Format phone number for us domestic and international

Currently in AX the telephone number fields allow you to enter anything into the phone number field. The following method shows how to take whatever the user entered and format it according to usa domestic and international formats. It also supports if the user entered an extension into the field instead of the extension field.  But if they did it would only work if they started the extension with the letter 'x'

The method assumes that you are currently located within the usa.

If you are reading this and are located outside of the us I would appreciate any feedback on the formatting of the international instances.

/// <summary>
/// Format phone number into a friendly display
/// </summary>
/// <param name="_phone">
/// Phone number to format
/// </param>
/// <returns>
/// Formatted display of phone number
/// </returns>
static public LogisticsElectronicAddressLocator FormatPhoneNumber(Phone _phone)
{
    LogisticsElectronicAddressLocator unformattedPhoneNumber, newPhoneNumber, formattedPhoneNumber;
    ListIterator iterator;
    str char;
    int phoneLength;
    Counter currentCharPos;
    Phone extension;
    Counter phonePartCounter;
    List phoneParts = new List(Types::String);
    container numbers = ['0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9']; //valid numbers of a phone number

    //split the phone number and extension (if available)
    phoneParts = strSplit(strUpr(_phone), "X");

    iterator = new ListIterator(phoneParts);

    //put the phone number and extension into 2 variables so we can apply formatting separately
    while (iterator.more())
    {
        if(phonePartCounter == 0)
        {
            //first part will contain the actual phone number
            unformattedPhoneNumber = iterator.value();
        }
        else if(phonePartCounter == 1)
        {
            //second part will contain the extension
            extension = iterator.value();
        }
        ++phonePartCounter;
        iterator.next();
    }

    //get the length of the phone number with the extension removed
    phoneLength = strlen(unformattedPhoneNumber);

    //remove all non numbers from field text
    for (currentCharPos=1; currentCharPos<=phoneLength; currentCharPos++)
    {
        char = substr(unformattedPhoneNumber,currentCharPos,1);
        if (confind(numbers,char))
        {
            newPhoneNumber = newPhoneNumber + char;
        }
    }

    //get the new length after any special chars have been removed so we know what type of phone number we are dealing with
    phoneLength = strlen(newPhoneNumber);

    //format the phone number according to length
    if(phoneLength == 10)
    {
        //local number
        formattedPhoneNumber = strFmt("(%1) %2-%3",substr(newPhoneNumber,1,3), substr(newPhoneNumber,4,3), substr(newPhoneNumber,7,4));
    }
    else if(phoneLength == 11)
    {
        //local with the +1
        formattedPhoneNumber = strFmt("+%1 (%2) %3-%4",substr(newPhoneNumber,1,1), substr(newPhoneNumber,2,3), substr(newPhoneNumber,5,3), substr(newPhoneNumber,8,4));
    }
    else if(phoneLength == 12)
    {
        //international with a country code length of 2
        formattedPhoneNumber = strFmt("+%1 %2 %3",substr(newPhoneNumber,1,2), substr(newPhoneNumber,3,4), substr(newPhoneNumber,7,6));
    }
    else if(phoneLength == 13)
    {
        //international with a country code length of 3
        formattedPhoneNumber = strFmt("+%1 %2 %3",substr(newPhoneNumber,1,3), substr(newPhoneNumber,4,4), substr(newPhoneNumber,8,6));
    }
    else if(phoneLength == 14)
    {
        //international with a country code dialed from another country
        formattedPhoneNumber = strFmt("%1-%2-%3-%4-%5",substr(newPhoneNumber,1,2), substr(newPhoneNumber,3,2), substr(newPhoneNumber,5,2), substr(newPhoneNumber,7,3), substr(newPhoneNumber,10,5));
    }
    else
    {
        //no format found so just use the phone number the user inputed
        formattedPhoneNumber = newPhoneNumber;
    }

