Deploying Excel Reports for Dynamics GP

Clinton Weldon takes a look at deploying Excel reports for Dynamics GP over at DynamicsCare.There are lots of screen shots and everything is documented step by step. Nice job Clinton.

Automatic Receivables Aging for Dynamics GP

MichaelJ2 has a new post up where shows how to use the Dynamics GP stored procedure to fire off AR Aging without using the interface. This would allow companies to automate the aging process instead of having to fire it off from the screen. Nice post, thanks MJ!

Re-creating GP Dictionary Files

Gloria Braunschweig over at ComputerationDynamics takes hard look at recreating Dynamics GP Dictionary files after applying SP3 for GP 10.

Transferring Extender Customizations

Mariano Gomez continues his series on Extender, this time taking a look at transferring Extender customizations between company databases.

IT Failures and the Chuck Norris Syndrom

Having issues trying to improve processes or operations without change or cost? Take a look at Michael Krigsman's Chuck Norris Syndrome and IT Failure column over at ZDNet. Yes the Chuck Norris syndrome is alive and well in the Dynamics GP implementation world as well. If nothing else, you'll get a laugh before you have to go back and "Chuck Norris the situation"

A Dynamics Dictionary

Doug Pitcher has a started a little Dynamics dictionary with terms and abbreviations common to the Dynamics GP ecosystem. Pay no attention to his crack that I'm shorter than he thought I would be. He had simply built me up in his head to be larger than life.

GP Analysis Cubes Connection Error Fix

David Duncan provide some great troubleshooting information while installing Dynamics GP's Analysis Cubes on SQL Server 2008. Make sure that you take a look over at I.B.I.S.' DynamicsCare blog.

Microsoft's ERP and CRM Incentives

TradingMarkets.com has the press release on new MS incentives for CRM and ERP including some significant discounts for moving from another software solution. If you are considering one of the Dynamics products now is a great time to both buy and finance a new solution through Microsoft.

Top Reasons for ERP Project Delays

Eric Kimberling has a great post up with top reasons for ERP project delays and yes, we see these in Dynamics GP projects too.

Dynamics GP: Finding Stuff for New Users

Matt Landis at Dynamics Small Business has a new post up focused on finding things in Dynamics GP. Like me, he's become a fan of GP 10's list navigation and he also provides coverage of Rockton's Smartfill.

Fast Auto-Posting of Dynamics GP Batches

Steve Endow over at Dynamics GP land has coverage of auto-posting in Dynamics GP via .net based Post Master. This looks really interesting for high volume needs.

1,000 Dynamics GP Blog Posts

This is the 1,000th blog post here at DynamicAccounting.net.

One thousand is a lot of posts on one subject and all of them came in less than 4 years. Actually, there's been a convergence of big numbers at the site recently. We're at 1,000 posts, well over 100,000 visits, more than a 1,000 downloads of the GP 10 table reference tool, approaching 20,000 views of the Excel Based Budgeting video and more than 6,000 have watched the GP Macro video. I'm tired just thinking about it.

On a personal note, I've somehow managed 1,000 tweets in a little over a year!

I want to say thank you to everyone who reads the blog and a bigger thank you to all of you who have said that they read and enjoy it. I also want to thank Dwight Specht for the guest blogging he did before moving to his own domain. He added a whole different level of thought to the content.

The goal of the site is to give you things that you can use as part of your Dynamics GP implementation, ideally, tomorrow. I don't spend much time on competitive or partner items, the focus is on usability.

Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. The Dynamics GP community is thriving and my posting activity has been increasing on lately. I'm looking forward to another 1,000 posts in half the time.

Dynamics GP and Twitter

Twitter is a social networking/micro-blogging site that is incredibly hot right now. There are lots of accountants and plenty Dynamics GP people posting links and thoughts on Twitter. Since the content is limited to 140 characters most of the meat for GP users is found by following the links. But there is a lot of great stuff out there.

I've been twittering (tweeting? I'm still not sure) for more than a year under mpolino. I've recently started adding Dynamics GP content as well as personal content. All of my GP content will be marked with a tag that looks like this #DynGP. This makes it easy to search and find Dynamics GP content. I'm working to try to make this a consistent tag among Twitterers to make it easy to find GP related content across Twitter.

Twitter won't replace blogging, but it is a nice, fast supplement to it.

Send Customer Email From Dynamics GP

Matt Landis over at the Dynamics Small Business blog has posted a free VBA customization that let you click on the email address link for a customer and have your mail client open with their address to send an email.

