Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook Site

And why not? After being the most talked about book this year and living up to that expectation, we now have a Site for this book.

Visit the Site: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook Site.

VAIDY

Exam Dumps - Emerging Trend in Dynamics Community

I would have read nearly 10 LinkedIn discussion posts and couple more in Forums/Newsgroups for the past one month, asking for Exam Dumps to veer thru' Dynamics Certifications (ranging from Product to Sure Step). Thought I would just share my thoughts.

The reasons in my opinion for this trend:

1. Employers urge employees to clear certification to get more points & benefits thru' Microsoft Partner Program.
2. Clients urge Employers to show more "Certified" consultants instead of even "Experienced" consultants.
3. Employees think, in fact believe, that once they get one certification they are on top of the existing breed of consultants and they can be in a demanding position.

Are these just myths or facts? Let's keep that argument aside and think from a broader perspective.

Any Certification IS A MUST for any consultant. There is no second thought about it. But it is NOT A MUST to GET ONE BY ANY MEANS.

Conventional thinking with respect to Exams, Certifications, etc. has long gone. It's all about know the details about a certain Certification in 1 day, collect the information on Exam the next day, throw queries on Newgroups/Forums/Pro-Networking Sites about Exam Dumps and get information those who would have put in their blood, soul, efforts, emotions, etc. quite easily the third day, go thru' the dumps and get confidence that we know all about that Certification the forth day, schedule an exam the fifth day, attend the exam the sixth day and GET the Certification seventh day.

It's just about 7 days task to get one certification. Does this really help us? Some say it does. Clever people always think about first getting a job and then learn whatever comes on their way. Conventional people always believe in learning the product first and then make sure that they are eligible for a Certification. By experience they become the ones to prepare dumps instead of collecting it from others and unfortunately left behind by those who are clever.

Recently I read a similar question from a Consultant, who wanted to clear past a certain certification and replies were a resounding "Unless you practice these concepts, dumps will not help you at all". Of course, people. Come on. We are not school kids anymore.

I am a Certified Consultant myself and I can certainly tell you all from my own experience. I also got some dumps (trust me, I never posted any queries on any forums for sure). But those dumps were mere dumps for me, after 6 years of my GP Technical & Functional consulting experience. I simply believe that if I know about GL Reversing Entry in general and in GP in particular, I can answer 1000 questions framed on top of it. I don't require a dump in that case and I feel proud that I got certified on my own expertise and experience.

I have met many people who excelled in the product first (ask them anything from any nook and corner, you would get more than what you expected) and then went for Certification to make sure that they have one for formalities. I have also met people who got a certification first thru' dumps and still looking for jobs.

I am sure all of us know how to drive a car more than how Quantum Physics work. Because we drive daily in our life, we practice it. To get a license, we must first attend the classes, know the rules and regulations of that country, practice it for sometime and then attend the test. It's no different here as well.

It's that simple. If I cannot understand what a client requires and how I am going to solve it for him/her, then my so called "Certified Consultant" tag is just a label. But if I do know how to, then I am a Consultant who is eligible to get Certified.

I leave this open to all of you to decide how you would like to approach this concept called Certification. Needless to say, I am certainly willing to learn from all of your viewpoints.

VAIDY

Carefully Place Variables Assignment in Dex

This post is right after a coding correction done in one of my customizations.

There is a form which needs to be opened from both SOP Entry & SOP Inquiry. Based on the source, I had to either lock or unlock certain fields, exactly like how SOP Entry & SOP Inquiry windows work.

I created a GLOBAL field called "SOPSource" and created two Startup trigger scripts, namely SOP_Entry_Open_Addl and SOP_Inquiry_Open_Addl on SOP_Entry and SOP_Inquiry respectively. Inside each script, I wrote a piece of code like below:

open form SOP_Additional_Info;
SOPSource of globals = "ENTRY"; {"INQUIRY" for SOP_Inquiry trigger script}

And once my form is opened, in the Window_PRE event script, I had validated the SOPSource GLOBAL field and made sure that I locked or unlocked the appropriate fields.

Now, can anyone guess what was wrong with the above piece of coding?

Mistake: I wrote the GLOBAL field assignment after "open form" statement.
Reason: The above piece of code first opens the form and then assigns the SOPSource Global field with some value. By the time, it assigns the value, the form is already open and WIN_PRE event is already executed. Due to which, my "SOPSource of globals" will always contain an empty string value.