    //add the extension back onto the newly formatted phone number
    if(extension != "")
    {
        formattedPhoneNumber = strFmt("%1 x%2", formattedPhoneNumber, extension);
    }

    return formattedPhoneNumber;
}



Some of the results are as follows:
3121234567 = (312) 123-4567
(312) 123-4567 = (312) 123-4567
1(312) 123-4567 = +1 (312) 123-4567
13121234567 = +1 (312) 123-4567
131212345678 = +13 1212 345678
131212345679 = +13 1212 345679
1312123456789 = +131 2123 456789
13121234567899 = 13-12-12-345-67899
13121234567 x2345 = +1 (312) 123-4567 x2345

Calling method dynamically through DictClass

Sometimes we need to loop through all of the parameters that have been defined within a class or you need to call a method dynamically without knowing what the method name is until you get it from another source.

The following shows how to get a method name from a table and call said method (in our case a parameter method name of type NoYesId) and get the result

This example shown below is being called within a class. If you called it outside of the class you would replace the 'this' object with the class instance name.

Example: TestClass currentTest = new TestClass() you would replace 'this' with currentTest.

validationMap.ParmName = name of method

 

    NoYesId testPass;
    DictClass dictClass;
    ExecutePermission perm;
    TableThatHasParmMethodListing validationMap;


    //allow the code to run
    perm = new ExecutePermission();
    perm.assert();

    //go through all of the require test mappings that will link up to the current class being executed
    while select * from validationMap
    {
        //class the validation parm mapping for the current record
        dictClass = new DictClass(classidget(this));
        testPass = dictClass.callObject(validationMap.ParmName, this);

//testPass variable will now have the result of the parm
    }

    //revert code access
    CodeAccessPermission::revertAssert();

AX 2012 R3 - Retail POS - CDX Server/Client/Real-time service certificate has expired.

When dealing with the reail pos system in AX you need to create self-signed certs in order for the cdx server/client and real-time service calls to work. However these self-signed certs expire and when they do you notice the entire system come to grinding halt and will see something like the following in windows event viewer

Unable to communicate with server for upload. Please check username/password, server and database connections. Error Details: System.ServiceModel.Security.SecurityNegotiationException: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel with authority '<server name>:8304'. ---> System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel. ---> System.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationException: The remote certificate is invalid according to the validation procedure.

In order to resolve the expired certificate we will need to do the following:

• Generate new FQDN self-signed certs via iis on the machines that you need it (depending on the environment you are working with will determine which certs need to be created)
• Add new certs to the servers that host cdx server, cdx client, real-time service and pos client via MMC under the Personal and Trusted root certification authorities
• After the cert is generated you will need to grab the thumb from the cert.
  *Note paste the cert thumbprint into notepad++ and change encoding to ansi and to show special characters so you can remove any special characters within the thumbprint. You will also need to remove the spaces in the thumbprint
• Update C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\CDX\Async Server\Package\web.config to include new cert thumbprint
• Update C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\CDX\Real-time Services\6.3\web.config to include new cert thumbprint

• Update C:\inetpub\AsyncServerSite\CDX_AsyncServer\web.config to include new cert thumbprint (if iis instance for cdx server created a new folder and not utilizing the folder above)

• The setting with the thumbprint should be listed under the tag <serviceCertificate findValue=

• Run issreset + restart the cdx client service

• Verify in event viewer that the connection is now made successfully. on the cdx server, client, real-time service 

• Run a sync in AX via /Retail/Periodic/Data distribution/Distribution schedule or /Retail/Setup/Retail scheduler/Channel integration 

• Once this has been ran make sure the jobs are processing successfully via /Retail/Inquiries/Commerce Data Exchange/Download sessions if they are processing then the async server connection status (heartbeat) should have been updated as well that is located @ /Retail/Inquiries/Commerce Data Exchange/Async Server connection status

Everything should now be good to go and you can start processing POS transactions once again.

