With the R2 release of Dynamics AX 2012, a new feature was quietly snuck into the product that allows you to store document attachments from Dynamics AX within SharePoint rather than within an archive location, or within the database. This opens up a whole slew of possibilities when it comes to document management within SharePoint. In this example we will show how you can create a document management structure within SharePoint that you can use in conjunction with the Dynamics AX attachments feature, and also we will show a few tweaks that you can make that may make managing your documents within SharePoint just a little easier.
With the R2 release of Dynamics AX 2012, a new feature was quietly snuck into the product that allows you to store document attachments from Dynamics AX within SharePoint rather than within an archive location, or within the database. This opens up a whole slew of possibilities when it comes to document management within SharePoint.
In this example we will show how you can create a document management structure within SharePoint that you can use in conjunction with the Dynamics AX attachments feature, and also we will show a few tweaks that you can make that may make managing your documents within SharePoint just a little easier.
SITEThe first step that we are going to work through is the creation of a new Document Management site where we will put all of our Dynamics AX document attachments. We are just creating a site to separate out the documents from other items that you may already have stored within SharePoint.
In this example we will show how you can create a new Document Management Site in SharePoint.
Then the Site Templates are displayed, select the Blank Site template. Give your site a name, and also a subsitename (probably the same as your site name). When you are done, click on the Create button for start the site creation process.
BUSINESS AREASThe next step in the process is to create document libraries to store all of your documents away in. You could create one big library, or a number of smaller ones, broken out into groups based on business area or function. In this example we will do the latter because it will give us more flexibility with the indexing of the documents, and also make it easier to find particular documents.
In this example we will show how to create document libraries for the business areas.
When the Document Library Creation dialog box appears, give your library a Name, Description, and also set the Document Template to None. In this example we are creating a library for all of the AP Documents. When you are done, click on the Create button to start the document library creation process.
Repeat the process for all of the other business areas that you want to manage documents for – in our example we just used the standard business areas from the Dynamics AX navigation menu.
THAT LINK TO THE DOCUMENT LIBRARIESOnce you have created your document libraries, you can connect them to Dynamics AX with the new SharePoint option so that the users are able to attach documents from the client and then store them within SharePoint for everyone to access.
In this step we will show how you can create a file attachment type that links to SharePoint.
LIBRARIES FOR BETTER INDEXINGOne of the reasons why you want to start using SharePoint is so that you can take advantage of the indexing functionality to code and classify your documents. Now that you have people storing the documents away, it’s time to add some indexes to you document libraries.
In this example we will show how you can create new indexes for your document libraries.
Open up your document libraries within SharePoint and select the Library ribbon bar. Then click on the Create Column button within the Manage Views group.
When the Create Column form opens, set the Column Name to be the field that you want to index, select the type of the column, and also set the columns Description.
Note: Sometimes it’s a good idea not to have spaces in the column name, later on when we add filters, it becomes a litter easier to manage this way.
After you have finished defining the column, click on the OK button to add the column to your library.
Repeat the process for all of the columns that you want to use as index fields for the library.
Note: All of the columns do not have to be used during the indexing process, so it’s OK to have variations of columns, like InvoiceNum, CreditNoteNum, etc.
DYNAMICS AX FORMSNow that we are able to index documents a little more effectively within SharePoint, we can go the extra step, and link SharePoint to our forms within Dynamics AX so that we are able to access them without even leaving the application. Doing this just requires a little bit of coding, but is well worth the effort.
In this example we will show how you can embed your SharePoint document libraries within Dynamics AX forms.
Reorder your tabs (ALT+UpArrow/DownArrow) so that they are in the sequence that you want and then give your new Tab Control a Name and Caption in the Properties section.
Now we need to have Dynamics AX update the URL that is navigated to when the form is opened. To do this, right-mouse-click on the parent Methods group for the form, and select the activate method from the Override methods submenu.
Update the activate method by building the URL that will define the specific document index that you are wanting to show. You are able to now add conditional filters that pick up the record values, and filter based on the current record – in this case the vendor number.
Once you have finished the update, save the project.
DOCUMENT LIBRARIESNow that all of the heavy lifting has been done, you can now start tweaking the SharePoint libraries and the way that the information is displayed. Based on the form that you are in you may want to show only particular information. You can do that by creating new custom views.
In this example we will show how you can create a custom view for your document libraries.
Open up your document libraries within SharePoint and select the Library ribbon bar. Then click on the Library Settings button within the Settings group.
When the document library settings maintenance form is displayed, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and there will be a section for Views that will show you all of the different ways that the form could be displayed. In this case there is only one, but we can fix that by clicking on the Create View link.
