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GPUG Users and Partner Summit

September is beautiful in Chicago. It's cool enough to feel fall coming but not freezing yet. And it's a beautiful time to visit as part of the GPUG Summit. The GPUG Summit moves to the midwest this year, September 14-18 near beautiful Chicago. A new feature this year is a partner only conference at the beginning. Partners need an outlet to share and learn and GPUG is working to provide that outlet with the intent to expand the partner conference next year.

The GPUG conference is very affordable and provides a great Dynamics GP learning opportunity. Make sure that you check it out.

Posted by Mark 7/08/2009 01:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP SP4 Info

The eOne Dynamics Blog has info on a fix coming in SP4 for times when the mouse stops working in GP 10. We're still hoping for a permanent fix for an issue where VBA and modal dialogues destroy tabbing. That one was fun.

Posted by Mark 7/08/2009 12:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Calculate the Number of Days a Vendor Check Takes to Clear

Mariano has another new post up on calculating the number of days it takes a check to clear. Just one clarification, even if you don't reconcile the bank statement daily, you can set the cleared date for each transaction by clicking the blue arrow next to Payment or Deposit in Bank Reconciliation. It's definitely not efficient but it does work if you really want to track the exact date that transactions cleared the bank and you don't want to reconcile daily. I've yet to meet anyone who want the information that badly.

Posted by Mark 7/08/2009 11:00:00 AM 1 comments Links to this post  

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Dynanmics GP DB Maintenance Utility

Mariano Gomez has a nice post up on the Microsoft Dynamics GP Database Maintenance Utility and using it to recreate functions, stored procedurs, triggers and views.

Posted by Mark 7/08/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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How Advanced is Your Organization With Dynamics GP?

My new article is up as the featured article at MSDynamicsWorld.com. Make sure to head over there and take the quiz to find out how advanced your organization is with Dynamics GP.

Posted by Mark 7/08/2009 09:30:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Sage's Largest Partner Closes the Books for Good

My last post on competition was back in March so I don't feel bad highlighting this. According to ChannelWeb, MIS Group, Sage's top business partner for the last two years has suddenly closed it's doors due to credit problems leaving it's Sage customers scrambling. Ouch! Dwight Specht has highlighted what resellers need to do to tighten the belt in this economy and it looks like MIS got caught in the credit crunch. It's a tough spot to be in so I'll avoid any gloating or snide comments. I've worked for companies near death and looked over the brink. It's never fun. Personally, I'm thrilled to be busy, billable and happy with the health of the company I work for.

[Hat Tip to Matthew Landis for this]

Posted by Mark 7/08/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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New White Paper on Extender

Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP points us to a new whitepaper on Extender. I'm afraid that we're going to have to agree to disagree on Extender. Go ahead and start the hate mail.

Extender demos really well. I've never seen clients so excited about an add on. It addresses a common pain point, simple modifications. It's easy to use and good number of partners hate it. Not because it takes away customization revenue, it really doesn't. An awful lot of clients come back for customizations after butchering their data with Extender so really, partners are getting paid twice. The most common problem is that companies really need something else like Project Accounting or Field Server but don't want to admit it so they hack together something with Extender only to find out that it doesn't meet their needs. At one large client "use Extender" has become the running joke for how not solve an issue. They make the joke, not us.

What doesn't come out in the demo:

1) The data doesn't move between modules. If user add notes or features via an Extender window in a Quote in Sales Order Processing those items don't transfer forward to an Order or and Invoice and they don't transfer backward to Back Order or Return.

2) Reporting is a giant pain to get right because of the way Extender stores the data.

3) If you delete an Extender window, it deletes all the underlying data. Yeah, it's a potential audit problem in addition to a data problem.

One of my issues with the whitepaper is the "Try it, it's easy" mentality. It's too easy to try it, enter a bunch of a crucial information, decide you'd really like a better design, delete the window, poof! all that data is gone. Insert explative here.

I like the idea of Extender but it's still to easy for users to hurt themselves with it.



Posted by Mark 7/07/2009 08:53:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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FastPath Security for Dynamics GP - What it Can and Can't Do

I recently completed phase 1 of a large Dynamics GP Project Accounting implementation. One of the complicating factors was that the client chose to introduce a rebuilt security model at the same time. This meant that we had to deal with new functionality and new security issues at the same time. The biggest hurdle was realizing that the SA user's security had been significantly locked down.

