Dynamics GP - Learn & Discuss

RIP Apture - I Will Miss You

2012-01-25T11:08:00.000+04:00

How many of my blog readers remember about my blog being enabled with Apture Highlights?

It's very sad that this beautiful feature is now no more. I got to know this long back, but the feature that I added on my blog still worked; until this morning.

You check out Apture's Site. All you got to see is a message from Apture Team as below:

I am not sure what to express, but only one thing which I feel right now is this: Google, you have successfully killed one more beautiful product.

RIP Apture. I loved your features. I loved the way you simplified my vocabulary learning. I loved the way you just simply popped out of the web page without taking me to any other site. I loved the way you were just a simple yet catchy product called Apture. I was so in awe that I put your logo on my blog and proudly claimed that my blog got "Aptured".

Not any more.

I will surely miss you.

VAIDY

Test Company Posting Journal File Destinations

2012-01-25T10:14:00.000+04:00

One thing we all must remember while restoring a Live Company DB onto a Test Company DB is, that several places in GP tables, Company ID is stored. We have a SQL Script that will search ALL tables and ALL columns that contain the Inter ID (SQL ID for each GP database) and replace the live DB ID with test DB ID.

This post explains some specific cases where the Posting Journals of all transaction types are destined to a text file. Typically, in a multi-company environment, consultants would setup the path for all Posting Journals with the respective company Inter ID (or any folder name that uniquely identify each company).

I will explain you an ideal scenario, where this poses an issue.

I would restore live backup onto a Test Company and run the SQL script that will replace all live company ID references to test company ID. But my Posting Journals File destination is a simple string value, something like below (I have taken Purchase as a sample series):

:C:Journals/[CompanyID]/Purchase/[JournalReportName].txt

So if my live company ID is, for instance, VMLIVE, then the above path would like this:

:C:Journals/VMLIVE/Purchase/JournalReportName.txt

Whenever I post a purchase transaction, my Posting Journal detail would go and get append on this file, which I can audit at any point of time.

Now, consider that my Test Company ID is VMTEST. When I restore my live backup onto my test company and run the SQL script which replace live company reference with test company ID, everything would get fixed except this. Since the value stored in File Destination field in the Posting Journal Destinations table (SY02200) is NOT JUST the company ID, but the above Filename with Path.

After restoration and I post a purchase transaction on my test company, the posting information get appended on the file JournalReportName.txt on the path C:\Journals\VMLIVE\Purchase, which is WRONG. It's not just wrong. Your posting journal file gets dumped with test entries as well as live entries. If any client audits the Posting Journal files as part of their internal process(es), then it's a big trouble.

In such scenarios, where all posting journals are destined to a text file on a path identified specifically by a company ID or name, the GP Administrator must make sure that the field FILEXPNM (File Export Name) on table SY02200 (Posting Journal Destinations) must be properly updated before we post any test entires. Below is the simple UPDATE statement which would fix this:

UPDATE SY02200
SET FILEXPNM = REPLACE(FILEXPNM, '[LiveCompanyID/Name]', '[TestCompanyID/Name]')

Where [LiveCompanyID/Name] denotes the value which identifies your Live Company and [TestCompanyID/Name] denotes the value which identifies your Test Company.

VAIDY

To all Budding GP developers - Screen Resolution Does Matter

2012-01-24T15:53:00.001+04:00

This is very silly point, but quite a huge dampener when it comes to Customer satisfaction.

I had given a simple customization as a trial to a budding developer as part of an exercise. I received the chunk to test it out.

What I could see was a huge window containing almost 50-75 fields (including labels, several text boxes, etc.) with lot screen real estate being wasted between fields. Secondly, this window went out of my test machine's screen space. The only possibility for that, in my opinion, is the resolution of the developer's machine was way too higher than my test machine's screen resolution.

Always, keep in mind, that when you develop a customization on a computer with higher resolution than that of the customers', it's going to be an issue. Customer would have to scroll horizontally each time to enter or view data on each field. And trust me, that's very irritable than a bad and buggy customization itself.

Always, try to limit the window size that would fit inside a 1024 X 768 screen resolution (that's the lowest that I feel is still existing in this universe), so it would fit in almost all resolutions.

This possibly be a non-issue soon with technology being so advanced nowadays and customers are willing to shed out some bucks on higher resolution & wide screen monitors.

But you never know.

VAIDY

Support Debugging Tool (SDT) v11.0 Build 16 is Released

2012-01-09T15:03:00.001+04:00

We have a bundle of features and enhancements added to SDT and the new version v11.0 Build 16 is released.

David has a write up on this release with exhaustive details.

Sure this is going to be more useful than previous versions.

VAIDY

Welcome 2012...!

2012-01-01T16:01:00.000+04:00

My heartfelt wishes to entire GP Community... Happy, Prosperous, Successful & Peaceful 2012...!!!

Most part of 2011 was quite dull, especially the later period, due to various professional and personal commitments. I would like to change it this year and be active as much as possible.

Wishes again for a wonderful 2012.

VAIDY

SQL Tip: Find Table(s) Having A Particular Column

2011-11-30T15:13:00.001+04:00

This SQL query is my savior for a long time now. Thought I would just share it with all budding SQL developers.

Q: How to find the table(s) which contain a particular column which I know?
A: Below is the query that would do the trick.

SELECT name
FROM sys.objects
WHERE object_id IN
(
SELECT object_id
FROM sys.columns
WHERE name = [columnname] --Column which you would want to locate
)

This query will return all tables which contains the specific column. And this query also would save your time immensely.

VAIDY

Capturing Images from a Microsoft Word Document (.docx) - David

2011-11-22T22:06:00.001+04:00

That was awesome. Sheer awesome.

David shares with us about capturing images from a Microsoft Word Document (only .docx) file.

Honestly, I never even imagined that any .DOCX/.XLSX/.PPTX file is actually zip archived file in disguise.

Thank you so much, David. Another tip that's quite interesting and awesome.

VAIDY

Analytical Accounting Class Maintenance Error: This record has been created since your attempt to create it. Changes won't be saved.

2011-11-22T10:49:00.001+04:00

WARNING: This post explains a method which is carried out in SQL and also affects an active table record. Consultants / Developers / End Users, who are not aware of GP & SQL processes, MUST NOT carry out this without an experienced consultant's / developer's supervision or assistance.

This one's another nightmare. I have no idea about how this happened, but now I know how to rectify this without affecting any of the system's normal behavior.

When a user tried creating an Analytical Accounting Class, the following error message was thrown at and the record did not get saved:

Analytical Accounting Class Master table is AAG00201 in SQL Server. It is also aaAccountClassMstr in AA dictionary. When I queried this table, it did not give me any indication that something could be wrong there.

Upon taking a SQL Profiler (I trust SQL Profiling to my life), I found that the flow stops at a table DYNAMICS..AAG00102, which is (table AAG00102, database DYNAMICS) and technical name of this table is aaSyTableRow. When I queried this table, it was quite interesting. Below is a snapshot of the table records:

Logically, the table, DYNAMICS..AAG00102, stores the ID information for each type of record that is stored in Master tables. For instance, in our case, Account Class Master table is AAG00201. See the highlighted record in the above snapshot.

aaTableID: 201 (denotes Account Class Master table)
CMPANYID: 1 (denotes my Production Company ID)
aaRowID: 29 (denotes Last Class ID that was generated when I created Account Classes)

ISSUE: My last Account Class ID at the moment is 30. This is NOT the same as it is in my AA System Table Row (DYNAMICS..AAG00102) table. When the user tried creating the new AA Account Class, it took the aaRowID from AAG00102 table, which is 29, and that clashed with my Account Class Master table, since I already have one record with Class ID 29.

FIX: I realized that I must reset this aaRowID to the last generated Class ID, which I can get from Account Class Master table.

I took a backup of the table DYNAMICS..AAG00102 (SELECT * INTO ...) as a precautionary method. Then I executed the below query to reset it:

UPDATE DYNAMICS..AAG00102 --AA System Table Row Table
SET aaRowID = 30 --Last generated class ID in my case
WHERE aaTableID = 201 --Denotes Account Class Master table
AND CMPANYID = 1 --Denote my production company ID

Above query reset it to correct *Next Class ID*. User is now able to create new class IDs.

Issue is resolved, but how aaRowID on DYNAMICS..AAG00102 was not incremented when last Account Class ID got created, remains a mystery.

I am unable to recreate that scenario so far.

VAIDY

ERROR: A valid exchange rate could not be found. Choose Continue to open the Exchange Rate Entry window, where you can enter or select a valid date.

2011-11-17T10:49:00.001+04:00

The following was the message one of the users received when she tried entering a Receiving Entry.

The currency was GBP and there was indeed a valid exchange rate that's been uploaded on a daily basis. The rate validity duration is set to "Week". That means, I have a rate which is valid till 23-Nov-2011.

The user mentioned to me that when she uses a particular batch, this message is thrown up. If any other batch is used, it picks up a rate without any issues.

When I checked the batch, I found the reason behind the issue.

Posting date of that batch was in future. This user had created a batch with the last day of this month as posting date, for which I don't have a valid rate in the system. When I select this batch and then enter the currency, GP does not find a valid rate and throws above error message.

By default, the exchange rate for a transaction is taken from either the transaction date OR the batch posting date, if a batch is assigned before the currency is entered.

The user do not post the batch itself and always post individual transaction. Keeping this on mind, I had to recommend her in changing the posting date of that batch as first date of the month, so we always have a valid exchange rate for all currencies.

It's quite a simple concept, but is very VERY critical.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP Roadmap - GP "15" Added

2011-11-16T17:29:00.001+04:00

Mariano has just published the updated Microsoft Dynamics GP Roadmap on his blog, with GP "15" added to the exciting list of GP versions to come in future.

I am absolutely delighted to see Microsoft's commitment to this wonderful product.

VAIDY

Perils of Using of DEX_ROW_ID on Customization / Integration - David

2011-11-16T16:34:00.001+04:00

This one is certainly a nasty issue, if we are going to use DEX_ROW_ID value on customization or integration.

I have personally fallen into a trap by using DEX_ROW_ID on my customization. But now, it's all wisdom out of that bad experience.

Only time when I normally depend on a DEX_ROW_ID is to sort records to understand which record was entered last in the table. That itself may not be always correct. So we may have to add other logical fields that are relevant to a particular record.

For instance, if I have to list out transactions entered on a particular day and check in the order in which the records are created, I would use the Transaction Date and DEX_ROW_ID as SORT ORDER.

There are many other reasons, but restrict yourself to use DEX_ROW_ID only for selecting records and analyze it.

