Changing the Unit of Measure on an Item - It Can Be Done!

"Help! I selected the wrong unit of measure on my item!" It's more common than you know, and if you're new to AX or if you are just working quickly while setting up an item and you set up the wrong unit of measure (UOM), do not despair! You do not have to start over from scratch. There is a trick to quickly and easily get your item UOM back on track.

Changing the Unit on an Item in AX

When you first set up an item, the default UOM is usually set to ea. Let's say you wanted to set your item up as UOM lb, but hit enter before you changed the UOM. It happens, right?

Using Favorites in AX

If you spend most of your day in AX, one thing that you may have noticed is that it is really difficult to stay in just one module to do your job. If you can do this, lucky you! But for the rest of us, there seems to be a lot of navigating through multiple modules. A scheduler might spend some time in the Master planning, Production control, Inventory management, and Organization administration modules. An accountant may touch modules such as General ledger, Cash and bank management, Accounts payable, and Accounts receivable within their work day just to name a few.

If you have specific areas within AX that you access on a regular basis to do your job and you find that going back and forth between modules is tedious and tiresome, then setting up Favorites in AX is something that can make your work day go by more smoothly and efficiently.

Where are Favorites Located in AX?

How to See an Item's Purchase History

When planning and forecasting for the next year, it is helpful to know the past purchase history on an item. It isn't extremely obvious how to find this in AX if you aren't tracking this with a Purchase agreement, but there are a few different ways to see this information that can help when setting up a purchasing plan for the next year.

Period Statistics

When you navigate to an item in the Released products form, Product information management > Common > Released products, you can find your item and navigate to the Purchase tab in the ribbon. 

Make End of Year Trade Agreement Updates Quick and Easy

The end of the year is rapidly approaching. This means there are a lot of tedious updates that need to be done in AX in order to do business in the upcoming year. One thing that typically needs to be updated are the trade agreements that companies keep with their customers and vendors.

Sometimes companies will approach this by creating all new journal lines, but this is not necessary! There is a way to copy your old trade agreements and modify them before posting as new.

Where are Trade Agreements in AX?

Trade agreements can be found in both the Sales and marketing and Procurement and sourcing modules. They can be found under Journals > Price/discount agreement journals. Yes, they are called Price/discount agreement journals in AX, but for simplicity's sake, I will refer to them as trade agreements in this post.

In order to copy a trade agreement, you will want to create a new trade agreement.

Converting Prospects to Customers

The Sales and marketing module in AX offers some pretty cool benefits to a sales team. While it is not as robust as CRM, there are still plenty of really beneficial features that can be utilized to a sales team's advantage in AX.

One such feature is the ability to add sales prospects into the system without allocating a customer number to the prospect. This is helpful in the event that the prospect never comes through as a customer.

Also, another useful feature of using the prospect list would be to have current prospect records in the system if a sales person leaves the company, goes on a medical leave, takes vacation, or is out of the office for whatever reason. Another sales rep can look into that sales rep's prospect list and make contact if necessary to complete the transformation from prospect to customer. 

Item Model Group vs Item Group

When setting up a new item or released product in AX, you are presented with a lot of different options. Two of the options are Item model group and Item group.

Item model group and Item group on the Released product form.

Upon first glance, one might be inclined to think that these are probably pretty similar, but they would be mistaken. It's OK, I did it too! I am going to break down these two reference groups that are on all items in AX so you can understand what makes them so different and what purpose they serve on the item.

Using Dimensions Display to Gain Insight into Inventory

AX is extremely robust in its ability to allow for single user configuration and personalization, and one of my favorite tools for this is Dimensions display.

Dimensions Display is found in many different places in AX related to inventory. Based on how you set up your products, there are many ways to use Dimensions Display to really drill down into your inventory. Dimensions Display can be found by looking for the words Dimensions Display along with an icon for a "flux capacitor" in AX. If you don't know what a flux capacitor is, you are really missing out. But for the sake of this blog post, I am going to show you what it looks like:

See Doc, it really DOES look like the flux capacitor! Now, if only we had a DeLorean...

Task Recorder to Document Processes

One of the best tools that is available to all users right now in AX is called Task recorder. If you haven't heard of this, you are in for a real treat.

Task recorder is a tool that AX users can use to document a step-by-step process in AX with screenshots and navigation steps. It's not a perfect tool and what it generates may need some cleanup afterwards, but it saves a lot of time when documenting processes and procedures.

I have used Task recorder in AX during my company's implementation (what a life saver!), to create training documents, and to send developers a step-by-step document explaining how end users are executing their jobs. There are a wide array of uses for this kind of technology, but those three are the main uses I have heard of Task recorder being used from other users.

Using Task Recorder

Using Sales Agreements in AX in an Unorthodox Manner (Hint - To Track Employee Sales)

While preparing for an installment of the AX for Dummies series regarding Sales and Purchasing Agreements in AX, I came up with what I thought was a pretty good idea that may seem a bit unorthodox but can solve a simple company problem! Stop me if you've heard this before.

Typically when you think of sales agreements, you think of a contract set up between a customer and a supplier. You are offering a good or service at a certain price if they commit to buy a certain quantity or dollar amount before the agreement expires. These are easily set up in AX and can provide great value in tracking the status of a contract with a customer/vendor.

Now, consider the issue of tracking employee sales within your company. This is something that can get out of hand if not managed properly. What if we could use Sales agreements in AX to track and manage these?

For example, company X allows their employees to buy their product at cost. But company X only wants to sell 500 pieces of this product as employee sales per year. Set up a sales agreement! Every time an employee purchases this product at cost, create a release order against the sales agreement and see the total on the agreement decrement until it reaches zero and the agreement has been fulfilled. With a little bit of knowledge, you can easily make this idea a reality in your company.

Creating a Sales agreement in AX

AXUG Summit

I am just now getting back from AXUG Summit, and what an experience it was! Besides being located in the sunny Tampa, Florida (of which I saw very little), I was awarded the AXUG All Star and Chapter Leader of the Year awards! It was truly an honor to be recognized for my commitment to the AX community and the work that I put forth this past year to help make the world of AX just a little bit better for the end user.

After Summit last year, I recognized that there was a need for AX content for beginners that was relatable and that anyone could understand. I focused on really interacting with beginners and started to develop a webinar series through the AXUG called AX for Dummies. It was received well, and I received feedback from many users that it was a great learning tool for them to see what the system was capable of. I heard from plenty of users all the way up the ladder to CEO who enjoyed what content I shared.

I am starting this blog as my way to share random musings about AX in addition to new product offerings and some of the more interesting things I find myself stumbling upon. I like to write and I like to talk, so expect it to be pretty random and fun. You might actually learn something too! Enjoy!