AX 2012 Security Unwrapped Series - Licensing Model

This post will unwrap the Dynamics AX Licensing Model.

In Dynamics AX 2012, the licensing model is by named user (vs. concurrent user in AX 2009).  There are also 4 levels of user licensing: Self-Serve, Task, Functional, and Enterprise.

The cost of the licenses are on an exponential curve with Enterprise being the most expensive.  Each function in AX has been programmed with a license level.  The user is assigned a license level by reviewing all functions they are granted, and assigning that user the highest license level function that they are have been granted.  It only takes one function that is Enterprise to make a user Enterprise!

Empirically, any function related to the general ledger update or inquiry will be Enterprise.  Yes, even inquiry - OUCH! Functions related to forecast or planned orders are also Enterprise.

Use the report, Named User License Counts, on the System Administration menu to see your named user license count vs. the number of licenses purchased.  There is a function, Named user license count reports processing, that was set up with the initial install of Dynamics AX which does the analysis.






If you have the Security Development Tool installed, you can review your roles and see the effective license level of each role.  Additionally, you can view all functions within that role and see the effective license level of each function.  Execute the function Load addition metadata to retrieve the licensing information.  Then you can enter a role, duty, or privilege and examine the effective license level of that role.

You can also see each function within the role and the associated license level.  If you filter for a specific license level, you can analyze if you can modify the role to reduce the effective license level.  This is a great tool to analyze your roles to see if you can reduce the licensing impact.

View my prior post for a more detailed discussion on the Security Development Tool.

Using the Security Development Tool, you can do quick analysis on your roles and see which are Enterprise.  Using the filter function, you can see how many menu items are causing the license level.  With that information, you can do some analysis to see if you can reduce your licensing level.