Merit Matters Blog

AKA Enterprise Solutions, a leading Microsoft Gold Certified Partner dedicated to the implementation, training and support of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Life Sciences companies, announced today that they have signed a Reseller Agreement with Merit Solutions, Inc. to resell their MAXLife ERP software. The signing of the Reseller Agreement will enable AKA Enterprise Solutions to provide clients in the BioTech, BioMed, Medical Device, and Pharmaceutical industries with the leading Life Sciences ERP software solution built on Microsoft Dynamics AX.

“For more than two decades, AKA Enterprise Solutions has been committed to providing clients with the precise technology and consulting solutions to meet their unique business needs,” said Ronald Haantjes, Vice President of Client Relations, AKA Enterprise Solutions. "The industry-specific improvements offered by MAXLife is going to transform the way our clients maintain product quality and regulatory compliance. Customers will be able to overcome stringent industry challenges - like 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance, CAPA, Electronic Batch Records, System Validation, and more - in order to sustain profitability and growth. This announcement strengthens the value we can provide to the Life Sciences industry and will further enable AKA Enterprise Solutions clients to maximize the ROI from their technology investments.”

MAXLife ERP is based on Microsoft’s most advanced and feature-rich ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics AX, and extends the solution to help Life Sciences companies improve product quality and safety, reduce organizational risk, and maintain FDA compliance. By utilizing MAXLife ERP, Life Sciences companies can automate, grow, and transform their business with innovative, high quality business process and IT consulting services designed specifically for FDA Regulated companies.

MAXLife ERP extends Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft SharePoint for use by Life Sciences companies in the following areas:

• Electronic Batch Records
• Quality Document Management
• Enhanced Audit Trails and Electronic Signatures for 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance
• Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) Incident Management
• Material Control and Recall Management (Lot Traceability)
• Training and Certification Management
• System Validation
• Enhanced Approval Controls and Quality Orders
• and more!

"AKA Enterprise Solutions has long been recognized as one of the leading Microsoft Dynamics AX partners worldwide. They are a very exciting partnership opportunity for MAXLife and a welcome addition to our global network of top performing, vertically focused Microsoft Dynamics AX resellers," said Bill Burke, CEO of Merit Solutions. "The AKA team brings years of experience working with Microsoft Dynamics AX in a Life Sciences / FDA regulated environment, and we believe their clients will benefit tremendously from our Life Sciences ERP Software technology. This alliance strengthens our global reach and further exhibits MAXLife’s momentum as the industry-leading Life Sciences ERP solution for Microsoft Dynamics AX. Merit Solutions looks forward to further supporting high quality partners such as AKA Enterprise Solutions as we continue to grow and expand."

About AKA Enterprise Solutions

For more than two decades, AKA has been one of the country’s leading Microsoft Gold Certified partners providing clients with superior delivery, implementation, service and support of Microsoft Dynamics offerings such as Dynamics AX, GP and CRM and Business Intelligence (BI). AKA understands, develops and, most importantly, integrates leading solutions for life sciences clients. AKA has been awarded six out of the past ten years as one of the top three Microsoft ERP partners worldwide. More information about AKA Enterprise Solutions can be found at http://www.akaes.com.

About MAXLife ERP

MAXLife ERP addresses the industry-specific needs of Life Sciences companies that produce FDA regulated products. Unlike other ERP systems, MAXLife is an end-to-end solution that addresses a Life Sciences company’s biggest challenge: quality management. MAXLife ERP extends Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft SharePoint enables quality control and quality assurance processes to work together as part of the business system, and to be transparently available for reviewing and reporting. With MAXLife ERP, Life Sciences companies can track product quality, proactively see and respond to manufacturing variability, meet GMPs, Sarbanes Oxley, and 21 CFR Part 11 and Part 820 requirements, and simplify computer systems validation.

MAXLife ERP has passed the Software Solution Test for Microsoft Dynamics AX, which is a major requirement for Certified for Microsoft Dynamics® (CfMD) status.

The functionality and capabilities inherent in your ERP software have a big impact on your business processes. As you assess the effectiveness of your current system, you must first review your core business processes to determine if they enable maximum efficiency and productivity. If they do not, investigate whether the software system imposes constraints on your processes. Are your users saying “I do this because that’s the way the system makes me do it”?

When ERP systems were introduced 20 years ago, they were rigid in their functionality. They forced companies to conform business processes to the dictates of the software, or required them to significantly customize the software to meet their specific requirements. However, business processes evolve over time while the software remains static. This causes a disparity between the way the software was originally implemented and the new requirements of the business. This evolution continues until you get to the point that the processes in the system actually constrict the ability of users to efficiently run your business. In common with the CEO mentioned above, this is a major reason why your company might end up implementing a newer, innovative, and proactive ERP system.

New enterprise ERP software applications like Microsoft Dynamics AX offer flexible business processes based on best practices and process tools such as workflow. Workflow is the ability to set up and change process flows within the system. It includes many capabilities such as electronic routing
of documents, event notification, and automated processes based on triggers. Many ERP vendors offer flexible rules-based workflows
that allow businesses to create custom processes based on their operations. These workflows can be changed as their preferences and requirements evolve. In some of the more sophisticated systems, power users are even able to diagram and implement new workflows with drag-and-drop technology. Such flexibility allows the ERP system to evolve with changes in business processes and practices in your company and industry.

