You, Me and Dynamics GP
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.
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.
