A whitepaper was recently published that documents the way that Contoso Incorporated (Microsoft’s demo company) is implementing Azure services. It’s a pretty cool document; it shows all the layout, user count, different features being used, and licensing. Being a Dynamics partner, I naturally decided to look at the Dynamics 365 licensing.

Here’s a link:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/9/7/D9742FC5-6CD2-4F99-AF49-A096648EAF58/MSFT_cloud_architecture_contoso.pdf

The first thing that’s documented is the structure of the company. The company is setup with a headquarters in Paris, 12 regional offices around the world, and 25 additional satellite offices.

Contoso’s structure showing HQ, regional offices, and satellite offices

To determine the total number of employees across the globe, I put this data into a little Excel workbook.

Contoso’s user count by office

Looking at page 7, we see Dynamics 365 user counts enumerated. Per this document, Contoso Inc., with 45,000 employees, only has 100 Dynamics 365 licenses. 100. Unless Contoso is running SAP or some other ERP system, I don’t think that makes any sense. If we do a 10/90 split between Operations users and Team members, this would represent a $2,800 monthly spend on licensing if Contoso has an Enterprise Agreement.

Licensing Contoso for 100 Dynamics 365 users

Since I’m a curious person, I figured I’d try my best at estimating the licensing requirements and cost a little more realistically.

First, I made some assumptions. Out of the 15,000 employees at headquarters, I’ll assume 10% of them require a Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations license. Since Microsoft is encouraging all employees to be in the ERP to increase visibility across the company, the remaining 90% will be team members.

I’ll be generous and assume that only 5% of the users at the satellite offices and regional offices need to be Dynamics 365 for Operations users. Again, the remainder of the users will be team members.

In addition, there’s a small percentage of users that may need the Dynamics 365 for Enterprise Sales App (CRM) – I’m assuming 10% at headquarters and 15% at regional and satellite offices.

Also, I’m going to assume that Contoso Inc. is on an enterprise agreement and is therefore subject to the published pricing announced at AXUG Summit.

The following breakdown is what this looks like:

User count for Contoso’s Dynamics 365 licensing

If we use the EA pricing announced at AXUG Summit, the following screenshot shows the estimated licensing spend (retail pricing, no discounts):

Estimated monthly spend for Contoso’s Dynamics 365 license

In the grand scheme of things, for a 45,000-employee company, a yearly expense of ~$11.5M for Dynamics 365 licensing probably isn’t the end of the world. The fact that Microsoft is using a 45,000-employee company as an example for who can belong fully to the Azure ecosystem (and use Dynamics 365) is sort of telling. Gone are the days when Axapta was perfect for a mid-market manufacturing company and being sold as such. Unfortunately, it seems like these customers are being left behind in search of the much larger enterprise-level customers.

The post Contoso’s Dynamics 365 Licensing appeared first on Dynamic Consulting.

A whitepaper was recently published that documents the way that Contoso Incorporated (Microsoft’s demo company) is implementing Azure services. It’s a pretty cool document; it shows all the layout, user count, different features being used, and licensing. Being a Dynamics partner, I naturally decided to look at the Dynamics 365 licensing.

Here’s a link:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/9/7/D9742FC5-6CD2-4F99-AF49-A096648EAF58/MSFT_cloud_architecture_contoso.pdf

The first thing that’s documented is the structure of the company. The company is setup with a headquarters in Paris, 12 regional offices around the world, and 25 additional satellite offices.

Contoso’s structure showing HQ, regional offices, and satellite offices

To determine the total number of employees across the globe, I put this data into a little Excel workbook.

Contoso’s user count by office

Looking at page 7, we see Dynamics 365 user counts enumerated. Per this document, Contoso Inc., with 45,000 employees, only has 100 Dynamics 365 licenses. 100. Unless Contoso is running SAP or some other ERP system, I don’t think that makes any sense. If we do a 10/90 split between Operations users and Team members, this would represent a $2,800 monthly spend on licensing if Contoso has an Enterprise Agreement.

Licensing Contoso for 100 Dynamics 365 users

Since I’m a curious person, I figured I’d try my best at estimating the licensing requirements and cost a little more realistically.

First, I made some assumptions. Out of the 15,000 employees at headquarters, I’ll assume 10% of them require a Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations license. Since Microsoft is encouraging all employees to be in the ERP to increase visibility across the company, the remaining 90% will be team members.

I’ll be generous and assume that only 5% of the users at the satellite offices and regional offices need to be Dynamics 365 for Operations users. Again, the remainder of the users will be team members.

In addition, there’s a small percentage of users that may need the Dynamics 365 for Enterprise Sales App (CRM) – I’m assuming 10% at headquarters and 15% at regional and satellite offices.

Also, I’m going to assume that Contoso Inc. is on an enterprise agreement and is therefore subject to the published pricing announced at AXUG Summit.

The following breakdown is what this looks like:

User count for Contoso’s Dynamics 365 licensing

If we use the EA pricing announced at AXUG Summit, the following screenshot shows the estimated licensing spend (retail pricing, no discounts):

Estimated monthly spend for Contoso’s Dynamics 365 license

In the grand scheme of things, for a 45,000-employee company, a yearly expense of ~$11.5M for Dynamics 365 licensing probably isn’t the end of the world. The fact that Microsoft is using a 45,000-employee company as an example for who can belong fully to the Azure ecosystem (and use Dynamics 365) is sort of telling. Gone best canadian casino are the days when Axapta was perfect for a mid-market manufacturing company and being sold as such. Unfortunately, it seems like these customers are being left behind in search of the much larger enterprise-level customers.