As you assess the effect of your current ERP software on your business processes, you should consider the following questions:

• Do your current business processes decrease efficiency and productivity?
• Are they in place to make up for inefficiencies in the ERP system?
• Have they been dictated by the system because of lack of functionality?
• Have your business requirements changed over the years making the reasons you selected your current system no longer valid?
• Have users created many sidebar and workaround systems outside the ERP?
  

Implementation of a flexible ERP system like allows your company to take advantage of new capabilities, functionality, and fresh ideas. An implementation partner that understands business process optimization and is industry expert is an excellent resource for efficiently implementing the system and effectively setting up your business processes. Selection and implementation of a modern ERP system can reduce manual processes, eliminate redundancy, and reduce paper documentation giving your company the opportunity to:

• Review all business processes in place and determine which are required, which can be modified, and which can be eliminated.
• Identify and eliminate redundancy and manual data entry.
  
• Standardize business processes across all departments.
• Adopt the best practices available in new software to obtain greater efficiency over the current ways of doing business.
• Make use of flexible workflow functionality to take advantage of automated business processes, document routing, events, and alerts.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides a flexible pre-built business intelligence (BI) solution for mid-market organizations. The use of built-in content—including Role Centers, analytic reports, and analysis cubes—eliminates the need to build a solution from the ground up, and therefore saves time and money. The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 business intelligence solution can be configured and extended to suit your specific needs with the help of Microsoft Business Intelligence development tools.

The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 business intelligence solution consists of the following built-in features:

• Role Centers (dashboards). Thirty-two default home pages that pertain to the work needs of various user profiles in an organization.
• Analysis cubes. Eleven analysis cubes that address the analytic requirements of the major functional areas within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012—including finance, supply chain, manufacturing, professional services, and business processes.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). More than 60 of the most commonly used KPIs that help users evaluate the success of business activities.
• Analytic reports. More than 150 analytic reports that provide insight into business data.

The pre-built BI solution can be deployed when you implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in your organization. A new intuitive, wizard-driven interface guides the user through deployment of the solution without requiring the user to have expert business intelligence skills.

By deploying the pre-built business intelligence solution as you implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, your organization can start using BI capabilities as soon as the new business functionality is operational.

The Pharmaceutical industry is often considered a leader when it comes to the utilization of new, innovative technology to drive major advancements in R&D. However, we have found that when it comes to inventory, manufacturing, and supply chain management business processes – many Pharmaceutical companies still find themselves buried in paper.

While regulatory reporting and compliance requirements historically drove these organizations to work manually with paper, there have been many advancements in software technology that should be too compelling to ignore. Unfortunately, once manual and paper-based systems are in place, executives tend to stay with these systems in order to stick with their “tried and true” ways of working. And once they are awash in paper, these companies are so consumed in managing paper trails that they cease to see how crippled their operations really are.

By maintaining the status quo, these Pharmaceutical companies are ignoring the significant cost savings, efficiencies, and competitive advantages that electronic systems can provide.

The obvious challenges with historical paper-based processes are that they take a great deal of time, effort, and space to manage and maintain. Then take into consideration the added risk of human errors, overlooked requirements, and forgotten processes. And don’t forget about the raw materials and finished products sitting in the warehouse waiting for manual and paper-based processes to be completed. This represents tied up working capital and fewer inventory turns. All of this adds up to higher costs and lost profits.

Executives who recognize these challenges are refocusing their efforts in order to eliminate the paperwork and automate manual processes. They are looking for an electronic way to efficiently document any procedure, process, transaction, journal, COA, formula or recipe in a way that is compliant with 21 CFR Part 11 Regulations. This means they need built-in full document lifecycle capabilities, complete with automated workflows, audit trails, electronic signatures, approvals, versioning, and archiving. And they need all of this without paper printouts.

Today’s industry leaders that are improving performance in these areas are doing so with Electronic Batch Records (EBRs). Electronic Batch Records help Pharmaceutical companies eliminate costly paperwork errors, speed up information distribution and collaboration, and enable strategies for improving product quality and process efficiency.

Here are the top 7 benefits of Electronic Batch Records (EBRs) ERP Software:

• Improve accuracy and consistency - Unlike humans, an automated Electronic Batch Record system will do a programmed task exactly the same way every time. Humans have moods and are subject to sleep deprivation, attention lapses, bad attitudes and bad days. Automated systems do not, and perform the same way each and every time.
• Increase productivity - The most important driving force for a company's business success is its people. By providing employees with a familiar interface that quickly connects internal people - and even external business partners - to the right information and tools to work faster and smarter, companies can set the stage for increased productivity. Electronic Batch Records also eliminate time-consuming and error-prone data re-entry resulting from multiple, disparate, and paper-based systems.
• Reduce cycle times - A typical pharmaceutical manufacturing cycle time falls somewhere in the 30- to 90-day range, with batch releases alone taking upwards of 60 days. These cycle times typically double in nonconformance scenarios. Electronic Batch Records enforce the consistent execution of manufacturing steps while providing an accurate, real-time view of process and deviation data. The time associated with detecting, tracing, resolving, correcting, and documenting deviations in the manufacturing process within various paper documents is virtually eliminated.
• Reduce Compliance Costs - Compliance requires capturing information, accurately, organizing and retaining the information and quickly and efficiently analyzing and presenting it. This requires processes and procedures that are an integrated part of a company’s way of doing business. Electronic Batch Records systems help Life Sciences companies operate and manufacture products in a consistent and compliant manner.
• Reduce Operating Costs - The biggest cost of manual processes is people. It costs companies time (money) by manually performing tasks that can and should be automated and streamlined by technology. Automated systems also reduce the risk of human errors, which can result in redundant processes, rework, or even audits. Electronic Batch Records also eliminate the large costs associated with printing, reviewing, storing and retrieving paper documents.
• Increase Ability to Scale Rapidly - The idea we discuss with Pharmaceutical companies today is growing with muscle, not fat. When you grow, you have increased volumes going through your business processes, and variations in those processes based on different types of customers, orders, products, suppliers, etc. The disorganization potential of paper-based business systems is far more dangerous and prohibitive to a rapidly growing company.
• Improve Decision Making - Manual and paper-based processes store data in a disconnected and difficult-to-access manner. If data related to these manual processes is required for decision making, there is often a time delay in getting the data into a consistent, usable format. And because it is costly to gather the data, many companies decide to operate without it, which leads to decisions that are less optimal and often time delayed.

Make no mistake: the transition to paperless manufacturing (moving from paper batch records to electronic batch records) can be challenging. Employee pushback, systems validation, and incomplete or inadequate identification of requirements can put your systems and processes at a higher risk of failure. However, the competitive advantages and benefits offered by the use of Electronic Batch Records in modern pharmaceutical manufacturing are real, significant, and too compelling to ignore. When properly implemented and integrated with a Pharmaceutical ERP system, Electronic Batch Records can help companies increase profitability and maintain a competitive advantage.

MAXLife Electronic Batch Records (EBR) eliminates costly paperwork errors, speeds up information distribution and collaboration, and enables strategies for improving quality and efficiency. MAXLife makes it easier for Life Sciences companies to access and track batch records, model and change complex processes, and speed time-to-market.

Pharmaceutical, Medical Device, and BioTech companies are required to detect and react to non-conformances and ensure that appropriate actions are taken to correct and prevent future occurrences. Still, more than half of the FDA Form 483 observations and warning letters cite Corrective Action / Preventive Action (CAPA) incident management deficiencies.

Every Life Sciences company needs to have an effective CAPA system in place to minimize risk and ensure compliance with regulations, but maintaining an effective CAPA process can be challenging. Challenges can occur at every step of the CAPA process and it requires vigilance to ensure that they don't derail the process and expose the company to unnecessary or excessive risk.

Here are the top eight challenges of CAPA systems and processes:

1. CAPA Silos: The biggest challenge Life Sciences companies find themselves caught with is a silo’d CAPA system (or multiple CAPA systems) in which the data in the CAPA system(s) cannot be effectively shared across the company or cross-referenced with other data. This makes it hard for companies to link related problems – and even harder to generate metrics and perform trend analysis on elements like products, problem types, root causes, costs, and more. These companies need to break down their CAPA silos to achieve a single, managed, integrated and complete view of the process - and enable a common way for them to do trending and put preventive action in place across the company.
2. Complex Processes: The first step of effective CAPA systems is to create and document the process. However, companies often make the mistake of trying to build every potential exception condition or possible incident into the CAPA system – which makes it too complex for people to understand and follow. Complex systems lead to slow resolution and aging CAPAs because people are unsure of the next steps. Instead, CAPA systems and processes need to be simple, yet comprehensive – and they need to include a process for escalations and exceptions that provides guidelines but doesn't necessarily dictate specific steps that may not be appropriate in every case.
   
3. Lack of Documentation at Every Step of the CAPA Process: When people are in a hurry to resolve an issue before it escalates, they naturally tend to focus on taking the action rather than documenting the reasoning behind the action. Part of an effective CAPA process should be full documentation at every step; your people don't need to write a novel before every action, but they do need to record what they are doing and why. Be careful not to let documentation lag the CAPA process because you can lose valuable information; however, employees need to answer the “who, what, when, where, how and why” questions for every step.
   
4. Confusion between a Corrective Action and a Preventive Action: A Corrective Action generates a solution to issues that have already occurred. A Preventive Action looks for solutions to problems that might occur. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that every problem and every process change needs to have a CAPA to justify it. That will bog down your system and critical actions may not get resolved as quickly because of it. Instead, ensure that people understand the distinctions between corrective actions and preventive actions, and that they reserve them for actual or potential incidents.
5. Imprecise Language: If people can't state the problem succinctly, the team will be unlikely to resolve the issue or even to measure results of their actions. People often try to jump ahead to possible solutions when defining the CAPA or they get emotional in their description. Neither choice is conducive to rapid resolution, so don't tolerate sloppy problem definitions. Make sure team members are trained in writing simple, concise problem statements that highlight the difference between the current state and the future state. When people know the starting and ending points, plotting the route and measuring progress are much simpler. It also makes it simpler to determine relative priorities and risk associated with each incident of non-conformance.
   
