Shared Master Data

Finance and Operations/AX Technical Forum
1

Hello,

I need to have an AX 2012 R3 environment with the shared data - looking at Virtual company accounts does not look like help me here. The data that needs to be shared is

  1. Customers

  2. Vendors

  3. Released Products

  4. All Sites / Warehouses with Onhand.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

2

That is the purpose of Master Data Management. You have to have decisions on core data and the data direction.

However one key element of all Master Data is that it is not transactional - so on hand is not possible - it is about moving data.

To show on-hand you need to decide what and how and then create data transactions into a central repository, the repository you call from wherever you need it.

3

Thanks Adam. I would really be interested in knowing this implementation slightly in details. For instance if I was to use Virtual company what’s the possible way of having all these entities shared including on-hand. The scenario requires me to have warehouses / inventory shared across all companies - in fact the companies are just there to keep the financial boundaries apart. I also got a vague idea on partitions but didn’t really find something concrete on that either. What’s your suggestion on using either Virtual company or partition.

Possibly if you could direct me with some information sources - that’ll be much appreciated.

4

Partitions prevent sharing.

Talk to your partner would be my advice.

This kind of fundamental setup and decision is the sort of work you should have a strategy session on and agree the setup with all pros and cons considered by the customer.if they are sharing stick why not simply make it one company is a simple yet complex question. Why not use inter-company and the stock views there is another.

5

I work for partner actually and this requirement has erupted as a surprise to the whole team :slight_smile:

Microsoft suggests that Sites can’t be shared across legal entities (fair enough). I will have to challenge back this requirement.

In terms of sharing customers / vendors and products do you have a preference i.e. MDM or Virtual Company?

Thanks again :slight_smile:

6

Microsoft do not support much around Virtual Companies, so MDM is the obvious preference as this is the tool they want you to use. Microsoft Solution Architects said to me that all they ever saw from the configurations was issues and data integrity issues because customers try to do more than static data sharing.

They state “We do not recommend that you use virtual company accounts to share anything other than reference data and master data. You must not use virtual company accounts to share transactional data.” On Hand is transactional by its nature even though it is a static figure it changes constantly (not to mention the dimension impact)

I would be surprised if this did not become a redacted feature in future versions of AX, MDM is leveraging the stack from SQL, is a product with depth and history and it does what the Virtual company option does in relation to sharing data in a controlled and planned strategic manner.

7

HI Adam,

This discussion has been extremely useful for me to present my solution to the clients. I really appreciate your input.

Regards

Haseeb