A Gaseous Electron Multiplier (GEM)-based detector is being developed for soft X-ray diagnostics on tokamaks. Its main goal is to facilitate transport studies of impurities like tungsten. Such studies are very relevant to ITER, where the excessive accumulation of impurities in the plasma core should be avoided. This contribution provides details of the preliminary tests at ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) with a focus on the most important aspects for detector operation in harsh radiation environment. It was shown that both spatially and spectrally resolved data could be collected, in a reasonable agreement with other AUG diagnostics. Contributions to the GEM signal include also hard X-rays, gammas, and neutrons. First simulations of the effect of high-energy photons have helped understanding these contributions.