6. Jumping to Solutions: This is often a direct result of imprecise problem statements. When people jump to conclusions about the solution to the problem before fully defining and investigating the issue, they may make "corrections” that don't correct anything. Instead, companies need to insist that every problem statement answers the "who, what, when, where, how and why," as well as the frequency and severity of the effects of the problem. Don't let panic about compliance cause people to rush through the steps, because you may end up addressing the symptoms rather than the causes of the problem.
   
7. Insufficient Process Training: After CAPA processes have been sufficiently defined, companies need to make sure to train employees in the proper steps and procedures. Many companies train people to follow the rote steps, but they don't provide training in precisely defining the problem or how to determine the severity of an issue. As a result, the CAPA system bogs down with aging or unnecessary corrective actions and preventive actions that remain open due to either insufficient resources or sheer bafflement about the actual issue. CAPA systems and processes require in-depth employee training, and frequent re-training, in order to remain effective and compliant.
8. Inconsistency in Applying the Process: Many companies today have multiple sites, often in multiple countries or regions. This requires extra diligence to ensure that all sites react the same way and apply procedures the same way. One of the worst situations you can have is having each site following different processes or treating equivalent incidents differently. Companies can prevent this problem with extra training (as mentioned above), and by implementing a centralized CAPA system that connects departments and locations. Don't believe any statements that "we're different" unless you investigate and agree that one site should be an exception. If there is a reason for a different process at a facility, document it and make it part of the corporate process.

It requires vigilance to ensure regulatory compliance, but effective CAPA systems and processes should be an important part of your compliance arsenal. When used correctly, your CAPA systems will help you resolve non-conformances quickly and minimize risk.

MAXLife's Corrective Action Preventive Action (CAPA) Incident Management ERP Software capabilities enable you to increase control and assuredness for how your organization operates. With MAXLife, you can generate a Corrective Action or Preventive Action request that routes through review, root cause, corrective action taken, and verification stages. This CAPA tracking software generates multiple reports automatically, providing an effective mechanism for tracking the source and costs of problems. It also enables companies to improve brand loyalty and customer satisfaction by continuously improving quality and responding quickly to potential incidents.

Maintaining and controlling corporate spending is more critical than ever. With Microsoft Dynamics AX, it has never been simpler to ensure that an organization changes and evolves the business processes and tasks that control the procure-to-pay processes.

The approval process for purchase orders adds automation and control to purchase order processes. It also delivers a high level of flexibility in the modeling processes with policies and workflows, including task and approval management. Purchase order history and versioning is built-in and is easily accessible, providing deep insight and supporting analysis and conscious decision making.

The approval process for purchase orders ensures that the business processes have been followed and that correct review and approval has been performed, which guarantees that the purchase orders created and confirmed to the vendors have been appropriately reviewed and approved.

Approval Process Configuration

The approval process for purchase orders within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides the flexibility to control and track changes within purchase order processes, and it enables control of the approval process by using the standard workflow framework.

The key areas supported by the approval process for purchase orders are:

• Activation – The purchase order approval process can be activated on different levels:
• For all purchase orders
• For purchase orders for a specific vendors
• For individual purchase orders
• Workflow – The purchase order approval process uses the standard workflow framework to define activities (such as tasks, decisions, and approvals) that need to be carried out. It provides the ability to design business processes such as company approval processes and change management policies.Both the purchase order and purchase order line have been workflow-enabled, making it possible to configure and execute different activities per purchase order line based on line conditions and properties.
• Versioning – The purchase order document is versioning-enabled with activation. A new document version is created upon approval of the purchase order, and versioning ensures a complete audit trail for the changes made to a confirmed purchase order.

The Purchase Order Approval Process

After a purchase order has been entered into the system, its approval status controls the actions that can be performed. An unapproved purchase order must be approved before the purchase order can be issued to the vendor and the purchase order status is confirmed. A purchase order must be confirmed before product receipt and invoices can be matched against the purchase order.

Approval state model:

• Draft – The purchase order requester creates and makes changes to the purchase order when in Draft state.
• In review – The requester submits the purchase order or the request for change to an approval workflow, which will change the state to In review. The policies and processes configured within the workflow will assign and execute tasks, decisions, and approvals needed for the specific purchase order or change request. If budget control is enabled, a budget check will be performed based on budget control policies, providing real-time analytics related to budget funds available.
• Rejected – A purchase order that has been rejected by a workflow reviewer has the state of Rejected. The purchase order can be changed and resubmitted to workflow if desired.
• Approved – A purchase order that has completed the approval process is considered Approved, and can now be issued to the vendor. Expected receipt transactions may be created when the order reaches Approved status.
• Confirmed – Confirming the purchase order generates a purchase order confirmation document, which is an external document that may be provided to the vendor to notify them of the order. If budget control is enabled, the budget check is performed based on the budget control policies and budget reservations are established ensuring that planned expenditures do not exceed budget funds available. If encumbrance processing has been enabled, subledger journal entries are created for a purchase order when the purchase order is confirmed to reflect the consumption of budget funds on the balance sheet.
• Finalized – Finalizing the purchase order requires all lines to be either canceled or invoiced. After a purchase order has been finalized, you can no longer change the purchase order. Finalize the purchase order to liquidate budget reservations and any encumbrance that is not yet relieved in general ledger.

