- Mohammed Rasheed

AX developers mostly use Dynamics AX ‘View’ for Reports.... however AX Views can be used on forms and invoked in x++ code just like ordinary tables..

Note: Unlike SQL views, AX views are ‘Read Only’. Hence they can be used to present data, but they cannot be used for update or insert operations.

A view essentially is a virtual table that is composed of a result set of a query. Views have fields, methods, field groups and can be accessed just like tables in Dynamics AX.

Views are also a lot easier to handle then queries in x++..

Advantages of using Views:

· Accessibility: if there is a specific query that is called upon regularly through various sources (code, reports, etc)... then it’s better to define the query as a View.. So a developer would not have to rewrite the code that makes up the query every time..

• Focused on specific data - views enable users to query specific set of data..

• Performance - views can improve performance by returning only used fields (field list). Moreover, the view definition is compiled in the database and may provide better performance than calling a query depending on the complexity of the query.

For example..

This view is used to query customers which have credit limit is set to a value less than 50

Also notice that the view only queries 3 fields from the custTable Data source.

This view can now be used in x++

static void viewTest(Args _args)

{

CustWithHighCredit_MR cus;

;

while select cus

{

info(cus.Name);

}

}

Don’t know why...but this blog reminds me of a quote I read ages ago... and I am sure, the context in which the quote was said, had nothing to do with DB views or Dynamics AX, but its relevance is striking.....so remember:

“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding” - Marshall McLuhan

Mohammed Rasheed

www.dynamic-ax.co.uk

References:

1. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb314551(AX.10).aspx

2. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marshallmc135184.html