HiGH Software has an interesting trend to share with international construction equipment rental businesses. Over the past few years, we’ve heard increasingly from customers that a key benefit of our solution DynaRent for Microsoft Dynamics is that it offers more flexibility than other rental and services software in some specific areas.

It turns out that those areas play right into the ability to make your company a direct dealer for external companies. The short glimpse is that international construction equipment rental businesses need software for internal management of multi-country and multi-company equipment rental, equipment finance, and fleet management. It’s difficult to find all functionality within a flexible software package. If you do, you can get more from it by turning incorporating dealership, or direct purchasing and selling of equipment to other companies.

Here’s how it works. Construction equipment rental businesses with diverse subsidiaries abroad often share equipment availability insights to ensure they deliver the right equipment for a project or job, at the right time. Shared insight lets them efficiently handle international equipment-share requests, international transport, and even the purchase of extra equipment if a complete view shows insufficient inventory.

Construction equipment company scenario with dealership potential

Let’s say that within your construction organization, you’ve created a separate Financial Equipment Company that owns all equipment. That company operates in 5 countries, with 4 depots per country. While it’s a separate asset, the Financial Equipment Company serves to unify the entire organization, including:

• Overseeing financials for procurement through final scrap or sale of all equipment
• Serving as a central knowledgebase for all equipment availability, condition, service requirements, transport, etc.
• Full integration with international Fleet Management for transport and demand/replenishment decisions

Because of the Financial Equipment Company and international Fleet Management, your organization has an entity that enables smooth multi-country equipment sharing and effective demand forecasting, purchase, and replenishment.

• Equipment availability for bulk and serialized equipment is shared globally, so that all companies and locations have views for planning purposes.
• The Equipment Company processes requests for equipment and makes decisions based on full insight into equipment, resource, transport, job type, regulations, etc. that ensure optimal allocation.
• In some cases, equipment is shared within a country only, but in others (for example, mobile cranes), planners might have views into a part or entire crane that could be shipped from Holland to Spain if it’s the optimal match.
• Fleet Management has tools for analyzing equipment requests from each country so that it can predict upcoming demand down to the depot level and make smart purchase and allocation decisions.
• Fleet management also can determine if equipment needs to be purchased for replenishment and what equipment is to be sold or scrapped.

So there’s much more than financials and international transport management that can be handled by an equipment entity within your organization. You’ve got a multi-country symphony in progress, and all players know their parts. This is essential—it’s not just the Equipment company that can see availability—all planners within the organization are working with DynaRent and Microsoft Dynamics and have dashboards that let them see what’s happening with equipment at other locations. They can reduce workload and aid strategic planning considerably by making smart equipment sharing requests. Local transport planners as well are helpful rather than a burden for Fleet Management.

And of course, all data and processes are fully embedded in Microsoft Dynamics for Operations and Microsoft Dynamics AX. The key takeaway is that you’re able to manage international equipment rental and services at a sophisticated level internally, using the DynaRent solutions package. That includes purchase to final sale processes and all processes and analysis that make your business profitable at local and global levels. Why not reach out to other equipment companies as a direct dealer? You can do so without costly investments in IT or complex reworking of your business model.

We invite you to learn more about how HiGH Software and DynaRent are helping equipment-driven companies take on new trends across multiple industries.

In this part, we will discuss how to use inventory value report to do inventory reconciliation.
Firstly, let’s imagine a company who has two item groups: Bike and Accessory. The inventory GL account for Bike is 140100. The inventory GL account for Accessory is 140200. Then we have a total GL inventory account 149999. In the total GL account 149999, we set up the account interval from 140000 to 149998.
In both item groups posting profile, packing slip/issue and product receipt /purchase, inventory receipt are all set up with the same GL account. That means both physical inventory and financial inventory are using the same GL account.
At the end of year 2016, we begin to do the reconciliation for the total inventory GL account 149999. In inventory value report ID, we enable the option ’print cumulative account values for comparison’ and input 149999 in the inventory account. We also enable resource group and total. Also please do disable the option ‘included not post to ledger’. This has been discussed in the previous article that ‘Inventory: Physical Amount Not Posted’ should not be included in the reconciliation.
So, you can see the ‘Inventory Amount’ in the report for both item groups. You can also see the closing balance for 149999, 140100 and 140200.
Based on the explanations we discussed before in the part 3, you should do the reconciliation as below:
• The value in the column ‘Inventory Amount’ for both item groups -> The balance of 149999
• The value in the column ‘Inventory Amount’ for item group Bike -> The balance of 140100
• The value in the column ‘Inventory Amount’ for item group Accessory -> The balance of 140200
Normally, we recommend to use the same GL accounts. It happens that the user set different accounts for packing slip and issue or product receipt and purchase. In this situation, you cannot use the ‘Inventory Amount’ value to do the reconciliation. Do you remember the conceptions: physical update and financial update we explained in part 3? You need to reconcile the different GL accounts with ‘Inventory: Financial Amount’ and ‘Inventory: Physical Amount Posted’.
If the user also want to check the quantity, you should use the total quantity = Inventory: Financial Quantity + Inventory: Physical Quantity Posted + Inventory: Physical Quantity Not Posted
Hope the above info can help you during your reconciliation. I believe your next question might be how to deal with the situation that there is discrepancy between inventory value and GL balance. We have another very powerful report named potential conflict report. You can use it to drill down the reason why there is discrepancy. In fact, we recommend to run it periodically, like weekly or bi-weekly. So, you can be aware of the discrepancy earlier and only need to work on a very small data set to find the reason.
There will be articles in future about how to use potential conflict report. I will add the links here if they are published.
Again hope the above info can help. Enjoy!
How to use inventory value report: part 1
How to use inventory value report: part 2
How to use inventory value report: part 3

