Enterprise Portal in Microsoft Dynamics Ax 2009

What is Enterprise Portal?  

  1. Portal Platform for Microsoft Dynamics AX
  2. Rich development tools and technology
  3. Out-of-the-box self-service scenarios for  customers, vendors, business partners and employees
  4. Personalized, role-based portal

Enterprise Portal Architecture

  1. Similarly to Desktop Ax 5.0 Portal builds on the rich Ax programming model and data binding
  2. It exposes the rich Ax Metadata Binding
  3. It uses the full flexibility of ASP.NET (code and markup)
  4. It uses the dynamic customization and personalization of SharePoint
  5. It unifies ASP.NET, SharePoint and Ax Metadata in the AOT

Value Proposition
End users

  1. Modern web experience (responsive & interactive)
  2. Utilizes AJAX for rich interactions
  3. Rich data visualization through controls

Developers

  1. Integrates with Visual Studio for design time experience

  2. Rich toolset for developers

    1. ASP.NET controls
    2. EP Controls ( List / Form / Look up etc..)
    3. SharePoint Web Parts
    4. Third Party ASP.NET controls
    5. User Controls
    6. Custom Controls
    7. ASP.NET pages
  3. Provides full control of UI rendering

  4. ASP.NET runtime and rich CLR language and libraries

  5. Allows associations of web parts in one page

Administrators 

  1. End to End  EP deployment completely integrated in Ax Setup
  2. Prerequisites checks built-in
  3. Auto Install WSS , Auto configure WSS , Auto create EP site
  4. No manual steps required

What's new in EP?  

  1. New Asp.net based Framework
  2. Web Modules are Sub Sites
  3. One Site for All Ax companies similar to Client
  4. Context Specific EP help
  5. Reduced Configuration Steps ( For example, User Relation Configuration Optional for Role Centers ( Required for specific EP modules))
  6. End to End Deployment part of Ax Setup
  7. Consistent Navigation for Web Modules in Quick Launch
  8. Lots of new application functionality
    1. CRM in Sales Module
    2. Expense Management
    3. Purchase Requisition
    4. Service Management
    5. Compliance Center
    6. Role Centers