Anikiev_Sukretna Machine Learning approach for Natural Language Processing (NLP) text classification problem

Machine Learning approach for Natural Language Processing (NLP) text classification problem

Download: Please download the full article (47 pages) PDF from here:https://1drv.ms/b/s!AvejO2r1DmacgYdbnfzLrJZ-SOxIsA

The purpose of this document is to illustrate the application of Machine Learning approach for Natural Language Processing (NLP) text classification problem. We would like to detail the math apparatus behind Natural Language Processing (NLP) and get the reader comfortable with the numbers. We are also the strong believers in visuals, that’s why in the text of the document we present diagrams for the ease of comprehension, analysis and comparison. This document may help a person passionate about Machine Learning and Document Classification to get started quickly

About authors:

• Alex Anikiev (LinkedIn) holds Master’s degree in Computer Science and PhD degree in Applied Mathematics from the National University of Ukraine “KPI”, 

Alex is interested in and passionate about Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning, works as Software Architect and lives in Redmond, WA

• Alena Sukretna (LinkedIn) holds Master’s degree in Computer Science from the National University of Ukraine “KPI” and Nano-degree Data Science and Data Analysis from Udacity,

Alena is interested in and passionate about Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning, currently working as a Freelance Data Scientist and lives in Redmond, WA

Business problem: Say that our customer has (or has access to) a large volume of information (data, documents, etc.) and they would love to be able to categorize the information into certain categories, structure it better, make better sense of it, draw their own meaningful insights from it, etc. Much like what you see on the Bing News web page where Bing is suggesting certain categories of information, for example, “FIFA World Cup”, “Wimbledon”, “U.S.”, “World”, etc. which might interest you

Problem domain: This business problem is likely to fall into the Natural Language Processing (NLP) domain. Natural language processing (NLP) is an area of computer science and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural) languages, in particular how to program computers to process and analyze large amounts of natural language data. You can find more information about Natural Language Processing (NLP) in general on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_processing

Types of problems: There’re numerous problems formulated and known in the Natural Language Processing (NLP) domain. However, for the purposes of this document we’ll mention just a few instead. Namely, Search, Extraction and Classification. Depending on the business problem at hand we may define the right approach to solve the problem. Doing some business problem analysis upfront before start tackling it is proven to always be a good idea. Often the real business problem our client is attempting to solve is a Search problem when the real goal is to effectively and efficiently query and filter the info. Once the problem has been clarified (and re-identified) we may then leverage appropriate tools, for example, Azure Cognitive Services (perhaps, Bing Custom Search), Azure Search or OSS Elastic Search. In case the real problem is an Extraction problem when the data needs to be extracted and relationships between data elements need to be identified and visualized, the approach to extract triples (subject-predicate-object), storing them in a Graph data store and visualize them using a Graph structure for exploration and analysis may yield some very impressive practical results. For these purposes Azure Cosmos DB as No SQL data store along with Resource Description Framework (RDF) or Property Graph may be a perfect choice. Now if we look at the classic Machine Learning problems, Regression, Classification and Clustering, we can project them into the Text Analytics space. An example of Supervised Learning Classification task would be Document classification based on the labelled data. An example of Unsupervised Learning Clustering task would be Topic modeling. There’re also other popular Text Analytics tasks such as, Named Entity Recognition (NER), Keyword extraction, Document summarization, etc. Please note that these tasks may be resolved in multiple ways, either with the help of Azure Cloud services or with Python specialized libraries, etc. Some notable means which help tackling Text Analytics problems include Azure Cognitive Services, Azure ML Studio, specialized Python libraries (Scikit Learn, NLTK, Gensim, Spacy), Azure ML Workbench, Jupyter notebooks, Azure Text Analytics Toolkit

Focus problem: For the purposes of this document we will focus on the Text Classification problem, specifically, Document Classification. Document Classification problem is a Supervised Learning problem which required a labelled data set for training. By other words, if we expect to categorize documents into N different categories, we’ll need to provide the system with enough examples of documents belonging to different categories for the system to learn from and be able to make a reliable prediction for new documents