VAIDY

Using SQL to retrieve number of records in a table - David

2011-11-16T16:24:00.001+04:00

David gives an alternate SQL option for the simple COUNT(*) and explain how it improves the performance as against COUNT(*).

You may have to go thru' the comments as well; some comments discuss the post further.

VAIDY

YE 2011 Dynamics GP Update

2011-11-01T12:45:00.000+04:00

Over at Microsoft Dynamics GP Support and Services blog, Terry details the YE 2011 GP Update that's due to be released.

This update looks like not just a US Payroll YE Update. It also contain fixes on Inventory, Field Service, Extender, Receivables, eConnect, Manufacturing and Project Accounting.

So customers who are outside US region may also want to get updated with this release.

VAIDY

User Access Setup Error: GPS Error RevokeUserAudit: 58

2011-10-11T10:04:00.000+04:00

I faced this error message from the time I upgraded to GP2010 R2. The error message is thrown when we revoke access to a user on a company. Below is the exact sequence of error messages that I received:

Since I had not doing this frequently (it's maximum 3 users in 6 months) and also the purpose of revoking access was working without any issues, I did not consider this as a harmful message.

Yesterday, I had to revoke access to users for an existing company due to some maintenance. Minimum of 10 users and I started receiving this error message each time I select a user and revoke access. It's then I decided to check this out and clear it once for all.

I could get only one link with exact error message, which I found on our Community Forum. User Access Setup Error: GPS Error RevokeUserAudit: 58.

Let me explain what I did to get rid of this.

1. Check the second error message. It says it did not find the stored procedure *mxCallRevokeUserAudit*.

2. I checked whether this stored procedure is available on any other company that I had on my GP environment. I could not find one on any company.

3. I was intrigued by the name of this stored procedure since, it's not similar to any Microsoft Dynamics GP SQL object naming convention.

4. I then launched GP and opened Tables Resource Description (Microsoft Dynamics GP -> Tools -> Resource Descriptions -> Tables).

5. Since the message said something about *Audit*, I thought I would first check with *Audit Trails* module. To my surprise (and joy, of course), Physical Name of all tables started with *MX*.

6. I then concluded that the SQL Stored Procedure what I am looking at, is also of *Audit Trails* module.

Now I could not do much with that, since I could not find that stored procedure anywhere. I checked my GP licenses and it did not cover *Audit Trails* module at all.

When I upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics GP2010 R2, I had selected this module also for installation. Since this module is not covered under my license, it installed the dictionary but it did not create the SQL procedures (that's my assumption and I may be wrong).

The only option that was left; to remove this product from my environment (by removing DYNAMICS.SET file contents alone and not the dictionary itself).

This removed that now (in)famous error message.

VAIDY

Congrats MVPs - Mark & Siva

2011-10-10T15:15:00.001+04:00

Congratulations to these tremendously talented and amazing individuals, Mark Polino and Sivakumar Venkataraman, to get their MVP status renewed. Most deserved ones.

Congrats again to you both and wish you many more MVP renewals in future. Do doubt about that.

VAIDY

State of Online Accounting Industry - Q&A on Software Advice by Michael Koploy

2011-10-10T14:51:00.001+04:00

I was contacted by Mr. Michael Koploy, Software Advice, to have a look at his then recent article; State of Online Accounting Industry.

The importance of this article is that it gives an insight about Accounting Software on Cloud, from 3 of the leading Online Accounting Software solutions. 5 important questions and you are well informed by the answers. It's a great read and well informative.

I would like to share my views on this.

Advantages:

1. Cost - That'll be the driving point for any one who want to go online.
2. Less/Zero Maintenance - You don't have to worry about downtime or H/W maintenance on server or related resources.

Disadvantages:

1. Depends on providers. You can't just trust everyone and anyone who provide an online solution. There were some recent outages from industry's leading providers, such as Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
2. Since it's pay as you use, you have to limit your usage if you have to get some benefit out of. When I say that, I mean, I may not have one live environment and one test environment for the price of only one environment. If I insist to have, I may have to pay for that.
3. If I have to restore a backup due to a severe mistakes, I can't do it immediately. I don't even know whether my service provider maintains a backdated backup or not.
4. No Accounting Software is used AS IS, without a single customization(s). If I do require a customization, then my online accounting software should have an ability to import it and get updated with.
5. Whenever there is a major update to the parent product, I may or may not have a choice to decide on whether I actually want it or not. As always, a major upgrade also include additional cost depending on HOW major it is.
6. People may not feel like THEY ARE CONTROLLING THEIR DATA. I capitalized that, because, that's a huge question everyone would want to ask before adapting to the change.

In my humble opinion, everything else could be 100% online (Public Cloud), but Accounting Software should be a hybrid (Private Cloud). In that way, there will be a balance between cost, maintenance and others.

VAIDY

Using substring() with Text Fields - David

2011-09-17T10:23:00.001+04:00

Back from my vacation, several posts grabbed my interest as a developer. This post from David is one of them.

David explains how to resolve an issue that was found in Sivakumar's SDT (Support Debugging Tool) based solution. In a nutshell, the issue was with Text type fields and dexterity function substring().

Read it here; Quick Tip: Using substring() with a text field datatype.

VAIDY

Taking A Much Needed Break

2011-08-18T11:00:00.000+04:00

As you all know by now, I have not been active on my blogging due to a very stringent schedule for past 5 months. And I had been burning my energy for past 2 years without a halt.

Now, I am extremely happy and relieved to have got a much needed break from work and will be going on a vacation for a month from now. I am excited enough to get in touch with my native country and my people. There is long schedule for the next one month; no escape from that. But that's going to be ALL PERSONAL. Meeting people, visiting places, attending functions. I badly need it.

Does not mean that I will not be keeping touch with Dynamics GP. :-) I will certainly be reading all posts from fellow bloggers and will be updating myself with happenings.

Once I am back from my vacation, I assure I would be a hungry soul and be posting on my blog as frequently as it had never been.

VAIDY

Dynamics GP Developer Insights - Series of Posts on Developing For Dynamics GP

2011-08-16T01:24:00.002+04:00

Brian Roney and his team at Microsoft (Dynamics GP Technical Division) is going to post series of articles which will enlighten us on what's been going on with Dynamics GP development.

Series titled as Dynamics GP Developer Insights.

GP developers across world, stay tuned for a brilliant series.

VAIDY

Best Practice for Dexterity Version & Build Numbers - David

2011-08-09T14:25:00.001+04:00

David's post, Best Practice for Dexterity Version and Build Numbers, explains a very important concept in chunk creation process.

We must version our products which is very important and also ethical. Small-time Dex developers do not understand this process when they deliver a simple customization.

I sincerely believe that this post from David would enlighten people about this.

VAIDY

Replicate Multi-Currency & Exchange Table Access Information From Existing Company

2011-08-08T23:11:00.000+04:00

I had to create a new company with Functional Currency being same like existing production. Quite obviously, all Exchange Table IDs are going to be exactly same like in existing production company.

There were around 25 currencies that we have setup. Under normal circumstances, I have to open Multi-Currency Access (Tools -> Setup -> System -> Multi-Currency Access) and select each currency & respective exchange table ID and activate it. 25 times 3 mouse-clicks.

I then decided to tread SQL way. Following is the script which did that 75 clicks in less than a second:

/* MC60100 - Multi-Currency Access Table */
INSERT INTO DYNAMICS..MC60100 (CMPANYID, CURNCYID, INACTIVE)
SELECT [new company id], CURNCYID, 0
FROM DYNAMICS..MC60100
WHERE CMPANYID = [existing company id]

/* MC60200 - Exchange Table ID Access Table */

INSERT INTO DYNAMICS..MC60200 (CMPANYID, EXGTBLID, INACTIVE)

SELECT [new company id], EXGTBLID, 0

FROM DYNAMICS..MC60200

WHERE CMPANYID = [existing company id]

To know the company ID for each of your companies, you can query the table SY01500. Below is that query:

SELECT CMPANYID, INTERID, CMPNYNAM

FROM DYNAMICS..SY01500

ORDER BY CMPANYID

Happy querying.

VAIDY

SQL Server Services - Do Not Set To "Automatic (Delayed Start)"

2011-08-07T22:24:00.002+04:00

I am not sure anyone else would have faced this issue. But I did couple of days back that almost killed my system.

I formatted my system and built it from scratch, that obviously also included SQL Server. I always set SQL Server services (SQL Server Database Service, SQL Server Agent, SQL Server Reporting Service, etc.) to Automatic. This means, when OS gets booted, all these services will also get started before we see Desktop.

I read a KB article on MSFT site, which explained each of Application Startup options; Automatic, Automatic (Delayed Start), Manual, Disabled.

Difference between Automatic and Automatic (Delayed Start) is that Automatic option lets the concerned service to get started immediately after OS boots. Automatic (Delayed Start) option lets all services of OS to get started first and then after a brief delay starts the concerned service.

After reading above, I decided to set SQL Server Services startup option to Automatic (Delayed Start). And that proved disastrous.

Restarting the system never progressed beyond STARTING WINDOWS. And when I switched off system forcibly and rebooted it, system asked me to either BOOT SYSTEM NORMALLY or RUN SYSTEM STARTUP FAILURE DIAGNOSTIC.

Selecting either of above yielded nothing. I had no other option than to reinstall OS.

Moral of this bitter story: Never set Automatic (Delayed Start) as Startup option to all SQL Server Services. If you don't want these services to be started immediately when OS boots, then set it up to Manual.

VAIDY

"Illegal Address Field" Error while accessing a Global

2011-07-31T15:14:00.002+04:00

This one's interesting and quite straightforward too.

I had to create a new Global field in my customization. Instead of creating a new field, I added an existing GP field ('Customer Number') and wrote my code to assign value and retrieve value as required.

I created the chunk and when my code was executed at run-time, I received the following error message:

At the first look, it's all correct. I have referred to a Global field which exists pretty much in my dictionary, otherwise it would not have even got compiled in first place.

So what else would be the reason? It's plain and simple. I created a "new Global field from an existing GP field". Which means, when I created my chunk, I should have added this resource explicitly to my dictionary, using Transfer Resources Dex Utility option. OR I should have first created a new field itself and then add that to Globals.

Since I didn't do above, compiler did not find that resource at all in my dictionary or GP's dictionary (Dynamics.dic) and then threw this error message.

I created a new field itself in my custom dictionary and added that to Globals. Things were perfectly alright.

Sometimes, focusing more on brain draining issues may actually drain your brain. Well, I am serious. Otherwise, how in your opinion I missed this above simple concept?

