AX 2012 Retail System Architecture

Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail is made up of several sub-systems.

§  A back-office ERP system

§  A front-office POS system.

§  A connection between the two systems for both routine data updates as well as one-time transactional information.

Dynamics AX for Retail –Back Office

Microsoft Dynamics AX is a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for midsize and larger organizations that empowers people to work effectively, manage change, and compete globally. It makes it easy to operate across locations and countries by standardizing processes, providing visibility across your organization, and helping to simplify compliance.

With Microsoft Dynamics AX, you can be confident your business management solution is—and will continue to be—relevant to the needs of your people and the demands of your industry and business. Microsoft Dynamics AX can provide your organization with business value in a single ERP solution that extends into every area of your operations to help you:

Improve productivity - Familiar, easy-to-use tools and access to Role Tailored information and tasks enable people to work quickly and make smart, proactive decisions.

Manage change and growth - Scale your business systems and adapt processes easily with a single ERP solution that can support your strategic initiatives and help manage change in the marketplace, such as new product launches and mergers and acquisitions.

Compete globally - Manage the complexities of a global organization with one centralized ERP solution that helps you standardize processes and gain visibility across your organization while staying on top of changes in local regulations.

Simplify compliance - Stay ahead of regulatory compliance and reduce risk and liability associated with corporate governance and customer initiatives.

Microsoft Dynamics AX provides unique and powerful features within functional areas and the development environment. The features of Microsoft Dynamics AX are summarized below:

§  Single-database architecture is used for all companies in the organization.

§  A highly-integrated design between functional areas such as resource planning, sales, and manufacturing.

§  Dimension-based system for manufacturing and financial modules.

§  Advanced features such as Forecasting and Master Planning are available.

§  Multicurrency and Multilanguage capabilities. 

Dynamics AX for Retail –Front Office

Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail is an integrated retail solution designed for Microsoft Dynamics AX. Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail provides midmarket and large retailers a complete head-office and point-of-sale solution. It can help retailers achieve higher financial returns, provide better service, manage operations for growth, and streamline efficiencies. This solution controls the fundamental aspects of a retail business from the head office to the stores, and links the point-of-sale (POS) registers and Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail includes the following subsystems:

§  Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail Headquarters:

Retail Headquarters is a module for Microsoft Dynamics AX that retailers use to manage a chain of stores as one enterprise. It is designed to run at the head office, centrally managing daily operations and tracking sales information for every store in the chain. Retail Headquarters includes Retail Scheduler (a feature that orchestrates communication between the head office and the stores) and Retail Inventory (a feature for managing movement of inventory).

Retail Headquarters can be used with any point-of-sale system that is able to receive and transmit necessary data from Microsoft Dynamics AX.

§  Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail POS:

Developed especially for Microsoft Dynamics AX, Retail POS is an optional feature that brings speed, power, flexibility, dependability, and ease of use to the point-of-sale. Retail POS has a dynamic interface that can be fully customized for your type of business and store procedures. In addition, Retail POS can work offline, ensuring that your stores remain fully operational during network interruptions. All data is automatically updated when the connection is restored.

§  Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail Store Connect:

Retail Store Connect is the integrated service that periodically sends data between the head office, stores, and individual Retail POS terminals. Communications via Retail Store Connect are managed through distribution locations and Retail Scheduler in Retail Headquarters.

§  Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail Transaction Service

        Together with Retail Store Connect and Retail Scheduler, Retail Transaction Service completes the communications mechanism of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail by providing real-time, synchronous communication. It can be used to authenticate cashier logon credentials, send loyalty requests, and exchange “up-to-the-minute” physical inventory information between the head office and the stores, and more.

Retail Headquarters

When you install Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail Headquarters, the following modules are added to Microsoft Dynamics AX:

§  Retail Headquarters – Use this module to configure and manage stores, terminals, retail items, and the other records that make up the Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail implementation. Also use this module to generate reports, perform inquiries, and complete other daily business processes.

§  Retail Scheduler – Use this module to manage the distribution of data from the head office to stores and terminals. You can also use this module to create distribution locations, set up table distribution, and schedule the jobs and sub-jobs that send information to stores.