Types of approaches: To solve the Document Classification problem different approaches can be used. One approach may be Machine Learning (ML) which is more suitable for small and medium size data sets. Another approach may be Deep Learning (DL) using Neural Nets (NN) which is more suitable for medium and large data sets

Focus approach: For the purposes of this document we will focus on Machine Learning (ML) approach for the Document Classification. A good place to start will be to consider using Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machines (SVM) algorithms to tackle Document Classification problem. These algorithms apply for a single-label classification tasks and their parameters may be fine-tuned to achieve the best results. There’re other algorithms which may be applicable for the task, in the future articles we may consider them as well as multi-label classification task when multiple labels may be assigned to a document at the same time (this will require specific algorithms to be used)  

Solution architecture (E2E): For the purposes of this document we would like to illustrate the End-to-end solution for the Document Classification problem which includes Research & Development (R&D) and Operationalization aspects. You may want to develop and test your models locally first in your Experimentation workspace using, for example, Azure ML Workbench, Jupyter notebooks and appropriate Python libraries. When you are comfortable with the performance of your model you may want to export its definition and wrap your models into a Docker Container for the ease of deployment into the Azure Cloud. Once moved to the Cloud your pre-trained model may be reused and invoked on-demand via Web Service from within the container. Azure Cloud allows you to manage container images and instances via Azure Container Registry (ACR) and Azure Container Service (ACS). In case you need to orchestrate a number of containers you may leverage Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). After the model has been deployed and it is in use, at some point you may want to re-train it with the new additional data and leverage this new knowledge obtained from the new data for the more quality classification

Download: Please download the full article (47 pages) PDF from here: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AvejO2r1DmacgYdbnfzLrJZ-SOxIsA

Disclaimer: This material is presented As Is with no warranties provided by the authors. This article is also available on our blog here: http://anikiev.blogspot.com/. Please note that the content of the article can be updated over time to better explain the topic

Tags: Microsoft, Azure, Cloud, Machine Learning, ML, Natural Language Processing, NLP, Document Classification, Python, Scikit Learn, Naïve Bayes, NB, Support Vector Machine, SVM, Stochastic Gradient Descent, SGD

Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal for New Microsoft Dynamics AX [Not Production]

Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal for New Microsoft Dynamics AX [Not Production]

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to illustrate how to configure Warehouse Mobile Device Portal in New Microsoft Dynamics AX and quickly make it available on mobile devices for the purposes of POC (Proof of Concept), demonstration or workshop using Demo environment

Scenario: Often times for the purposes of POC (Proof of Concept), demonstration or workshop it is needed to configure Warehouse Mobile Device Portal in New Microsoft Dynamics AX Demo environment. In this article we’ll explore nuances of how to set up Warehouse Mobile Device Portal in New Microsoft Dynamics AX Demo environment, and what are the options while setting up your demonstration scenarios  

Important: Please follow the official guidance when settings up Warehouse Mobile Device Portal in New Microsoft Dynamics AX for Production purposes: https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/warehouse-mobile-devices-portal-for-microsoft-dynamics-ax/

Walkthrough

We’ll begin with New Microsoft Dynamics AX deployment in the Cloud via LCS (Lifecycle Management Services): https://lcs.dynamics.com. Once deployed the URL to access New Microsoft Dynamics AX may look like the following: https://alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com/

For the purposes of this walkthrough we’ll deploy Demo topology of New Microsoft Dynamics AX

LCS project - Environments

LCS user owning the project under which we deploy New Microsoft Dynamics AX will be created as Admin user in New Microsoft Dynamics AX

System administration > Users > Users

Let’s take a quick look at hosts file on the respective VM

Hosts file

Hosts file

Alright, localhost (127.0.0.1) is mapped to alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com 