The approval process for purchase orders features provided by Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 explicitly requires the approval of any request to change the purchase order, and the changes are not effective before approval. The feature also ensures that every change request is captured within a purchase order version, which allows for version comparison (header and lines) for analysis of changes between any two versions of the purchase order.

The Microsoft SharePoint Page Viewer Web Part can be used for displaying a Web page, file or folder on a Web Part Page.

Note: You can use the Page Viewer Web Part only in a browser that supports the HTML IFRAME element. Displaying a file or folder requires Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Here are the steps how to do this:

1. Go to the correct site.
   
2. Open Site Actions and select Edit Page.
3. Click Add a Web Part in the section you want the web part to be displayed in.
4. Choose the category Media and Content and select Page Viewer Web Part. Click Add.
   
5. The Page Viewer Web Part is added to the page. Click the Edit Web Part option in order to link the contents.
   
6. A) If you want to display a web page it's very straight forward. Just select Web Page and type in a URL under Link and the URL will be displayed.
   
   B) If you want to display a folder, type in a network path to that folder under Link and the folder content will be displayed.
   
   C) If you want to display a file content, type in a network path to that folder along with the file name under Link (e.g. \\shared\manuals\XYZ\User Manual XYZ 2013.pdf) and the file content will be displayed.
   

The file opens either in a separate browser window or inside the Web Part if the application that opens the file supports inline activation for that file in the browser window.

The commonly used method for uploading files in SharePoint’s Client Object Model API is the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SaveBinaryDirect method.

For example, calling:

public static void SaveBinaryDirect(

 ClientContext context,

 string serverRelativeUrl,

 Stream stream,

 bool overwriteIfExists
)

should be quite enough to get through. However, when it comes to Silverlight, the developer is limited to the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Silverlight namespace, and the SaveBinaryDirect method is not available there. The alternative is to use the more straightforward approach by instantiating the FileCreationInformation object and to use it for adding new files to the SharePoint folder, like so:

FileCreationInformation fci = new FileCreationInformation();

...

File file = list.RootFolder.Files.Add(fci);

However, one would yet again face an issue if the size of the file that needs to be uploaded is larger than 2MB. It is necessary to fully read the file prior to calling the Add method. The following method ensures just that:

private byte[] ReadFully(Stream input)

{

     byte[] buffer;
    
MemoryStream ms;

     int read;



     buffer = new byte[input.Length];

     using (ms = new MemoryStream())

     {
        
           while ((read = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)

          {

               ms.Write(buffer, 0, read);

          }

          return ms.ToArray();

     }

}

Now, regardless of their size, the method for uploading files looks like this:

public File UploadFile(string fileName, Stream fileStream, bool overwrite)

{
    
    FileCreationInformation fci;
   
StringBuilder sb;

    File file;



    fci = new FileCreationInformation();

    fci.Content = this.ReadFully(fileStream); //Calling the previous method

    fci.Overwrite = overwrite;

    fci.Url = fileName;



    file = list.RootFolder.Files.Add(fci);

    return file;

}

Happy coding!

In an ever-changing global marketplace, companies are looking for every opportunity to gain a competitive advantage and simultaneously grow revenue, profits, and customer loyalty. Meanwhile, new regulatory requirements, competitive pressures brought on by an increasingly connected global economy, and technologies that “level the playing field” for companies of all sizes are making it more difficult to stay ahead of the competition. However, keep in mind that every challenge also represents an opportunity to beat out the competition.

ERP software - once considered a necessary commodity in the IT infrastructure - is now viewed as a strategic asset for organizations that want to be able to quickly adapt to change and accelerate business performance. Responding quickly to business needs can be the key to gaining and keeping a competitive edge. But inflexible IT systems can get in the way. An ERP system that is flexible and easy to use can play a critical role in helping your business achieve the agility it requires to compete and succeed.

Having one flexible, comprehensive business management solution can help you increase efficiency and reach by bringing together dispersed employees and operations, even when they operate in different languages and countries. It can also enable companies to gather fundamental business information from multiple departments or subsidiaries and analyze productivity, profitability, margins, and trends to help decision-makers understand current operations and resolve problems earlier and more easily.

By integrating business information throughout your supply chain, you can improve the flow of information and gain the insight you need to streamline operations and take advantage of changing conditions. The ability to define and manage items in multiple dimensions and track materials and goods throughout the product life cycle enhances inventory control and enables you to meet the information demands of customers and regulatory bodies. By increasing the flow of information internally and with trading partners, you can improve customer service, improve supply chain coordination, and take advantage of changing market conditions.

Microsoft Dynamics AX can strengthen your position in the marketplace and provide the backbone of an agile, flexible system that helps your business grow, adapt quickly to change, and take advantage of new business opportunities. Simple to use, straightforward to implement, and quick to adapt, Microsoft Dynamics AX can be delivered in the way that works best for your organization—via the cloud or on-premises. You can add staff, enter different geographies, launch new products, and pursue additional lines of business with the assurance that your IT system is there to support and help drive your strategic initiatives.

