Stepping into 2010 with a Joyous Feat

For me, this New Year day is going to be Joyous for two reasons:

1. My Daughter's First New Year Day.
2. My Blog has been inducted into Microsoft Dynamics GP Community Blogs. Follow my articles from here: https://community.dynamics.com/blogs/gplearn/default.aspx.

Thanking all my Blog Readers & Critics, for your tremendous support. I will work hard to be even more responsible and informative in my articles.

Wishing all a Great 2010 ahead.

VAIDY

Dexterity Incompatibility with .NET Framework 3.5SP1

This post from Dynamics Confessions blog, informs us about Incompatibility of Dexterity 10.00.320 Build with .NET Framework 3.5SP1.

Those who are working on similar lines, have a look at this article and be informed on what needs to be done in such scenarios.

NOTE: Download Dexterity 10.00.324 Build separately from PartnerSource and install it as soon as you apply GP SP4 on Dexterity. Because this particular Build 324 is the actual SP4 for Dexterity Common Components and Dexterity itself.

VAIDY

Back again on GP Community Newgroups

This is sort of Confession:

I was completely out of Community Newsgroups for the past month or two, for various pressing reasons. I realized that I missed a lot out of not learning and sharing with Users and Consultants.

Well, I was making a mistake of not participating in Newsgroups which is the wealth of information. Whatever I have gained as a Consultant, most part of it have come from Blogs, Newsgroups and Articles. I should have managed my schedule in such a way that at least an hour each day could be dedicated to Newsgroups, learn & share what I know in GP.

So from today, I will be back again, part of our Community Newsgroups.

VAIDY

Sales Tax Calculation in GP - gpTip42Day

This one is very simple yet powerful illustration, on How GP calculates Sales Taxes, from Frank Hamelly on his gpTip42Day.

I am writing an Pointer Article to this inspite of adding gpTip42Day as a Side Bar Link, as this article taught me the actual calculation behind Sales Taxes. I usually assume from the way the amounts are arrived at, but I had never known about the theory behind it.

Must read.

VAIDY

Merry Christmas

WIN2008, SQL2008 & GP10 - Issue & Resolution

This one may or may not have caught the attention of Consultants. So here you have it.

I was working on a GP 10.0 SP4 installation on the following environment:

1. Windows Server 2008 Standard
2. SQL Server 2008
3. GP 10.0 SP4
4. 64 Bit Environment

I installed SQL Server 2008 first and then installed GP 10.0. When I launched my GP Utilities, the ODBC Data Source to SQL Server was not listed at all. I must admit that I did not search any forums or KB to find out the reason and solution.

But I found this: SQL Server 2008 on Windows Server 2008 R2 must be applied with SP1 mandatorily. This was the reason my ODBC DSN did not get listed in my GP Utilities. I applied SQL2008 SP1 and it worked.

VAIDY

FRx 6.7 SP11 - Not Available for Download

Thanks to Mark Polino for his article, which in turn referred to Original Article from Touchstone's Blog.

POINT TO NOTE: FRx 6.7 SP11 is not available for downloads at the moment. This has been pulled out due to some bug in it. Will be available in another 4 weeks, hopefully.

UPDATE (22nd DEC 2009): We will still be able to download the SP11 but with bug, if I have understood it correctly. I doubled checked it and looks like we are able to download this. But not sure whether the reported critical bug is resolved or not.

VAIDY

Bing & GP Unite - Matt Landis' Microsoft Small Business

This one's amazing. Matt Landis introduces to a new Add-on to GP which unites Bing Search and Dynamics GP Customer Maintenance. And there is a video which demonstrates how this work.

I am absolutely amazed, to say the least. And this particular Add-on demonstration shows how GP is flexible and open to do what we wish to.

Good one, Matt.

VAIDY

SOP - "This document has been posted." Error & Resolution

This one was a real menace for me, to say the least.

One of the Users reported the error message "This document has been posted." for a particular SOP Document.

The following were the observations:
1. This document was never saved in a batch.
2. GP hung at the time of entering this document.
3. The User killed GP session in order to come out of the Hung Session.
4. User confirmed that he did not enter any Batch while creating this Document.
5. Once restarting GP (after the KILL), he entered the SOP Number (which he had noted down) and received this Error Message.

Following this, I first resorted in clearing all the Activity Records (ACTIVITY, SY00800, DEX_LOCK & DEX_SESSION). There is a KB article, KB#857082, explaining this issue and the resolution. BUT this did not solve the issue at all. I was still getting the same error message again.

I checked the SOP10100 table for the record and found that document residing there. Also in SOP10102 and SOP10200 tables. Now, I did the following:

1. Created an SOP Batch in GP.
2. Updated the SOP10100 record for that document with the Batch Number that I created in GP.
3. Tried opening the document, but in vain. Still the same error.
4. Checked several updates but to no avail.

