Units and Unit Conversions

AX is very customizable, even for the quirkiest of situations. You could work for a company that has an item with a strange unit of measure (UOM) that isn't in the standard list of units that come with AX. You can add that new unit to your list of units in AX and still sell it, purchase it, inventory it - anything you can do to an item in AX can be done with your item that has a unique UOM! You can even create conversions between units that will help when you have a situation that requires it. Keep reading to find out more.

Creating a New Unit in AX

Units can be found in Organization administration > Setup > Units > Units. Here you will find the full list of Units that are available to use in AX. You can also see the parameters assigned to each unit such as Unit class, Decimal precision, and whether or not it's United States customary or Metric. 

This is where we define Units in AX.

Product Attributes - Solving the Mystery

Product attributes in AX can be a mystery. Why are they there? What do they tie to? How do I set them up? Can I have separate product attributes for different types of products?

Within this post, I will break down the mysteries surrounding Product attributes in AX and help bring a better understanding to what this functionality can be used for.

Product Attributes - A Definition

Product attributes are user defined fields that are added to an item record without additional customization to your AX environment. They are found on the Released products form in AX, so they are easily accessible. Product attributes can hold any type of information you would like to store about an item and different item types can definitely hold different types of attributes as long as they are assigned to distinct categories! Attributes in AX are not tied to anything except the Released product and the Procurement category that they are assigned to. They are simply and purely for informational use only.

Changing the Unit of Measure on an Item - It Can Be Done!

"Help! I selected the wrong unit of measure on my item!" It's more common than you know, and if you're new to AX or if you are just working quickly while setting up an item and you set up the wrong unit of measure (UOM), do not despair! You do not have to start over from scratch. There is a trick to quickly and easily get your item UOM back on track.

Changing the Unit on an Item in AX

When you first set up an item, the default UOM is usually set to ea. Let's say you wanted to set your item up as UOM lb, but hit enter before you changed the UOM. It happens, right?

How to See an Item's Purchase History

When planning and forecasting for the next year, it is helpful to know the past purchase history on an item. It isn't extremely obvious how to find this in AX if you aren't tracking this with a Purchase agreement, but there are a few different ways to see this information that can help when setting up a purchasing plan for the next year.

Period Statistics

When you navigate to an item in the Released products form, Product information management > Common > Released products, you can find your item and navigate to the Purchase tab in the ribbon. 

Item Model Group vs Item Group

When setting up a new item or released product in AX, you are presented with a lot of different options. Two of the options are Item model group and Item group.

Item model group and Item group on the Released product form.

Upon first glance, one might be inclined to think that these are probably pretty similar, but they would be mistaken. It's OK, I did it too! I am going to break down these two reference groups that are on all items in AX so you can understand what makes them so different and what purpose they serve on the item.