DUH...

Correct Way of Writing:

SOPSource of globals = "ENTRY"; {"INQUIRY" for SOP_Inquiry trigger script}
open form SOP_Additional_Info;


Those who are new to Dex programming, understand that as soon as a "open form" statement is executed, the form is immediately opened and do not wait for the rest of the calling script's statements. If there is any dependency in the opened window for other statements in a calling script, we must ensure that these statements are written before we open this window.

VAIDY

Displaying 3rd Party Series' Reports in Report Template Maintenance - Patrick

Boy, I never thought this "3rd Party" series would have such an impact (be it simple or silly or critical).

Patrick explains us one such very important but simple issue: Using 3rd Party Series Reports in the Report Template Maintenance Lookup Window

I have to now check all my customizations' resources which are created under this 3rd Party series.

And when I reassign the series for those resources, I am not certainly going to place it in PROJECT series. As Patrick quips in his post in one place, if you read it completely.

VAIDY

Excel Report Builder & Pivots - A Head Start post by Devon

This article is a good one to get start of Excel Report Builder and creating a meaningful and handsful Pivots out that single set of data.

Read it here: Excel Report Builder – GP2010 Pivot Tables – Sales By… Anything!

VAIDY

New Resource to find Tables & Fields Information - Victoria Yudin

Victoria points to us a new way of easily finding Table & Field Information in GP.

And this also gives us a strong reason of why we all should use this wonder tool called Support Debugging Tool (SDT).

Go grab it for yourself and install it in first place, if you don't have one in your GP Environment.

VAIDY

Analytical Accounting Error - After Restoring a Company Database

CAUTION: This post is NOT intended for SQL Administrators who are not familiar with GP Table Structures. The following script may have serious implication on certain GP environments, so please use it at your own risk. This method is also not supported by Microsoft for obvious reasons.

This message was quite annoying when I created a Test Company in GP10 and restored a Production DB for R&D and Testing purpose.

Analytical Accounting windows didn't get opened and was throwing the following error message:

There were several articles which cautioned / warned off from restoring only Company DB, which I am quite aware of. Because restoring another Company's DB on to a Test Company will not have any issues unless it has got some products, like AA, depending heavily and real-time on DYNAMICS DB.

After a bit of R&D here and there, this is what I did. There is a table called AAG00104 in DYNAMICS Database, which is Analytical Accounting Company Setup table. I wrote an UPDATE on this table for the newly created company record as below:

UPDATE DYNAMICS..AAG00104 
SET aaCompanyStatus = 4, aaRelease = 10 
WHERE CMPANYID = [Test Company ID Integer value]

This obviously worked in my environment and released the Test Company for AA usage.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, be cautious and do not venture into this unless you are sure of the consequences.

I am also not quite sure whether we have any fix for this issue, as I could not get one from CustomerSource or PartnerSource. I may have overlooked. Please do write a comment if we already have a script for this issue.


VAIDY

GPWindow - A Site for Dynamics GP Resources by Jivtesh

Jivtesh has come up with a noble concept; his new website called GPWindow.com.

Let me share with you about what I liked in this site:

Rename Tables in Crystal Reports - Victoria

Another nice tip from Victoria on How to Rename Tables in Crystal Reports. And this tip is quite handy.

VAIDY

Display Extender Data for GL Trx Lines on GL Inquiry - David

This post is awesome. And quite a practical requirement nowadays. David takes us thru' the steps involved in writing a piece of code that does wonders for us.

Read it here: Display Extender Data for GL Trx Lines on GL Inquiry

VAIDY

GP Cookbook - Can't stop discuss about

There is a Preview Chapter available for this book, if you go to Packt Publishers site. I would like to highlight one more Recipe which is quite simple yet very interesting and informative.

In that chapter, Organizing Dynamics GP, Mark explains us about User-Defined Fields, well a bit more than what we would have thought about. Mostly users think about User-defined fields only as additional information and sometimes take it as additional fields for integration from some source. Read this recipe and your perception would be expanded about these simple wonders.

And needless to say, I am very glad to spread my words about this book by adding the Amazon Link to this book. By doing this, I am:

1. Simplifying users' searching for this book.
2. Urging my blog readers to give it a certain shot.
3. Just expressing what I thought about this book.