GP will do this natively but you have to put "mailto://" in front of the email address to make it work right and lets face it, most of you aren't going to do that!

Weekly Dynamic: Navigation, Lists and Project Accounting

We've spent a couple of weeks looking at the new list and navigational functionality in Dynamics GP 10. However, whenever I show off something new and cool in Dynamics GP, my friend and fellow consultant Ross Carlson asks "but does it work with Project Accounting?". The answer Ross is yes it does and quite well!

The Project Accounting home page contains all of the project related menu choices in one place. Below that are lists for Contracts, Projects, Cost Categories, Timesheets, Eimployee Expenses, Billings and Reports. Each one of these lists contains a contextual, ribbon-like bar for managing that list.

The PA lists aren't quite as well fleshed out as say, Sales but there is a lot of nice functionality. Some examples:

• In Timesheets you can do a reference (adjustment) timesheet with one click. Since this is normally a drop down that many users never find, the ribbon does a great job of exposing this functionality.
• Reversing, Transfer and Correction entries for Timesheets are also available with a single click.
• All of the timesheet functions are also exposed for Employee expenses with a single click.
• Having all the PA reports available on one window is extremely cool
• The GoTo section of projects provides fast access to inquiry windows for each of the transaction types (Timesheet, Employee Expense, Inventory Transfer, Miscellaneous Log, Purchasing Invoice, Equipment Log and Billing)
• One click billing from the Project list is pretty slick as well

There's room for improvement in the PA lists but there is an awful lot of functionality already built in.

Extender Tables

Reporting off of Extender is a significant source of foul language in the GP world. Now Mariano is continuing his series on Extender with SQL Code to get the Extender tables making it easier to build views of the data. Thanks a lot Mariano. Now I have to go find something else to swear about.

SQL View for All Dynamics GP Receivables Transactions

Victoria Yudin has cleanup her GP Reports page and added/updated a new SQL view to show all posted Receivables transactions in Dynamics GP. Even better, she is sharing it with us! Thanks Victoria.

Virtual Convergence 2009

Virtual Convergence 2009 is up and generally open to everyone. At first it was restricted to attendees only but now everyone can be part of the fun. Of course, virtual convergence doesn't have Bourbon Street or Pam and I live or that monster walk from the exhibition hall to the food, but other than that, it's the next best thing.

Christina Philips Loves SQL Reporting Services

SSRS how I love thee, let me count the ways. Christina Phillips does just that in her new post on what she loves about SQL Server Reporting Services over at Dynamics GP Land. I understand that SSRS love is legal now in all 50 states and Canada. There is still a 3 days waiting period to love SSRS in Washington DC.

As an aside, one of our consultants has named his SSRS infrastructure "Sue". That's a little too much SSRS love for me!

Dynamics GP Architecture and Performance

Mariano's new article on How Microsoft Dynamcis GP's 3-tier Architecture Deployment Can Solve Performance Issues is up at MSDynamicsWorld.com. Make sure that you take a look.

Payables Scheduled Payments

Steve Chapman at Rose Business Solutions has a great new post up covering Payables Scheduled Payments in Dynamics GP. He includes screen shots, setup and how the accounts work. This is a must read post if you are not using this functionality.

Dynamics GP Business Ready Stimulus

Microsoft is introducing Business Ready Flexible Pay for MS Dynamics. This new offering allows payments for up to 3 years on Dynamics products. There are some restrictions but all in all it's a pretty nice little stimulus package. If you are interested, contact your partner and ask.

I've been waiting to see if this gets announced elsewhere but I haven't seen it except behind the electronic walls of PartnerSource. Merit Matters has cut it loose so I'll link there for the details.

GP Debugger and Citrix

Merit Matters has a new post up on the quirks of using GP Debugger via Citrix.

XBRL US GAAP 2009 Taxonomies Now Available

For the XBRL geeks in the Dynamics GP world (that would be folks still using FRx and not Management Reporter since MR doesn’t support XBRL yet, doh!) the 2009 US GAAP taxonomies are now available at http://xbrl.us/Pages/US-GAAP.aspx. Don’t everybody rush over there at once. No pushing and shoving

Column Placement in FRx

Jan Harrigan over at FRx Buzz has a nice new post up on Column Placement in FRx. Keep it Jan! We need more FRx stuff!

SQL View in SmartList Builder

Victoria Yudin has a new post up on using SQL View's in SmartList Builder.