127.0.0.1    alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com

Now let’s take a quick look at IIS Web sites deployed via IIS Manager

IIS Manager

There’s AOSService IIS Web site deployed

IIS Manager > Sites > AOSService

We’ll examine AOSService IIS Web site bindings

Site Bindings

2 bindings do exist by default for AOS itself and SOAP Web Services endpoint on port 443 (HTTPS). Both bindings are registered for host names. Host Names: alexaos.cloudapp.dynamics.com, alexaossoap.cloudax.dynamics.com

Edit Site Binding

There’s also a respective certificate assigned

Certificate - General

Certificate – Certificate Path

AOSService IIS Web site is assigned to AOSService IIS Application pool

IIS Manager > Application Pools

Also there’s a registered domain name for alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com that translates to a particular public IP address

Cmd - ping

If we look at the respective VM HTTPS endpoint is enabled by default on standard port 443

Azure VM HTTPS Endpoint

Okay, we looked around the setup available by default, and now we’ll set up WMDP (Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal) first to work in a web browser on the VM, then to work on the device outside of the VM and finally run WMDP in simulation mode from within New Microsoft Dynamics AX user interface   

Step 1: On the VM

First immediate step will be to download WMDP from Warehouse Management > Setup > Mobile device > Download Warehouse Mobile Device Portal. We’ll do it using Internet Explorer (IE) web browser on the VM

Dynamics AX

In order to enable download, we’ll change Internet Explorer web browser settings (Internet options > Security tab > Internet (zone) > Custom level) and enable appropriate radio buttons. Please note that for the purposes of POC in this walkthrough it is fine, in fact security settings of web browser will be managed differently and strictly for Production environments to ensure maximum level of protection 

When Download Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal installer windows pops it will provide a checklist of security best practices which need to be followed for Production environments. But again for the purposes of POC in this walkthrough we’ll mark all checkboxes to get past this step and begin download

Download Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal installer

Once WarehouseMobileDevicesPortal.msi is downloaded we can begin installation process

WarehouseMobileDevicesPortal.msi

Installation process is very intuitive

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal Setup Wizard - Welcome

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal Setup Wizard – Destination Folder

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal Setup Wizard – IIS configuration

Note: Please note that on this step I specified port 9999 to be used for WDMP IIS Web site deployment

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal Setup Wizard – Ready to install

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal Setup Wizard - Completed

Once installation of WMDP is completed we can see respective Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal DEFAULT IIS Web site deployed

IIS Manager > WMDP DEFAULT 

We can also review its bindings

IIS Manager > WMDP DEFAULT 

IIS Manager > WMDP DEFAULT > Site Bindings 

Please note that because I specified port 9999 during installation process appropriate binding for port 9999 has been created for HTTPS protocol

Also WMDP DEFAULT IIS Web site belongs to WMDP DEFAULT IIS Application pool

IIS Manager > Application pools

At this point if we try to access WMDP in a web browser on https://localhost:9999 we’ll get an error because WMDP has not been configured yet

WMDP

For the purposes of experiment, we’ll also add additional HTTP binding on port 9998

Add Web site Binding (HTTP)

Now WMDP IIS Web site bindings will look like the following

Site Bindings

IIS Manager > WMDP

Now we should configure WMDP before we can use it

One of the steps in configuration process is to register an app for WDMP. In order to do that we’ll log into Microsoft Azure portal and navigate to Active Directory  

Active Directory  

Next we’ll open Add application dialog on Applications tab

Active Directory > Applications

On Add application dialog we’ll select Native client application

Add application – Tell us about your application

For the purposes of POC in this walkthrough we’ll specify a fake redirect URL

Add application – Application information

Now application has been registered and we’ll navigate to Configure tab to retrieve necessary information and do additional setup

Application

On Configure tab we’ll take a note of Client ID GUID (which will be required on the subsequent steps) and also assign appropriate permissions for the application

Application > Configure

Specifically, we’ll add Microsoft Dynamics ERP as application

Permissions to other applications

And assign 3 permissions to it as shown below

Permissions to other applications

Let’s assume Client ID GUID is “XYZ” for simplicity of explanation

At this point with all necessary info on-hand we can modify Web.config file for WMDP. We can very quickly get to the file system folder where Web.config for WMDP resides by right clicking WMDP Web Site in IIS Manager and selecting Explore to open file explorer window 