My Perception: If Packt could give us an entire chapter full of such nice tips as preview, we must understand what the rest of chapters and the recipes would give us.

And trust my words, you won't feel let down.

VAIDY

STOP Acting Smart - Give Polino the Appreciation & Credit he deserve

I honestly don't mind being RUDE in this regard.

Disgusting to hear that Mark's Cookbook (eBook version) was distributed free online by someone. That's the least word that I could use. Disgusting.

Writing a book is not an easy thing in life. It must first engage the reader. It must give the user the worthiness of his/her time spent on reading it. It must be always fresh whenever you open it and read it. Mark's book does just that. He has put his efforts & experience in giving us an awesome book full of information.

So those who are doing this disgusting act, STOP ACTING SMART and BUY the book. Sacrificing one movie night's expense for this book, is not a bad idea, for god's sake.

Let's be professional, at least to the extent of not hurting one's efforts and emotions.

VAIDY

Dex.ini Settings Document - From Leslie

This document consolidates all the Dex.ini settings that Leslie has read / used / shared in her blog, in her entire GP career. Ultimately, this is by far one stop document for Dex.ini settings document.

Read her article & download the document here: Dex.ini settings now available for download.

VAIDY

Changing Dictionary Context when using Passthrough Sanscript - David

David has started a new series which will explain Passthrough Sanscript Coding, from simple to complex scenarios.

First post here: Changing Dictionary Context when using Passthrough Dexterity sanScript Part 1


Watch out for some awesome posts from now on.


VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook - A Treasure from Mark Polino

Alright, we have seen and read so many books. On top of that, we have umpteen blogs for GP, newsgroups, forums and what not...!!! In fact Microsoft Dynamics GP itself gives us tons of manuals; PDFs and Context Sensitive CHMs.

Mark Polino has written a book titled Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook. What's different in this book from the ones that we have already?

Two crucial things:
1. This book tells us HOW TO USE GP and not what's there in GP. It's a practical guide and not just theory. It tells us the tip and also why that tip.
2. This book carries the immense experience that Mark has got over this long period of his career. And trust me, that experience is tremendous.

A guy who has crossed 2000 posts in his GP blog, who enlightened this GP Community with his 50 Tips in 50 Minutes and made it THE TOPIC of this year's Convergence, Mark has consolidated all of his experience to give us a collection of tips to USE GP in an efficient way.

Will I get benefited from this book? Will this book offer what I want? Will this book prove that it's worth of what I pay for it?

Now please quit asking such questions and read this sample chapter: Organizing Dynamics GP.

The publisher of this book, Packt Publishing, has given us the above chapter as an extract from the book.

Trust me, the other chapters are just better than each other.

For instance, Mark explains the option "Allow Sale of Discontinued Items", which I bet most of us (at least me) would have struggled to find. Those who are that "Adventurous" type would have known that, but certainly not all.

There are 290 pages of crucial tips which will enhance any GP Consultant / Administrator. And sure, I can go on and on about this book.

This book certainly live up to anyone's expectation of getting enriched with GP Tips. I sincerely recommend to go for this book and keep it in your library. Any point of time, you can come back to this book and it will tell you what's needed real-time.

Thanks so much, Mark, for giving us this book full of awesome tips. And I am sure we can expect more from you in future as well.

VAIDY

"Save As Integration" - Missing IM Option & Reason

Let me also pitch in and tell the world that this article, From the Newsgroups: What happened to Integration Manager "Save As" function?, from Mariano highlights what most people do not know about.

I was also one who wondered why it is not available, which I felt is a better option.

Read it and make sure that you learn the new way of doing copying an Existing Integration.

Thanks Mariano.

VAIDY

Using Custom Node with eConnect - Habib Salim on GP Dev Newsgroup

A very simple and excellent sample for all of us from Habib Salim on GP Developer Newsgroup.

Read it here: Using Custom Node with eConnect

I am quite sure, lot of us will be benefited from this post.

Thanks Habib.

VAIDY

CRM to Social CRM (SCRM)

I must admit that I am new to CRM and related concepts. But this article, from Jacob Morgan, gives me a better understanding and also about an evolving concept called Social CRM.

Read it here: The Evolution of CRM to Social CRM.

As I had mentioned earlier in one of my posts, in my blog, we are going to discuss both GP and CRM henceforth. I can see a future of GP & CRM along with BI and Sharepoint being a lethal collaboration.