GP 10 PowerUser vs. SA Smackdown

Mariano has a new post up covering the difference between PowerUser and SA and how to give SA powers to the PowerUser role in Dynamics GP.

New Extender Features

Dynamics GP 10 Service Pack 4 is going to add some new features to Extender. The new feature list is available here. I have a love/hate relationship with Extender.

Love

• It demos really well.
• It's easy to get started
• It's cheaper than customizing
• It upgrades

Hate

• Table structure makes it a pain to report off of
• Data doesn't transfer well (for example, from Quote to Order to Invoice)
• If you delete a window it deletes all of the data
• It's easy to make a mess if you don't know what you are doing

Weekly Dynamic: Sales and Lists

We've looked at the new navigation functions in GP 10 and I want to take a deeper look by spending some time with the Sales Lists. As a refresher, click Sales on the navigation bar on the left. You get a Sales home page with all the sales options. Now pick Customers from the list choices on the left.

All the customers pop up in the center with details on a selected customer at the bottom. I can easily apply a filter to limit this to my customers in Territory 1 using the filer at the top. Clicking Customers (Read Only) above the filter drops down a menu that allows me to save and name this filter. Like SmartLists, this filtered list is now available on the left below Customers. In the future, every time I return to this list, I can work with only my customers.

Clicking the check box next to a customer opens up a world of information on the ribbon-like bar that allows me to manage that customer. With a single click I can manage AR functions like run that customer's aging, open payment application, print statements or collection letters and apply or delete holds. With one click I can handle sales functions like creating an order, a payment or adding a collection note. It takes a couple extra clicks to get to invoice creation but it's all there.

Just to add some extra coolness, with the GoTo section on the right I can select to view transactions for this customer. What happens when you click this is that a new window opens up with a Sales Transaction List filtered for that customer. It does NOT take you to the Transaction Inquiry by Customer. By opening a filtered transaction list based on that customer I'm now able to use a new ribbon bar to confirm picking, mark a record as shipped, etc.

Similar functionality exists throughout all of the modules, Sales was just a great place to start showing off!

Agile and ERP

Vjekoslav Babic of the Dynamics NAV world has a nice, concise article up on MSDynamicsWorld.com with his thoughts for Agile deployment of ERP.

Dynamics GP and Google

Merit Matters has tips on searching Google for Dynamics GP help.

SSRS No Data Found

Andrew Fryer has info on his blog showing how to set SSRS to display that no data was found instead of displaying a blank report and letting the user guess.

Intro to SQL Profiler

It's apparently troubleshooting day here DynamicAccounting.net. We've seen RDP troubleshooting, index optimization and now we get some time with Profiler. Profiler is the primary troubleshooting tool for SQL Server and it's important tool when troubleshooting GP performance issues. SQL Server Central has a great introduction available for Profiler making it easy to start working with this critical tool.

Table Index Optimization in Dynamics GP

MichaelJ2 is back looking at table index optimization to improve Dynamics GP performance. This has been a hot topic lately. It came up a couple times at Convergence and is one of the 50 tips. (Although the tip is on JE index performance, it's the same fundamental issue.)

Idle Time in Dynamics GP

Mariano Gomez has a nice look at a process to determine idle users in Dynamics GP. This is a common request from companies that regularly use all of their Dynamics GP licenses and then some. Nice post Mariano!

Dynamics GP and the 12 Month Gross Profit Chart

Somehow I missed Mohammad Daoud's post last week where he dissected the calculations behind the 12 month gross profit chart on the Dynamics GP home page. If you're one of those people who likes to take things apart to see how they work, this is a great behind the scenes look.

GP Login Performance Over Remote Desktop

Frank Hamelly is back blogging with a post on troubleshooting a login performance problem he was having with GP and remote desktop. I won't spoil Frank's fun by giving you the answer. You'll have to read his post!

Excel Graphs and Dynamics GP

From the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog comes word of a new chart advisor tool for Excel that can help you pick the best charting option. This is great Excel report data or Smartlist exports to Excel that you need to present graphically.

Learn How to Use CustomerSource

From the Dynamics Community team, here is an opportunity to learn more about CustomerSource, the terrific online resource for Dynamics help. Despite my complaining from time to time, I've used software that doesn't have a resource like CustomerSource so I know how much of a help CustomerSource is despite it's search problems (hint, hint MS!)

There is an available, 60 minute webcast on using CustomerSource and how to get most out of it. Way too many companies don't disseminate CustomerSource access widely enough. This is a great chance to reduce your support costs.