The post Contoso’s Dynamics 365 Licensing appeared first on Dynamic Consulting.

A whitepaper was recently published that documents the way that Contoso Incorporated (Microsoft’s demo company) is implementing Azure services. It’s a pretty cool document; it shows all the layout, user count, different features being used, and licensing. Being a Dynamics partner, I naturally decided to look at the Dynamics 365 licensing.

Here’s a link:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/9/7/D9742FC5-6CD2-4F99-AF49-A096648EAF58/MSFT_cloud_architecture_contoso.pdf

The first thing that’s documented is the structure of the company. The company is setup with a headquarters in Paris, 12 regional offices around the world, and 25 additional satellite offices.

To determine the total number of employees across the globe, I put this data into a little Excel workbook.

Looking at page 7, we see Dynamics 365 user counts enumerated. Per this document, Contoso Inc., with 45,000 employees, only has 100 Dynamics 365 licenses. 100. Unless Contoso is running SAP or some other ERP system, I don’t think that makes any sense. If we do a 10/90 split between Operations users and Team members, this would represent a $2,800 monthly spend on licensing if Contoso has an Enterprise Agreement.

Since I’m a curious person, I figured I’d try my best at estimating the licensing requirements and cost a little more realistically.

First, I made some assumptions. Out of the 15,000 employees at headquarters, I’ll assume 10% of them require a Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations license. Since Microsoft is encouraging all employees to be in the ERP to increase visibility across the company, the remaining 90% will be team members.

I’ll be generous and assume that only 5% of the users at the satellite offices and regional offices need to be Dynamics 365 for Operations users. Again, the remainder of the users will be team members.

In addition, there’s a small percentage of users that may need the Dynamics 365 for Enterprise Sales App (CRM) – I’m assuming 10% at headquarters and 15% at regional and satellite offices.

Also, I’m going to assume that Contoso Inc. is on an enterprise agreement and is therefore subject to the published pricing announced at AXUG Summit.

The following breakdown is what this looks like:

If we use the EA pricing announced at AXUG Summit, the following screenshot shows the estimated licensing spend (retail pricing, no discounts):

In the grand scheme of things, for a 45,000-employee company, a yearly expense of ~$11.5M for Dynamics 365 licensing probably isn’t the end of the world. The fact that Microsoft is using a 45,000-employee company as an example for who can belong fully to the Azure ecosystem (and use Dynamics 365) is sort of telling. Gone are the days when Axapta was perfect for a mid-market manufacturing company and being sold as such. Unfortunately, it seems like these customers are being left behind in search of the much larger enterprise-level customers.

I’ve run into this a couple of times now.  Someone comes to me with an error message when trying to post an invoice saying “Insufficient inventory transactions with status Received” even though there ARE sufficient received inventory transactions.

Each time I’ve seen this has been caused by the same thing – something other than letters or numbers in the packing slip for the inventory transaction.  One time it was a comma, one time was caused by a period, and another time was caused by a tab.  Even though there’s nothing preventing you from using these “special characters” (although I wouldn’t really consider a comma a special character,) AX can’t seem to interpret this very well.

There’s an issue in LCS that specifically describes this, but the fix doesn’t seem to work for me:

https://fix.lcs.dynamics.com/Issue/Solution?bugId=771959&qc=704c022615c396fb7e0229a57ef057f643d32b09a656c51999f7f4a61e4cf55d

Instead of Microsoft’s suggestion, I’ve had to change the packing slip number in three places to remove those offending characters: VendPackingSlipJour, VendPackingSlipTrans, and InventTrans.  As always, if you’re going to do this, DO IT IN TEST FIRST!

After doing that, the invoi

Just thought you’d like to know.

The post Special characters in packing slips? Don’t think so! appeared first on Dynamic Consulting.

I’ve run into this a couple of times now.  Someone comes to me with an error message when trying to post an invoice saying “Insufficient inventory transactions with status Received” even though there ARE sufficient received inventory transactions.

Each time I’ve seen this has been caused by the same thing – something other than letters or numbers in the packing slip for the inventory transaction.  One time it was a comma, one time was caused by a period, and another time was caused by a tab.  Even though there’s nothing preventing you from using these “special characters” (although I wouldn’t really consider a comma a special character,) AX can’t seem to interpret this very well.

There’s an issue in LCS that specifically describes this, but the fix doesn’t seem to work for me:

https://fix.lcs.dynamics.com/Issue/Solution?bugId=771959&qc=704c022615c396fb7e0229a57ef057f643d32b09a656c51999f7f4a61e4cf55d

Instead of Microsoft’s suggestion, I’ve had to change the packing slip number in three places to remove those offending characters: VendPackingSlipJour, VendPackingSlipTrans, and InventTrans.  As always, if you’re going to do this, DO IT IN TEST FIRST!

After doing that, the invoi

Just thought you’d like to know.