After quite an amount of frustrating time, SQL Profiler and Dex Script Log, I found the following:

Batch Source (BCHSOURC) field of table SOP Header Work (SOP10100) MUST NOT BE EMPTY. It has to be "Sales Entry" (Note the Cases; It has to be exactly "Sales Entry"). If the Batch Source field is empty, GP understands that this document is a Real Time document and that it should not be residing in SOP Header Work table at all.

Alright, after I updated this field, I am good to go to open that stuck SOP Document.

NOTE: Always in scenarios like this, delete the SOP Document and recreate it. It's not advisable to amend anything to this released SOP Document. We never know what else would be wrong with such documents.

Happy Debugging; What else could I say !?!?! :-).

VAIDY

Another happiest moment in my Life!

Yes today is another happiest moment in our Life. My daughter has started speaking. :-) You know what? That's an amazing feeling I can say.

VAIDY

PO Skipping - Mariano Explains

This is another gem of an article on a rarely touched topic. Mariano explains Why my PO Number seems to skip randomly?

VAIDY

Consultants Sell - From eOne Solutions Blog

This article explains how Consultants play a crucial role in building the confidence in a Client with respect to the Product he/she implements.

Sales people are the ones who take the lead, but eventually, the Consultants who interact with the Clients on a regular basis and the Consultants who implement the product, are the ones who take the relationship further and bring more values and reputation.

Good One.

VAIDY

Mohammed Daoud, The MVP from Jordan - Interview in Microsoft Feed

Check this out: Interview with Mohammed Daoud, MVP, Jordan. He is sincere and modest in all his replies and you would get a glimpse of his Personal qualities too.

VAIDY

Myths about Year-End Closing - Christina Phillips Breaks It

You got to read this article Year-End Closing Myths & Actual Facts written by Christina Phillips, of The Dynamics GP Land.

VAIDY

All About A4 Chunk - David Mugrave

This one is very informative. David has come up with this article which would shed some light on what A4 Chunk is all about and the FAQs completes it.

Read it here: What is the A4 Chunk?

VAIDY

GP Tip For Today (gptip42day) Feed Link in my Blog

It's an immense privilege to add Frank Hamelly's GP Tip For Today (gptip42day) in my blog as a direct feed link.

That means, those who visit my blog would see a Side Column link to Frank's most recent GP TIP, under my Greetings To All section. I borrowed this idea from Victoria Yudin's blog, where she has added Frank's gptip42day similarly.

VAIDY

Extender SP4 for GP 10.0 - Another Pro & Con

I was working on a feature addition for which I decided to use the Extender SP4 for GP 10.0.

With Extender SP4 for GP 10.0, we have new features called "Extender Forms" and "Extender Detailed Forms". This is different from Windows and Detailed Windows. The Forms and Detailed Forms will be created as a Stand Alone Forms just like any other GP Form under a Menu Item which we define in Extender Menus.

Pro: This is a great boon for us to define additional Masters which are not provided in GP. Anything that we need, can be created. We don't have to place this form anywhere in GP as an Additional Form.

Con: There is something called ID Field Prompt. Extender by default and mandatorily gives us an ID field for each such Individual Form. This ID field is also configurable to Auto-Increment the ID values. An example is shown below:



In the Options section for this Detailed Form, I setup the Next ID Number (which will be incremented whenever I create a new record). This is shown below:




Now, once this is setup and saved, when I try to create a new record, the Next ID Number is taken correctly from the Extender Options Setup. But if I don't save this record and simply click on Clear to start a fresh entry, I can notice that my Next ID Number is not reverted back.

It just increment the ID Number but it does not revert back even if I do not use the generated one.



You just keep on press Clear, and it will keep on incrementing my Next ID Number. Which is absurd to any user's point of view. But we cannot help it I believe, as GP does not maintain the Unused ID Numbers and prompt the user whether he/she would like to use any of these Unused Numbers.

Nevertheless this is a BIG MISS and I would like to see some improvement in this area when the next version is released.

VAIDY

Dex Basics - David Musgrave

You got to be delighted to learn the basics from the Master. David has given us an article which sums up the Dex Basics while designing the UI. Read it here: Checklist for creating a new Dexterity Window.

I would add one more point to this: When you compile your code and see some Warnings, just be a bit patient and go thru' each Warning. You would certainly be looking at something really critical which may not pose critical at the time of compiling. Take a look at this article of mine for instance: Declaring Variables to Relevant Datatypes. This could have been avoided if that Developer had taken care of the Warning message Possible Data Loss due to Type Mismatch.

While Dex Basics have been taught again and again, articles like this are still needed as we tend to forget the basics while concentrating on the complexities. For a Customer UI is the window to a Product. He/She does not really worry about what is written beneath that UI and how it is.

A product is judged first by it's Look & Feel and only then the Features itself. I am sure many would disagree but that's my humble thought.

VAIDY