The client uses FastPath’s Configurator for security setup, Configurator AD -SSO for Active Directory based sign on and Audit Trail for security audits. There was some confusion about what FastPath’s security does and doesn’t do so I thought that I would clarify some of those points in this blog post.

Configurator – FastPath’s Configurator lets companies setup GP security. It provides an interface to setup security outside of Dynamics GP. This means that a security administrator can setup security without needing a GP login. The interface is also a lot nicer than GP’s interface and it support security settings import and export. The key thing to understand is that Configurator sets GP security. Configurator can’t do anything with GP security that can’t be done from inside the interface. So if there is a security problem, it’s still a setting in GP security. It’s  a security setup problem, not a FastPath vs. GP security problem.

Configurator AD - SSO – Configurator AD connects GP users to Active Directory allowing an AD security administrator to assign AD users to roles inside of GP. It doesn’t provide options to change the tasks in the roles only to assign users to roles. Configurator AD - SSO also provides options for Active Directory based single sign on for Dynamics GP, which frankly, is just wicked cool when you see it in person.

Audit Trail – Audit Trail provides auditing options on GP tables along with audit reporting options. One of the advantages over GP’s Audit Trail module is that FastPath’s Audit Trail application can audit virtually any SQL application, not just Dynamics GP. That provides the option to leverage an Audit Trail investment across the organization.

Despite the confusion our phase 1 go live was amazingly painless. The few issues we had were resolved so quickly that I got to go home early. I don't get to say that very often so a big congrats from me to everyone involved.

Posted by Mark 7/07/2009 12:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dwight Specht Tells Us All to Man Up

Legendary GP guy Dwight Specht is back blogging after a hiatus to have his second child and he's good and wound up. Dwight tackles consulting practice, infighting and the economy in his latest missive and tell us all to stop the whining. I'm quite happy to not only be employed but be very busy in these tough times. I AM in need of vacation but other than that I'm going to assume that I'm not in the Prima Dona consultant role since Dwight is perfectly capable of telling me to stop whining in person. He doesn't need a blog post to do that.

For the record, Dwight's post is absolutely worth reading and I prefer the term "Consulting Diva". I also like my Diet Mt. Dew at precisely 38 degrees and favor the foam pillows at the Hampton Inn. (If you're not smiling now, you really need to lighten up.)

Posted by Mark 7/07/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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The FRx Saga Continues

MSDynamicsWorld.com takes a look at lingering questions around FRx and it's future in a recent article. We know that there will be a future just not quite what form and in what time frame.

Posted by Mark 7/07/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Any Font in the Dex Script Editor

David Musgrave brings us an undocumented feature (the good kind, not a bug euphemism) on how to use any font in the Dexterity Script Editor.

Correction: Pat Roth is the author of this fine post.

Posted by Mark 7/07/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Do You Know...Security?

Security is the latest topic on Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP and their weekly Did You Know series. The Dynamics GP blogging team takes on security

Posted by Mark 7/06/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Weekly Dynamic: Transactional Posting Dates

We looked at Batch Posting vs. Transactional Posting last week. One of the benefits of batch posting is the ability to control the posting date via the batch posting date. This works for most batch types except GL.

The ability to change the posting date is important. For example, If an invoice arrives several months late, the invoice should typically be posted in the GL for the current month, even though the invoice date is in the past. This can still be accomplished with transactional posting, the process just isn't obvious.

In any of the transaction, click the blue arrow next to the date field. In our AP invoice example from above, this would be the Doc. Date field. The arrow next to a date field typically opens a window with additional date fields allowing a user to fine tune dates including setting a different posting date.

The posting date in this window controls the posting date of a transaction not placed in a batch. Unless this date is explicitly changed, it defaults to the document date on the main transaction window.

Batch posting allows you to set this posting date once for the batch. If using transactional posting, the date will need to be set on each transaction.



Posted by Mark 7/06/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Another MVP Year for Mariano Gomez

Congratulations to Mariano Gomez on another year as Dynamics GP MVP!

Posted by Mark 7/02/2009 10:24:00 AM 1 comments Links to this post  

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Did You Know? Inventory HITB

This week the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog takes on the Historical Inventory Trial Balance report (HITB) available with GP 10 SP2 or higher. If you inventory make sure to check it out to see how this report can help you.

