Cross-reference tool

Introduction to cross-reference tool:

Cross-reference tool is one of the Microsoft Dynamics AX IDE. It is used to find the relationships between the objects. If you want to know what are the objects are used in a particular class or what are the objects are using a particular class, you can use cross-reference tool.

For example:

I have one output menu item, but I don’t know where this menu item is used. I need to find the menus for the particular menu item. So, the solution is that I have to look all module menus manually. Instead of finding manually, we can use cross-reference tool.

To find the menus for the particular menu item:

Right click on the menu item > Add-Ins > Cross-reference - > used by

It will give you the list of objects that are using this menu item. In the result window, you can find the menus object also.

If you click using option, it will give you the list of objects used in the selected menu item. It may give you the form of the selected output menu item.

Cross-reference results are coming from the following tables.

1. XREFNAMES
2. XREFDIALOGUPDATE
3. XREFREFERENCES
4. XREFPATHS
5. XREFTABLERELATION

To create/update the cross-reference

By default, cross-reference don’t have data. To create the cross-references you need to configure manually by navigating to, in the development workspace, open the Tools menu, and then click Cross-reference > Periodic > Update. The Update cross-reference window appears. Select update all and click OK button. It will create a batch job and start running the batch job.

After completed the cross-reference update, if you create a new object in AOT, that created object reference won’t be updated automatically in cross-reference. We need to do manually by right click on the object > Add-Ins > Cross-reference > Update. You need to do the same job again after you modified the object.

Automatic cross-reference update

Instead of doing this manually, we can set automatic process when the compiler compile the objects. To set this option, development workspace > Tools > Option > Development > click compiler button > check cross-reference checkbox and click OK button.

It will affect your performance, because it will run whenever compiler compiles the objects. If you don’t want immediate update, you can go for the scheduling process for every week or end of the day or etc. Refer into this link for cross-reference scheduling https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc566587.aspx.

For more information, please refer https://msdn.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/aa626961.aspx