Weekly Dynamic: Rolling Down Service Packs in 9.0

Dynamics GP 9.0 introduced a new installation process and along with that, the ability to push installations out to the clients. There are a number of shortcomings with this version but I know that most of those have been loudly expressed to the GP team. Most notably, most if not all 3rd parties can't currently be updated via this methods. This means you still end up touching every client for third party installs and 3rd party updates or service packs.

Having said that though, the push parts that work, work pretty well. Given all that, I'm going to keep this topic pretty narrow and just look at rolling down service packs and hot fixes via Client Updates.

Before you start, the applicable update needs to be downloaded from CustomerSource and placed on a shared drive accessible to all the users.

We'll start with Tools-Setup-System-Client updates.

• Start by giving the update a name, like Service Pack 1.
• Check the box to Update Clients at Next Use. This turns a particular update on or off. You can have multiple active updates like a hot fix and a service pack. However, you'll want to turn off an update if a new, comprehensive update is going to be used. (Turn off SP1, when SP2 is available)
• Lookup and select the location where you stored the update. Again, this needs to be on a shared drive accessible to the users.

Now, when a user logs on, GP will check to see if the update is installed. If not, it informs the user and gives them the option to apply the update. When they say yes, the update installs. You'll still want to warn your users with an email, especially since some of these updates are quite large. You'll also want to manage this a little bit. Nothing like accouting coming to a screeching halt during month end because everyone is updating GP at once.
We used this to push out SP1 as part of our upgrade to 9.0 and it really worked well. Very seamless for the service pack. Of course, we still had third parties to add on but hey, nothing is perfect. Speaking of not perfect, Blogger is not letting me add a screen shot so I'll try to add it later.