Create a mailing list in AX 2012 R3

So this is a bit of a ‘golden oldie’ but the other day we had the requirement to generate a mailing list and print out some address labels for a good old fashioned (paper) newsletter.

First we had to remind ourselves about the contact person setup for customers. Imagine that you had a customer called Adaptable Solutions Ltd and you want to record the names of a few folk who work there and are interested in your products. Locate the customer record.

Sales and marketing > Common Customers > All customers Customer > Accounts > Contacts and click on Add contacts:

Create a contact record for each employee in the business that you want to contact:

Then on the Competencies Action tab Click on the Interests button and add Interests (adding Interests to the main table as required):

Generate the mailing file by going to Sales and marketing > Periodic > Mailings > Generate mailings:

I’ve created a Category and Item and used the Select to filter for the contact interests:

The system’s populated the Mailings table, Sales and marketing > Periodic > Mailings > Mailings:

Obviously, we’re going to use the Functions > Create mailing file function to create our mailing file (Or we could use the same function directly from the menu option Sales and marketing > Periodic > Mailings > Create mailing file):

The system’s going to create a CSV file with the information I need for labels:

Now we just need to complete the job in Word.

In Word, Click Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Labels and select your label design:

Now to select the mailing list we generated from Dynamics AX, on the Mailings tab, click Select Recipients > Use an Existing List, and select the file you created earlier.

To get the Names and addresses on to your labels, click Address block, and then Match fields to select the fields from Dynamics AX that you’re going to use:

When you close the Match fields form, check your layout in the Preview pane, then click OK.

If you want another check, back in your Word document click Preview Results, and then click the arrows to make sure the labels look right, and finally when you’re ready, click Finish and Merge, and then click Print Documents. (If you want a final check, just print the first page of labels, and then if everything lines up, come back and print all labels).

You can save the mail merge document, and it stays connected to your mailing list (the file generated by Dynamics AX). To use the mail merge document again, re-generate the Dynamics AX mailing list and open your mail merge document and click Yes when Word prompts you to keep its connection.

How to e-mail purchase orders to vendors in Dynamics AX 2012 R3

R2 CU7 and R3 have new options for setting up e-mail destinations in Print management and for the e-mail destination of print management for purchase orders

‘Vendor purpose’ is used for external addresses. The setup main table is at Organization administration > Setup > Global address book > Address and contact information purpose:

The Vendor purpose drop list is filtered by ‘Contact information’, so as above I’ve added a Purpose ‘PO’ and ticked the Contact information checkbox.

There’s a checkbox to email the purchase order to the Vendor’s primary contact, and you can add (or cc) employees by adding the job title [of their position].

You can use this setup when you’re posting the purchase order confirmation, but probably simpler to set it up as ‘Print management’.

There are two ways to setup print management for purchase orders:

Print management – all vendors

Procurement and sourcing > Setup > Forms > Form setup > Print management

Select the Purchase order Original <Default>. Click the Destination Arrow and select Printer setup:

Select destination E-mail and click Edit:

Select Purpose PO and click OK:

If required add in other email addresses, then click OK:

On the Printer destinations settings form enter cc email addresses (for instance you could cc yourself) and enter an E-mail message subject and select a File format:

Then Click OK. You should see:

Note. This is the Default purchase order print management destination. You can create other settings by Right-click > New. This creates additional Purchase order print management settings, each driven by a ‘Select’ filter query.

Print management – specific vendor

The previous section set a purchase order email destination for all vendors. You may prefer to set the purchase order destination vendor by vendor.

Procurement and sourcing > Common > Vendors > All vendors > General > Print management:

Right-click on Purchase order and select Override:

Click the arrow, then select Printer setup to open the Destinations form:

Then proceed as per the previous section

Setup vendor contact email address

In the previous sections you’ve defined a Contact information purpose of ‘PO’ and set this up in Print management, now you add this to your vendor.

Procurement and sourcing > Common > Vendors > All vendors > Edit. Then open the Contact information fast tab, then More options > Advanced:

The system opens a new window, click Add. Change the type to E-mail address, then enter the e-mail address and change the purpose to ‘PO’:

(You can add more than one ‘Purpose’ to the e-mail address, for instance for other print management destinations). Close the ‘Edit contact information’ form, you should see:

Note. Purpose isn’t visible in this list grid, but Description can be used to record the purpose for the email address.

Send purchase order email

Procurement and sourcing > Common > Purchase orders > All purchase orders.

Create a purchase order. Then go to Purchase > Generate > Confirmation:

On the Confirm purchase order form ensure that ‘Use print management destinations’ is ticked.

Now, at this point if you don’t have Outlook setup (for instance you’re logged on to a terminal server for Dynamics AX but you run Outlook as an app on desktop) and you click OK, you’ll get an error.

However, if you run the purchase order confirmation as a batch job the e-mail is sent. To run as a batch job simply click on the Batch button at the bottom of the Confirm purchase order form, and on the pop-up Batch processing form tick the ‘Batch processing’ checkbox, and click OK, then back on the Confirm purchase order form, click OK again. You’ll get an Infolog telling you that the Purchase order confirmation posting has been added to the batch job queue.

Check your batch job from ‘My batch jobs’ on your home area page (Inquires > Batch jobs > my batch jobs) and after a minute or so you should see confirmation that the e-mail sent.

And this is the e-mail I received:

As Mr. Dilmah says – “Do try it”.