Posted by Mark 6/29/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Weekly Dynamic: Transaction vs. Batch Posting

Dynamics GP provides a an option in most modules to post transactions individually or via a batch of transactions. This is set in Tools->Setup->Posting->Posting and can be controlled differently for different transaction types. The vast majority of consultants I know (including me) recommend posting by batch, but it's not always clear to user why so here are my reasons.

  • Batches allow users to save and review transactions prior to posting.
  • Batches allow printing edit lists to identify errors prior to posting.
  • Batches can require approval and/or verification.
  • Batch posting provides better control over the posting date. For transactions, this defaults to the transaction date. It can often be changed with the arrow on the date field but few users figure that out.
  • Some transactions like Inventory Adjustments require batch posting to really work right.
  • Batches can provide another reference or grouping point for searching or reporting.
  • Batches recover better from errors via Batch Recovery than directly posted transactions. This is a personal observation and I don't care what anyone says. I've more hard to fix errors resulting from transaction posting than from batch posting. Something will go wrong so you might as well have the best chance at recovery.
This leaves the average users with two simple options. Ignore all the advice and experience of a bunch of GP consultants and pay us ton of money to fix it when something goes wrong or use batch posting. I'm not worried, plenty of folks will choose option 1.






Posted by Mark 6/29/2009 09:00:00 AM 1 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Clear Data Access Error

Mariano Gomez takes on what we hope is a pretty rare occurrence. A user was locked out of GP because someone was clearing data. Actually, the clear data process had hung up locking out all users. Mariano describes all the details and the fix. I would hate to see an error message that says "Someone is clearing company files and you cannot get into this company." That will give me nightmares for a week.

Posted by Mark 6/26/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Web Services Settings for Large Transactions

Chris Roehrich has a new technical post up on Developing for Dynamics GP. Chris digs into web services configuration settings for integrating large transactions, think 20,000 lines. I love seeing real world scenarios highlighted. Thanks Chris!

Posted by Mark 6/26/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Sharepoint, Dynamics GP and Month End Close

Steve Chapman has a great video up of how they used some basic Sharepoint functionality to improve the month end close process. Nice job Steve!

Posted by Mark 6/26/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Window Notes

Alicia Berglund has a new blog post up covering the use of window notes as a reminder or customized help tool. I've recommended this plenty of times by have yet to see a company truly embrace it.

Posted by Mark 6/25/2009 02:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Creating New Contracts from SOP in Dynamics GP

Rose Business Solutions has an new video out demonstrating the Sales Order Processing to Field Service Contract functionality.

Posted by Mark 6/25/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Illegal Characters in Dynamics GP

No, David Musgrave not talking about immigration or unlawful users in his latest set of posts. In a two part series, Dave takes on illegal characters in Dynamics GP. There are times when quotes, backward single quotes and carriage returns can really screw up your data and David tackles dealing with these issues. Mariano Gomez has also jumped in with his own take on this issue.

I've seen issue this mostly with importing and exporting data. We had one import that added a carriage return to the end of a ton of master records. The data looked correct on the screen but would be blank on reports. That was fun to find and fix.

Posted by Mark 6/25/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Report Writer Shared Directory Issue

Frank Hamelly relates his latest tussle with Report Writer and share dictionaries in his newest post.

Posted by Mark 6/25/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Removing a Reference to a Field or Object in VBA

MichaelJ2 has a great post up on Removing a Reference to a Field or Object in VBA. Then David Musgrave picked up the conversation with his own take on the same subject. Both are definitely worth a read.

Posted by Mark 6/24/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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What's the Difference?

What's the difference between all the Dynamics ERP products? Mohammad Daoud points us to a Linked In discussion on just that topic.

Posted by Mark 6/22/2009 11:00:00 AM 2 comments Links to this post  

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Did you Know? Excel Reports

In the latest weekly "Did you know?" installment from Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP, the team brings you more info about Excel reports and Sharepoint.

Posted by Mark 6/22/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Weekly Dynamic: Bank Reconcile Grace Period

When you start to process a bank reconciliation, Dynamics GP 10 will ask you if you want to want process the reconciliation with an 8 day grace period. The idea is that even though you selected a a cutoff date, sometimes mis-dated a transaction will have cleared the bank and you'll need it to properly reconcile, even though the transaction is past the cutoff date. Changing the cut off date to find these items then puts the wrong cut off date on your reconciliation reports so this functionality provides a better way.