Update: David has posted a quick tip on why this issue occurs and what is the best possible solution to this.

VAIDY

Fixed Assets Suffix

2011-07-11T16:28:00.002+04:00

Fixed Assets Suffix is quite confusing, at least that's what I was thinking about.

According to GP:

When you enter an asset ID, you also must enter a suffix for it. The asset ID is used throughout Fixed Asset Management to identify assets; the suffix is used to identify components of assets. The default suffix is 1. You can accept the default suffix or enter or select a different one.

For someone who do not understand what exactly it is, I would like to simplify.

Consider the following scenario:

I am purchasing 10 laptops of identical configuration for my staff. Following will be my asset record:

Asset ID: LAPTOPS
Suffix: 1
Acquisition Cost: $3000 ($300 per laptop)
Quantity: 10
Location: My Office
Physical Location: IT Stores
Custodian: IT Manager or IT Department (whichever way you would like to perceive)

Now, my IT department allocates one laptop to an employee belonging to Finance department. I must now pass an Asset Transfer for one laptop from this asset ID. Once I transfer one laptop, following will be my new & updated asset records:

-- For all other 9 laptops that are not allocated yet
Asset ID: LAPTOPS
Suffix: 1

Acquisition Cost: $2700 ($300 per laptop)
Quantity: 9
Location: My Office
Physical Location: IT Stores
Custodian: IT Manager or IT Department

-- For 1 laptop that got allocated to an finance employee
Asset ID: LAPTOPS
Suffix: 2
Acquisition Cost: $300
Quantity: 1
Location: My Office
Physical Location: Finance Department
Custodian: Employee to whom this laptop is allocated to

Asset Suffix will be incremented as and when you do a partial transfer. It is not advisable to use Asset Suffix for non-identical assets. For instance, if you purchase 10 laptops but non-identical configurations, it's not standard practice to create one asset ID with quantity 10.

Hope this helps.

VAIDY

Smartlist Favorite Visibility

2011-07-06T16:01:00.000+04:00

Most of the queries that I am receiving from my users regarding Smartlist is like below:

1. Why my Smartlist Favorite is being shown to all?
2. I created a Smartlist Favorite in one company. It is not showing up in other company. Why?

Answer is quite simple and straightforward. They had not selected an appropriate *Visible To* option.

Smartlist favorites can be created with either one of available four different visibility options.

1. System
2. Company
3. User Class
4. User ID

Shown below is how it looks like:

1. System: Visible to all users across all companies.
2. Company: Visible to all users, but visible only on that particular company.
3. User Class: Visible to all users under the user class in which the user who creates this favorite is, but visible across all companies.
4. User ID: Visible only to this user, but across all companies.

Related Post: Changing a smartlist favorite's visibility thru' SQL

VAIDY

Congratulating MVPs

2011-07-03T11:06:00.000+04:00

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate MVPs from our community:

1. Mariano Gomez (GP) - 4th consecutive year
2. Jivtesh Singh (GP) - Debut MVP
3. Dave Berry (CRM) - 2nd consecutive year

And all those who got awarded this time for their tremendous achievements and contributions.

I wish all many more success and accolades to come thru'.

VAIDY

"Unknown error 0 - 800AC351 occurred saving the project file" - Error & Solution

2011-07-02T23:48:00.000+04:00

My last post discussed about an error message faced by users once GP2010 R2 upgrade was over. This post gives you a solution for that.

The following error message was faced by users when they log off from GP:

Initially I thought it was occurring only on "sa" login. But couple of users today reported the same error when they logged off from GP.

When I analyzed this further, I realized that users who have access to Field Service processes in GP alone were getting this error message. Those who do not have access never reported this issue at all.

That made me to think about next step in solving this. No one has reported this issue yet, thus leaving me in the lurch.

I finally found a solution for this menace.

SOLUTION:

1. I logged off all users from GP environment, as it is Terminal Server environment for us.
2. Launched GP and opened Visual Basic editor.
3. Opened Field Service VBA project.
4. Did some harmless edits (like adding some comments, etc.).
5. Opened the "References" wizard.
6. Unselected all references and selected it back.
7. Compiled the entire project to check whether I am getting any error message.
8. Saved VBA project.
9. Logged off from GP.

Surprisingly (but expectedly) the error message never appeared again.

Those who are looking for some solution for this menace, here it is for you.

VAIDY

Unknown error 0 - 800AC351 occurred saving the project file - Error Message

2011-07-02T18:16:00.007+04:00

Has anyone faced this error message?

I recently found this error message after upgrading to GP2010 R2, though it doesn't have any impact towards other users' sessions and even the customizations.

This happens only for an "sa" login. Very strange error message.

UPDATE 1: This is happening for all users who have access to Field Service module. If you see the above message, the error is thrown by Field Service VBA project.

UPDATE 2: Issue is resolved. Please read my next post to know better about this message.

VAIDY

Don't update "Batch Status" thru' SQL when users are logged on

2011-07-01T01:34:00.002+04:00

A user complained about a batch not being able to be posted. The error message is something like this: This batch is currently receiving transactions.

Normally when a user complains about something like this, a GP Administrator or Consultant's immediate step is to check what the *Batch Status* field holds in SY00500 (Batch Header) table. The legend for this field says:

0 – Available - BATCH_AVAILABLE
1 - Marked to Post - BATCH_POSTING
2 - Marked to Delete - BATCH_DELETING
3 - Marked to Receive - BATCH_RECEIVING
4 - BATCH_DONE_POSTING
5 - BATCH_PRINTING
6 - BATCH_UPDATING
7 - BATCH_POSTING_INCOMPLETE
8 - BATCH_PRINTING_INCOMPLETE
9 - BATCH_UPDATING_INCOMPLETE
10- BATCH_RECURRING_INCOMPLETE
11 - BATCH_POSTED_WITH_ERROR

And quite apparently, in my case, it was 3. i.e. BATCH_RECEIVING. It's very easy to update this field back to ZERO that denotes BATCH_AVAILABLE, so user can post it.

I could have also done the same thing. But I did not. I just wanted to make sure that this batch indeed did not receive any transactions. How do we identify whether a batch is receiving transactions or not? That I will address in another post.

This one is intended to caution a Consultant or Administrator NOT to update *Batch Status* thru' SQL for any batch which is marked as BATCH_RECEIVING when users are logged on.

It would break a valid transaction being saved in this particular batch. When a batch receive transactions, GP locks this batch from getting posted only by updating the *Batch Status* field with BATCH_RECEIVING. By changing that from back end, we are risking batch getting corrupted.

Tell the user that he/she has to wait. And wait till users log off from GP. And then check whether the *Batch Status* becomes BATCH_AVAILABLE. In case it is not, then you update it thru' SQL.

It is worth waiting for sometime than trying to clear a mess. I take this opportunity to insist again: SQL is not ALWAYS an appropriate approach for issues that we face in GP.

UPDATE: David has sent me a link, which quite obviously I missed mentioning here. How did I miss this? We do have a way to release stuck batches without logging off users.

VAIDY

Resizing left pane in Smartlist - Frank Hamelly

2011-07-01T00:48:00.000+04:00

Frank, thank you very much for getting this from Microsoft Team. We all are grateful, as I know the pain in scrolling horizontally for each Smartlist item.

Alright, for all GP users and consultants out there. You all better download this from Frank's site. This is going to be most likable thing.

Here it is: Resize the left pane in Smartlist.

VAIDY

Support Debugging Tool (SDT) Build 15 Released

2011-06-30T14:38:00.000+04:00

Support Debugging Tool (SDT) Build 15 has been released with crucial list of fixes, tons of features and enhancements. By seeing the list I could understand that plenty of efforts would have gone in to get this build up.

I recommend everyone to update your environment with this new build to avail it to it's fullest.

More about this release: Support Debugging Tool Build 15 Released.

VAIDY

Access data from other companies from Dexterity

2011-06-27T09:26:00.000+04:00

David walks us thru' how we can access data from other companies from a Dexterity code.

I have never written a code like this in my 8 years of experience. That said, I have not met any requirements that challenged me to write such code. With this, David has eased my (our) efforts in finding how it can be done.

Thanks David.

VAIDY

Sales Quote Line Item Cancellation

2011-06-26T17:10:00.001+04:00

I recently took a training for users on GP SOP. Training was a success. There were couple of users who are already into GP for quite sometime now (4 years precisely).

Interestingly, when I was explaining about Quantity Quoted Vs. Quantity To Order Vs. Quantity Cancelled, one user said they had never used Quantity Cancelled at all to record any line item cancellation. That was quite a surprise to me.

Consider this scenario: A customer enquires about couple of products and we prepare a quote and send it to them. Out of two products, they confirm only one and we are to transfer this quote with only product. There are three ways we can adapt:

1. Delete that unwanted product line on the quote and transfer this quote to an order (Bad Approach).
2. Transfer the quote in totality and from Sales Order delete that unwanted product line. (Bad Approach).

Above two approaches do not give us the fair picture on quote conversion. Considering the fact that GP SOP do not maintain a revision history of each document, it's not advisable to follow above steps.

3. Cancel the quantity, by removing "Quantity To Order" and entering "Quantity Cancelled". Transferring this quote will not transfer unwanted product to Sales Order.

By doing this you are retaining originally quoted products list and transferring only those which your customer wanted, also for your self-assessment on how you have performed in winning the quotations. Most recommended approach.

Of course, we would be forced to add/remove product lines from Sales Order for some reasons. But at least, quote conversion would give us facts at the time when we won the quote for that particular customer.

UPDATE: Siva has written a post which expands my post into different modules and how we can maintain records for better and painless auditing.

VAIDY

Check Links for Analytical Accounting in Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 & 2010

2011-06-24T23:23:00.004+04:00

Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog has got a post that cautions us about two important things:

1. Don't run Check Links process for AA at this time on versions GP10 and GP2010.

2 Apply latest Service Packs or Hotfixes for Microsoft Dynamics GP (versions 10 and 2010) to get AA related latest fixes.

More on this here: Information about Check Links for Analytical Accounting in Microsoft Dynamics GP.

VAIDY

Auto Assign Serial / Lot Numbers on SOP Document

2011-06-19T17:53:00.002+04:00

When do we select this option in SOP Setup? Is there any valid requirement that would arise so we setup SOP that on a Sales Document, Serial/Lot numbers automatically get assigned?

I am talking about *Auto-Assign Serial Numbers* and *Auto-Assign Lot Numbers* options in Sales Order Processing Options Setup window.

As a normal practice, I would always keep it unselected. I would like to make sure that I handpick items with specific serial numbers so I won't let the system pick recent ones first and retain old ones.