DOCUMENT LIBRARIESAlthough you can do everything that we have shown so far within SharePoint, you can also take advantage of the SharePoint Designer application to update your SharePoint document libraries. You don’t even have to search for the install kit, because it is embedded within your SharePoint site, just waiting to be downloaded and installed.
In this example we will show you how you can access the SharePoint Designer to manipulate your SharePoint site.
To use the SharePoint Designer to update your SharePoint site, just select the Edit in SharePoint Designer option from the Site Actions menu.
Note: If you don’t have SharePoint Designer installed then it will ask you to install it, and download the kit directly from your SharePoint installation.
When SharePoint Designer opens up, it will be connected to your current SharePoint site, showing you all of the libraries, etc. that you have been creating.
If you select the Lists and Libraries option from the navigation pad, you will be able to see all of the document libraries that you created in the previous steps.
DOCUMENT TYPESWhen we set up our document libraries we deliberately created them so that all of the documents for a particular area are within the same library. This allows us to save multiple types of documents away within the library like Invoices, Credit Notes, Vendor Certificates etc. The way that we can identify the type of document is through the creation of Content Types.
In this example we will show how to create custom Content Types to help make classification easier.
Open up SharePoint Designer (although you can also do this within SharePoint itself) and select the Content Typesfrom the navigation menu and click on the Content typemenu button within the New group of the Content Types ribbon bar.
When the Content Type creation form is displayed, give your Content Type a Name, and Description, select a parent content type, and also a group that you want to show the Content Type in.
Note: For the first content type that you create, you may want to create a new Content Type Group so that it isn’t intermingled with all of the other content types.
When you have finished creating your Content Type click on the OK button to add it to SharePoint.
Now we need to enable Content Types within our document libraries, and then assign them. To do this, open up your Document Library within SharePoint Designer, and within the Settings group, check the Allow management of content types check box.
Then click on the Add button to the right of the Content Types group to open up the Content Type Picker. Find the new Content Types that you just created, and click on the OK button to assign them to your Document Library.
Now when you edit the properties for your documents, there will be a new indexing option for your documents that allows you to define the type of document that you are looking at.
CONTENT TYPES TO SIMPLIFY INDEXINGThere is an additional benefit that you get from using Content Types within SharePoint, which is the ability to specify what columns are applicable to different Content Types at the time of indexing. For example, you probably don’t want to specify a Invoice Number when indexing a Vendor Insurance Certificate, but would definitely would want to when indexing an Invoice and even a Credit Note.
In this example we will show how you can modify your Content Types within your Document Libraries to only require certain columns to be indexed.
From within your SharePoint Document Library (or from within SharePoint Designer) click on the Library Settingsbutton within the Settings group of the Library ribbon bar.
When you first create the Content Types then they will have no columns assigned to them. Click on the Add from existing site or list columns link to assign the valid columns to your Content Type.
Just select the ones that you want to use for the indexing, and then click the Add button. Once you have selected all the ones that you want to use, click on the OK button to save your changes.
DOCUMENT VIEWNow that we are classifying documents by Content Type we might as well show it in the views so that we are able to differentiate different document types.
In this example we will show how to add the Content Type field to our Document View.
From within your SharePoint Document Library (or from within SharePoint Designer) click on the Modify View button within the Manage Views group of the Libraryribbon bar.
Now that the Content Type is enabled on our Document Library, it will show up on the list of valid columns. To add it to our view, just check the Display checkbox, and possibly change the order of the field so that it is first in the table.
When you’re done, click on the OK button to update the view.
VIEW BY KEY COLUMNSOne final tweak that we will show within SharePoint is the ability to group columns within our document library views so that common information is shown together. These groupings can be different by view, and just make it a little easier to find information if we don’t‘ initially filter the data.
In this example we will show how you can group records within your document library view.
From within your SharePoint Document Library (or from within SharePoint Designer) click on the Modify View button within the Manage Views group of the Libraryribbon bar.
• Create a simple document management repository within SharePoint
• Link the document attachments function within Dynamics AX to SharePoint to make the acquisition of the documents easier
• Index your documents more effectively by defining custom columns
• Embed SharePoint back into Dynamics AX and also
• Tweak your views within SharePoint to make it easier to find and view documents
This is really just a starting point, and once you have mastered the basics, you can start investigating:
• Assigning workflows to documents for approvals and updates
• Enabling version control for your documents
• Acquire documents into SharePoint through scanning technologies
• Link the index column fields to Dynamics AX for validation of key information
• And much more.
SharePoint is a great document management tool, and can usually handle all of your document indexing needs. Especially now that it is connected with Dynamics AX natively.