If you select "No" indicating that you don't want to use an 8 day grace period, a box opens allowing the user to change the length of the grace period. Unfortunately, there is no setting to change the default 8 day grace period. If you don't like 8 days as your grace period you'll have to change it every time.


Posted by Mark 6/22/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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What the Heck is Business Intelligence?

What the heck is business intelligence? No, it's not a made up term from Microsoft, but the Inside the Microsoft Dynamics GP blog tackles this question for those of you who are still confused.

Posted by Mark 6/21/2009 01:04:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Is Microsoft's Renaming Killing Dynamics GP?

Erik Ernst asked the question is Microsoft's rebranding to Dynamics NAV killing Navision? He provides some Google trends data to support the argument. He also provides comparisons for the other renamed Dynamics produc,s, including Dynamics GP, showing a generally declining search trend for effectively all of the products. I'm not sure how compelling this argument is. In the case of Great Plains, searching for "Great Plains" will provide a lot of hits that aren't software related. I actually think GP is a pretty good middle ground identifier since it was routinely called that when it was Great Plains. Also, more folks may know that they are Microsoft products and don't need Google to tell them where to get more information.

So what do you think? Read Erik's article and tell me if you prefer Dynamics GP or Dynamics Great Plains ('cause the Dynamics part isn't going away any time soon.) Also, do you think the name change hurts or helps the brand?

Posted by Mark 6/19/2009 12:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Scalability

Mohammad Daoud has a new blog post up with Dynamics GP scalability numbers using testing with a 1,000 concurrent users. Make sure you follow the link to the full scalability white paper.

Posted by Mark 6/19/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Creating Drop Down Lists using Modifier with VBA

MichaelJ2 has a terrific new post up on creating drop down lists in Dynamics GP using Modifier with VBA. Michael provides lots of screen shots in his walk through of how to do this. As an aside, a client of ours recently asked for a customization similar to one they found described on the web. We went to site they described and it was one of Michael's blog posts. Lucky for us, we were going to see him the next day. Michael does some great work so make sure that you pay attention to his posts.


Posted by Mark 6/19/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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How Does Check Links Work?

Mariano Gomez has a great post up detailing how Check Links works in Dynamics GP. It's not for the faint of heart but you'll learn something.

Posted by Mark 6/19/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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How to Make a Martini With Dynamics GP

Doug Chapman at Rose Business Solutions has a new video up demonstrating Manufacturing for Dynamics GP. What do they manufacture in the demo? Why a Martini of course! I love the concept. We can all understand what goes into a martini so this makes a great demo.

Posted by Mark 6/18/2009 08:30:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Field Service Webinar

If you use or think you need the Field Service suite of modules from Dynamics GP make sure to take a look a this best practices webinar from I.B.I.S. The webinar features David Humphries and Jack Sowers, both of whom were instrumental in creating the Field Service suite and Tom Aucamp, V. P. of Swisher Hygiene, a large GP Field Service user talking about best practices and how to leverage Field Service's features.

Posted by Mark 6/18/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Tech Ed Interview with GP MVP David Patrick

Fellow Dynamics GP MVP David Patrick was interviewed recently at Tech Ed and and the video of the interview is now available.

Posted by Mark 6/17/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Why Does VBA's Shift+F11 Not Always Work?

David Musgrave has a nice post up at Developing for Dynamics GP on why VBA's Shift+F11 doesn't always work in Dynamics GP and what to do about.

Posted by Mark 6/17/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Crystal Reports in Dynamics GP using VBA

Mohammad Daoud has a new post up where he details his solution for running Crystal Reports in Dynamics GP using VBA.

Posted by Mark 6/15/2009 01:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Did You Know? AA, 1099, Reconciling & Budgets

Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP is starting a new Series of Week asking "Did you know?" about several Dynamics GP features and then providing more information. Week 1 is up and covers Analytical Accounting with Smartlist, 1099 enhancements, AP/AR Reconciliations and Multi-Year budgets. Great stuff. Keep up the good work!

Posted by Mark 6/15/2009 12:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Transferring GP Data with SQL Import and Export Wizard

Fellow Dynamics GP MVP Mariano Gomez is back with a post explaining how to transfer data between two Dynamics GP companies using the Microsoft SQL Server Import and Export Wizard.

