Demystify the Dynamics AX JumpStart

Transcription

1 Demystify the Dynamics AX JumpStart

2 IT Needs IP Your Integration Project s Lasting Opportunity Congratulations on winning the project to integrate CRM with Microsoft Dynamics AX! It should be a high-value project for your customer, and a highmargin engagement for you. Here s the best news! The sum you re charging for this project is just the tip of the revenue iceberg; there s more opportunity to turn this initial project into a lasting source of recurring revenue. Here s why: Successful completion of this project will require you to learn more about your customer and their intrinsic operations at greater depth than other activities would require. You ll need to learn about all of their customerrelated operations and workflows, data structures, business rules, and more. All of that acquired knowledge becomes your company s intellectual property (IP). You ll be able to sell that knowledge back to your customer time after time as they turn to you for future projects, because you already know their environment. Earn From What You Learn Plan now to start replacing that infrastructure revenue with something more profitable, your own Intellectual Property (IP). It s profitable because it already belongs to you you own it there s no further cost when you find new ways to sell it again, and again. That s why the data integration projects you win create such lasting opportunity. As you collect more information about your client, you re creating a wealth of IP that you ll sell back to them over and over with future projects. You also add to your broader supply of IP about their vertical industry, which can be used to create new projects for more clients within that vertical. As an integrator of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Marketing Automation (MA) and other business systems, you are in an ideal position to develop the most highly prized IP of all: specific intelligence about the intimate workings of each of your customers and their industry. Customers trust industry experts who can enhance the overall value of their IT investments; why would they go anywhere else? The best practices you develop with each project become part of a repeatable business model you can leverage in future projects with future customers. Best Practices There s more than one reason to employ best practices when executing on a project. The first reason is obvious. They re better than good practices and have proven to be the most effective way to get things done over time. That s how they came to be considered best. The second reason is simply sound business logic. Using best practices will yield greater profitability because you won t waste time reinventing any wheels or figuring out Don t miss the big picture. Many IT firms have depended upon infrastructure-centered services for the bulk of their revenue stream. This won t continue much longer. As more and more customers turn to the cloud for infrastructure-as-a-service, and as infrastructure devices become more turnkey and more commoditized, the opportunities for infrastructure services will continue to diminish.

3 Read the Manual. Really, You Need to Read the Manual. MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX how to perform those activities and functions that others have already figured out for you. In any professional services environment, the less time you take to do things, the more profitable you will be. Developing and recording your best practices will allow future repetitions of projects to be even more profitable. This is why reusable engagement models always deliver greater profit performance. This is why Scribe Software created the JumpStart. It will take less time for you to study these best practices, learn how to use the templates we ve developed for you, and get the fundamentals of your data integration project done without wasting any time. The time you invest in learning the JumpStart will return significant profitability, project after project. What Exactly is the JumpStart? Every AX integration project is different from every other one. Data entities typically vary, as will field definitions, field labels, mappings, business rules and workflows. That said, there are always certain fundamental steps which should be taken at the start of any project and there s just no reason to reinvent the wheel when starting an AX integration project. The AX JumpStart was designed to do just that: get you a jumpstart on your AX integration without starting from scratch. Scribe Software provide templates, guidelines, and best practices for launching your AX integration project. The JumpStart serves as a starting point for your AX integration, allowing you to integrate key customer data, product data, and transaction data between Microsoft Dynamics AX and CRM systems. You save time and energy that would otherwise be spent performing activities that virtually every AX integration project requires. It s important to remember that the JumpStart is just that a start. You will have requirements and processes that can t possibly be predicted. As every business is unique, it s impossible for any integration vendor to build turnkey mappings that fit your business without changes. Be prepared for that moment when the templates and guidelines the JumpStart provides have done all they can for you. How?

