Skip to main content

Bringing copy company back [AX 2012]

Back in 2013 I wrote a blog post on how to duplicate a company. I basically summarised Microsoft's guide on MSDN. http://dynamicsnavax.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/duplicate-company-in-ax-2012.html
The big issue with those steps are that it is very manual and can scare a lot of people. Imagine having to copy a company set up for 10 plus companies. This can be very tedious and time consuming. Plus there are some references that have to be set up manually like the journal names voucher series. So, why not automate.
I have put my project on codeplex which you can download and use (READ here carefully).

User guide

  1. Download the class from https://dax2012copycompany.codeplex.com/ under source codes tab
  2. Import it into your AOT
  3. Run the class NAVAX_CopyCompany – Right click Open.
image
  • From company – Enter the from company id
  • To company – Enter the new company id (if company doesn’t exit it will create it)
  • Use record ID compression – RecIds are recreated and in sequence
  • Release products – To release the products into the new company
  • Copy worker employment – To copy the employment record to the new company.
You will get a progress bar. It should take about 5-10 minutes on contoso demo data.
2014-09-26_0815
If there are issues importing certain tables it will give you a warning. I would advice to fix these manually.
2015-01-22_0918 

How it works

This works by exporting the dat/def to a temp folder and then creating it in the new company.
  1. Creates the Legal entity
  2. Copy the ledger set up – this includes the system accounts and account structures
  3. Copy the company/legal entity specific number sequence – resets the next number to 1. This step does not copy shared number sequence.
  4. Exports the dat/def for all tables that have the following conditions( Method is copyThisTable()).
    • Table group = Group, Reference, Parameter, Miscellaneous, Framework
    • Excludes tables that are virtual tables, system tables, temp tables.
    • I have manually added these tables PrintMgmtDocInstance and PrintMgmtSettings to include some print management tables. To add more tables that may not have the correct property, just add it to this method copyThisTableMore
    • image
  5. Imports the dat/def into the new created company and deletes the temp file
  6. Updates the voucher number sequence on the journal names – Ledger journal name, production journal name, inventory journal name. As that is company specific.
  7. Release products into the new company if the flag is ticked
  8. Copy worker employment to the new company if the flag is ticked
Now you should be able to navigate to your new company. Go to the legal entity and enter the company information (name, address etc).
You can now use Data Import Export Framework to import your customers, vendors and all your master records.

Limitations

  • This is class is a duplicate company and works with in the same partition.
  • It expects the account structure used in the from and to company are the same. If they are different I would say don’t use it. Just do the company set up manually or use other import methods.
  • There maybe other tables that need manual fixing or some coding. For example, I found the Print management setups where not set up. So, I added them to the exception tables list.
REMEMBER this is given as is. No guarantee it will work perfectly for you. IMHO Microsoft has not developed a similar copy company intentionally (similar to AX2009 copy company). As it isn't a perfect solution for AX2012. It has a lot of limitations, it would have given false impressions and negative feedback. DIXF is the future of most of Microsoft’s efforts.
CREDIT - I have taken inspiration from AX2009 copy company class. It does very similar thing of using temp dat/def.
FEEDBACK is appreciated. If you use it in any way, please give me feedback/comments/enhancements.

Popular posts from this blog

AX - How to use Map and MapEnumerator

Similar to Set class, Map class allows you to associate one value (the key) with another value. Both the key and value can be any valid X++ type, including objects. The types of the key and the value are specified in the declaration of the map. The way in which maps are implemented means that access to the values is very fast. Below is a sample code that sets and retrieves values from a map. static void checkItemNameAliasDuplicate(Args _args) { inventTable inventTable; Map map; MapEnumerator mapEnumerator; NameAlias nameAlias; int counter = 0; ; map = new Map(Types::String, Types::Integer); //store into map while select inventTable { nameAlias = inventTable.NameAlias; if (!map.exists(nameAlias)) { map.insert(nameAlias, 1); } else { map.insert(nameAlias, map.lookup(nameAlias) + 1); } } //retrieve fro

AX - How to use Set and SetEnumerator

The Set class is used for the storage and retrieval of data from a collection in which the values of the elements contained are unique and serve as the key values according to which the data is automatically ordered. You can create a set of primitive data types or complex data types such as a Class, Record or Container. Below is sample of a set of records. static void _Set(Args _args) {     CustTable       custTable;     Set             set = new Set(Types::Record);     SetEnumerator   setEnumerator;     ;     while select custTable     {         if (custTable && !set.in(custTable))         {             set.add(custTable);         }     }     if (!set.empty())     {         setEnumerator = set.getEnumerator();         setEnumerator.reset();         while (setEnumerator.moveNext())         {             custTable = setEnumerator.current();             info(strfmt("Customer: %1",custTable.AccountNum));         }     } } Common mistake when creating a set of recIds

Approve Workflow via email using template placeholders #Dyn365FO

Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations has placeholders which can be inserted into the instructions. Normally you would want this to show up in the email that is sent. One of the most useful ones is the URL link to the exact record that you are approving. In the workflow configurations use the placeholder and build up your message. Towards the end it has workflow specific ones. The URL token is %Workflow.Link to web% . For the technical people the token is replaced in this class WorkflowDocumentField. This is what I inserted into my email template. <BODY> subject: %subject% <BR> message: %message% <BR> company: %company% <BR> for: %for% <BR> </BODY> Should look like this. The final result looks like this. If you debug these are the place holders that are put together.