Creating and Using Activex Controls in Dynamics Ax

Hello, Long time no see! I hope you are doing fine and really excited about Dynamics Ax 2009.

This is going to be a really short blog since everything is already available on the net. It is just a matter of bringing everything together and create a nice looking picture. And a nice looking picture is exactly what we are going to do.

So what is the big deal about Activex controls? It is really simple, it gives a tremendous opportunity to display physical information in the pictorial format.

To take an example, why not create a button on the production order that will display the route information using nice pictures and text boxes? Like which machine is being used by the current job and to what are the next machines that are going to get loaded etc etc etc. Are you 'Green' ? Then you can replace the bar chart in standard Ax with a tree chart? i.e. use a tree instead of bar. 

Just keep this information at the back of your mind and you yourself will realize the potential after some time.

I am not going to delve into this any further, smart people will see the potential. And this could open a nice little source of income stream for you.

Just remember one thing. Do not confuse this with BI. This is not even a graphical representation. I don't know  what to call this but let us just say this is a pictorial representation.

You can get the code to create Activex control from http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/exposingdotnetcontrols.aspx

I have tried this code in both Ax 4.01 and Ax 2009, it works well. After you compile the code, register the DLL (if not already registered), create a new form, add a new control of type activex control (make sure a default name is already assigned to the control) and you are good to go.

And please please please. Do not use Windows Forms, use WPF.

And last but not the least you can download C# express edition from http://www.microsoft.com/express/vcsharp/

Send mail to harry@systomatics.com with questions or comments about this web site.

Disclaimer: I am working with Microsoft Business Solutions. The code on this site may or may not be related to my official duties with Microsoft. I do not claim in any expertise in modules represented on this website. Essentially there is just one person doing functional specifications (in head), design specifications (in head), coding and some testing. There is no way the project on this site will be free of bugs. The projects are intended as guidelines and may god help you if you decide to implement the projects without making any changes. If you implement any project resulting into data corruption or anything like that then do not even think of suing me because a. I have already warned you and b. I don't have any money. I may or may not respond to your emails about supporting the project. I may or may not upgrade the projects to the next service pack / version.