The post Establishing a Change Management Team appeared first on Merit Solutions.

After installation of Security development tool, I got following error while database synchronization.

Failed to create a session; confirm that the user has the proper privileges

Interestingly the user on my local vm has full rights on Database. But following  way helps me to solve the problem.

• Close the Ax client.
• Open the following location at

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local

• Delete the all files with extension .uac
• Open the Ax client and go into AOT
• Right click on Data base synchronization.

Reference:  <https://stoneridgesoftware.com/5-tips-to-resolve-the-ax-error-failed-to-create-a-session-confirm-that-the-user-has-the-proper-privileges/>

We have a displayOption implemented for the Vendor transactions screen, which highlights the rows in red color where the posted transactions or the journal has a Document attachment. The requirement was that if we create a new DocuRef entry on the vendor transaction, after closing the DocuView form the grid should change color. In order to refresh AX grid color&period;&period;&period;

The post Refresh AX grid color with displayOption appeared first on DAXRunBase Consulting LLC.

When you experience an application issue and want to report it to Microsoft support team it takes some time and effort to describe the repro steps to the engineers. What can help speed up the process is the Task Recorder. Task Recorder is a tool that can log every click and input you make in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations.

If you have an environment with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations and Contoso Demo database please follow the below simple steps to record your steps to reproduce the problem:

1. Click Settings > Task recorder in the right top corner
   
2. Choose Create recording
   
3. Provide a name and click Start
   
   Notice that there will be a red dot indicating that the recording is in progress
   
4. Reproduce the scenario keeping in mind that we will be able to play it back only if you use standard demo data. If you use custom records or setup in the scenario please ensure you demonstrate the process of their creation or set up of the parameters.
5. Once the scenario is reproduced click Stop button
   
6. Click Save to this PC and Export as Word document and attach both files, .axtr and .docx, to the support ticket.
   

This should take out all of the guess work for support engineers and developers as it will point them to the exact navigation path while they are walking through the step by step process.

Read more

• Create documentation or training using Task recordings

Companies that make and distribute food products are subject to stringent regulations to maintain safety and quality standards for ingredients, raw materials, and finished products. At the same time, they run the most efficient and profitable operations they can, creating and providing products for their customers. Introducing new products typically comes with the high risk of creating supply chain and production mechanisms with uncertain consumer adoption.

It’s a tough balance, especially when you consider the many uncontrollable elements that also impact the food business – including weather conditions, soil quality, seasonal fluctuations in consumer demand, even political conditions in the countries where farmers and suppliers are located. Uniquely in the food industry, the quality of produce, fruit, milk, or other supplies at their point of origin predetermines the business outcome of the manufacturing and distribution processes.

Connecting all the moving parts with contextual intelligence
Forward-looking food companies understand that it’s of benefit to them when the contributors at any stage of the supply chain and production operations are closely connected. For example, the findings of roaming agronomists assessing soil qualities, climate conditions, and the likely yield and quality of farming operations need to be available to purchasing and production planners at a food company, so they can make the right decisions. Evidence of shifting consumer preferences and buying patterns should be recorded in the retail and hospitality environments where they play out, and relayed to the food manufacturer’s decision-makers.

Traditional business intelligence and computing systems often lack the depth of field and flexibility to help food company planners and production managers take advantage of wide-ranging collaborations and make smart, timely decisions that are based on data. That’s when cloud computing, including the use of advanced business insight tools available in the cloud, can help food companies connect all the contributors, collect and process any data evidence that matters, and take the right action when it still makes a difference. Take a look at the short, fun animation we’ve prepared to get a sense of what the cloud can help food companies accomplish.

