Dynamics AX BI Options Featuring Power BI BI definition – a set of techniques and tools for the acquisition and transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis purposes March 17, 2016

Topics Covered What is Power BI What Businesses Want from BI Intro What is Power BI What Businesses Want from BI Having fun with Power BI AX BI Tools Getting at Your AX Data Get more in Catherine’s Break-out Session Perf & Security What’s in the “new” Dynamics AX

Stoneridge Software & Eric Newell Microsoft Alumni: Consultants >50% Leadership Team >70% Largest Dynamics AX Partner in the North Central Area Offices Barnesville, MN (HQ) Minneapolis, MN

What is Power BI? Suite of business analytic tools to analyze data and share insights Quickly create visualizations from your data and shared sources Easily access and share your data on any device

Definitions & Features Normalized Data – data structure with IDs in main tables Power Pivot – Analysis Services in Excel Power View – Robust dashboard reporting Power Query – data exploration and transformation Power Map – stunning visuals with geographic reporting Data Source (Get Data) – files, databases, services, etc. Content Pack – pre-built dashboard from a data source Data Management Gateway – ability to share on-premise data online Power BI Desktop – application used to build BI reports Data Catalog – shared catalog of queries you develop

Power BI Data Sources & Content Packs AX7 – 2 new content packs Financial Performance Retail Channel Performance https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-content-pack-microsoft-dynamics-ax/

What do you want from BI? 14 Critical Capabilities BI Platform Administration Cloud BI Security and User Administration Data Source Connectivity Governance and Metadata Management Self-Contained ETL Self-Service Data Preparation Embedded Advanced Analytics Analytic Dashboards Interactive Visual Exploration Mobile Exploration and Authoring Sharing Embedded Analytic Content Publishing Analytic Content Collaboration and Social BI

Gartner’s Report on Microsoft’s BI Strengths Cautions Low TCO High Business Benefits User Enablement Expansive Data Sources Power BI is new Forecasting and other advanced options require Excel Lack of survey references

Power BI Licensing Only need an email address to get started Free Pro ($9.99/mo) Data Capacity Limit 1 GB 10 GB Create, view and share dashboards ● Author Content with Power BI Desktop Natural Language Search Mobile Access Consume content packs Import data and reports from Excel Publish to the web Consume content that’s ready to refresh Daily Up to 8 times per day Consume streaming data in your reports and dashboards 10k rows/hr 1m rows/hour Consume live data with full interactivity Access on-premise data with Data Connectivity Gateway Collaborate with Office 365 Groups Create, publish and view organizational content packs Manage access control and sharing through Active Directory Shared data queries through the Data Catalog

What BI Options Exist for Dynamics AX Application Vendor Pros Cons Power BI Microsoft Great visualizations Hard to surface the data from AX SQL Reporting Services 500+ reports built into the product Requires 40 hrs to build a new one SQL Analysis Services Denormalizes data; comes with AX Requires server and hard to extend Excel Add-In Free and easy to get data out Hard to surface data; can update AX Atlas Globe Software Cheap and commonly used Requires knowledge of AX tables Jet Enterprise Jet Reports Good warehouse for AX Not as common Targit BI Targit Free trial; accelerator for AX Not commonly used ZAP BI ZAP Requires time to implement BI4Dynamics Relatively inexpensive; cubes Small company; limited support BI360 Solver Reporting, Warehouse, etc. More general than AX focused deFacto Performance deFacto Good with budgets

Performance Considerations Transactional Database Warehouse (Analysis Services) Backup Database

Security Warning Power BI gets its data from OData, and in AX OData is not security aware Power BI reports have to be protected through O365 credentials

Determine the Data You Want Three Steps to BI This is the hard part Determine the Data You Want Surface the Data Build Your Visuals

Determine What You Want What are the important metrics to your business – identify your scorecard Throughout the requirements process, identify key information needed for reporting Provide sample reports and dashboards to the implementation team

Surface the Data – Analysis Services Enable Analysis Service on your SQL Server (or a dedicated one) Configure Analysis Services by running the AX Setup Wizard Deploy the cubes, configuring cubes, add financial dimensions to the cubes AX > SysAdmin > Setup > BI > Analysis Services In Power BI, connect to Analysis Services Navigate to the data you want to use: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg731892.aspx

Surface the Data – AX OData Feed Create an OData feed by using Document Data Sources Service Query Custom query Access the AX OData query service http://[aosname]:8101/DynamicsAx/Services/ODataQueryService/ Navigate to the data source you want to choose to load it into AX This can be done directly from Power BI or into Excel

Surface the Data – Atlas to Excel Use the Data Inspector to create queries to Excel Link multiple tables and use views to get de-normalized data Save snippets to build on existing reports Easily refreshable

Surface the Data – Public Data Sources Microsoft Azure Marketplace - https://datamarket.azure.com/browse/data Population Estimates – http://www.census.gov/popest/data/datasets.html Corn prices - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/analytics/features.aspx?source=f ooter

Build Your Visuals Demo content packs Ask the Data Mobile apps iOS Android Windows 10 Phone/Tablet

DEMO

AX7 Differences from AX2012

Data Entities https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/ data-entities/ Means of de-normalizing AX data for service or BI consumption Can build an entity by using a wizard Data source can be accessed via Odata

Plans for AX7 Releases

Embedding Power BI in Dynamics AX 7 Power BI in AX7: https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/powerbi-integration-in-ax7/ Configure Power BI integration: https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/configuring-powerbi-integration/

Where Can You Learn More? Power BI website: www.powerbi.com Microsoft Data Insights Summit – steaming live Mar 22-23 Reach out to us at Stoneridge Software

TechConference Follow-Ups AX Launch Event Lifecycle Services in new AX Roadmap Blogs on the new AX: https://stoneridgesoftware.com/category/ax-7/ Videos on ImagineAcademy – https://imagineacademy.Microsoft.com

Support for Power BI

Visuals Standard visualizations Download custom visuals at http://app.powerbi.com/visuals