Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 DMF – Ledger transactions Import

Purpose: The purpose of this document is to illustrate how to use DMF (Data Migration Framework) in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for Ledger transactions Import.

Challenge: Data model changes in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 related to high normalization and introduction of surrogate keys made some imports more complex. Data Migration Framework for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 was designed and developed to address this challenge. Data Migration Framework for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides architectural foundation for data import process as well as it ships with the numerous standard templates covering most important types of business data. Data Migration Framework for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 also provides standard template ready for Ledger transactions import with no development required.

Solution: Standard template for Ledger transactions import (Ledger balance) in Data Migration Framework for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will be used.

Assumption: The assumption is that appropriate reference data such as General ledger journal header, etc. was created in advance.

Data Model:

Data Model Diagram:

Please note that staging table has all fields required for import. Please pay your attention to LedgerDimension and OffsetLedgerDimension fields of type String, this is because the user will enter string values for Ledger dimension and Offset ledger dimension and Data Migration Framework will perform the translation into RecID reference as dictated by the data model.

First off I'll create General journal header for the future data import

Journal batch number will be allocated automatically in AX UI and this exact number will be used when I populate source file "LedgerJournalEntity_GeneralJournal.txt"

This is how the source file looks like

Please note that the first row is header row, after that we have business data in CSV format

Please note that Target entity links together Staging table, Entity class and Target entity (Query)   

Once file is specified you can preview the data by pressing "View source data" button, then the data will be displayed in Preview pane.

Please note that there's no need to create mapping manually, this mapping is already pre-created for you.

Please note that there's no need to create mapping manually, this mapping is already pre-created for you.

After you execute source to staging data import the system will confirm how many records were synchronized with staging table

The results and time consumed can be seen in Execution history form

After the data was populated into Staging table you can run validation against AX reference data. You can view and validate Staging data from "Staging data" form which can be open by going to "View staging data"

In the case if you publish the data which was not validated and contains errors you will see the following error

You will see that Staging data records will change its status to "Error"

The error details can be found in "Log" form

Once the data is fixed in "Staging data" form you can copy the data from Staging to Target

Also you can see that the data was populated in staging table as expected

After you execute staging to target data import the system will confirm how many records were synchronized with AX business data tables. This is when the data gets populated in AX.

Please note that DMF (Data Migration Framework) allows you insert and update records, it also keeps track of errors so you can get back to erroneous records fix them and re-import. In this case I ran import 2^nd time and as the result 1 record was created, 2 records were updates and 1 record still had error.

The results and time consumed can be seen in Execution history form

1^st record (Ledger transaction) was supposed to be written to General journal '000460_010', and the rest of 3 records (other types of transactions) were going to different General journals

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 – General ledger journal header

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 – General ledger journal lines

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 – Voucher

Please note that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Demo Data (Company CEU) was used for this example

Versions: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 FPK, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Data Migration Framework Beta

Summary: In this document I explained how to use Data Migration Framework in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in order to import Ledger journal entries. This approach is especially recommended for large scale data migrations and allows for much better performance comparing to usage of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Excel Add-in. Data Migration Framework in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 already ships with numerous standard templates for most important types of business data. Please note that Beta release has support for 24 business entities including Ledger balance business entity. Data migration is iterative process and the fact that DMF provides flexible validation capabilities facilitates this process significantly.

Note: This document is intended for information purposes only, presented as it is with no warranties from the author. This document may be updated with more content to better outline the concepts and describe the examples.

Author: Alex Anikiev, PhD, MCP