Posted by Mark 6/15/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Modify Safepay Trx Upload Window to Allow Macros

Dave Dusek has a new article up on Developing for Dynamics GP where he explains how to modify the Safepay Transactions upload window to allow macros to run. The idea is that some folks use a macro to run the Safepay upload automatically at night but the dialogue boxes are different when there are no transactions to export an the macro hangs. Dave provides a solution. It uses some Dex code but if this is an issue for you, I'm sure that your partner would be willing to help.

Posted by Mark 6/15/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Weekly Dynamic: Vertical Line in SSRS

We ran into a client requirement that an invoice have a vertical line separating the invoice details from the extended amount column in an SSRS 2005 based invoice for Project Accounting in Dynamics GP 10. The line had to go from the invoice header to the invoice footer that contained the total. It also had to cross page breaks with no spacing breaks at the header or the footer. Sounds pretty easy right? Actually it was a lot harder than you think and despite some really bizarre Google responses, we managed to find the answer ourselves.

The core problem was that the line would stop where the data stopped, usually short of the footer.


The answer was to create a rectangle (we probably could have used a line but it's easier to keep a rectangle straight) with only the left border visible. We drew the rectangle from the top of the invoice header to the footer ensuring that the body was long enough that the page area was completely accounted for with all of the report elements. This works until you have more than one page. To solve this, we opened the parameters of the rectangle and checked the "Repeat report item with data region on every page" and selected the only data item in the body, table 1. We then also checked the box to insert page breaks after the rectangle. That did it. The rectangle went to the bottom of every page every time.


Just to give you an idea, some of the respectable Google solutions (meaning they had been marked as accepted or approved in various forums) included using code to count the rows being returned and then using more code to properly end the line based on the row count, packaging the entire body inside of a list box and using it's boundaries to force a full page and using multiple tables in the body to move the total out of the footer to replicate a footer in the body. So you can see, it wasn't as easy to figure out as it sounds.

Some of our other rejected solutions included pre-printed forms, a sharpie and a ruler and using black paper so no one would know that there wasn't a line. I'm glad we found a better solution!

Posted by Mark 6/15/2009 09:00:00 AM 2 comments Links to this post  

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Stop Using the Old Dynamics GP Navigation

It's official, over at Inside Microsoft Dynamics they are asking folks to stop using the old navigation menus. As noted, I generally agree. I still struggle with documentation though. Writing Transactions->Financial-BlahBlahBlah is just so much clearer than explaining the Area Page navigation. But other than that, turn off the toolbar an switch!

Posted by Mark 6/12/2009 04:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP 10 Service Pack Installation Time Saver

Jason Young has a new post up at Rose Business Solutions where he gives some pointers for speeding up service pack installations for Dynamics GP 10.

Posted by Mark 6/11/2009 03:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Seth Godin on Project Feedback

If you do anything with Dynamics GP, you'll be doing projects. Implementation, upgrade, new modules, all projects. Seth Godin has a great new post up on Direct and Useful Project Feedback and the ways to structure a project. Seth is always worth a read so make sure that you read this one.

Posted by Mark 6/11/2009 12:30:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Choosing an ERP System

The ERP Software Blog has a new post up on ERP sytem selection. The most interesting part is the reproduced Deloitte & Touch table showing top 10 selection criteria from clients the 1st and 2nd time they buy and implement ERP. Hint, the results are quite different. Maybe something to think about if you are buying an ERP system for the first time.

Posted by Mark 6/11/2009 11:30:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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The Coming Shift and Dynamics GP

Mariano Gomez has a nice new article up on MSDynamicsWorld.com covering The Coming Shift in IT Department Priorities:A Microsoft Dynamics GP Perspective. In it Mariano takes a look at the coming shift to better apply IT resources to delivering business information. Make sure that you check it out.

Posted by Mark 6/11/2009 10:30:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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#63 on Dynamics World 2009 Top 100

A friend sent me a link today. Apparently I'm number 63 on DynamicsWorld's 100 Most Influential People within Microsoft Dynamics for 2009. Who knew?

I can think of a number of more influential people that didn't make the list but given the definition criteria and the European focus of the site, I understand how some folks were left off.

Posted by Mark 6/11/2009 09:31:00 AM 1 comments Links to this post  

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Temporary Fixes with the Support Debugging Tool

David Mugrave has new information up on using the Support Debugging Tool for temporary fixes.