Access Control Service is a Windows Azure service that provides an easy way of authenticating users who need to access your web applications and services without having to factor complex authentication logic into your code.

The following features are available in ACS:

• Integration with Windows Identity Foundation (WIF),
• Support for popular web identity providers (IPs) including Windows Live ID, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook,
• Support for Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0,
  
• An Open Data Protocol (OData)-based management service that provides programmatic access to ACS settings,
  
• A Management Portal that allows administrative access to the ACS settings.
  

Concepts

Windows Azure ACS is built on the principals of claims-based identity - a consistent approach to creating authentication mechanisms for applications running on-premises or in the cloud. Claims-based identity provides a common way for applications and services to acquire the identity information they need about users inside their organization, in other organizations, and on the Internet.

To complete the tasks in this guide, you should understand the following concepts:

Client - In the context of this how-to guide, this is a browser that is attempting to gain access to your web application.

Relying party (RP) application - An RP application is a web site or service that outsources authentication to one external authority. In identity jargon, we say that the RP trusts that authority. This guide explains how to configure your application to trust ACS.

Token - A token is a collection of security data that is usually issued upon successful authentication of a user. It contains a set of claims, attributes of the authenticated user. A claim can represent a user's name, an identifier for a role a user belongs to, a user's age, and so on. A token is usually digitally signed, which means it can always be sourced back to its issuer, and its content cannot be tampered with. A user gains access to a RP application by presenting a valid token issued by an authority that the RP application trusts.

Identity Provider (IP) - An IP is an authority that authenticates user identities and issues security tokens. The actual work of issuing tokens is implemented though a special service called Security Token Service (STS). Typical examples of IPs include Windows Live ID, Facebook, business user repositories (like Active Directory), and so on. When ACS is configured to trust an IP, the system will accept and validate tokens issued by that IP. ACS can trust multiple IPs at once, which means that when your application trusts ACS, you can instantly offer your application to all the authenticated users from all the IPs that ACS trusts on your behalf.

Federation Provider (FP) - IPs have direct knowledge of users, authenticate them using their credentials and issue claims about what they know about them. A Federation Provider (FP) is a different kind of authority: rather than authenticating users directly, it acts as an intermediary and brokers authentication between one RP and one or more IPs. Both IPs and FPs issue security tokens, hence they both use Security Token Services (STS). ACS is one FP.

ACS Rule Engine - The logic used to transform incoming tokens from trusted IPs to tokens meant to be consumed by the RP is codified in form of simple claims transformation rules. ACS features a rule engine that takes care of applying whatever transformation logic you specified for your RP.

Access Control Namespace - A namespace is a top level partition of ACS that you use to organize your settings. A namespace holds a list of IPs you trust, the RP applications you want to serve, the rules that you expect the rule engine to process incoming tokens with, and so on. A namespace exposes various endpoints that will be used by the application and the developer to get ACS to perform its function.
 

How does it work?

1. The client (in this case a browser) requests a page from the RP.

2. Since the request is not yet authenticated, the RP redirects the user to the authority that it trusts, which is ACS. The ACS presents the user with the choice of IPs that were specified for this RP. The user selects the appropriate IP.

3. The client browses to the IP's authentication page, and prompts the user to log on.

4. After the client is authenticated (for example, the identity credentials are entered), the IP issues a security token.

5. After issuing a security token, the IP redirects the client to ACS and the client sends the security token issued by the IP to ACS.

6. ACS validates the security token issued by the IP, inputs the identity claims in this token into the ACS rules engine, calculates the output identity claims, and issues a new security token that contains these output claims.

7. ACS redirects the client to the RP. The client sends the new security token issued by ACS to the RP. The RP validates the signature on the security token issued by ACS, validates the claims in this token, and returns the page that was originally requested.

What do you need to get it running?

• An active Windows Azure account:
  If you don't have Windows Azure account, you could obtain free trial.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Visual Studio 2012:
  If you want to use latest feature of ACS 2.0 it is recommended using VS2012, but VS2010 could also work with little bit of work.
• Identity and Access tool:
  This tool is great add-on for VS2012 which significantly ease connecting ACS with your application.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

After few simple steps you should be ready to authenticate users to your application using Windows Azure ACS with identity providers like Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc.

Traditional business applications evolved as passive, backward-looking systems of record.

Microsoft Dynamics AX already changes that model today, introducing embedded, declarative workflow that brings an understanding of business process optimization into the application and helps guide users forward through their work. When this is combined with pervasive embedded business intelligence that transforms the data captured in the system into insight empowering better decisions, the system becomes a more active, forward looking partner for the people who drive a business toward success.

Microsoft Dynamics AX also delivers innovative application scenarios today. These include, for example, a solution in retail that offers out-of-the-box connection from point of sale to the headquarters business system, and that unifies web and brick and mortar commerce in a single view of customer and transactions; as well as a system for manufacturers that supports discrete, process and lean manufacturing models in a single system instance, with planning and costing capabilities that work across all three models.