Filter in SQL Management Studio

From Mark Brummel in the Dynamics NAV world comes a nice tip on using Filter in SQL Server Management studio to limit the tables, views or stored procs based on part of their name. Mark has the details including screen shots so I won't reproduce those.

However, I will say that I can see where this could be very useful when working with custom tables. On my current project we have a number of custom tables that all start with IBIS and it would be really helpful to be able to limit my view to those tables some days. Also this works well with the oddball table naming in GP that so many of you dislike. With a SQL filter, I can limit the tables I see to just PM tables for example.

I don't think this persists if yo close the window but it is nice for working with a subset of the data.

Dynamics GP and Equipment Rentals

MichaelJ2 has a great post up detailing some work he just completed using the Field Service module to manage equipment rentals. The beauty of his post is not just the steps but the thought process to develop the solution. Even if you don't do equipment rentals or use Field Service, the post is helpful in making you rethink what you are currently doing. This one is definitely worth a read.

Dynamics GP and External Data Via Excel

There are a lot of SQL scripts for reporting floating around the internet (and this site). But many times people don't know how to apply them because they don't have Smartlist or Excel Builder, don't know SSRS and don't have another tool like Crystal Reports.

Well, don't forget about the power of Microsoft Excel as a delivery vehicle for reports. You don't have to have Excel Builder, it just makes things easier. Excel MVP Nick Hodge has a great tutorial on connecting to external data Excel. (Hint, click the "Read Article" button in the middle.)

It's not GP specific but all the steps also apply to GP and if you are using someone else's prebuilt script, you don't even need to know the table structures!

Dynamics GP Transaction Lost and Found

Victoria Yudin takes a look at where that lost transaction went to in her latest post. There is a lot of good information in here, it's definitely worth the read.

Weekly Dynamic: Navigation Pane, Lists and Financial Data

Continuing on with new navigational and list functions in Dynamics GP 10 I want to take a look at what happens you pick Financial on the Navigation pane on the left. When you do this, the home page is replaced with a Financial home page and a new set of lists is available on the left. This opens up a whole new set of one click navigation options for Dynamics GP.

For example, selecting Account Transactions from the left, puts journal entry transaction details in the center of the screen. Info about the selected JE is available at the bottom with Debits on the left and Credits on the right. (Something the default Smartlists still don't do, but I'm not bitter).

Across the top are functions in a ribbon like bar. For example, correcting a JE is now a simple matter of selecting the transaction's checkbox and clicking the back out or correction icon. New Journal Entries can be created directly from this screen along with most other financial functions like posting transactions, creating new accounts and generating reports.

The data on this screen can be filtered to limit what a user sees. It can be added to the home page and easily sent to Excel. The Excel export seemed much faster than with Smartlists. Of course you can drill back to the original transaction.

The cool part about this is that a user could pretty much abandon the traditional drop down interface at this point and have everything contextual. The main pane on the right changes to fit the Navigation selection on the left. This means that if a user picks Checkbook on the left, they get checkbook related data and a Checkbook contextual ribbon on the top.

(For all the Microsofties, I know, it's not technically a "ribbon" but I call 'em as I see 'em).

The only issue I've found is that it's a little harder to explain to folks where to go. The old Transactions->Financial nomenclature made navigation explanation simple. "Pick Financial on the Navigation bar" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

In short, I'm really trying to use the new navigation functions. I think that they are the future of the product and I'm enjoying finding all the cool new stuff Microsoft slipped in here.

Dynamics GP Worst Practices

My new article on Dynamics GP worst practices is up at MSDynamicsWorld.

Follow Dynamics GP Conversations on Twitter via Twendz

If you want to follow Twitter conversations about Dynamics GP you can do that with Twendz. It's incredibly cool but very addictive.

No BI Conference this year

The economy has apparently killed another conference. Microsoft's Business Intelligence conference is moving to a bi-annual schedule. The next BI conference is schedule for October of 2010. Users are being directed to Technet or the Sharepoint conference for BI info this year.

My Grand UI Experiment for GP

At Convergence, Pam Misialek challenged me to use the Home Page and List functionality in Dynamics GP 10 instead of the menu bar. Well, I'm going to accept the challenge. For the next month I'm turning off the menu bar when working with GP 10. That right, no menus. Nothing but Home Pages, Navigation Bars and List.

I think that this will also help with the short series of Weekly Dynamic tips that I'm writing on the same subject. The menu bar is off now and I'm back to work. I'll post some infrequent updates on how it's going.