Simply speaking, I would always want to sell old items first to make sure that I don't leave it in my stock as unsold. Like a FIFO.

There are prominently two queries that arise on my mind:

1. How GP automatically takes Serial/Lot numbers for a particular item, if we select the above options? Does it follow FIFO approach or does it randomly pick some serial/lot number?

2. Is there a practical scenario where we require these options selected?

I would be grateful to receive your inputs as comments.

Thanks in advance.

VAIDY

Dynamics GP Insights - From BKD Technologies

2011-06-19T10:30:00.002+04:00

A new blog out there launched by BKD Technologies which is going to be a dedicated GP blog.

Check out: BKD GP Team Blog - Dynamics GP Insights.

VAIDY

Stuck Receivables Transaction due to Incorrect Amounts

2011-06-16T16:22:00.057+04:00

Yesterday, I received a support request from one of our users who tried posting a batch full of receivables transactions and received an error message for one transaction whose distribution amounts did not match document amount.

It was suppose to be a simple task to release this transaction for edit, but due to some reason this transaction got stuck in between. It did not come back to it's original batch and quite obviously it did not get posted either due to that error.

Following are the steps involved in releasing that transaction:

CHECKS

1. Check whether the transaction is still in RM10301 (RM Sales Work) table.

In my case it was still in RM10301 table.

2. Check the fields BACHNUMB (Batch Number) and BCHSOURC (Batch Source) in RM10301 table for that transaction.

In my case, BACHNUMB contained the USER ID who tried posting the batch; BCHSOURC contained XRM_Sales instead of RM_Sales, since it was in the middle of posting process and got stuck.

3. Check whether a batch with that user's USER ID is created in SY00500 (Batch Header) table.

In my case, there was indeed a batch with that User ID. Because of which, this user could not open Receivables Transaction Entry window and was receiving the (in)famous error message "A previous transaction level posting... ... ...".

CORRECTION STEPS

1. I first created a Receivables batch (I named it as RM-RECOV).

2. Through SQL Server Management Studio, I updated RM10301 table fields BACHNUMB and BCHSOURC as follows:

BACHNUMB = 'RM-RECOV'
BCHSOURC = 'RM_Sales'

3. Deleted the batch [USER ID] from SY00500 table, to remove user's transaction posting session lock.

4. Tried opening that transaction on Receivables Transaction Entry form. Since the batch number RM-RECOV was updated through backend, it did not obviously update batch information. Due to which, I still could not open this transaction.

5. As a final step, I ran Receivables Reconcile Batch Information (Tools => Utilities => Sales => Reconcile). This step updated the amount from that erroneous transaction on to batch RM-RECOV.

After above steps, user was then able to reopen that transaction and edit it.

Bottomline: SQL approach is not always the only option for consultants to clear such issues. We need to perform some crucial application level tasks that would compliment SQL methods.

VAIDY

Analytical Accounting - Budget Vs. Actual

2011-06-16T10:40:00.000+04:00

Siva has added one more to his awesome list of AA posts. Check out his SQL View to analyze AA Budget Vs. Actuals.

I am sure this is going to delight people across world who use AA and are dying to see some kind of ways to enhance their AA analysis capabilities.

VAIDY

Using Script Debugger in Runtime Mode

2011-06-16T10:21:00.000+04:00

David explains us about using Script Debugger in Runtime mode.

There won't be any performance issues obviously as stated by him, but there are some crucial points that we need to think about before enabling it.

Enabling it on live environment is like inviting disaster. I remember I used to do that, but only after all users log off from GP. That particular customer, they don't work 24/7 which gave me the confidence to enable it on live and disable it back once my troubleshooting was over. I would have been in very deep trouble easily had I not remembered disabling that after my task.

Even a single Dex debug message box would be more than enough to drive a user crazy.

VAIDY

Sales Document Copy Feature

2011-06-15T12:47:00.033+04:00

Consider this scenario: You have a sales quotation with nearly 100 line items prepared for a customer/prospect. Another customer/prospect inquires about same set of items. Are you going to enter that 100 line items again on the new quotation? If your answer is YES, then you are seriously wasting time.

Sales Document Copy feature is a boon for those who deal with sales documents with more than 25 line items (or even 10 that matters) on a daily basis. Below is the Sales Document Copy window:

This is not a new feature and is existing for long time now. So I am not going to explain anything new obviously.

I just thought, for those who have not used this feature or not knowing about it till now, it's a great one to be availed.

Just make sure that you read all options out there and select only relevant options for you. For instance, you may not want to *Copy Markdowns* from source document to target document. You may have given a discount to previous customer which you may not want to expose it to new customer.

Trust me, this feature saves immense data entry time and eases out sales document preparation.

VAIDY

Analytical Accounting YE Close - AAG30000 Primary Key Violation Error

2011-06-13T15:04:00.069+04:00

UPDATE (06/14/2011): A comment from Kumar clears this entire thing. There is a KB article which explains how to update Intercompany ID on a Test Company once we restore Live Data. Link to that KB article: Set up a test company that has a copy of live company data.

Our Finance Team and I decided to first do perform YE Close on our test company first before we make it to Live, to anticipate any possible issues and also learn this entire process as this our first YE close in GP2010.

You must by now anticipated what I had done to simulate Live Company. YES, I created a Test Company on same SQL Server (Mark, trust me, your post came after this exercise) and restored live company data on to Test Company.

This we normally do for any transaction level exercise that users would want to perform for their own sake.

The process started and after a good enough time of about 5 hours, it threw an error message, which said roughly Primary Key violation of key PKAAG30000 on table AAG30000.

Upon digging more and keeping a SQL Server profiler, I met this silly yet critical reason: AA was trying to create an entry on table AAG30000 in Live Company database. Why? I have no clue why it would ever happen.

My only guess is that every Journal Entry in GL table will have Live Company Database ID (such as TWO that denotes sample company). AA might have thought that this one is an Intercompany transaction and it requires to create an AA entry in Live Company for that portion of JRN that was processed in Test Company. The only field in AAG30000 that's considered as Primary Key is aaGLHdrID. My live company would have gone past the next aaGLHdrID which is in Test Company (a back dated restoration) by the time I ran YE close on my Test Company.

I am yet to prove my own theory above, but I strongly doubt so.

Upon suspicion, I decided to create a TEST SERVER (Mark, your post had come exactly at that point of time). I just believe Mark Polino's Weekly Dynamics article was so timely and I couldn't agree for more.

After configuring a Test Server environment, I restored DYNAMICS and Company DB, pointed my GP to this test server and ran YE close as if I was running it on my production server.

Good god, YE Close got over without any AA error. I then had no other option than to believe that Test Company with Live Data do not augur well for exercises such as YE close and is in fact quite risky.

Addendum: With GP 12 Multi-Tenant architecture, we don't have to worry about this, as we can easily setup a TEST SERVER along with LIVE SERVER in the same physical server.

VAIDY

Account Segments Vs. Analytical Accounting - My Thoughts

2011-06-13T10:35:00.031+04:00

This post from Mohammed R. Daoud sums it all about Account Segments Vs. Analytical Accounting.

I just wanted to share my thoughts:

Account Segments are simply real. You are going to have separate accounts for specific entity and that means you must be setting these accounts up on several other places in GP other than only Posting Accounts setup. For instance, if you are going to have accounts for each employees of your organization and you track expenses on them, then you got to have each account setup against each employee explicitly and setup GP such that it takes accounts from employee directly instead of Posting Accounts.

Analytical Accounting is purely logical. You don't really have separate account for each entity that you wish to. Setting up AA dimensions and codes are one time.

Actual complexity lies in assigning AA codes on a particular transaction. Worst case, if you have an apportionment across different AA codes, you have manually apportion it in Analytical Accounting Transaction Entry form. Data Entry is very complex at times with AA. Without proper AA setup, your data will logically scattered and any analysis on this data would be a menace for you to understand.

You can minimize the data entry time by using Analytical Accounting ALIAS, but that again depends on case to case basis. You cannot always depend on AA ALIAS for all kinds of transactions.

Simply speaking, AA considerably reduces your COA but let you toil at times entering apportionment within a transaction. You gain on one side, you have to experience some pain on the other side.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP 12: Multi-Tenant Architecture

2011-06-12T09:59:00.018+04:00

Though it's too late for me to write about this post by Mariano, it's always Better Late Than Never for me.

I am not going to discuss this post here. I am just creating a pointer to this article here, since it's worth to go to Mariano's site and read it there.

The post, Microsoft Dynamics GP "12" Named System Database Architecture, explains us what this new feature is and how it is going to be designed. Benefits and challenges are discussed as well.

Bottomline: With this new architecture, customers and consultants are going to be delighted. GP 12 is going to be just terrific. There are challenges as pointed out in the last paragraph but will be met with ease by those dependable brains.

Thank you so much Mariano for sharing this first hand information.

VAIDY

Complete list of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 SSRS Reports

2011-06-12T09:50:00.010+04:00

Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP has listed out all SSRS reports for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2.

The list categorizes reports by module and indicates whether it's a normal report or KPI based report. This would be the best document to make us aware of and convince our customers that GP does have such expansive list of standard reports and KPIs.

VAIDY

Microsoft KB Articles - Is it really confidential?

2011-06-06T11:39:00.000+04:00

I am well aware this post may kick up some controversies. But I honestly do not mind facing that.

Recently one of my contacts asked me about a GP process and asked my help in getting any KB articles related to that process. I said I would share the KB article number with him but since Microsoft says that it is all *confidential*, I cannot distribute the article directly or publish it directly on my website. I also mentioned that he could instead refer to that KB article number and look it up from Microsoft PartnerSource / CustomerSource. After all, I was under the impression that he's also a Consultant and is working with a Partner, so ideally he has got access to PartnerSource.

After a week, I was quite shocked to know that he later *downloaded* the same KB article from some other website (I do not want to name this website here, as it is also a known Microsoft Dynamics Partner) as a PDF document. And he criticized me for giving him a lame reason for not sharing the article myself. Worst thing, he even accused me of being selfish in keeping information only with me. OK, that's quite understandable from his side. What I don't understand now is the term CONFIDENTIAL on all these KB articles.

Microsoft is keep these articles with a confidentiality tag and has given access ONLY via CustomerSource or PartnerSource. But in reality there are many people out there who clearly violates this *confidentiality* part and has published these articles open.

It's quite simple. I just don't want to look dumb in front of people when I say "These KB articles are confidential and are NOT supposedly to be distributed openly". Well I am frankly serious. You feel like you are the most dumbest guy in this world by saying that. Come on, you have these articles openly sprayed out there on several websites (some of them are genuine Microsoft Dynamics Partners) and all you gotta do is to search and download it.

