How to Create a Role Center in the Enterprise Portal of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Overview

Role Centers provide an information overview of a user’s responsibilities within an organization. It may contain reports, cues, list data, and alerts. It is the first page that is visible when a user accesses Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics AX. This page is displayed as the Home page when the user views the Home site in Enterprise Portal.

The Role Center page can also be viewed from the AX client directly. To do this navigate to Home à Role Center à Main Menu.

There are also multiple Role Center pages for the various roles a user may have in Dynamics AX. If a user is not assigned any role, the default Role Center page is displayed.

Pre-requisites

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
SharePoint Foundation 2010
IIS must be configured
Enterprise Portal must be configured

Important Concepts

Pages

Pages are used to display content to users in the Enterprise Portal. There are several types of pages that can be used to organize content. The most common type used is a Web Part Page.

Web Parts

Web Parts are the basic building blocks to build Web Part Pages. Enterprise Portal uses Web Parts to display data as well as to provide interaction functionality for users.

In addition to the standard SharePoint Web Parts, Microsoft Dynamics AX contains several Web Parts to display Dynamic AX forms, reports, and cues in Enterprise Portal.

Web Parts can also be custom built using Microsoft Visual Studio.

User Profiles

User profiles correspond to specific roles within an organization. They contain a set of default information that pertains to a role.

Role Center pages are assigned to user profile. These determine which Role Center pages will be visible to the user. A user can be assigned to a single user profile per company.

Scenario

As part of this tutorial, the Role Center page will show the ‘All customers’ list page present in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Steps

First of all open the Enterprise Portal (EP) in a web browser. Go to System administration à Setup à Enterprise Portal à Web sites

Click on View in browser to open it

The home page of the Enterprise Portal is then displayed
Now, go to Site Actions à More Options…

In the newly opened window, select Page Template. Next, choose Web Part Page and click on the Create button

In the next window, give a suitable Name for the page, select a Layout Template for the page and set the Document Library property to Enterprise Portal. Click Create to create the page

After the page has been created, new Web Parts can be added to it
To add a Web Part, click on Add a Web Part link on the body of the page

Select Microsoft Dynamics AX in the Categories group, then select List in the Web Parts type group and click Add

Once the new Web Part has been added, set its properties so that it points to the correct control form
Click on the inverted triangle on the top right hand side of the newly created Web Part and select Edit Web Part

In the Microsoft Dynamics AX section, write CustTableListPage as the ListPageMenuItemName. It will show the ‘All customers’ list page in the Enterprise Portal. Also give a suitable Title

Click Ok to save the changes
Now open the AOT and go to Web à Web Menu Items à URLs
Right click on URLs and select New URL

Set the following properties of the URL:
- Name: Name of the URL
- Label: Label of the URL
- URL: Specify the URL of the page to view
- HomePage: Select it as Yes. This will define the page as a Role Center page
- PageDefinition: The backend name of the page to be created

Now, right click the newly created URL and select the Import Page option. This will create the page definition in the AOT as the name given in the PageDefinition property

The Role Center page is then created, the next step is to assign it to the User profiles
Go to System Administration à Common à Users àUser profiles

Click on the New button and give a suitable Profile ID, Description and the URL Web Menu Item created above in the Role Center field. Save the record
View the Role Center by clicking on the View role center button