AX 2012 R3 - Retail POS - Clear all existing transactions from the POS DB/CDX Server/CDX Client

When reloading environments sometimes it is necessary to reset the retail pos, cdx server, cdx client and back office databases to show none of the previous transactions that once existed within the system.

In order to clear it out we need to do the following (with CDX server + client services offline)

POSDB - AXRetailPOS

--current transactions within the pos system

truncate table ax.RetailPosBatchAccountTrans

truncate table ax.RetailPosBatchTable

truncate table ax.RetailPosBatchTenderTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionBankedTenderTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionTenderDeclarationTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionDiscountTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionIncomeExpenseTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionInfocodeTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionLoyaltyRewardPointTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionOrderInvoiceTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionPaymentTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionSafeTenderTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionSalesTrans

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionTable

truncate table ax.RetailTransactionTaxTrans

CDX_AsyncClient DB

--clear previous syncs

truncate table dbo.datastore

truncate table dbo.downloadsession

truncate table dbo.downloadsessionLog

truncate table dbo.offlinedataexportlog

CDX_AsyncServer DB

--clear previous syncs

truncate table dbo.UPLOADSESSIONLOG

truncate table dbo.UPLOADSESSION

truncate table dbo.DOWNLOADSESSIONDATASTORELOG

truncate table dbo.DOWNLOADSESSIONDATASTORE

truncate table dbo.DOWNLOADSESSION

--clear base info (optional)

truncate table dbo.FILESTORAGEPROVIDER

truncate table dbo.JOB

truncate table dbo.SCHEDULERINTERVAL

truncate table dbo.SCHEDULEPARAMETER

truncate table dbo.SCHEDULEJOB

truncate table dbo.SCHEDULEDATAGROUP

truncate table dbo.DATASTOREHEARTBEATLOG

truncate table dbo.DATASTORE

truncate table dbo.DATAGROUP

truncate table dbo.AUTHENTICATIONLOG

If there are transaction with the back office AX then you may need to do the following

Company/Retail/Journals/Open statements > remove all statements that pertain to the pos system

Then run the following job

static void ClearRetailTransactions(Args _args)

{

    RETAILTRANSACTIONBANKEDTENDERTRANS retailTable1;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONTENDERDECLARATIONTRANS retailTable2;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONDISCOUNTTRANS retailTable3;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONINCOMEEXPENSETRANS retailTable4;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONINFOCODETRANS retailTable5;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONLOYALTYREWARDPOINTTRANS retailTable6;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONORDERINVOICETRANS retailTable7;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONPAYMENTTRANS retailTable8;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONSALESTRANS retailTable9;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONTABLE retailTable10;

    RETAILTRANSACTIONTAXTRANS retailTable11;

    

    ttsbegin;

    delete_from retailTable1;

    delete_from retailTable2;

    delete_from retailTable3;

    delete_from retailTable4;

    delete_from retailTable5;

    delete_from retailTable6;

    delete_from retailTable7;

    delete_from retailTable8;

    delete_from retailTable9;

    delete_from retailTable10;

    delete_from retailTable11;

    ttscommit;

    info('done');

}

Finally you will want to remove all of the previous cdx sync files located in 

Company/Retail/Setup/Retail scheduler/Channel integration/working folders

Once this is completed you should follow the normal store setup if it is not already done.

Note: if you run the sql under --clear base info (optional) you will need to run the sync metadata function (button) that is located @

Company/Retail/Setup/Parameters/Retail scheduler parameters

Update: depending on if you are transferring data from one environment to the next  you may run into an issue where the data will download but wont upload you may need to clear out/update the following tables depending on what you are trying to do.

Clearing these tables will force a complete refresh of all pos transactions into the back office.

POSDB - AXRetailPOS:
truncate table [crt].[TABLEREPLICATIONLOG]
truncate table [crt].[UPLOADSESSION]

R3 Retail Async Client + Server Error: Unable to communicate with server for upload. Please check username/password, server and database connections.

