2014

A country specific update to support SEPA export formats for remittance journal in Promissory Notes and Bill of Exchange in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 is now available

Overview:

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is an initiative by the European Commission in which all electronic payments are considered domestic, regardless of the country/region where the individual, business, or organization, and the bank are located. Within this area, there is no difference between national and cross-border payments. The SEPA includes the 28 European Union (EU) member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, and Monaco. The SEPA helps form a single market for payment transactions within the European Economic Area (EEA).

The EPC is committed to delivering following pan-European payment instruments:
- For credit transfers – SCT – SEPA Credit Transfer
- For direct debits – SDD – SEPA Direct Debit

SEPA export formats for remittance journal in promissory notes (Account Payable) and remittance journal in Bill of Exchange (Account Receivable) are available in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2.

Download information:
The feature is available for download using the following link: https://mbs2.microsoft.com/Knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2926526

Please monitor this space upcoming for further details on the availability of this feature for AX2009

Description:

We have
received some feedback from customers that inconsistence occurs when the
network connect fails during a RealTimeService operation from the POS. To
ensure that POS calls to RealTimeService is working reliable, we can enable the
reliable session in the config files. After enabling this feature, the communication
will ensure consistency in the calls.

NB: Enabling this feature might slightly decrease the performance.

Solution:

When you want to edit the Web.Config or POS.Exe.Config file it is a very good practice to
use the SvcConfigEditor.exe, which comes with the Microsoft SDK. With this tool it is very easy to see the possible values in the
different options and it provides you a good overview what is running as a service and what is running on the client.

To get the reliable session to work we have to change certain values.

1. The MaxBufferSize andMaxReceivedMessageSize needs to be the same value.

• maxBufferSize="10485760"
• maxReceivedMessageSize="10485760" 

       2.  The values needs to be changed.

• reliableSession ordered="true"
• transferMode="Buffered"

Example files: Content might have to be adjusted.

POS.EXE.CONFIG file

Web.Config file

NB. The next release of AX (Dynamics AX 2012 R3)
has reliable session enabled by default.

Author: Kim Truelsen

Date: 11/2-2014

The Configuring budget plan templates white paper found here now includes steps on how to use the wizard available in cumulative update 7 for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 to create a worksheet template. 

Budget planning web services have been added as part of the budget planning feature set for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 to support the creation of budget plan templates. When you use the budget planning fields made available through the budget planning web service, you can create templates for Microsoft Excel worksheets and Microsoft Word justification documents by using Microsoft Office Add-ins.

Budget plan templates are created by template authors or the designers of the budget planning process, and then they are made available to users who participate in the budgeting process. With budget plan templates, you can create Excel worksheets and Word justifications that are linked to the budget plan tables in AX 2012 R2.

With a budget plan justification, information can be exported from the budget plan to Word. The justification can be routed for feedback along with the budget plan, and Word features can be used to add text and comments, and to track changes.

With a budget plan worksheet, information can be imported from the budget plan to an Excel worksheet by using a budget plan template. For example, budget plan lines for multiple scenarios can be displayed in a columnar format. The data in the worksheet can be charted, analyzed, and modified in Excel, and then published back to the budget plan lines. The worksheet that was created from the template is automatically attached to the budget plan when it is submitted to workflow.

For more information on budget planning, basic budgeting and budget control in AX 2012, see the Budgeting topic on TechNet.  

Please send any questions or comments about this document to adocs@microsoft.com.

There are many questions related to utilizing Payment Services within Microsoft Dynamics Online.  The purpose of this blog is to provide various resources that may be helpful in the provisioning and configuring of Payment Services.  Bookmark this page and check back for continued updates.