§  Retail Store Inventory – Use this module to send store inventory documents to stores to use for receiving inventory for a purchase order, picking or receiving inventory for a transfer order, or counting stock for a count order.

Retail Headquarters forms and fields

In addition to the forms included in the three modules of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail Headquarters, installing Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail Headquarters adds fields to certain forms that already exist in core Microsoft Dynamics AX. For example, several new fields are added to the Item and Employee forms.

Retail Headquarters is the primary module of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail Headquarters. It is use to enter the information and settings that are used in the” day-to-day” operations of your retail organization. It is also the area where you can view “up-to-the-minute” information about your inventory, revenues, and more.

Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail POS is the point-of-sale program for Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail. It can be used to perform sales, operate the cash drawer, scan bar codes, and print customer receipts. Retail POS adds up the sales total, calculates the tax, calculates the change back from the amount paid, and adjusts the store's inventory levels to reflect the amount of inventory sold.

Primary transactions include activities such as sales, refunds, suspend, advance, loyalty, credit voucher issue, gift-card issue, bar-code scanning, receiving payment, and receipt printing. Retail POS includes the ability to track customer orders, process credit and debit cards, connect to other systems in a network, and check inventory. Each point-of-sale register is uniquely identified by a register number.

Retail POS, built on the Microsoft .NET Framework, uses a unique and easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) that can be set up according to various business needs, such as food, fashion, grocery, and so on.

Staff

The Retail Headquarters staff setup describes how to create staff members for stores and assign privileges for performing operations in Retail POS.

Retail Headquarters staff information is linked to employee master records in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The program keeps record of staff details such as employee number, Retail POS logon password, address, and contact numbers, and so on. Each staff member is assigned Retail POS privileges, such as voiding transactions, performing tender declaration, overriding price, and maximum discount to give. A staff member can be assigned only to one store.

If you have set up Enterprise Portal for Microsoft Dynamics AX, you must set up User Profiles for the employees who will access the Enterprise Portal. These profiles define each user's role and specify the store information that the user will have access to.

Infocodes

Infocodes are a powerful tool that can be used to capture data at the point-of-sale. They capture additional information when a cashier performs various actions at point-of-sale such as an item sale, item return, or customer selection. Retail POS prompts the cashier for input that can be selected from a list or entered as a code, a numeric, a date, or as text. Infocodes can be assigned to predefined store actions, retail items, tender types, customers, or specific point-of-sale activities.

§  Infocodes make it possible for a business to get additional information needed at the transaction time, such as a flight number, reasons for returns, and so on.

§  Infocodes can be set up for specific item prices that prompt the register cashier to select one of a number of prices.

§  Infocodes can have a sub-code linked to them that prompts the register cashier for input while performing a specific activity.

§  Items can be sold through an Infocode as a normal sale, discounted sale, or free item.

Inquiries and reports

Retail Headquarters provides extensive reporting capabilities in addition to the standard Microsoft Dynamics AX reports. Retail Headquarters provides a number of reporting options, both in the form of online analysis, also called inquiries, or in the form of reports.

Both reports and online inquiries in Retail Headquarters support specific features such as filtering and sorting. This allows for the quick filtering of the data on which the reports should be based. Custom date filtering is also supported. Transaction and statistics-level reporting can also be generated on a time basis, which enables the analysis of the sales flow throughout the day. In addition to this capability, sales by item and store can be displayed in graphical format.

Retail Headquarters adds to your ability to extract accurate sales information by providing numerous statistical windows and reports that build on statistic tables, item-value entries, and transactions from the registers. This ability can help to determine which items or variants are selling best and which stores, registers, and staff are performing best.

All standard sales reports in Microsoft Dynamics AX can be used to analyze sales information. Items in unposted statements are not included.

Processes

Retail Headquarters supports retail-specific processes such as the following:

§  Statement calculation and posting

§  Label printing

§  Vendor item import

§  Replenishment (cross docking or buyer's push)

§  Contract concessions

These periodic activities are carried out when required. Some of these periodic activities are: post physical Inventory, financial- ledger entries, Inventory journals, and purchase orders.

Replenishment

Optimizing inventory levels at the distribution center is necessary for removing excess costs from the customer-driven value chain. To invest inventory dollars more effectively, retailers must be able to blend both the art and science of purchasing and inventory management.