Posted by Mark 6/09/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Preparing for the recovery with Dynamics GP

Frank Hamelly has great new article up on MSDynamicsWorld.com. In it he reviews steps you can take to leverage down time today to prepare your ERP system for the coming recovery. Nothing like a tune up to make things run better.

Posted by Mark 6/09/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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New Smartlist Builder Templates

There are new Smartlist Builder templates up on CustomerSource. We downloaded and started playing with the new Project Accounting ones last week. The US Microsoft Dynamics Field Team has a post up on this as well.

Posted by Mark 6/08/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Color Coding Dynamics GP

Mariano Gomez takes a look a the new color coding feature in latest release of the Support Debugging Tool for Dynamics GP. The ability to color code the screens based on company is very cool!

Posted by Mark 6/08/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Weekly Dynamic: Backwards Allocation Accounts in Dynamics GP

We've covered Fixed Allocation accounts here before but I've got a new use for them now. Typically a Fixed Allocation account takes an amount posted to that account and passes it to multiple other accounts based on the setup percentages. Recently I ran into a situation where we wanted to do the opposite.

In Project Accounting you can force transactions to change various segments to match the segment values assigned to the project using the subnet mask functionality. For example, a department segment is changed on posting to match the department assigned to the project. It works great until you run into a particular cost category that you DON'T want to change based on the project. You can't control subnet masks by cost category, an account type either gets a mask or it doesn't. In our case, for certain allocation transactions to a particular cost category, we wanted them all to hit the same department but Project Accounting was transforming the department segment causing us problems.

The solution was to create a Fixed Allocation account for each department. The allocation accounts all pointed to the same real GL account with a 100% allocation. In other words, instead of using an allocation account to spread costs to multiple departments, we used multiple allocation accounts to rollup costs to a single department. This kept the GL clean and avoided polluting the chart with a whole bunch of accounts since allocation accounts are pass through accounts that don't show up on financial statements.

I love finding new uses for old features!

Posted by Mark 6/08/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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New Dynamics GP Blog

There is a new Dynamics GP blog up at http://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/. It appears to be a consolidated blog hosted by a number of resellers. It's always nice to see more GP blogging going on.

Posted by Mark 6/05/2009 04:00:00 PM 1 comments Links to this post  

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New Release of the Support Debugging Tool For Dynamics GP

Build 11 of the Support Debugging Tool for Dynamics GP is now available. Dave Musgrave has all the details.

Posted by Mark 6/05/2009 02:53:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  



Dynamics GP Notes and Note Index

Dave Musgrave has more information for us on notes and the note index fields in Dynamics GP including information about cross-linked notes.

Posted by Mark 6/04/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Movies

Grab your popcorn and hit up these official Dynamics GP videos from Microsoft and the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog.

Posted by Mark 6/03/2009 01:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamically Changing Decimal Places in Crystal Reports

Victoria Yudin has a new post up on how to Dynamically Change Decimal Places in Crystal Reports. I'm not using Crystal much anymore unless a client already has it in their environment but it's always nice to have more tips.

Posted by Mark 6/03/2009 12:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Project Accounting Macros

Christina Phillips at Dynamics GP Land reminds us that GP support has macros that will run through Contracts and Vendors and save the default settings for a project. They are very handy if adding Project Accounting to an existing GP implementation.

Posted by Mark 6/03/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Landed Cost Part 2

Christina Phillips continues her series on her landed cost saga over at Dynamics GP land.

Posted by Mark 6/03/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Free Yourself From the Dynamics GP Toolbar

My latest article on freeing yourself from the Dynamics GP 10 toolbar is up at MSDynamicsWorld.com

Posted by Mark 6/03/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Item Numbering Schemes

Frank Hamelly is suddenly everywhere and his newest post takes a look at various possible numbering schemes for Items in Dynamics GP.

Posted by Mark 6/02/2009 01:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Navigation Pane, not Pain

Frank Hamelly takes on Smartlists and the Navigation pane in one of his latest blog entries. I've used similar solutions in the past and Frank's post is a nice read.

Posted by Mark 6/02/2009 12:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Account Rollups in GP

Frank Hamelly takes on Account Rollups and Fruit Rollups in Dynamics GP. I disagree with Frank, I prefer Account Rollups. Fruit Rollups are a weird consistency.