The Dynamics Online quick information page
http://www.dynamicsonline.com/OnlinePaymentsSellPages/sellpage.aspx

Partner and Customer sign in page
http://www.dynamicsonline.com/


Video 
Provisioning Microsoft Dynamics Online Payment Services
*NEW* - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pOs48Mh4FI&feature=youtu.be


Blogs
AX 2012 R2 - Connecting a Dynamics Online payment service to AX accounts receivable
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2013/10/03/ax-2012-r2-connecting-a-dynamics-online-payment-service-to-ax-accounts-receivable.aspx

AX 2012 R2 for Retail - Configuring the EFT Service in the Retail Hardware Profile with Dynamics Online Payment Services
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2013/10/22/ax-2012-r2-for-retail-configuring-the-eft-service-in-the-retail-hardware-profile-with-dynamics-online-payment-services.aspx

AX 2012 R2 for Retail - Configuring POS for test mode with Dynamics Online payment service
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2013/10/09/ax-2012-r2-for-retail-configuring-pos-for-test-mode-with-dynamics-online-payment-service.aspx

Dynamics Online user roles
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2013/03/06/dynamics-online-user-roles.aspx


Information Source
Payment Services - How to choose a payment provider
https://informationsource.dynamics.com//RFPServicesOnline/Rfpservicesonline.aspx?DocName=Payment+Services+%e2%80%93+How+to+choose+a+payment+provider%7cQJ4JEM76642V-8-462

Payment Services - How to Set Up Credit Card Processing (AX 2012 R1)
https://informationsource.dynamics.com//RFPServicesOnline/Rfpservicesonline.aspx?DocName=Payment+Services+%e2%80%93+How+to+set+up+a+demo+of+Payment+Services%7cQJ4JEM76642V-8-464

Payment Services - How to set up Credit Card Processing (AX 2012 R2)
(Updated document on its way)


Download Center:
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 White Paper: Credit Card Processing
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=28154

PCI Implementation Guide for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36537


TechNet
Set up payment services
Set up credit card authorizations 
Accounts receivable parameters (form)
Credit card types (form)
Customer credit cards (form)
Payment services (form)



Other Resources Related to Credit Card Processing
AX for Retail: A Better Sample for EFT plug-in (Credit Card processing)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2012/01/14/ax-for-retail-a-better-sample-for-eft-plug-in-credit-card-processing.aspx

AX for Retail 2012: EFT (Credit Card Processing) Sample is Now Available
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axsupport/archive/2012/07/18/ax-for-retail-2012-eft-credit-card-processing-sample-is-now-available.aspx

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Security Hardening Guide
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=232

Encrypt/Decrypt in AX 2012
http://mukesh-ax.blogspot.nl/2012/09/encryptdecrypt-in-ax-2012.html

Cryptography API in X++
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mfp/archive/2006/07/12/663387.aspx

CyberSource sent out an email (at the bottom of this blog) around February 3, 2014, stating that customers needed to update their SSL Certificates by February 25th to avoid service interruption. 

For customers exclusively using a Microsoft Dynamics ERP with Dynamics Online to process payments through CyberSource as the payment provider, no action is needed.  Dynamics Online does not use these certificates and as such no updates or changes are needed by the customer or Microsoft.

The audience of the email from CyberSource is for customers who are using CyberSource directly through one of their interfaces, CyberSource Simple Order and SOAP Toolkit APIs.  If you are using one of these interfaces externally from a Microsoft Dynamics ERP system to process payments in any way, then you will need to update the SSL Certificates as instructed in their email to continue to process payments in that manner.  If you need assistance updating the certificates, then you will need to contact CyberSource.


Here is the email that was sent out by CyberSource:

Dear Valued Customer,

As part of routine SSL certificate updates, the SSL certificates in use for the CyberSource Simple Order and SOAP Toolkit APIs will need to be updated by all merchants before February 25th, 2014.

In addition to the server-level certificate for the 'ics2ws.ic3.com' domain, this year the Certificate Authority, Entrust, has also updated the second intermediary certificate (the L1E certificate) as well.  All merchants are advised to add this additional intermediary certificate to their trusted key stores as well at this time.

These new SSL certificates can be found attached to the following CyberSource Knowledge Base article:
        https://support.cybersource.com/cybskb/index?page=content&id=C1447

Additionally, an example of how to add SSL certificates to a Java key store can be found at the following location:
        https://support.cybersource.com/cybskb/index?page=content&id=C1446

All merchants using the SOAP Toolkit or Simple Order APIs in their production environments are advised to update these two certificates as soon as possible to avoid service interruptions as of February 25th, 2014.

