Learn about documentation resources to help you use Microsoft Dynamics ERP RapidStart Services

Applies To: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Beginning October 1, 2015, RapidStart services will no longer be supported. For more information, see the announcement on CustomerSourcehttps://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/northamerica/news-events/news/RapidStartServicesDiscontinued or PartnerSourcehttps://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/northamerica/news-events/news-events/news/RapidStartServicesDiscontinued.

This topic provides links to documentation that can help you perform the following tasks:

• Activate Microsoft Dynamics ERP RapidStart Services for your organization.

• Define users and user roles.

• Install the components that you have to deploy on the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 installation to connect it to RapidStart Services.

• Create and maintain configuration projects.

• Answer configuration questions.

• Load RapidStart Services configuration data into Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

In the tables that appear later in this topic, the Role column identifies which of the following roles a topic most applies to:

• Partner decision-maker – A leader in a Partner organization who decides whether to make RapidStart Services available to existing and potential customers.

• Partner implementation expert – An expert in a Partner organization who creates and manages RapidStart Services projects for customers.

• Customer decision-maker – A leader in a Customer organization who decides whether to try or use RapidStart Services.

• Customer administrator – An expert in a Customer organization who performs some organization-specific administrative tasks in RapidStart Services. Customer administrator tasks can also be performed by a Partner implementation expert. However, the Partner implementation expert must use different Microsoft Live IDs to sign in to RapidStart Services to perform Customer administration tasks and Partner implementation expert tasks.

• Designer – An expert in either the Partner organization or the Customer organization who has Microsoft Dynamics AX technical and development skills, and who creates templates, functional areas, question groups, and questions that support custom solutions that are added to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

• Customer business expert – An expert in a Customer organization who answers questions in the RapidStart Services tool. The answers to these questions are used to configure an implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. A Partner implementation expert can also act in the Customer business expert role to answer questions in RapidStart Services.

Sign up and add users in Microsoft Dynamics Online

After you sign up for online services for Microsoft Dynamics ERP, your Customer administrator, or Partner implementation expert, can enter roles and users, and create and upload configurations into Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. For more information about how to sign up and add users to Microsoft Dynamics AX Online, see Sign up and add users for Microsoft Dynamics ERP RapidStart Services in Microsoft Dynamics Online.

Work with configuration projects in RapidStart Services

A configuration project in RapidStart Services is a project that specifies the type of configuration that you create in RapidStart Services. The type of configuration that you create determines the range of questions that Customer business experts in your legal entity answer. The range of questions, in turn, determines the configuration data that is loaded into your implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

Design custom content for RapidStart Services

Microsoft provides many templates and questions that can be used to set up an initial configuration of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. However, many Partners and Customers create custom solutions for Microsoft Dynamics AX, and want to be able to configure these custom solutions by using RapidStart Services. After the metadata for the custom solutions is imported into a RapidStart Services project, the developer in the Designer role can create questions that are built around the imported metadata. The Designer can also create the templates, functional areas, and question groups that support these questions. The questions can then be assigned to Customer business experts in the Customer organization.