This is only the beginning. Microsoft Dynamics AX will evolve to embed constraint optimization and machine learning to deliver even more advanced, forward-looking capability to Dynamic Businesses. For example, Microsoft is currently developing systems that combine transaction history with information about key factors like weather, traffic, local event calendars and demographics to optimize daily order quantities for a retailer, minimizing out of stock and waste to drive greater profitability.

The four IT megatrends of the next decade - “Big data,” social connectedness, cloud computing, and mobility - will present new opportunities for business applications insight, and open up a whole new range of possibilities for business. Modern business applications won’t just make individuals and organizations smarter, but will go beyond this to new directions and new levels of impact we are just beginning to imagine.

Driving impact has always required insight but most systems today only focus on retrospective views and data. They are passive, reactive, and backward looking. Modern business applications will at the onset be proactive. They will inform with insights and possible actions while constantly evolving to point to what comes next.

Data continues to grow exponentially as does the ability to derive meaning from it. Social commentary has accelerated the pace of the review cycle, with likes, links and tweets providing instant clues to success or failure. Capturing this data and being able to tap into its rich and valuable insight is a new requirement.

Microsoft Dynamics AX helps people not only integrate and understand these new data sets, but also get to better answers with suggested actions so they can continually improve business performance. It achieves this by enabling people to calculate and/or recalculate business possibilities in real time. By focusing on connected, forward-looking systems, we can allow people to access actionable information with greater speed and agility – enabling businesses to respond more efficiently, effectively and proactively to changing market conditions.

An added feature of our new Merit Solutions website is our Resources section which provides free access to a lot of great Microsoft Dynamics and Merit Solutions information! Today we wanted to highlight our Microsoft Dynamics AX Demos page.

Our demo lab contains a variety of demonstrations and tutorials so you can see for yourself how you can grow and transform your business with Microsoft Dynamics AX. And best of all, we don't require you to fill out any forms to view these videos! Demos include:

• The Dynamic Manufacturer
• The Dynamic CFO
• The Dynamic CIO
• Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Supply Chain Demo
• Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Workflows demo
• ...and more!

Merit Solutions believes that many organizations are at a point of profound transformation that won’t be sufficiently addressed via a patchwork of business solutions. That's why we are committed to helping your business be ready for what’s next with the most comprehensive range of integrated solutions today and the most complete vision for the future.

Empowering Your People

For your people, we offer an unparalleled range of integrated, connected solutions that help provide a seamless experience across people’s personal work lives. Our approach is to deliver solutions that are integrated by design across devices and services. From productivity, collaboration, and business apps, to devices and security, our goal is to deliver a connected experience that works together seamlessly and naturally, the way people expect it to work. The result? Get more done, faster, without limits.

We live in an amazing time for technology. At home, when we use our personal devices, we’ve become accustomed to a highly connected experience where all of our apps and information are at our fingertips and the experience has become highly intuitive. It’s easy to watch movies, read books, play games, and share photos and documents. We also know that people consume information in a different way depending on the device they are using—tablets, PCs, or even business whiteboards. In each case, the Microsoft business platform makes it easy to personalize the experience and get it just right. By choosing the Microsoft platform, your company's devices and applications will truly work together - and these connected devices will give you the same version of the truth regardless of the device you are using.

Maximizing IT Flexibility

Our IT customers are entering a new era - a new era for the way they manage and deploy applications and devices. Between the consumerization of IT and the move to the cloud, a lot of what IT provided, from deployment to systems integration, is being radically revised and simplified. Throughout this transformation, we are here to help our customers maximize the return on your IT existing investment and best position you for the future. Our goal is to enable people to use the devices they want to use in the places they want to work - while also enabling enterprises to protect corporate information.

At the same time, we know that you will have more than just Microsoft solutions in your business, and so we are experienced at building bridges across technology. We believe this builds choice, drives innovation, and creates opportunities.

Accelerating your Business

Finally, we’re committed to helping you maximize the return on your investments in Microsoft solutions. Whether that means saving money, growing revenue, attracting and retaining customers, or driving innovation.

In today’s business climate, people expect the technology they use at work to be as simple as the technology they use at home. Today’s technology is expanding the possibilities for connecting people and helping businesses be more proactive and dynamic to change. For example…

• Across your business, we can help you foster a culture of innovation with a connected supply chain platform that embraces today’s social trends and makes it easier for people to communicate, whether through text, voice, or video.
• We can also help you maximize business performance with technology that enables people to make smarter, faster decisions with democratized business analytics tools and the power of big data. And this same technology can also help you reduce costs.

In summary, Merit Solutions offers companies an unparalleled experience across today’s devices, while maximizing IT flexibility and providing the business platform and process optimization services that can truly accelerate your business.

Please comment below if you have any questions or comments as we’d certainly like to continue this conversation and find more ways that we can continue to help companies differentiate their business.

Based on reports from industry analysts and the many conversations that our team has with clients, we believe four megatrends will radically change how businesses view enterprise IT over the coming decade.