Benefit from advanced analytics and world-class computing – without breaking your budget
Instead of investing in expensive software licenses, servers, networks, data storage, security technology, telecommunications, and whatever else you need to set up a data center, in the cloud you can access these resources immediately. Many times, if you take a certain workload or proof-of-concept to the cloud, you can be in production within hours or minutes. Advanced business intelligence tools available from the leading cloud providers help you make sense of the data and events that impact your business. To give your planning and decisions substantiation and a wider perspective, you can complement your own business data with cloud resources such as OpenFDA in the U.S., where the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) offers its own data volumes for your analysis and reporting.

The cloud connects mobile and roaming contributors and data sources to your processes. This becomes especially effective if containers, facilities, distribution systems, and weather stations are connected to the internet of things (IoT), so they can generate data for analysis in the cloud. You can track raw materials and produce from the farm, through the supply chain, to your production. In real time, you can follow quality assessments that tell you about freshness, environmental conditions, or other measures. If there’s a procurement delay, you can identify alternate sources before your production is disrupted. At the other end of the process, if a sudden increase in demand needs to boost procurement and production, your cloud-based intelligence helps you act on the opportunity before some competitors are even aware of it.

Food industry and cloud expertise you can put to work
Columbus food industry experts have helped many food companies grow and increase their long-term business viability, taking advantage of business insight and computing capabilities easily accessible in the cloud. With Microsoft Dynamics 365 in the Azure cloud, superior analytics and business management functionality is available to the food industry. We can help you make a smooth, controlled, predictable transition to cloud computing, so you can stay focused on what you do best – create, make and distribute food products. To begin transforming your business in the cloud, take the next steps: Go to http://www.columbusglobal.com/en-us/resources/cloud-transformation/food to read our e-book, A Guide to Transformation in the Cloud for Food Companies. Then, get in touch.

Throughout the four industrial revolutions, Manufacturing has repeatedly adopted resources and technologies that it continued using ever since. First, it incorporated the powers of steam and water. Next, electricity. Third, automation supported by electronics and computers.

Fourth, digital transformation, made possible by advanced computing and decision-driving analytics. Automation of repeating, structured activities is still common, but you also find entire, automated facilities, self-healing production lines and manufacturing processes run by robots. Engineers and designers collaborate online, using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to develop products and features and model them in realistic usage scenarios. Production managers rely on insight resulting from an analysis of data coming from connected industrial assets in the internet of things (IoT) to understand how well machines and equipment in their own facility or at customers sites are running and improve their performance and reliability. Manufacturers gain insights that allow them to connect with customers and collaborate with them to make their products better or workshop new, custom items that they eventually launch to a larger market.

In the cloud, your infrastructure grows with you
If there’s a magic component in these developments, it’s the cloud.
For manufacturers, taking much of computing into the cloud makes it possible to plan their digital transformation initiatives, take advantage of the IoT, and access sophisticated data analytics without allocating the sort of budget that is only available to global enterprises.

When you take to the cloud, you no longer need to purchase software licenses, servers, and networking equipment like you would for your own data center. You contract with your cloud service providers, who owns the infrastructure and provides much of the security and data protection features you need. You pay for what you use, nothing more. When you want to support more customers, products, transactions, or users, cloud resources can scale to meet the need. If you launch new product lines, acquire another company, or begin doing business in another country – the cloud is already there. That also means it does not really matter where all your people and facilities are. The cloud reaches across the globe.

Cloud intelligence keeps you on the right track
As we discuss in a fun animation, many manufacturers transition into the cloud in order to benefit from the most advanced data analytics available today. The cloud’s elasticity makes it much easier to store and process data masses from the IoT or other sources, surround them with other meaningful information, which, for example, illustrates industry and market trends, or draws on findings from the company’s own ERP, CRM, or PLM systems – and get to work.

Using cloud computing, manufacturers we know perform predictive maintenance on their own and their customers’ industrial assets and achieve remarkable improvements in the critical metric of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). You don’t just save expenses by moving to the cloud, but the work you can do with cloud-based resources lets you accomplish more wide-reaching efficiencies and cost reductions.

Innovation that makes a difference
And that’s just the beginning. Leading innovators use cloud infrastructures to become more competitive, fast-moving operations that accelerate product design and innovation cycles. When all collaborators can meet in the cloud and access shared resources, ideas and communications flow better. The distance between a new concept and a profitable product shrinks, and cloud intelligence also helps you ensure that the product you develop effectively meets customer needs.

In Microsoft Dynamics 365, powerful modern ERP, CRM, and analytics capabilities are available on the Microsoft Azure cloud. You can move computing workloads at your own pace and build the hybrid or cloud-exclusive business platform that works best for you.

Columbus’ many years of manufacturing experience joins our successful cloud practice to help you make the transition low-risk and seamless. We get you to your  digital transformation journey in the most efficient and economical way. To find out more, visit our website to read our e-book, A Guide to Transformation in the Cloud for Manufacturing Businesses.