IIS Manager > Sites > WMDP > Explore

Here’s Web.config file we need to modify

File explorer > Web.config

In Web.config file at minimum we need to provide a few pieces of information required for configuration. They are: Service reference URI, Auth service security resource, Service client ID (GUID we registered and memorized earlier), Service user name, Service user password (for the sake of simplicity for the POC we’ll specify Admin user credentials), Service auth URL. Pretty much everything is very straightforward. Speaking about Service auth URL, for example, if our domain is “microsoft” we’d specify “https://login.windows.net/microsoft.onmicrosoft.com”, or if our domain is “contosoax7” we’d specify “https://login.windows.net/contosoax7.onmicrosoft.com”. You can also see this name when you are logging in into Microsoft Azure portal, for example, https://manage.windowsazure.com/microsoft.onmicrosoft.com#Workspaces/All/dashboard. So it is easy to locate

This is how modified Web.config file will look like. Please note that I removed PublicKeyToken values from the text below to simplify reading (…)

Web.config

<?xml version="1.0"?> <!--     Note: As an alternative to hand editing this file you can use the     web admin tool to configure settings for your application. Use     the Website->Asp.Net Configuration option in Visual Studio.     A full list of settings and comments can be found in     machine.config.comments usually located in     \Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.x\Config --> <configuration>   <configSections>     <sectionGroup name="ServiceConnectionGroup">       <section name="ServiceConnection"               type="Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Whs.Web.Configuration.ServiceSettings"               allowLocation="true"               allowDefinition="Everywhere"/>       <section name="ServiceProtocol"               type="Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Whs.Web.Configuration.ServiceProtocol"               allowLocation="true"               allowDefinition="Everywhere"/>     </sectionGroup>   </configSections>   <ServiceConnectionGroup>     <ServiceConnection>       <ServiceReference         URI="https://alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com/api/services"         TimeoutSeconds="600"/>       <Authentication         ServiceSecurityResource="https://alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com"         ServiceClientID="XYZ"         ServiceUserName="alex@microsoft.com"         ServiceUserPassword="pass@word1"         ServiceAuthenticationURL="https://login.windows.net/microsoft.onmicrosoft.com"/>     </ServiceConnection>     <ServiceProtocol>       <SessionXmlDocument MaxSizeBytes="2500000"/>       <DisplaySettingsXmlDocument MaxSizeBytes="2500000"/>       <CompaniesList MaxSizeBytes="10151"/>       <CultureID MaxSizeBytes="10"/>     </ServiceProtocol>   </ServiceConnectionGroup>   <!--     For a description of web.config changes see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=235367.     The following attributes can be set on the <httpRuntime> tag.       <system.Web>         <httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5" />       </system.Web>   -->   <system.web>     <httpCookies httpOnlyCookies="true" requireSSL="true"/>     <!--             Set compilation debug="true" to insert debugging             symbols into the compiled page. Because this             affects performance, set this value to true only             during development.     -->     <compilation debug="false" targetFramework="4.5">       <assemblies>         <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…"/>         <add assembly="System.Web.Abstractions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…"/>         <add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…"/>         <add assembly="System.Data.Linq, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…"/>         <add assembly="System.Web.Helpers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…"/>         <add assembly="System.Web.WebPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…"/>       </assemblies>     </compilation>     <!--             The <authentication> section enables configuration             of the security authentication mode used by             ASP.NET to identify an incoming user.     -->     <authentication mode="None"/>     <!--             The <customErrors> section enables configuration             of what to do if/when an unhandled error occurs             during the execution of a request. Specifically,             it enables developers to configure html error pages             to be displayed in place of a error stack trace.-->            <customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="~/Error"/>     <pages controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion="3.5" clientIDMode="AutoID">       <namespaces>         <add namespace="Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Whs.Web"/>         <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc"/>         <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax"/>         <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html"/>         <add namespace="System.Web.Routing"/>         <add namespace="System.Linq"/>         <add namespace="System.Collections.Generic"/>         <add namespace="System.Xml"/>         <add namespace="System.Web.Helpers"/>         <add namespace="System.Web.WebPages"/>       </namespaces>     </pages>     <httpHandlers>       <add verb="*" path="*.mvc" validate="false" type="System.Web.Mvc.MvcHttpHandler, System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…"/>     </httpHandlers>     <sessionState timeout="600"/>     <globalization enableClientBasedCulture="true" uiCulture="auto" culture="auto"/>   </system.web>   <!--         The system.webServer section is required for running ASP.NET AJAX under Internet         Information Services 7.0.  It is not necessary for previous version of IIS.   -->   <system.webServer>     <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false"/>     <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>     <handlers>       <remove name="MvcHttpHandler"/>       <remove name="UrlRoutingHandler"/>       <add name="MvcHttpHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="*" path="*.mvc" type="System.Web.Mvc.MvcHttpHandler, System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=…"/>     </handlers>   </system.webServer> </configuration>