That brings on my mind several questions for Microsoft:

1. What's the scope of confidentiality for all these KB articles?
2. On what basis this *confidentiality* is defined and when it is considered violated?
3. What is the real point in keeping these articles as confidential, if I can download these articles from anywhere anytime anyhow?
4. Why don't you just take that *confidential* tag out and keep it open for all, irrespective of whether they have CustomerSource / PartnerSource access?

VAIDY

Apture Highlights - A Cool New way of Searching within a Website

2011-06-04T20:44:00.000+04:00

A cool new addition to my website. APTURE HIGHLIGHTS. It works like this:

Just select any word on my blog posts and automatically a small icon that says "LEARN MORE" would appear. Just highlighting on that icon would do wonders as shown below:

Quite an amazing way of searching about something without leaving the actual website. I would recommend this to all our fellow bloggers to try this and get benefitted.

I am so impressed with this and it's going to be fun to all my blog readers.

VAIDY

Stored Procedure as Data Source in PowerPivot - Issue & Solution

2011-05-26T15:23:00.000+04:00

I am working on a PowerPivot based analysis design and my data source is a SQL Stored Procedure which does the following:

1. Inserts set of records from one DB into a Table Variable.
2. Inserts similarly structured set of records from another DB into the same Table Variable.
3. Finally retrieves records by SELECT...GROUP BY... statement based on necessary criteria.

The above is to ensure that I don't end up troubleshooing Temp table issues or data redundancy or performance issues for that matter.

PowerPivot understands the above stored procedure very clearly and it also validates the execute query without any issues. It even shows the result set in preview. But it throws the following error message after all the steps involved in setting up SP as data source:

The above error message is quite less informative. I initially thought Stored Procedures are not properly supported by PowerPivot (how silly I am...!!!). But I just gave myself some more time to search forums as usual. After all, I spent almost a day in getting that Stored Procedure completed with 100% accurate results.

The following is the SIMPLE FIX to that menacing issue:

Yeah that's it. SET NOCOUNT ON is that simple fix. Now my PowerPivot understands this SP and works merrily.

The Post I got this answer from: PowerPivot and Stored Procedure as a SQL Source.

The answer is given by Microsoft Product Team and that was conveyed by Lisa Liu CSS, a Microsoft Moderator.

The reason for why we ought to set NOCOUNT ON is given in the same post by Devarajan KM. The reason is: Set NOCOUNT to ON so that you get only one result set arrived after execution.

VAIDY

Analytical Accounting Menu Master Table (SY07110) Records Multiplying - Bug & Workaround

2011-05-23T00:42:00.000+04:00

This one is another SY07110 (syMenuMstr) table issue.

For the past 1 week, users were complaining about GP slow down as soon as they select a company and click OK. The delay was anywere between 30 seconds to 1 minute, which is quite huge, considering the fact that GP is suppose to get initiated within 3-5 seconds maximum.

We have two different launch files; those users who are not suppose access AA and those who access AA. This delay was reported by only AA users. And that eased my debugging task out.

Troubleshooting started by taking a SQL Profile exactly at the time of selecting a company and clicking on OK. After painfully long time, GP got initiated with all Menu and other startup objects. I stopped SQL Profiler and noticed the following piece of SQL query being executed for as many as 143 times, which in total resulted in 4730 records:

The above query is same except some of the fields. But all these SQL SELECTs where targeting the same product; AA (CmdDictID = 3180).

Quite shockingly, I had 4730 records in SY07110 for Dictionary ID 3180, i.e. AA.

So how to solve this? Simple. I took a backup of this table (just for precaution) and executed the following SQL query:

DELETE DYNAMICS..SY07110

WHERE CmdDictID = 3180

It removed all 4730 records for AA module. I then launched GP. Bingo. It's getting initiated in as long as 3 seconds.

The story does not end here. For the first time SY07110 table gets inserted with 33 records for AA module. As and when a user launch GP, with AA module, it inserts exactly ONE additional row onto SY07110 table.

Now this certainly looks like a bug.

So what's the solution? Time being, I have to write a scheduled SQL job which will execute the above DELETE query on a weekly or daily basis.

I am not sure who else is currently facing this issue. If any of you people have this issue, then at least you have a workaround.

I am planning to raise a Support Ticket with MSFT team if no one out there gets back to me with a solution and make sure that this is not a bug as such.

VAIDY

Common Support Debugging Tool (SDT) Myths - Fact or Fiction?

2011-05-18T15:06:00.000+04:00

I am too late in reading this post from David (how bad I am?). But better late than never, right?

The post lists out some of the common myths circling around the best admin tool GP has ever seen and solves the mysteries. Read it here: Common Support Debugging Tool (SDT) Myths - Fact or Fiction?

Watch out for some cool myths pointed out at the end (original idea behind those is from our own Mark Polino).

David, you got to be an Alien for certain. Not just this tool, but also your futuristic steps that we witnessed not too far in the past.

VAIDY

I Made It To Doug Pitcher's 100 Most Famous, Awesome and Totally Influential Dynamics People for 2011

2011-05-17T10:14:00.001+04:00

Doug Pitcher made my day. Literally. Trust me, there was no exchange of chocolates or those secret video things (as mentioned by him somewhere in his post).

Ok. Let me clarify. This one's NOT THE OFFICIAL list that was recently released.

But I did make it to Doug's 100 most famous, awesome and totally influential Dynamics people for 2011. I am in 29th place.

Doug, that's really an inspiration for me to get myself up and run for that real list. Sometime in future, I would see myself listed. But miles to go before I sleep.

Thanks a ton for considering me in your first list itself.

VAIDY

2011 Top 100 Most Influential Dynamics People

2011-05-17T10:14:00.000+04:00

Here's the list of those who made it to Top 100.

2011 Top 100 Most Influential Dynamics People

And here are some posts related to this, making waves across.

Mohammed R. Daoud - The Most Influential People in Microsoft Dynamics For 2011
David Musgrave - Microsoft Dynamics Top 100 Most Influential People for 2011 published
Mark Polino - 2011 100 Most Influential in Microsoft Dynamics
Mark Polino - Top 100 - Who's missing?
Mariano Gomez - Microsoft Dynamics Most Influential People: Popularity Vs Influence
Doug Pitcher - Doug Pitcher's 100 most famous, awesome and totally influential Dynamics people for 2011

Join me in congratulating all those who made it and wishing all who didn't make it sometime in future.

VAIDY

Required Fields - Additional Tip

2011-05-17T09:37:00.001+04:00

This one is a simple tip, yet very useful one. Frank reminds us on where and what would be the problem if we don't see required fields as we wished to.

Now, this one is for developers. If it's a customization that we have developed and on that if users are not able to see required fields as they wish, then you know what the problem is: Set Required property to TRUE without fail for all fields that are suppose to be REQUIRED and make sure that you have linked the prompts (Link Prompt action) for those fields correctly.

VAIDY

Dexterity Script Profile to solve Performance Issue - David

2011-05-16T17:43:00.000+04:00

Waiting for 30 seconds after simply clicking a checkbox is indeed a nasty thing.

David explains us on how to solve Performance Issue using Dexterity Script Profile by taking above issue, reported by some customer.

It's a detailed post with step by step explanations on how he could solve it.

Must read for all consultants and developers.

VAIDY

SQL Server 2008 SP2 & User Account Control (UAC) Issue

2011-05-16T11:20:00.001+04:00

Looks like I am in for another SQL level issue. Once I install Service Pack 2 for SQL Server 2008, I receive following error whenever I want to access SSRS Home Page:

The above message happens in spite me being having access both to IIS and also to SQL.

Two ways you can suppress this error message:

1. When you run Internet Explorer with "Run as Administrator" mode, then this error do not occur.

2. When you disable Windows UAC, which is not recommended AT ALL.

Strange.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 - Reporting (By David Duncan & Christopher Liley)

2011-05-15T11:07:00.000+04:00

I just added one more treasure on my kit, in the form of a new book called Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 - Reporting, written by David Duncan (I.B.I.S.) and Christopher Liley (I.B.I.S.), published by Packt Publishing.

I have started reading this book from today and hopefully in a week, I will be able to grab hold of the vast set of chapters.

To give you an overview of what is there inside this book: The book covers everything "reporting" in GP. From Report Writer reports to Smartlist to Excel Reports to SSRS to Analysis Cubes to Management Reporter. Every single thing about GP Reporting.

However, the book does not talk about two things:

1. Crystal Reports and the way you can access crystal reports from GP quite understandably because Crystal Reports is NOT supported out of the box by Dynamics GP. It can be used with the help some 3rd Party solutions, such as GP Report Viewer (from Flexible Solutions) or even a simple code piece written by any Consultant who knows GP, Crystal Reporting and .NET coding.

2. FRx, as this is already been replaced by Management Reporter. There is of course a section in this book where the difference between FRx and Management Reporter is explained.

I shall be writing a review of this book in a week's time (hopefully). Just could not wait to tell you all that this book really going to be a great treasure for those who wants to understand how effectively GP data can be visualized and analyzed.

Until next post.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP "12" Web Client Architecture Series - Mariano

2011-05-15T10:53:00.000+04:00

Mariano walks us thru' Microsoft Dynamics GP "12" Web Client Architecture in his new series of posts.

Two posts are already up and there for us to read. One (which is also the final one) is shortly coming. Needless to say, all 3 are very informative.

Those who have not visited these posts, don't miss it.

VAIDY

Packt Publishing Celebrates Dynamics Month - May 2011

2011-05-09T11:41:00.000+04:00

Packt Publishing, the publishers who published some of the famous books such as Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook (authored by Mark Polino) and Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Implementation (authored by Victoria Yudin), has now come with a great idea: Celebrate May 2011 as Dynamics Month.

This comes after they have added one more Dynamics GP book, which is Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Reporting.

And of course, it's not just a celebration. It's about some really interesting exclusive offers when you buy these books. Trust me, there are some great books out there for your grabbing. Those who have not availed previous opportunities in reading these books that are treasured and revered by many, this IS time. Go for it.

VAIDY

Getting Month Numbers between two dates in T-SQL

2011-05-09T11:21:00.001+04:00

I literally had to spend around an hour to crack this code, with some little help from my best geek friend, GOOGLE, of course.

