Opening RPF Files

In Dynamics AX 2012, we have this concept of pushing and pulling the data for Retail between Head Office and Store.

The data is written in XML form, compressed into an rpf file then saved to a working folder. These rpf files or data packages can be opened using DDPackView.exe which is available if you install Async Server (Head Office) or Async Client (Store).

You may find it in:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\CDX\Async Server\Package

If you execute it from here, you will need to specify the actual rpf file you want to check and click Convert. You might encounter an error:

Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.RequestHandlerManager, Version=6.3.0.0, Cuture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=xxxx or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Usually, I just copy the following in the same folder of DDPackView:

• DDPackView.exe.config
• Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.EventTraceProvider.dll
• Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.Request.Compression.dll
• Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.Request.Interface.dll
• Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.Request.RequestHandlerManager.dll

And the RequestHandlers folder which contains:

• Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.Request.Base.dll
• Microsoft.Dynamics.Retail.StoreConnect.Request.SQLHandler.dll

You may find all of these from the CDX\Async Client\Package folder. 

I usually have a handy copy of these because it's just easier that way, you may download it from here. Mind you, it's R3 CU8 version - not entirely sure if it will work on other versions, but I think it will.

Anyway, if you're successful with the conversion you should be able to see something like this:

This is an RPF file of a full sync 1000-Currency job. So if you are going to check the Scheduler job for 1000, every subjobs here has its corresponding xml file:

And if you are going to open the those ax.XXXX.xml file you will find the data that will be transferred. I think it's worth mentioning the transfer field list of the Scheduler sub-job should be the same from what is generated:

Also, if you are going to check the Data output class of the Retail channel schema, which in this case is RetailCDXXmlDataOutput_AX63, you will find a method there with name Currency.

The data output class is responsible on the writing of the xml file, however if you want to customize this, know that this is not where you do actual filtering of what record should go into the file - maybe I'll discuss it in another post.

Anyway, going back to the actual converted rpf file, you will find there the file SCTargetRequest.xml. If you open this one, you should be able to see something like below. I highlighted the things that really matters to me: DeleteRequest, AttachmentFileList, WriteRequests

As I have mentioned, this RPF file is generated via Full Sync. If it is a full sync, the whole data in the table (of the RetailChannelDB) will be deleted. As you can see, there is no FilterConditionList which means it will delete everything. After which, we insert whatever data is indicated in the AttachmentFileList.

Just to give you an example how it is if it's just a regular sync, I created a sample currency then run a distribution schedule for 1000-Currency:

There is no delete request, however there is 1 attachmentfilelist and a write request for Currency target table.

If I deleted the sample currency that I created and run a distribution schedule job again, here's the targetrequestheader. There is a delete request for Currency table and this will be deleted based on Primary Key which is the Currency Code.

Anyway, that's it for today. I hope this helps somehow.