Coming back to Bindings they look like the following at this point

Site Bindings

We’ll also do an additional step in HTTPS Binding configuration by adding a host name (I reused the original AOS host name for the sake of simplicity for the purposes of POC) and SSL certificate (I reused the original AOS SSL certificate for the sake of simplicity for the purposes of POC)

Edit Site Binding

Now WMDP IIS Web site bindings look like the following

Site Bindings

At this point if we access the following URL: https://alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com:9999/ we can proceed with configuration of WMDP

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Device Portal

Our next step will be to load web application configuration according to modified Web.config file. For these purposes we’ll select “Load web application configuration” link

Web configuration loading

As the result we’ll see the following message: “Web configuration was loaded successfully. If there are any service user credentials stored in Web.config file, they should be removed now. Please set ServiceUserName and ServiceUserPassword to empty string.”. As suggested now it will be a good time to remove Admin credentials we used from Web.config file

Then we’ll reload WMDP and select “Log on to the mobile device” to select company in case of multi-company setup

Select company  

For the sake of this walkthrough we’re using a standard demo data set and we’ll select USMF company that has enough data pre-set up for us to continue

Sign in to AX (USMF)

On Sign in to AX screen we’ll provide valid Warehouse user credentials and then we can continue with our functional scenarios. This is great! But I’m curious if for the purposes of POC we can run WMDP via HTTP instead of HTTPS. That’s why I’ll repeat the process using HTTP URL 

Log on to the mobile device (HTTP)

Select company (HTTP)

As the result I’ll be getting the following error: “Sorry, an error occurred while processing your request. Please retry your request or contact your system administrator” 

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal: Error

If we look into Event Viewer we’ll find an explanation for this error: “Exception type: HttpAntiForgeryException, Exception message: A required anti-forgery token was not supplied or was invalid” 

Event Viewer

Exception

Exception information:     Exception type: HttpAntiForgeryException     Exception message: A required anti-forgery token was not supplied or was invalid.    at System.Web.Helpers.AntiForgeryWorker.Validate(HttpContextBase context, String salt)    at System.Web.Helpers.AntiForgery.Validate(HttpContextBase httpContext, String salt)    at System.Web.Mvc.ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute.OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext)    at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAuthorizationFilters(ControllerContext controllerContext, IList`1 filters, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor)    at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName)    at System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore()    at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.Execute(RequestContext requestContext)    at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.System.Web.Mvc.IController.Execute(RequestContext requestContext)    at System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.<>c__DisplayClass6.<>c__DisplayClassb.<BeginProcessRequest>b__5()    at System.Web.Mvc.Async.AsyncResultWrapper.<>c__DisplayClass1.<MakeVoidDelegate>b__0()    at System.Web.Mvc.Async.AsyncResultWrapper.<>c__DisplayClass8`1.<BeginSynchronous>b__7(IAsyncResult _)    at System.Web.Mvc.Async.AsyncResultWrapper.WrappedAsyncResult`1.End()    at System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.<>c__DisplayClasse.<EndProcessRequest>b__d()    at System.Web.Mvc.SecurityUtil.<GetCallInAppTrustThunk>b__0(Action f)    at System.Web.Mvc.SecurityUtil.ProcessInApplicationTrust(Action action)    at System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult asyncResult)    at System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.System.Web.IHttpAsyncHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result)    at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()    at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)

