What's new in Application Integration Framework (AIF)
Application Integration Framework (AIF) enables companies to integrate Microsoft Dynamics AX and communicate with external business processes and partners through the exchange of XML over various transport media. AIF enables both business-to-business and application-to-application integration scenarios. Enhancements to AIF in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 include the following:
Create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations are now supported. The ability to update and delete data through AIF enables companies to fully integrate Microsoft Dynamics AX in their business processes.
The programming model for AIF supports document services that encapsulate business logic and are the interface between Microsoft Dynamics AX and external systems. The document services can be customized by adding your own methods. Microsoft Dynamics AX now supports the ability to expose business logic implemented in X++ as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services. All services can be published though AIF asynchronous adapters or through WCF.
AIF provides functionality for consuming external Web services from within X++. This enables the integration with any external data provided as a Web service.
Performance improvements include the ability to scale up and handle more messages through parallel message processing and the addition of multiple AOSs.
New document services for additional commonly-used documents.
Update and Delete
AIF now supports the ability to update and delete data in Microsoft Dynamics AX through document exchange. Two new actions enable the ability to update or delete a single record or multiple records. The Axd Wizard is now the AIF Document Service Wizard and enables developers to create custom documents that support updating and deleting data.
Programming Model Changes
Documents are now exposed as services making them more flexible and customizable. Service operations can now be consumed from external AIF clients as well as directly from X++ code. The AIF framework has been updated to enable developers to expose X++ business logic as WCF services. ASMX Web services have been replaced with WCF services enabling new functionality such as message encryption.
Consume Web Services
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 provides the ability to consume Web services from within X++. Creating a service reference to an external Web service generates a .NET service proxy that enables the service to be available through IntelliSense within X++. The external Web service can be consumed by Microsoft Dynamics AX using the .NET service proxy through CLR interop.
Performance
AIF now supports the ability to scale up message processing when using the AIF adapters by adding AOSs. You can now define whether messages are processed sequentially or in parallel. If parallelism is implemented, messages can be processed in any order by multiple AOSs. After implementing parallel message processing, specific messages can still be designated for sequential processing.
New Documents
AIF includes support for an enlarged set of frequently used documents. Documents new to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 include the following.
Document |
Supported service operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete) |
|---|---|
Address |
CRUD |
Absence Request |
R |
Bill of Materials (BOM) |
CR |
Business Sector |
C |
Cash Discount |
R |
Contact Person |
CRUD |
Credit Card |
C |
Customer |
CRUD |
Customer Group |
R |
Customer Payment Journal |
C |
Customer Quotation |
C |
Expense Report |
CRU |
Fixed Asset |
CRU |
Fixed Asset Condition |
R |
Fixed Asset Group |
R |
Fixed Asset Location |
R |
Fixed Asset Major Type |
R |
General Journal |
CR |
Item |
CR |
Item Dimension (Color) |
R |
Item Dimension (Configuration) |
R |
Item Dimension (Size) |
R |
Item Dimension Combination |
R |
Leads |
C |
Payment Terms |
R |
Product Groups |
R |
Product Picking List |
C |
Project Hour Journal |
C |
Return Order Acknowledgment |
R |
Return Order Document |
CR |
RFQ |
R |
RFQ Reply |
C |
Route Card |
C |
Sales Confirmation |
R |
Sales Quotation |
R |
Sales Forecast DMP |
R |
Service Agreement |
R |
Service Order |
CR |
Shipping Methods |
R |
Transfer Order |
CR |
Travel Card |
C |
Unit |
R |
Unit Conversion |
R |
Vendor |
CR |
Vendor Group |
CR |
Vendor Payment |
R |
Warehouse |
R |
Work Center |
CR |
Worker Attendance |
CRUD |
In addition to these new documents, the sales order document has been updated to support multi-site functionality as well as the ability to update and delete data.
Partners and customers can easily customize and extend the existing application programming interfaces (APIs) by using the Microsoft Dynamics AX software development kit (SDK). The SDK includes a service wizard that developers can use to easily create their own custom document services.