Posted by Mark 6/02/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  



Dynamics GP Report Writer and Full Invoice Item Descriptions

I'm catching up on a bunch of posts after a terrific, disconnected weekend. First up is David Musgrave's article explaining how to show the full item description on an invoice. Some reports don't support the full 100 character length but David provides workarounds and examples.

Posted by Mark 6/02/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Weekly Dynamic: Turning a Project into a Fixed Asset

A common request is to turn a Project from the Project Accounting module, into a Fixed Asset in the Fixed Asset module. There is no native functionality to do this and based on my conversations with the Dynamics GP team, it's not coming any time soon so you might as well understand the workaround and it looks like this:

1) Create a Miscellaneous Log Cost Category for Fixed Assets pointing the Contra Account to the FA Clearing account and the Cost/Expense account to wherever you are collecting the project costs (a WIP account, a project FA WIP account, etc.). You'll be doing a negative misc log so the cost collection location will be credited and contra (FA Clearing)  will be debited.
2) Once the project is ready to become a Fixed Asset, process a negative Misc Log transaction using the Fixed Asset Cost Category to remove an amount equal to the total cost of the project.
    a. This setup makes it easy to exclude the FA Cost Category when analyzing project costs while still leaving the project at zero
    b. This process provides a transactional audit trail to show that the project was closed out and moved to Fixed Assets
3) Create a Fixed Asset. The GL Transfer mechanism will move the costs from the FA clearing account to the appropriate Fixed Asset account.

I'm surprised that Microsoft doesn't have any plans to add at least this basic functionality since it doesn't seem like it would be all that hard. But every indication is that it's not coming so you'll have plenty of time to get used to the workaround process.

Posted by Mark 6/01/2009 02:23:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Localization for Dynamics GP

Over at ComputerationDynamics, Gloria has a great account of some of her localization trials with Dynamics GP. If you are looking at multi-language implementations, it's worth a read to understand potential issues beforehand.

Posted by Mark 5/26/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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The Ins and Outs of Dynamics GP on SQL Server

David Musgrave has a great new post up on Dynamics GP and SQL Server. In it he explains how GP works with SQL Server and why some of the concepts (like dex_row_id) exist.

Posted by Mark 5/26/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Weekly Dynamic: SQL Snapshots and Dynamics GP

Sometimes when implementing Dynamics GP you do a lot of backing up and restoring. Large implementations can require multiple test environments, development environments, etc. Sometimes you need to push a large number of transactions through for testing over and over again, restoring the environment each time.

Well all of those backups and restores take time. A faster alternative is to use functionality in SQL Server to take a snapshot of a company. Snapshots have lots of limitations that make them unsuitable for typical backup/restore needs but for activities that require multiple reloads they are a lifesaver. Why? Snapshot restores are fast. Smoking fast. 4 second restores fast.

In a test on an old, single processor machine, the default TWO company and the Dynamics DB took 45 seconds to backup and another 45 seconds to restore. A snapshot took 6 seconds to backup and 4 seconds to restore. What's more, the snapshots don't slow down much as the db size increases. We've seen GP databases that take an hour for a full backup and restore still create a snapshot in under 10 seconds and restore in under 10 seconds.

Unfortunately Snapshots only work on the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server but if you want to know more about both the power and the limitations of snapshots, here is a great overview.

Here is the SQL Code I used to create and restore my test snapshots:

CREATE DATABASE DYNAMICS_dbss ON
( NAME = 'GPSDYNAMICSDat.mdf', FILENAME =
'c:\DYNAMICS_dbss.ss' )
AS SNAPSHOT OF DYNAMICS;
GO

CREATE DATABASE TWO_dbss ON
( NAME = 'GPSTWODat.mdf', FILENAME =
'C:\TWO_dbss.ss' )
AS SNAPSHOT OF TWO;
GO

-------------------------------------------------

RESTORE DATABASE DYNAMICS FROM DATABASE_SNAPSHOT = 'DYNAMICS_dbss'
go
RESTORE DATABASE TWO FROM DATABASE_SNAPSHOT = 'TWO_dbss'
go


[H.T. to Ross Carlson for this]

Posted by Mark 5/25/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Product Feedback

If you've ever wondered where your Dynamics GP feedback goes, the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog has more info including some tips on how to make your voice heard.