VAIDY

CRM GP Adapter Series - Integration Models

This post intends to brief the list of Integration Models that are available and what's the preferable sequence in which we have to integrate the First Time records.

The Integration Models available are:

1. Account (CRM) to Customer (GP)
2. Customer (GP) to Account (CRM)
3. Flat Fee (GP) to Product (CRM)
4. Kit (GP) to Product (CRM)
5. Miscellaneous Charges (GP) to Product (CRM)
6. Order (CRM) to Sales Order (GP)
7. Price Level (GP) to Price List (CRM)
8. Sales Invoice (GP) to Invoice (CRM)
9. Sales Item (GP) to Product (CRM
10. Sales Order (GP) to Order (CRM)
11. Salesperson (GP) to ERP System User (CRM)
12. Service (GP) to Product (CRM)
13. UofM Schedule (GP) to Unit Group (CRM)

Alright, that's one long list, not so long though. Now we must understand what's the scope of this integration and once we install this integration model, what's the impact on CRM.

The following will be completely disabled in CRM once we install and configure this Adapter:

"Congrats" Extended to All MVPs

Extending my sincere wishes to all MVPs. Check out Leslie's article to know about people who got their MVP awarded and also with a brief comment.

I am sure this is inspirational to everyone out there and get our best out and share it with our Community.

VAIDY

Is Horizontal Accounting Software Dead? - Analyzes Austin Merritt (Software Advise)

Yes to some extent. But certainly not Dead. Austin Merritt, VP Software Advise, explains it very clearly and the comments that he has received for his post expresses mixed feelings.

In my experience, clients want a Software that always fit their exact requirements. Compromise in their requirements is the sin they would least commit. They can't be blamed for that. One would always start looking at an Accounting Software from their specific business requirements. Once they are convinced that this ERP fits their process, they start looking at the suppliments this product is going to offer them.

Most of the time, Customer Relationship comes first to their mind. Once we are happy with internal processes and the way we do our business, next comes a question: In spite of having best product to sell and also a vision, why we do not see Customers conversion and sales not going up? That's when we start looking at a product which will give us clear picture (Past, Present & Future). CRM comes into picture.

Now once we visualise an ERP & CRM for our requirements, we start thinking of keeping these two working in tandem. Once we are clear with that, we start thinking about how to present the entire data inside these two systems meaningfully to arrive at Decisions. Business Intelligence comes into picture. How to collaborate all these things and keep it in one single place? Sharepoint comes into picture.

Clearly, we want an Overall System, that keeps our business safely and soundly and tell us what & how we need to go in future.

Vertical Software is always NOT the solution. We have to think beyond our processes. We have to start thinking something futuristic to keep us in a better position when we overshoot our current requirements. While we do have a core Business Area, we do would like to venture in something added to that. And at that time, we would require a system which handles new business requirements without giving nightmares and/or loses in implementing one.

My option in this case, would be, a Horizontal Accounting Software, with required Customizations to leverage each modules of that ERP to cater for varied in-depth requirements.

VAIDY

Job Graphs - A Very Good Pointer

From MSDynamicsWorld site article, I got to see this Job Graphs for Dynamics GP.

I just felt WOW. This particular site is a very good pointer, though need not be accurate and 100% perfect.

Have a look at it and I am sure you all will be contented.

VAIDY

Congrats Mariano - For a Successful Hat Trick in MVP

Let's all join to Congratulate Mariano of becoming MVP for the 3rd time in a row. That's a Successful Hat Trick...!!!

And of course, we expect more from you...!!!

VAIDY

Search KB, Newsgroups & GP Blogosphere - Make it a Habit

Today morning, I downloaded Dynamics GP Downloads file from Mark's Skydrive account (Thanks Mark, for that). And I was quite surprised to see the CapsLock Reminder VBA post by Patrick Roth, dated way back in 2009. And I did write my own code in early March this year, completely not aware of Patrick's.

I would have certainly saved 1 hour, had I checked the KB, Newgroups & Blogs (need not be in the same order).

David & Mariano often insists on this point, and I would also like to insist more on that in the wake of my own experience(s).

It's nice to write our own code and get some kind of "accomplished" satisfaction, but if you are running out of time and need something at the earliest, the best place without doubt is our GP Blogosphere.

A Small Tip: Having these Important Sites as Favorites in our Browser(s) is not a bad idea at all.

VAIDY