Issue is this: I wanted to get Month in Numbers (Jan = 1, Feb = 2, etc.) that exist between two dates. For instance, if my date range is 1-Jan-2011 to 31-Mar-2011, then I should find and retrieve the months Jan, Feb and Mar as 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

After much much toiling and reading some stuff online, the following is what I got for myself:

-----

;WITH Numbers (Number) AS
(SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY OBJECT_ID) FROM sys.all_objects)
SELECT MONTH(DATEADD(MONTH, Number - 1, '2011-01-01')) Month_Number
FROM Numbers
WHERE Number - 1 <= DATEDIFF(MONTH, '2011-01-01', '2011-03-31')

-----

IMPORTANT: Make sure that you have more than 12 records in sys.all_objects table, which by default SHOULD have.

I hope this code piece is useful for some who have got similar requirement.

VAIDY

What is Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and how it is calculated?

2011-04-29T22:01:00.000+04:00

The concept that I learned in past 2 days is this: Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and the way you calculate it.

Joshua Burnett has posted an article on this way back in March 2009. Read it here: The DSO Calculation (Days Sales Outstanding).

It's quite simple and yet very deep in concept. I simply loved to read and learn. I am sure it would be useful to some people out there, trying to understand what DSO is all about.

VAIDY

T-SQL "UNION" Vs "TABLE variable"

2011-04-29T18:52:00.000+04:00

Very recently I learned this. And what a change it has made to all of my SQL based projects! I am sure people who are hardcore SQL programmers would already know this. Thought of sharing this for those who would want to know something interesting.

I had a SQL Stored Procedure that is about to retrieve records of a same table from two different databases. The usual approach was something like below:

SELECT [column_name_1], [column_name_2], [column_name_3], ...
FROM [db_name_1]..[table_name]

UNION

SELECT [column_name_1], [column_name_2], [column_name_3], ...
FROM [db_name_2]..[table_name]

This was working till these tables contained records less than 30000 rows. And it started taking significantly unacceptable time (like 10-15 seconds). I then thought of creating a temporary table and dump records from one DB then from other. There is a potential issue in that, in the form MULTI-USER environment. When two different users invoke this stored procedure at the same time, this temporary table must cater for both. I was not really sure about how I can address this.

Then came this idea of using TABLE VARIABLE. It's like a Structure in C++. This is how I modified my stored procedure:

DECLARE @TABLE_NAME TABLE
(
Column_1 DATATYPE,
Column_2 DATATYPE,
...
)

INSERT INTO @TABLE_NAME (Column_1, Column_2, ...)
SELECT [column_name_1], [column_name_2], ...
FROM [db_name_1]..[table_name]

INSERT INTO @TABLE_NAME (Column_1, Column_2, ...)
SELECT [column_name_1], [column_name_2], ...
FROM [db_name_2]..[table_name]

SELECT Column_1, Column_2, ...
FROM @TABLE_NAME

After this, the program started taking around 2-5 seconds with more than 50000 records to handle. Not to forget, this program contained several grouping and calculations.

I don't have to worry about delay and also TEMP TABLE issues that are potentially disastrous. I am still not sure how this is handled in terms of memory allocation. What happens after this program completes it's process, is also a factor that I am yet to figure out.

But, so far, I have found this as one of the best methods in recent times.

VAIDY

Dexterity "Reject Script" Command - David

2011-04-28T00:30:00.000+04:00

David's recent post on reject script command in Dexterity has got some really crucial information about it's scope and usage.

After 7+ years of Dexterity experience, I did learn something which I had not in the past. MUST READ for any Dex developer.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP2010 R2 - SSRS BI maxRequestLength Error

2011-04-26T14:24:00.000+04:00

Another one, luckily Mohammad R. Daoud has got an answer to this issue.

Once GP2010 R2 installation is over and GP Utilities start configuring system, almost the last setup is SRS Reports Deployment wizard. It's a welcome change from previous versions, as this one is more explanatory and clear.

Once it starts deploying reports, the following error message is thrown:

The message is self-explanatory on what needs to be done to get rid of this message. To understand how to find WEB.CONFIG file, read Mohammad R. Daoud's post; Dynamics GP 2010 R2 Business Intelligence Installation Error maxRequestLength.

Thanks Daoud. It was really helpful.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 - SRS Reports Deployment Error

2011-04-26T11:22:00.000+04:00

Everyone knows that GP2010 R2 got released well before it's announced date (1st May 2011). And I was no exception in starting off with it.

I installed GP 2010 R2 on my laptop and it went thru' merrily. And started off with deploying SSRS and Excel Reports. Below is the error message I am getting:

Reason: I am running SQL Server 2008 R2 Express. For some reason, SRS deployment do not recognize SQL Server Express editions and it requires either Standard or Enterprise.

So people, those who would wish to deploy SRS on SQL Server 2008 R2 Express, please do not.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client - David shares more information

2011-04-13T09:47:00.000+04:00

Amazing it was when I first read two articles from Matt and Mariano about Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client.

Now, David gives us some really exciting information and snapshots of this new web client. And needless to say, I'm so darn excited to see this on live. It's going to be fun.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client - Teaser Articles

2011-04-12T22:07:00.001+04:00

Matt Landis shows us a great glimpse of Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client. Awesome to see GP's future.

Following image is from Mariano's blog article, Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011: Day 2 Morning:

The web client seems to be getting developed using Microsoft Silverlight. There are much more news and announcements to come from Convergence 2011.

Trust me, it's gonna be fun in an year from now with Microsoft Dynamics GP.

VAIDY

CRM 2011 Update Rollup 1 Released

2011-04-11T10:19:00.000+04:00

CRM 2011 Update Rollup 1 is released. List of all bugs that are fixed can be read on this KB Article #2466084.

Looks like there are some really critical bugs that have got fixed. Those who are in CRM2011 RTM, it's time for you to sit up and take notice of this rollup.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP Support And Services Blog

2011-04-07T11:44:00.001+04:00

I am not going to introduce this blog, because that part is taken care by the first post in this new blog from Microsoft.

Microsoft Dynamics GP Support And Services Blog, is from Microsoft Support Team catering various support and services topics of Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Start following this blog for more critical information. Stay tuned.

VAIDY

Failed To Create Object - OLE Error due to Adobe Reader X

2011-04-07T11:03:00.000+04:00

Something seems to be amiss with Adobe Reader X and Dynamics GP. Yesterday we upgraded Adobe Reader to version X on our Terminal Server, where our Dynamics GP application resides.

Till then, users were able to attach PDF files to GP records using OLE Object Container. But post upgrade, all users are facing the following error message whenever they try to attach a PDF file or view an existing PDF attachment:

Looks like I am not the only one to face this issue. There is a community forum post which raises the same question. Link to that post: Errors when opening or creating PDF OLE Attachments in Dynamics GP notes.

Not sure how to resolve this at the moment, other than retaining older version of Adobe Reader.

VAIDY

Changing a Smartlist Favorite's visibility thru' SQL

2011-04-06T01:00:00.000+04:00

Warning: Method shared in this post is NOT supported or advised by Microsoft team. This article explains a SQL method and therefore the intended audience is a GP and SQL Consultant / Developer / Administrator.

Couple of Smartlist Favorites created by an end user, but created it with a wrong visibility: Visible by User ID. What this user should have selected is: Visible by System. Since these favorites are suppose to be accessed by all Users across all Companies.

This end user is currently out and even as SA I could not access the Smartlist Favorites. Easiest and direct approach is to reset this user's password, modify the smartlist favorite and notify him of the new password. Once this user is back, he/she would change the password.

But, is there any other simplest method for someone like me? A GP & SQL Administrator? Of course, I do.

I can modify a Smartlist Favorite using a simple SQL UPDATE statement, targeting the Smartlist Favorite tables ASIEXP81 and ASIEXP86. Display Name for these tables are Smartlist Favorite Master and Smartlist Favorite Columns Master respectively. Both tables are in DYNAMICS database.

Below are SQL statements that I used to change the visibility:

UPDATE DYNAMICS..ASIEXP81 SET ASI_Favorite_Save_Level = 1, USERID = '', CMPANYID = 0 WHERE ASI_Favorite_Name = [Favorite_Name_Given_By_That_End_User]

UPDATE DYNAMICS..ASIEXP86 SET ASI_Favorite_Save_Level = 1, USERID = '', CMPANYID = 0 WHERE ASI_Favorite_Name = [Favorite_Name_Given_By_That_End_User]

In above statements, field ASI_Favorite_Save_Level is the Visibility Type that we set up when we create a Smartlist. Value 1 denotes the first option in that Drop Down, which is SYSTEM. Since I have to set visibility to all users across all companies, all I have to do is to set USERID as an Empty String and Company ID as ZERO.

This will change a particular Smartlist Favorite's visibility as required.

Simple, isn't it?

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP "12" To Have For Support Mac Computers

2011-04-01T18:16:00.001+04:00

** Excellent news from David. Microsoft Dynamics GP "12" to have support for Mac Computers.

Exciting to say the least. And I am dying to see GP "12" feature additions and enhancements.

VAIDY

* This was an APRIL FOOL DAY's post from our beloved David Musgrave. Alright I did not know that in first place. I was damn so excited that it didn't strike my mind.

David, you caught me there.

The Future of Microsoft Dynamics GP Technologies - Mariano

2011-03-31T14:05:00.000+04:00

Mariano highlights 5 coolest technologies for Microsoft Dynamics GP in coming years to watch out for. I can't agree for more, since I am already seeing 3 of the highlighted 5 currently.

Just to list you those technologies:

1. Microsoft Lync
2. Microsoft Silverlight
3. Microsoft Visual Studio Lightswitch
4. Cloud Computing
5. Microsoft Dexterity (yeah you did hear it right)

And to know why the above are cool, check out his post: The Future of Microsoft Dynamics GP: 5 Cool Technologies You Should Watch For (and Learn) in the Coming Years

VAIDY

Last Sale By a Customer & Item - Victoria's SQL View

2011-03-30T10:26:00.000+04:00

Victoria's latest SQL view retrieves the last sale by customer and an item. With little tweaks here and there, this SQL view will serve us immensely to show various information pertaining to Customer and/or Item sales.

Thanks Victoria for this view. This has come especially when I am working on some dashboards and reporting. It's surely going to help me deriving some important reports.

VAIDY

Disenchanted with Support? - Kuntz Consulting

2011-03-22T22:08:00.000+04:00

How many times have to faced such incidents? And how many times have you given such incidents to your customers?

This post, Disenchanted with Supprt? I understand your pain, from Kuntz Consulting blog reminds us of the badness of NOT attending to your customers or at least a courteous response.

Good one.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 - Business Portal External Lists

2011-03-22T21:15:00.000+04:00

Looks like an excellent feature addition. So far, we had to rely on Extranet Services for any edit from Business Portal. This Business Portal External Lists feature now fills that gap. We have to wait and see how much we can do using this External Lists.