Recently I came across a strange error when dealing with the new Async Server + Client feature within AX 2012 R3 to support a channel database for a retail store/pos setup.

This environment had been working just fine with no errors for the past couple of months but I just noticed that none of the download/upload files were being processed by the server and client for the past couple of days. Nothing had changed in the AX, SQL or account access that pertained to this environment.

When looking in the event login I saw the following


CDX Client: Unable to communicate with server for upload. Please check username/password, server and database connections. Error Details: System.ServiceModel.Security.MessageSecurityException: An unsecured or incorrectly secured fault was received from the other party. See the inner FaultException for the fault code and detail. ---> System.ServiceModel.FaultException: Invalid username or password
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

CDX Server: Invalid username or password

However I knew that my username/password combination was valid and my certs for the aos + cdx server were still valid.

After doing some basic troubleshooting I found that the following fixed the error on both the server + client.

Retail > Setup > Parameters > Retail scheduler parameters > Sync metadata

I then restarted the async client service + did an issreset on the async server. I am not sure the last part was necessary but restarting them forces it to try to reconnect to AX.

AX - SSRS - SrsReportDataProviderPreProcess - Warning the user of a long run time

When running a preprocessing type of report it may cause the users AX client to freeze. So in order to let them know that it is actually running we may want to alert the user and give them the ability to choose not to run the report.

We can do this by overriding the preRunValidate() method on the controller class.

protected container preRunValidate()
{
    //let the user know that it will take a while to run
    return [SrsReportPreRunState::Warning, "This report may take a long time to run are you sure you want to run it?"];
}

SrsReportPreRunState (ENUM) is the type of alert. You can choose the following types

SrsReportPreRunState::Warning - will allow the user to choose if they should run the report or not
SrsReportPreRunState::Error - will stop the report from running
SrsReportPreRunState::Run - will start the report

Given these 3 types of commands available we can create logic based on current information and what course of action we can take.

By default the container only expects the enum SrsReportPreRunState but if we add a 2nd element then we can override the default text as well thus giving the user a more descriptive alert message.

example

[SrsReportPreRunState::Error, "The report has been canceled because it should only be run during the weekend"];

AX SSRS - Regular Processing (SRSReportDataProviderBase) VS PreProcessing (SrsReportDataProviderPreProcess) (fixes timeout issues on reporting)

Sometimes in AX we need to create reports that exceed the default run-time limits defined in AX (default is 10minutes) because of the amount of data we are either calculating or returning. As discussed in one of my other posts (AX SSRS Report times out after 10 minutes) one of the ways to overcome this is to change the config files of the client/ssrs server but another way to overcome this limit and improve the speed in which a report can be ran is changing your data provider to extend the class 'SrsReportDataProviderPreProcess' instead of the regular type of 'SRSReportDataProviderBase'

I found this great blog entry over at msdn (click here) with this nice graphic shown below that explains the differences between the two. But long story short the difference is we are utilizing the aos to generate the data then handing the results to ssrs rather than handing the logic to ssrs and letting it generate the data. By doing this we can bypass the time out that is defined in ssrs because the data is already generated before we hand it off and we can improve runtime because it is now generating the data on the aos server.


Regular processing:



Pre-processing:

In order to switch from the regular process we need to make the following changes:

1. On the table that is returned as a dataset to the report make the following changes
1. Created by - Yes
2. CreatedTransactionId - Yes
3. TableType - Regular
2. Change the DP class so it extends SrsReportDataProviderPreProcess
3. Within the DP class.processReport() method add the following code reportData.setConnection(this.parmUserConnection()); where reportData is the table that is returned as a dataset within your report
4. Execute a incremental cil
5. Open the SSRS report and hit refresh on the dataset. At this point you should see the field 'createdTransactionId' added to the available field.
6. Deploy report
7. Security Note: For your security object it is good to note that when using this preprocessing method you need to add the DPClass.processReport() method to the Server methods node in the privilege associated with the report