WMDP is meant to be run via HTTPS, and we’ll switch to HTTPS for further steps

Great! We can run WMDP via HTTPS, but for convenience if inside of the VM we can introduce a dedicated host name for it, for example, “alexwmdp.cloudax.dynamics.com”. In order to do that we can change Hosts file 

Hosts file

And modify binding appropriately

Binding (Change)

Site Bindings

Now the same WMDP Web site is accessible via a new URL from within the VM thanks for translation introduced in Hosts file

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal

Select company

Sign in to AX (USMF)

It is more convenient to use a meaningful name like “alexwmdp”, in fact if we want to access alexwmdp.cloudax.dynamics.com from outside of the VM this name will obviously not be resolved

So for the next step we’ll expose WMDP via internet. Again this will get us going quickly for the purposes of POC, in fact please do not use this configuration for Production purposes and follow the official guidance here instead: https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/warehouse-mobile-devices-portal-for-microsoft-dynamics-ax/ 

Step 2: On Internet

On Microsoft Azure Portal we can find a Public Virtual IP (VIP) address of the VM as shown below

Public Virtual IP (VIP) address

Thus technically to access https://alexwmdp.cloudax.dynamics.com:9999 we can use IP address instead: https://2X.10X.19X.22X:9999/. This will not bear a fruit for us yet because custom 9999 port is not exposed, instead standard 443 port is exposed for HTTPS 

Can’t reach this page

In fact we can make the setup even more convenient and reusable if we will be using standard 443 port for HTTPS and register a custom domain name for WMDP. This is exactly what we’re going to do next

Let’s say we want WMDP to be accessible via the following URL: https://demo.alexwmdp.com

In order to achieve that we’ll change WMDP Web site binding as shown below

WMDP Web site

Site Bindings

Edit Site Binding

Please note that I’m still reusing the original SSL certificate which is going to give us Certificate warning in the future because this certificate is registered for a different domain name. In fact this will be fine for the purposes of this POC

In order to register a new domain name we’ll use one of domain registrars, in my case I already have Blogger web page open so I used Google domain registrar: https://domains.google.com to register alexwmdp.com domain that I’m going to use for WMDP

Domain

Please note that domain registrars will charge you a periodic fee for keeping your domain name after registration (fee amount may vary depending on domain registrar). Once domain name has been picked we can set up DNS records for subdomains. In particular, I wanted to use https://demo.alexwmdp.com to access WMDP. That’s why I’ll introduce appropriate A and CNAME DNS records to map to the VM where WMDP is installed. Please find detailed information about how to register A and CNAME DNS records for custom domain names for Microsoft Azure Cloud Services here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/cloud-services-custom-domain-name/

This is how resulting DNS records will look like

Domain - DNS

This is good, in fact for even greater convenience you can keep your DNS records configurations in one place with New Microsoft Dynamics AX environment – specifically, in Microsoft Azure Portal. In order to do that we can leverage DNS Zones functionality in Microsoft Azure. Please find more info about DNS Zones here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/dns-getstarted-create-dnszone/

And we’ll surely do so! On Microsoft Azure Portal we’ll create DNS Zone for alexwmdp.com

DNS Zone

And then introduce appropriate A and CNAME records for alexwmdp.com domain as shown below

Record set properties (A)

Record set properties (CNAME)

Once set up the result will be the same. To make sure everything works great in addition to DNS record for demo.alexwmdp.com I actually created DNS record for handheld.alexwmdp.com in DNS zones via Microsoft Azure portal. Both URL’s would point to one place now: https://demo.alexaniwmdp.com/ , https://handheld.alexaniwmdp.com/ 

Cmd – ping

Now we can verify the result by navigating to https://demo.alexwmdp.com

Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal  

Then we’ll select ”Log on to the mobile device” and select the company

Selection of company

Finally, when company is selected we can sign in to AX

Sign in to AX (USMF)

Please note that you can now access WMDP from outside of the VM in a web browser via Internet.

