Another tool I’ve been very interested in getting a hold on has been this Customer Model Visualization Tool. This tool is also a Partnersource exclusive like the Sure Step modeler. Found it on the same demo machine. Its a fantastic tool and very easy to copy off another machine. Grab the folder from the Programs directory. Then make sure you have SQL server running locally. I setup the free SQL Server 2005 express to test this out. The first time you run the app, it will automatically try to create a new database on the local sql server.

You can create departments, groups and add people with their roles to them creating a full organizational chart. It has a great relationship viewer too.

The beautiful part is that you can add department processes with sub-processes as well. The only downside is that workflows need to be created separately and uploaded along with the processes. It would be great if they could add a flow charting tool in here too.

Overall its a great tool with nice keyboard shortcuts but its a bit slow especially with right-clicks.

I’ve been trying to get a copy of this software for a while now. The local Microsoft partner wouldn’t give me a copy and its not available for download unless you have a partnersource login. However, I managed to get a hold of a demo machine (from Microsoft) with the software installed. I was hoping to find an installer but the software it fairly easy to copy from one machine to another.

Only two folders are needed to run this app, the one under Program Files and the much larger one under Documents and Settings.

This Sure Step software has a lot of categorized templates that come in very handy for both vendors and customers during an ERP implementation. And there is a section available for vendors to manage multiple projects with customized titles and logos.

It’s going to take me a while to go over all these templates. Great tools like this should be open source and free to download!

Well, with all this talk talk and more talk about Dynamics AX, I finally decided to sit in at an installation! And bot was it an install. This is one of the most complex installation applications I’ve seen from Microsoft. Even the Wizard was confusing! After the AX server is installed on your machine it needs to be compiled!!!

This is a first for me! I’ve never come across any application that needed to be compiled AFTER installation! Its usually before.

Anyway, that compile option took a good 2 and a half hours to complete and then there was a real complicated license entry screen where about 50 different license codes were needed, one for each and every module and settings in there!!! Found out much later that there was a shortcut involved using a specially formatted file.

The entire setup took about 5-6 hours! And that didn’t include the Service Pack. Seems we need to compile the application again after installing the SP.

The application however, once installed, is real nice and seems very user-friendly for an ERP! Will post more on that later.

This took me a while to scan and stitch together. Its rather long but it will give you a clear idea of how much detail goes into implementing an enterprise scale project!

Click on the image for a larger view.

We are implementing Dynamics AX at the office and the Microsoft partners have been bragging a lot about the Sure Step Methodology that they use. Sure Step is basically a comprehensive guideline for project managers with PartnerSource companies. It provides a clear outline of all the milestones and tasks needed to successfully implement a project. Of course, all projects need to be very flexible and so a software tool similar to Visio is provided to partners so they can fine tune Sure Step plan to each project.

Since the SureStep software is not the easiest thing to get a hold of, I managed to get my hands on a rather large poster (enough to cover the wall behind me) and I’ve scanned sections of it on my tiny A4 scanner.

The pic above is the Sure Step implementation for a Standard project and the one below is for a Rapid Project! Notice how so many of the steps in a standard project can be eliminated when you are on a tight deadline!

There is an Enterprise project plan too which I will try to scan and stitch together soon.

Here is a quick workaround to get your VM Express player up and running. Seems it tries to connect to the Internet for updates every time you open it. Now if there is a problem downloading that update, you will see the error above.

Just disable your network card before you open the player and enable it once again after the player loads. Go to Start->Control Panel->Network settings.

I think Prowess should put a “Skip Update” option as well on that update form.

Recently I got the chance to evaluate Microsoft Dynamics. The demo toolkit however was delivered using the VM Express technology from Prowess [link].

In short, VM Express provides the framework and mechanism for deploying virtual machines. It also has options to deliver other content including documentation, videos, etc. Its a pretty neat concept. A nice feature is that Items updated after the initial DVD was created are downloaded in the background.

From the product website:

• Super-efficient web delivery of VMs.
• Dramatically lower storage size saves money on duplication and reduces frustration from failed downloads.
• Smaller delta image files can be downloaded and deployed to a running state in minutes.
• Less downtime because VM fixes and updates can be distributed quickly.
• VM Express image architecture allows VMs to survive infinite updates

The toolkit for Dynamics comes on 3 dual-layer DVD’s (so that’s about 24gb on 3 dvd’s). It requires quite a bit of free space on the hard drive to install. For me it was time to delete my large pile of downloads. Guess I can re-download the latest Linux versions another day. The content of all 3 dvd’s gets dumped on your hard-drive. So at this stage all the virtualy machines are on your hard drive in the VMexpress folder. 

Once installed, it pops up a navigation panel. Its a fairly simple interface. You can filter content by the program and product. There is a neat search feature to quickly lookup any item. The search results too can be sorted and moving the mouse over the description column will pop-up a quick preview of the item description. Clicking on any item will display the install box on the right side. You can change the install location and it will reflect the space required, available, etc.

Depending on what you are trying to install you will be prompted to accept the usual terms and conditions of  blah blah blah. The crazy thing is that it will always create a folder for the item you install, create another folder withint that called docs and install the virtual machine or videos or documentation in that docs folder. This gets irritating once you begin to navigate the extracted files and have to keep going into the docs folder.

Another issue I have with the whole format is that it doesn’t give you the option to run the toolkit off the DVD’s. This would allow people to save a ton of space on the hard drive. 

The initial install too can be trouble some. I first tried to install the demo toolkit on my desktop. By the time VMExpress was done, there was no space left to extract the 30GB odd virtual machines. So I tried to install it on one of the spare IBM servers and use SAN storage but the dynamics toolkit itself wouldn’t install. Not sure why yet!

Overall I like the concept a lot. However it could use a lot of improvements.

Time for ratings:

• User Interface: ****½ (4.5/5) (clean layout)
• Documentation: **½~~ (2.5/5) 
• Installation: **~~~ (2/5) (you need to be real techie to get this installed and running)
• Usability: ***~~ (3/5) (the installation of virtual machines and document could be improved)

Overall: ***~~ (3/5)