Effective location/warehouse replenishment helps retailers, manufacturers, and wholesaler-distributors to increase revenue and ensure high levels of customer satisfaction by sustaining this balance. By providing accurate visibility into the location or warehouse, replenishment helps buyers to create accurate demand forecasts and order projections, as well as table order patterns.

Replenishment assists the purchasing department in creating purchase orders and also to assist the warehouse with making suggestions about what items must be transferred to the stores.

Replenishment in Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail offers the option to replenish warehouses or stores using the purchase order or transfer order. The replenishment processes run at the head office. It is possible to manually allocate quantities to be distributed to the stores. Retail Headquarters provides the three distribution methods listed below:

§  Location weight

§  Replenishment rules

§  Fixed quantity to all

Location replenishment is also used when items are distributed automatically to stores. If the item that needs to be distributed has variants, the combination of the location replenishment curve and the size or color curve determines the quantity that is allocated to each location or store.

Retail Scheduler

Retail Scheduler manages the distribution of data through Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail Store Connect, from the head-office database to the appropriate store and terminal databases. It also manages updates of the head-office database with sales and inventory data from the stores.

This guide discusses the day-to-day operations that you might perform in Retail Scheduler, including adding a new store or terminal to the data-distribution structure, running jobs, and viewing the status of jobs and data packets.

Data distribution is the system of settings and records that control how data in the head-office database is sent to the store and terminal databases. Data distribution is store-specific, meaning you can specify that certain records are sent only to the locations where they are useful. Data distribution is also table-specific, meaning you can customize the way that changes to certain tables are distributed.

Jobs are the mechanism for distributing data to your locations. Each job is made up of one or more subjobs. The include list or exclude list for a job filters the locations that data is sent to.

There are four types of jobs which are listed below:

§  Action (A) jobs – “A” jobs send data that has changed (tracked as actions) from the head office to stores. The locations that receive the jobs are determined by the distribution settings for the changed records (or their parent records).

§  Custom (C) jobs – “C” jobs run a specified custom class. Two “C” jobs are included in Retail Scheduler by default, C-1000 (Send email receipts) and C-1020 (Convert Preactions).

§  Normal (N) jobs – “N” jobs are not dependent on actions. They delete all existing data in the destination tables and then insert updated data. “N” jobs send data from the head office to stores.

Pull (P) jobs – “P” jobs pull data—such as sales and inventory data— from the distribution location specified in the job and insert it into the head-office database. You need one “P” job for each terminal or store database.

Retail Store Inventory

With Retail Store Inventory, you can manage the store- inventory documents that provide an interface between stores and the purchasing, transfer, and counting features in Microsoft Dynamics AX. A store-inventory document is a form that is associated with a purchase order, transfer order, or counting journal. The document is typically created at the head office, used at the store to enter inventory data, and then reviewed and posted at the head office.

AX 2012 Retail Deployment Architecture

Deployment topologies

The following table lists the types of computers used in a typical Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 deployment.

The above figures illustrate typical deployment topologies of a Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 deployment.

In the above deployment, each component is hosted on a dedicated physical or virtual computer. Components that support multiple instances, such as AOS and Retail Store Connect, could be installed on additional computers for load balancing. This deployment topology is appropriate for a large retailer.

With the exception of the communications server, the computers at the head office are all standard in a Microsoft Dynamics AX deployment. Retail Headquarters is installed on the AOS computer and all client computers. The process for adding it to Microsoft Dynamics AX is much like the process for adding any other component to the deployment.

The head-office database server does not need to be modified at all unless the settings for Microsoft SQL Server.

Retail Transaction Service and the head-office instance of Retail Store Connect are installed on the head-office communications server. If you prefer, you can have two communications servers, one for each of these applications.

Typically, head-office and store computers on which Retail Store Connect is installed also have SQL Server 2008 Express installed, but this instance of SQL Server is used only for the Retail Store Connect message database.

Retail POS is installed on each register computer. Optionally, a store database instance or an offline database may be installed on a POS computer.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 supports two store-side database topologies, providing flexibility in the location and connectivity of POS terminals:

§        POS terminals with an offline database that is synchronized with the store database when the POS terminals are connected

§         POS terminals without an offline database, so that they must always be connected to the store database