Errol introduces this feature to us on recent Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP post.
VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP is very much here to Stay

2011-03-21T21:41:00.000+04:00

Today, I had another opportunity to attend one of Microsoft's high rated event, Microsoft Dynamics GP Customer Event. I have been fortunate to attend such events off late and I sincerely hope I will be in future as well.

What's the highlight of this event? Elcome International LLC, with whom I have been proudly associated with for the past 1.7 years, presented Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Customer Testimony. Mr.Jimmy Grewal, Executive Director, Elcome International LLC, briefed about Elcome's GP experience and future plans.

Is that all? Nope. There is one more information that I would like to share with you all from this event. Specifically, for those who predict a doomsday for GP and it's future, with all due respect, I would like to assure you that GP IS HERE TO STAY AND MICROSOFT IS IN NO MOOD TO DISCONTINUE WITH GP. This was mentioned by none other than Microsoft MBS Product Manager (Gulf), Mr.Ahmed Salama.

There is an interesting statistic which I would like to share and emphasis on my point: Microsoft Dynamics is having 1500 customers in GCC region excluding Egypt, North Africa and Saudi Arabia. Out of these 1500 customers, 40% is for Microsoft Dynamics GP. That calculates to 600 customers. These 600 customers include some of the high profile customers including Elcome International LLC. If we consider overall customers count across this vast globe, Microsoft has more reasons to support this product than abandoning it.

Even us, human beings, have limited lifetime. We still enjoy our life and we live it to it's fullest, don't we? Like that, I love this wonderful product called Dynamics GP and I AM IN NO DARN MOOD TO LEAVE THIS PRODUCT.

VAIDY

GP 2010 R2 - Substitute Fields for Email

2011-03-20T09:00:00.000+04:00

This is going to be another interesting feature. Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP announces another feature added to GP 2010 R2, which is Substitute Fields for Email.

Of course, this is going to be a boon to End Users, but let me also add that this would not be possible till someone knows about how to browse thru' and learn GP Fields and the way it is designed. Which puts them in front of a whole new training session.

The very concept of Resource Descriptions in GP is to educate Users to learn about GP Tables, Forms, Windows & Fields, so that they can do some on-spot Reporting or Windows modification. Having said that, not all End-Users are going to be interested in this learning experience, especially when they are suppose to concentrate on their day-to-day tasks.

Nonetheless, this is going to be one heck of a feature to look at.

VAIDY

Issues with GP 2010 SP1 DYNAMICS.DIC - David Musgrave

2011-03-16T18:27:00.000+04:00

David informs us about a very strange but critical issue that's been faced by developers when using GP 2010 SP1 DYNAMICS.DIC dictionary.

This is really critical to be informed about, so all Dex Developers please make sure that you read this post from David, as it also mentions some workaround till a proper fix is released.

Read it here: Unknown identifier 'DYNAMICS' or other Constant with GP 2010 SP1.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics Top Influential Person 2011 - Vote Now

2011-03-15T11:04:00.000+04:00

This is the best time for you to stand by the person whom you think is the most influential person in Microsoft Dynamics. This year's poll is running on. Visit this site and cast your vote now.

Link: 2011 TOP 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL MICROSOFT DYNAMICS PEOPLE.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dexterity 2010 R2 - Enhancements

2011-03-15T10:48:00.000+04:00

David sums up Dexterity 2010 R2 enhancements and gives us a glimpse of how it's going to be, referring to Feature of the Day posts from Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Pretty exciting to learn these new features, obviously.

VAIDY

Dexterity 2010 R2 Supports Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS)

2011-03-11T18:32:00.000+04:00

That's a GREAT GREAT news from Microsoft about Dexterity. Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog informs us that Dexterity 2010 (v11) R2 will support Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS).

What this means? Dexterity supported only Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (fondly called VSS), which has been used under discontinued support from Microsoft. Those who wants to streamline Dexterity Development on their organizations, found it very difficult to use something which is not supported by Microsoft but Dexterity.

Microsoft introduced Team Foundation Server (TFS) which is advanced and very easy to use and maintain. With Dexterity 2010 R2 release, the biggest gap in Dexterity Development history is now filled.

VAIDY

List of Attractive BI Technologies from Microsoft

2011-03-09T11:29:00.000+04:00

This was my second session today at Tech-Ed 2011 Middle East. Very interesting and demos were extremely useful to understand all the BI Technologies listed.

Now what exactly are we talking about? The session was all about listing the most promising (some are already existing) BI Tools running on top of either OR all of the following: SQL Server 2008 R2, SharePoint 2010, Silverlight.

The following are the list:

SharePoint Excel Services
PowerPivot Galleries
PerformancePoint (Dashboards, Scorecards & KPIs)
PowerPivot for SharePoint
Pivot Tool - based on Silverlight
Bing Data Connector - To show geospatial data
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services (Report Builder)

Each of them will take it's own time to allow user to understand the basics. I let my readers to BING or GOOGLE these terminologies and learn it.

But, the above list is what Microsoft concentrates more on currently to let users create the most attractive BI for them.

Enjoy.

VAIDY

Top 10 Challenges on Delivering BI to the Masses at Microsoft

2011-03-09T10:38:00.000+04:00

This was my first session today at Tech-Ed 2011 Middle East. The session titled "Delivering BI to the masses at Microsoft using Consolidated Business Intelligence (CBI) - Top 10 Challenges".

The approach taken by Microsoft is fairly unusual.

Leave the BI Design to End-Users (or designated Power End Users) and simultaneously build EDW (Enterprise Data Warehouse). Once the design & EDW is ready, use following tools to achieve this CBI Model:

Microsoft Office, SharePoint 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2, Silverlight Technology.

CBI basically means one Single Enterprise Report Catalog. It's then delivered as a SharePoint based BI Portal. Microsoft IT hosts BI with Reporting Services, PPS, etc, BUT Power End Users design and publish Reports on to this Portal. There are certain restrictions in terms of how many users being allowed to publish these reports for their own Team/Department/Division.

Top 10 Questions which Microsoft asked themselves before CBI (and of course everyone of us to ask ourselves as well):

1. IT Cost too much to implement this BI Catalog. What to do first? EDW or BI Reporting Catalog?
1.1. Allow End Users to publish all their ideas on a Not-So-Clean EDW Data.
1.2. Clean EDW and keep EDW ready.

2. How do you get the First Sponsorship?
2.1. Push and Pull Approach
2.2. Create a Cool Demo

3. How do you architect with big Holistic Enterprise Vision?

4. How do we implement seamless security across layers?

5. Who should create BI and show we actually give control of the report catalog to business and enable self-serviced BI?

6. Can we implement ZERO footprint deployment for masses using SharePoint?

7. What about regional deployment and scalability?

8. What front end tools to BI publishers use and how do you integrate various tools?

9. How do you evangelize and achieve enterprise adoption?

10. How do you achieve high Customer Satisfaction?
10.1. Customer Empathy
10.2. Maintain Customer Relationship
10.3. Improve, Improve & just Improve

Until next post on Tech-Ed from me.

VAIDY

Project Crescent - Beyond SSRS Reporting Tool

2011-03-08T17:25:00.000+04:00

I must be following SQL Server Reporting Services Team Blog for loads of information and all that "What's Coming Up?".

Attending an evening session in Tech-Ed 2011 Middle East, and this is what I got to know which had been in fact announced some months back.

For those, who do not know about this (like me till this moment), this is the information. Project Crescent is a project currently on progress inside MSFT, which targets every kind of user, be it IT Developer or Corporate Power User or a No-Nonsense End-User) to visualize their Business Data; however they want it to be.

More information here: A Glimpse at Project Crescent.

VAIDY

Office 365 & SharePoint Online - TechEd 2011 Session

2011-03-08T16:06:00.000+04:00

Just attended the session, Office 365 & SharePoint Online, in TechEd 2011 Middle East. And it's very exciting and interesting.

It's a service offered by Microsoft for anyone who wants a Hassle-Free and Pay-As-You-Use experience. Happened to see a live demo of Office 365 and it's terrific to say the least.

MSFT may not be the first one to work on this, but they have certainly got an edge since it's built on their flagship Product, Microsoft Office, which is used by millions of people out there.

Very impressive. More information here: Microsoft Office 365 - Get In The Cloud.

VAIDY

Microsoft Tech-Ed Middle East 2011 - Starts Tomorrow

2011-03-08T00:02:00.000+04:00

This is my first Tech-Ed. And I am damn so excited about it, to say the least. So many terrific sessions, diversified topics across all Microsoft's most happening Platforms and Technologies. And it's all going to happen from tomorrow (well, it's already started in fact from today, but that was Preliminary Sessions).

I will be attending these sessions from tomorrow 8th March 2011 to 10th March 2011.

For more information on this event, check this site: Microsoft Tech-Ed 2011 Middle East.

VAIDY

Mark's Advice for Convergence Speakers

2011-03-07T20:11:00.001+04:00

I am nowhere near being even an Amateur Speaker. Haven't presented anything in life so far. Not going to do that in near future either.

But still this article, Advice For Convergence Speakers, from Mark made more sense to me. I am going to keep this article stored in my brain. You never know; I may also present something in future to some audience and this post is going to help me tons.

Thank you very much Mark. As usual, awesome piece of advice for us.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 - 50+ New SSRS Reports

2011-03-06T09:52:00.000+04:00

Yeah, we heard it right. We are going to have 50+ new SSRS Reports.

Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP excites us with this post: Feature of the Day: New SQL Reporting Services Reports.

I am more interested in knowing Field Service Reports, since that's where GP lacks a bit in terms of realtime reporting. I sincerely hope R2 fills that gap to most extent. Of course, requirements from different customers would always be different.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 - Report Builder Integration

2011-03-06T09:20:00.000+04:00

The latest Feature of the Day from Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP gives us a glimpse of what is going to be a terrific feature for all customers.

All Homepage Metrics dashboards are SSRS reports on the background. And I used to wonder how I could customize that to cater for Customer's requirements. The new feature, Report Builder Integration, is going to be a boon to all such consultants (and of course for all customers) to view Metrics Dashboards accordingly to their own likes and dislikes.

For more information, read the post; Feature of the Day: Report Builder Integration.

VAIDY

Dynamics GP 2010 R2 - Features List is Out

2011-03-04T23:21:00.000+04:00

Mariano, in yet another terrific post shows us the first report on list of Dynamics GP 2010 R2 Features.

Awesome list of features being added and I have already started preparing my own plan of actions once it's out.

VAIDY

Difference between Saving & Compiling a Dexterity Code

2011-03-04T14:37:00.000+04:00

I was quite taken back by this very difference of Saving a Code and Compiling a Code in Dexterity.