Both new certificates are already in use within the CyberSource Test Environment for testing purposes.

Thank you,
CyberSource Customer Support

This is to inform you that a country specific update is available to support SEPA export formats for remittance journal in Promissory Notes and Bill of Exchange in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 SP1 has been released

Overview:

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is an initiative by the European Commission in which all electronic payments are considered domestic, regardless of the country/region where the individual, business, or organization, and the bank are located. Within this area, there is no difference between national and cross-border payments. The SEPA includes the 28 European Union (EU) member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, and Monaco. The SEPA helps form a single market for payment transactions within the European Economic Area (EEA).

The EPC is committed to delivering following pan-European payment instruments:

-          For credit transfers – SCT – SEPA Credit Transfer

-          For direct debits – SDD – SEPA Direct Debit

SEPA export formats for remittance journal in promissory notes (Account Payable) and remittance journal in Bill of Exchange (Account Receivable) are available in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 SP1.

Download information:

The feature is available for download using the following link: https://mbs2.microsoft.com/Knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2926526

There could be a situation in AX2012 when you have created Purchase order and saved it (Project ID is unknown in this stage). After that if you want to enter Project ID to a header level or line level- it is not possible, Project ID field is greyed out.

The conclusion of this behavior is that this is how project Purchase order is currently designed:

- The Project ID on the PO header shouldn't be editable when a PO header is created without a project.

- The Project ID on the PO header will only be editable when a PO header is created with a project.  The project ID on the PO header also cannot be cleared when a PO header is created with a project.

This design is done due to some consequences changing project ID in Purchase order.

Overview:

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is an initiative by the European Commission in which all electronic payments are considered domestic, regardless of the country/region where the individual, business, or organization, and the bank are located. Within this area, there is no difference between national and cross-border payments. The SEPA includes the 28 European Union (EU) member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, and Monaco. The SEPA helps form a single market for payment transactions within the European Economic Area (EEA).

The EPC is committed to delivering following pan-European payment instruments:

-          For credit transfers – SCT – SEPA Credit Transfer

-          For direct debits – SDD – SEPA Direct Debit

SEPA export formats for remittance journal in promissory notes (Account Payable) and remittance journal in Bill of Exchange (Account Receivable) are available in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

Download information:

The feature is available for download using the following link: https://mbs2.microsoft.com/Knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2926526

Additional information – only for AX2012:

To install that hotfix it is required to install in addition kernel hotfix 6.0.1108.1931 from KB 2748621.

Join us at Convergence 2014 in Atlanta, GA, next week. You can find the Information Experience team at either the Community Experience lounge near the AX support booth, or you can attend our interactive session on Wednesday: 

Session title: "Resources for how to ready your team for a Microsoft Dynamics AX Implementation"

Session ID: IDAX217

Session objectives:

• Learn about the resources that are available for each stage of the Microsoft Dynamics
  AX implementation lifecycle.
• Learn about how to use the help server to provide custom help for your users from
  within the product.
• Learn about our localization strategy and international markets’ availability and
  support.

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services periodically restarts, and each restart clears the Reporting Services cache. After this cache has been cleared, it may take some time for the next report that is run to display. For example, you may have noticed that it takes a really long time for the first report that is run each morning to display.

To minimize the effect of Reporting Services restarts, a new class that is named SRSReportServerWarmup is included with cumulative update 7 for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2. When the SRSReportServerWarmup class runs, it prepares the report server for use by performing the following tasks:

1. Loads Microsoft Dynamics AX business logic assemblies.
2. Connects to Reporting Services.
3. Runs a sample report that is named SRSReportServerWarmup.

As a best practice, you should schedule the batch job that runs the SRSReportServerWarmup class to run immediately after Reporting Services restarts. For more information about how to configure the batch job, see Run the SRSReportServerWarmup class.