4 Start by reading the instruction guides. You ve probably read plenty of instruction guides that start by saying, Read These Instructions Carefully Before Starting! Take this one seriously. Data integration is an exacting science with little or no room for variance. For the JumpStart to be an effective aid to your project, you must execute every step of it correctly and in order. Attempting to take a small shortcut at the beginning can result in a tremendous waste of time spent reviewing the steps and correcting issues later. It s worth the time to read the manual thoroughly and carefully. You ll learn more about the Scribe Insight Web Services Adapter and you ll be assuring yourself that you re getting every penny of value out of the JumpStart. At the same time, you ll be prepared for the next stage, where you will need to map your path and proceed along it. Like framing out a house, you want to make sure everything is firmly rooted in the foundation before you continue building. Integration Team? Data integration requires expertise in a variety of different disciplines. The likelihood of one individual possessing all of this knowledge is extremely rare. Ideally, your integration project will consist of a team of the following members: A member of the team needs to have a deep understanding of the unique business processes and how people in the company actually use Microsoft Dynamics AX to do their jobs. A member of the team needs to have intimate knowledge of the CRM system or other system that AX is being integrated with. They need to have a deep understanding of how the workflows and business rules and processes are executed from a user perspective and how data flows through and between the systems. They also need to understand the metadata structures and how they correlate to each other and the underlying business logic, as well as what each of the triggers, processes, and services are that work with the data. The biggest challenge here lies in knowing what happens with each entry into the user interface (UI) of either of the integrated systems. Where else does this data show up in the UI? Where is the data stored? What tables are updated as a result of each entry? The larger the systems involved, the more intricate this becomes. A member of the team needs to be highly proficient with Microsoft Dynamics AX, preferably someone who has developed customizations within AX. Part of their responsibility will be to help everyone else on the team appreciate the complexity of the AX infrastructure. A member of the team needs to understand and have experience with the Application Integration Framework (AIF) web services, which are used to exchange data between Microsoft Dynamics AX and other systems. AX Integration Needs a Team A member of the team needs to possess web services expertise and how to expose them via the AIF. The Scribe Insight Adapter is highly versatile in helping achieve integration between systems; a team member with experience using web services can optimize its use. If no one on your team understands web services, you may have a difficult time successfully integrating AX. Someone on the team should have experience, and preferably, expertise using Scribe Insight. It s possible that your integration team might include

5 members that are outside consultants or other professionals. Consider working with a partner who has expertise in AX or integration, or both. Even the most sophisticated IT shops may rely on outside help due to time, priorities, or efficiency. While it is also possible that one person may bring more than one of the skills described, the deeper the knowledge, the better the project will go. As they say, nobody can be all things to all people. Document, Document, Document The best way to assure the failure of your integration project is to rush through it and to not document what you re going to do or what you have done. Even with the best possible team, there will be much to learn, especially from each other. Have patience and plan out your integration project carefully, documenting each step and the anticipated timeframe required so you can manage the expectations of your stakeholders. Remember that things often have a tendency to take longer than you anticipate. You may run into unexpected problems and issues. Be sure to incorporate plenty of testing into your project plan. Test everything. The time you spend testing will return handsomely in time saved later on when things don t function the way you thought they would and you couldn t anticipate it because you didn t test each step. Whatever you do, be sure to document each and every one of the changes you make to Microsoft Dynamics AX while implementing the JumpStart so you always know how you got where you are, and how to get back to where you were if you need to. The person who has to maintain or change the integration in the future will thank you! How Partners Can Monetize Repeatable Integrations with AX Every client engagement is an opportunity to be more knowledgeable about a particular vertical or industry and the best way to automate business processes via integration. While AX implementations can be particularly complicated, you will begin to see common threads by industry or business process that you can build into repeatable IP. Whether that is your own JumpStart that you build and re-use in future client projects or simply by having the deep expertise in business process automation, you can begin to build a high-margin practice with AX integration as the centerpiece. While Scribe Software s AX integration offering isn t turnkey, it does give you a little bit of both worlds: a starting point for the baseline integration work and a web services base to let you code and create the integration you need for your clients and your business. ABOUT SCRIBE Scribe is an established global provider of solutions that easily bring customer data anywhere it is needed regardless of IT infrastructure. Scribe s award-winning products help 12,000 customers and 1,200 partners use customer data cloud-based, on-premise or a mix to increase revenue, provide superior service, and create business value faster. Its easy-to-use, enterprise-ready solutions are backed by extensive support options and training, and service customers across a wide array of industries including financial services, life sciences, manufacturing, and media and entertainment companies. Scribe Software. (2014, July 2). AX JumpStart 101. Scribe Software Webinars. Webinar retrieved from Scribe Software. (2014, August 12). Demystifying the JumpStart. Scribe Software Webinars. Webinar retrieved from Contributing Authors: Betsy Bilhorn, Scribe Software, and Anil Shah, CloudFronts Technologies Scribe Software Corporation. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.