Posted by Mark 5/20/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Business Ready Flexible Pay

We've briefly discussed the new Business Ready Flexible Pay here before but now the US Microsoft Dynamics GP Field Team has lots of details for you to decide if this is right for you.

Posted by Mark 5/20/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP CTRL+Q: Save and Print SOP Docs in One Step

Mariano Gomez has uncovered a great tip on using the CTRL+Q key combination to allow saving and printing SOP documents in a single step. This may make into the next version of 50 tips. Thanks for highlighting this Mariano!

Posted by Mark 5/18/2009 04:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Flattening Related Data for Report Writer

David Musgrave takes a look at making one to many table relationships behave like one to one relationships in Report Writer. Essentially he is flattening the data for reporting. This common technique for data warehouse and business intelligence use and Dave shows how to apply it to Report Writer.

Posted by Mark 5/18/2009 03:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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SQL View with All Dynamics GP SOP Lines

Victoria Yudin has a new SQL View up to show all of the Sales Order Processing transaction lines, posted and unposted.

Posted by Mark 5/18/2009 02:00:00 PM 1 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP SOP Table Posting Statuses

Over at the Dynamics GP Blogster, Mariano takes a look at the various posting statuses present in the Sales Order Processing Tables.

Posted by Mark 5/18/2009 01:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Weekly Dynamic: SQL Data Mining Add In

Despite the Performance Point setbacks, Microsoft BI marches forward. The latest cool tool is also free. Microsoft has released its Data Mining Add In for SQL Server. While not necessarily GP specific it should work just fine against GP databases and cubes. I could spend a whole bunch of bits here telling you about it but why don't you just go here and see for your self how cool this is.

One caveat, this requires Office 2007 and SQL Server 2008 so some of you may not be ready for it yet.

Posted by Mark 5/18/2009 09:00:00 AM 1 comments Links to this post  

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Importing the Vendor 1099 Box with Integration Manager

Dynamics GP's Integration Manager is missing the 1099 box. The 1099 Type box is there but not the 1099 check box. Mariano Gomez has a great post on how he solved the problem using SQL. Make sure to check out the comments too for some other solutions.

Posted by Mark 5/15/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Activity Tracking and Security in Dynamics GP

Merit Matters takes a look at using Activity Tracking to figure out what task a user needs security permission to.

Posted by Mark 5/14/2009 02:00:00 PM 1 comments Links to this post  

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Improve Cash Flow with Bonus Depreciation and Dynamics GP

Congress has extended bonus depreciation for another year and CFO magazine has highlighted a study showing that bonus depreciation does indeed boost cash flow. So for my newest article on MSDynamicsWorld.com I tackled how to use bonus depreciation in Dynamics GP to give your firm a tax benefit.

Posted by Mark 5/14/2009 01:00:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP and Landed Cost

Christina Phillips has posted part 1 in a series on using Landed Cost in Dynamics GP over at Dynamics GP Land. Part 1 looks great with lots of detailed explanations and screen shots. Nice job Christina!

Posted by Mark 5/14/2009 11:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Moving from MSDE to SQL with Dynamics GP

Doug Pitcher of Rose Business Solutions has nice write up of his process to move a customer that had outgrown Dynamics GP on MSDE to Dynamics GP on SQL Server Express. Both databases are free but SQL Server Express has double the size limit. As Doug points out, the process is essentially the same as moving from MSDE to SQL Server and you will need new reg keys.

Posted by Mark 5/14/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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DynamicAccounting.net Coming to a Kindle Near You

I have added DynamicAccounting.net to the Amazon Kindle publishing site. It should be available for folks to sign up and get automatic downloads to their Kindles within 72 hours.

I will now sit back and wait for the royalties to roll in...not.

Posted by Mark 5/14/2009 09:55:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Dynamics GP Web Services Installation

The Development Matters blog as a new post up on their pain and solutions when installing Dynamics GP Web Services.



Posted by Mark 5/14/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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Database Mail and SQL Agent Mail Script

MSSQL Tips has a SQL script to simplify the setup of SQL Database Mail and SQL Agent Mail. You'll need to enter a few parameters but at the end you've got a consistent, repeatable process for the setup.

Posted by Mark 5/12/2009 10:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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More on the Support Debugging Tool for Dynamics GP

David Musgrave has more info on effectively using the Support Debugging Tool for Dynamics GP.

Posted by Mark 5/12/2009 09:00:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post  

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