Please also note that because I reused originally installed SSL certificate we will get Certificate warning when opening this URL which you can bypass and proceed with URL. To get rid of Certificate warning we can create a dedicated SSL Certificate registered for the custom domain name we introduced 

At this point we can also conveniently access WMDP from the telephone using web browser. For example, this is how WMDP looks like on my Windows Phone

Phone  - Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal

Phone – Select company

Phone – Sign in to AX

This is all great! But if for the purposes of your POC, demonstration or workshop you prefer to use WMDP simulator inside of New Microsoft Dynamics AX instead of full-fledged deployed WMDP, it is also a possibility. Let’s see how it works

Step 3: AX Simulation (Dynamics AX 2012 R3 and New Dynamics AX)

We are all familiar with WMDP simulator in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3

The simulation mode was accessible via WHSWorkExecute form and WHSWorkExecute action menu item

WHSWorkExecute menu item

 

WHSWorkExecute form

When launched you could use a native Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 form to simulate WMDP

Login

Menu

You could also add WHSWorkExecute menu item to the menu structure and keep it always available in your environment. For example, adding “Work process” menu item to Global tools menu

GlobalToolsMenu

Work process

At this point in New Microsoft Dynamics AX Work process menu item is not exposed by default

Find “Work process”

In fact, you can make it available the same way it was done in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3

At this point I would like to add “Work process” to expose WMDP simulator in Warehouse management menu. Let’s create a quick model for this purpose

Model

Then we’ll associate a new project to the model

New project

But before modifying Warehouse management menu we’ll find the way to launch Work process form in a web browser. The beautiful thing about New Microsoft Dynamics AX is that web pages are URL addressable which means that once authenticated we can launch required web pages by typing in URL in a web browser

Let’s quickly add WHSWorkExecute form to the project, make it a default Startup object and launch a web browser (by Starting the project) to find out about URL we need to use

Project 

Once started web browser will pop up on the following URL: https://alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com/?f=WHSWorkExecute&prt=initial&debug=vs%2CconfirmExit&activityid=34f59285-9e8f-0000-f2f4-f5348f9ed101&cmp=USMF  opening WMDP simulator form

WMDP simulator inside of New Microsoft Dynamics AX

When we strip out unnecessary parts of the URL we’ll get the following URL that we can use to launch WMDP simulator inside of New Microsoft Dynamics AX: https://alexaos.cloudax.dynamics.com/?f=WHSWorkExecute&prt=initial&cmp=USMF 

Please note how forms are addressed via “f” GET URL parameter and display menu items can be similarly addressed via “mi” GET URL parameter 

WMDP simulator inside of New Microsoft Dynamics AX – Login

WMDP simulator inside of New Microsoft Dynamics AX – Menu

Now coming back to menu modification we can add an extension for Warehouse management menu and expose “Work process” menu item via menu

Project

After we did a necessary modification in Visual Studio we can build the model to see the results reflected in New Microsoft Dynamics AX

Build model

And here’s the result

Warehouse management menu

Summary: In this article we discussed how to configure Warehouse Mobile Device Portal in New Microsoft Dynamics AX and quickly make it available on mobile devices for the purposes of POC (Proof of Concept), demonstration or workshop using Demo environment. Please note that this information may also help you better understand the process of configuring Warehouse Mobile Device Portal for Production purposes according to the official guidance described here: https://ax.help.dynamics.com/en/wiki/warehouse-mobile-devices-portal-for-microsoft-dynamics-ax/.

Tags: New Microsoft Dynamics AX, Warehouse Management, Warehouse Mobile Devices Portal, WMDP, IIS, WHSWorkExecute.

Note: This document is intended for information purposes only, presented as is with no warranties from the author. This document may be updated with more content to better outline the issues and describe the solutions.

Author: Alex Anikiev, PhD