• Mobility and social are the driving forces for change in business today, particularly as employees (and customers) increasingly expect to use mobile and social technology to interact in new ways. These two elements are becoming a competitive differentiator for business - for recruiting and retaining employees and for attracting and retaining customers.
• The cloud and big data are quickly becoming enablers for business success. The tremendous scalability and agility enabled by the cloud and the new insights made possible with big data can help businesses today get ahead of the competition and tap into new sources of revenue.

These trends represent not only what is most important to our customers today, but also what we feel are likely to be the dominant forces of change in the coming decade.

• The proliferation of new device types, along with the connectivity of the cloud, is making us more mobile and changing the way we work and play. Mobility answers the growing expectation from your employees to be able to work from anywhere, with the device that they choose. Mobile technology also delivers a great mobile experience to customers, bringing your business to them wherever they are through their mobile phone or tablet.
• As technology becomes more immersive, we also expect it to help us develop more personal and social connections with our colleagues and customers. Social networks build strong work communities, enhancing collaboration, information sharing, and productivity.
• The connectivity that the cloud offers is changing what we expect from technology. With an always-on connection, apps can provide innovative new services with instant scalability and attractive economics.
• While business intelligence (BI) has been important for a great number of years, the explosion in connected devices and apps is generating an exponential growth in data and the need to get better insights from “big data.” The challenge for today’s businesses is to make that data useful—to put it into the hands of their people to drive informed, forward-thinking decisions.

We’re not alone in identifying these megatrends. According to IDC, “In 2012, the ICT industry's shift to its third major platform of growth—built on mobile, cloud, social, and big data technologies—will accelerate.” In contrast to what IDC refers to as the first (mainframe) and second (PC/server) platforms, they estimate that by 2020, “…enterprises’ highest-value leverage of IT will be driven by these third-platform technologies as well as an explosion of new solutions built on the new platform and rapidly expanding consumption of all of the above in emerging markets.”

It’s amazing just how fast our world is changing today. Just think…

• Within 15 years, a little startup named Amazon has gone from transforming the book industry to changing the face of retail.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users. In less than nine months, Facebook reached 100 million users. And in the space of just a few short years, social networking services have significantly changed people’s expectations of how we interact with each other and with businesses, particularly for the millennial generation.
• Within just two months of its launch, Kinect for the Xbox 360 changed the face of gaming and became the world’s fastest-selling consumer electronics device ever.

Each of these examples reflects the tremendous impact that the megatrends are having on our world - and the pace at which it is all changing. As we enter this new era in the enterprise, the question is - what can your business do to make the most of it?

Of course, technology trends on their own aren’t going to revolutionize your business or help you stay competitive. How you adopt new technology and put it to work in your business will ultimately be the responsibility of IT. We know how important it is to ensure that your technology solutions truly empower your IT professionals to deliver what the business needs. What are those needs?

• Integrate new devices and applications with their existing line-of-business apps, for a seamless experience that keeps people productive and connected to the business.
• Help maximize end user productivity, with solutions that put the tools users need at their fingertips, wherever they happen to be working from, and that connect them with the people, information, and content they rely on to do their jobs well.
• Ensure that corporate data and resources are protected and secure, even as access to those data and resources becomes possible from an increasing number of devices and apps.
• Fully manage all devices on the network, both local and remote - a task that is becoming ever more complicated as users bring more and more devices into the enterprise and work from more and more locations.

At Merit Solutions, our goal is to deliver ground-breaking technology solutions that empower IT to take advantage of the latest trends without compromise. By achieving this goal, we are able to provide your IT professionals with the tools they need to help you innovate and compete while meeting the core needs of the business in all new ways.

Learn more about how Merit Solutions can help you transform your business!

A while back we discussed some global business and IT trends that are slowly but steadily reshaping the ERP landscape. With our emerging economic climate, these trends are posing additional challenges for business and IT professionals who are struggling to improve profitability and retain IT agility.

Global market trends are creating the need for businesses to:

• Achieve operational insight and better decision making across the organization with faster, easier, and more pervasive access to relevant business information.
  
• Need for business agility to stay ahead of the competition and accelerate business growth.
• Reducing the cost of doing business by optimizing processes and driving productivity.
• Align business objectives with IT priorities and investments to ensure that IT systems and tools are enabling and supporting strategic business priorities and that they address changing business needs.

At the same time, shifting IT trends are creating the need to:

• Increase ERP adoption and access to ERP data across a broader subset of the workforce.
• Reduce IT operational costs by investing in systems that are more flexible and scalable, and simpler to configure, maintain, and upgrade.
  
• Put solutions in place that enable broad business strategies, and that enable IT to respond quickly to specific line-of-business (LOB) requests and industry needs.

When you frame this discussion with the research conducted by Forrester in 2010 detailed in our article, Key Challenges Companies Face with ERP Solutions, you can see how the needs produced by market and IT trends are affecting customers’ expectations of their ERP application.

Today’s world is increasingly flattened by technology, global complexity and new global competition - making it critical for a business to be able to rapidly see and react to signals, threats and opportunities. Going one step further, in this world where the pace of business accelerates, imagine being able to anticipate rather than react to those signals. Success today and tomorrow increasingly depends on information insight and efficient business processes.

So what would the next generation of ERP look like? See for yourself!