Alright, let me explain.

I was demonstrating a customization my team yesterday and I had to change some code to show a Window on a Button Click event. The only code I had to change in that event script was to add the following statement:

open window [Window_Name];

And even a Non-Dexterity developer would tell us that the above statement do not contain any error, unless the window [Window_Name] do not exist at all. But in my case it did.

I SAVED the code and closed the Project. Created a Chunk and deployed it. To my confusion, the code piece that I added never worked. I was confused to say the least. Why not? I did add the code and created the chunk.

That's where I made a mistake. I SAVED the code instead of COMPILING it. Only when we compile a Dexterity Code, it gets effective. Saving the code won't affect the business logic and it would not have reflected in the chunk on that portion.

So, SAVING a code is totally different from COMPILING a code.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP Roadmap

2011-03-04T14:08:00.000+04:00

Very promising and sounds great to see Microsoft Dynamics GP's roadmap. Check it out for yourself from Mariano's post: The Evolution of the Microsoft Dynamics GP Roadmap

VAIDY

Online Payment Services module for GP - Reason Behind It

2011-03-03T11:33:00.000+04:00

This one from Mariano leads us to this post, Online Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP: Cool? Flashy? It Depends. Tells us precisely why Microsoft came up with this module for GP Customers at this stage.

There are some interesting points, you may not want to miss.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference - Opening Session excerpts by Mariano

2011-03-03T11:22:00.000+04:00

Always great to hear this: Microsoft Dynamics GP is here to stay. I am so very much in love with this product. And the way it has evolved with latest technologies, is quite awesome.

Mariano gives us all, the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference Opening Session Excerpts in his article: Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 - Day 1 Opening Session.

And stay tuned to his blog for more insight on GP and emerging trend.

VAIDY

Microsoft Competing with SAP & Oracle's Mid-Market Solutions - Guy Weismantel talks to Software Advise

2011-03-02T11:33:00.001+04:00

UPDATE: For relevance, link attached to Software Advise website is now changed to their Manufacturing Industry Page, since ERP discussions on SA site are grouped under this page.

This video from Software Advise sounded interesting. Microsoft Director of ERP Marketing Mr.Guy Weismantel, gives us a brief idea about Microsoft's position and why they are confident in competing with SAP and Oracle's solutions.

Watch it here: Guy Weismantel on Microsoft's Competency with SAP & Oracle's Mid-Market Solutions.

It's not just this video, Software Advice seems to be coming up with a series of such interesting information. People who are interested in knowing current happenings in ERP may want to visit this site quite often to know more.

Good job, Software Advice. Really appreciated in keeping us updated with some good information.

VAIDY

Back to Mainstream Blogging..

2011-03-01T15:40:00.000+04:00

Alright, it's been more than a month since I actually touched my blog. Quite a long time from my own standard. But there were some valid reasons behind it.

One such reason is: I am now working on Business Intelligence with SSRS. Been awesome so far and learned so much from that experience. Still going on strongly and learning more and more. Will be sharing that in coming days.

Now that I am back, I have to first fill gap of around 350+ posts that got posted from our Blogosphere. That's quite too much for me to cover. This hits me so hard that next time I won't ever take a sabbatical of this long.

VAIDY

Send To Email - Issue Explained by Janakiram MP

2011-01-21T19:00:00.000+04:00

This issue is being currently faced by users in my company as well. And I got the same response from MSFT.

Janakiram MP explains us why "Send To Email" feature is not working with Outlook 2010. Our environment is as follows:

1. Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit.
2. Office 2010 64 Bit.
3. Microsoft Dynamics GP2010 SP1.

Anyone facing this issue with above configuration may just want to confirm that it's not possible at all with 64 Bit Office 2010.

VAIDY

Victoria Yudin's Book - Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Implementation - My Humble Views

2011-01-20T10:12:00.000+04:00

To Victoria:

1. Congrats Victoria for coming up with such a treasure. It's your sheer excellence written all over this book.
2. Thanks so much for sharing your abundant experience in GP.
3. All the best for a great year 2011; for this book to be fast selling one among Dynamics GP books, for this book to be on all Consultants' hands and for much more books from you to us.

What's special about this Book?

This book stands out from other "How to implement ... blah blah" books on several factors:

1. Content - It does not dive into each and every trivial step involved in a TYPICAL implementation. Instead, it takes you thru' some of the unimagined concepts including; GP Application Structure, SQL Server interaction with GP Application, GP Application Technologies, et al.

Very importantly; Recommendations on how to form your Implementation Team (Customers & Implementors), Planning Infrastructure for GP Environment, Studying Business Requirements practically, et al.

2. Structuring of Content - What's the use of a book having a great content, but lack in the flow of it? This book teaches many out there on how to structure your thoughts on a book.

This book practically walks us thru' a GP Implementation. It starts with telling us What's GP 2010 Application is all about and ends with Training & Add-On Tools for GP 2010; without forgetting to take us thru' Integration Manager for Initial GP Data Integration. NOPE, it does not teach us how to use Integration Manager to the detail of each and every Field Mapping involved. But it gives you ample knowledge in what you must expect with respect to Basic & Necessary Data Integration in GP2010.

By the time you finish reading Appendices, you would feel like you have personally implemented GP on a Customer's site. No exaggeration when I meant it, absolutely.

3. Victoria's Experience - I bought this book for just one single reason: Victoria's Experience. It's just not mere luck or coincidence of her grabbing hold of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for a record 7th Straight year.

It takes immense efforts to write a book, which must make sense to appropriate audience. It takes time, energy, thoughts, efforts and almost everything that you possess. This in addition to what you MUST do as part of your day to day job. And pulling off such a book, is great. Simply great.

4. Audience of this Book - This book is intended to anyone (I insist, ANYONE) who wants to sincerely implement Dynamics GP 2010. All we have to possess is some SQL Server knowledge to understand the Application Interaction and some Accounting Basics. Even if you are a newbie to Dynamics GP 2010, you can proudly announce the world that you have learned GP 2010 Implementation, after sincerely reading this book.

If I am an experienced Consultant / Implementor, and I feel like Ahh come on, why do I need a book? I have already done more than 10 realtime implementations, then trust me, I do have something in this book to learn. And I won't complain after (reading it).

Where to get this Book?

Get yourself this book from Packt Publications, link: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Implementation - By Victoria Yudin.

Note:

Most importantly, remember to thank Victoria for sharing her experience and expertise with us. This book surely is a treasure for all of us.

VAIDY

OFF TOPIC: A Pilot's Humanity

2011-01-16T10:23:00.000+04:00

I am very moved today after reading this news. First, a tragic incident of a 3 year old kid being murdered brutally. Second, a Pilot's humanity that drove him to postpone his flight's take off by almost 15 minutes to make sure that the Grandfather of the murdered kid did not miss the flight.

Trust me, my eyes are moist this very moment. I thought I would share this story with all out there.

Read the full article here: http://www.elliott.org/blog/southwest-airlines-pilot-holds-plane-for-murder-victims-family.

VAIDY

Quality Customization Vs. On Time Customization

2011-01-15T10:58:00.002+04:00

This one would take every one by surprise and would never fetch the right answer. The reason because IT DEPENDS.

Mark, first shared a funny yet thought provoking Flow Diagram; How to write a good code? Janakiram MP extended his share of thoughts about it in his recent post, GP Customizations-Documentation Critical.

The question still remains unanswered: Which one is important; a Quality Customization or an On Time Customization?

I cannot answer this query either. I have developed tons of GP Customizations in the past 7+ years. I cannot say that ALL those customizations were Quality Customizations. I cannot say ALL those customizations were On Time Customizations either.

Some were developed keeping in mind that Customer(s) wanted it real quick to solve a nagging problem. Once I was free from that development, I had found several customizations require tweaks and corrections to meet quality. And I had in fact delivered the same customer(s) with a fix or enhanced product.

Equal amount of Customizations were developed with utmost quality and almost 75% of those Customizations Developments were generously allowed by respective Customer(s) to grow on its own, instead of pressing for a early completion. There was a reason behind it as well. These product developments were under Product Billing and not Time & Material Billing. Only very few customers understood the necessity of having a Quality Customization in the first place and let it developed on its own time.

Now, why Documentation is considered as a burden instead of a Development Requirement? Try dodging the following questions:

1. How often have you seen a Project Planning that involved Documentation as a separate phase?
2. How many Partners have a dedicated team called Documentation Team?
3. How often have you seen a Partner understanding it's Consultants' request of additional time to complete their Consultancy being documented?
4. How often have you seen a Consultant / Developer / QA Executive getting 2-3 days of break between their Projects?
5. How often have you seen a Project Planning that excluded weekends from it's Project Schedule?

Some questions above may stir up some controversies. But if you think from a general perspective, you would understand that it's mere stress and helplessness that almost all Consultants/Developers do not get to do their Documentation.

For Developers/Consultants:

1. For God's sake, understand that Documentation is going to help you in future for any Project.

2. Unless you have a record of "What, Why, How" for a Customization, you would find it difficult to address any issue in future.

3. Try to convince your Project Manger / Program Manager that you require some additional time outside of your Development / Consultancy hours. It's difficult to do that, but it's very important.

For Partners:

1. If you consider your Consultants' time is very important in handling Customers' issues and not for Documentation, then construct a dedicated Documentation Team, that will do the job.

2. If you consider your Consultants' must do their Documentation, and no separate team is going to be your option, then for your sake, allow your Consultants to take some extra hours outside Project to complete it.

3. Include Documentation (High Level Design, Low Level Design, Requirements Analysis, Customization Definition, etc.) as a separate phase and insist your Customers that it is necessary.

4. Do not press your Consultants to complete Documentation within their Consultation Hours. It will hamper their consultation/development. You are unnecessarily stressing them out.

5. Give them 2-3 days break before each new project. I know it's not practical always, but this will help Consultants/Developers to regain their energy for that new challenge.

6. Convince your Customer that Documentation is going to be a separate phase and you cannot compromise on that. Only flexibility that you can have is: When this phase is going to be executed. Till we deliver a product, there is always going to be change in requirement or methodology or underlying components.

I am sure, I have stir up some more arguments or discussions by sharing my opinions. :-) But I consider it's worth stirring up.

VAIDY

Congrats Victoria - 7 Years of MVP Excellence

2011-01-02T11:55:00.000+04:00

Extremely happy about this news from Victoria. She's an inspiration in many ways and this is another one.
Victoria has been awarded MVP for the 7th successful year.

Join me to wish her for this achievement and a great year 2011.

VAIDY