subject: Dynamics Gp Great Plains Classical Consulting [print this page] Old-good-days Great Plains Dynamics implementation and support was combination of technical and functional consulting. New buzz in GP is about Business Portal, Sharepoint, Microsoft Management Reporter and eConnect. Lets talk about traditional tools and technologies. After review we will answer several questions and if you have your specific question feel free to email or call us:
1.Functional consulting is about business logic mapping and user training. It is difficult to imagine consultant who is not certified. Required certification covers General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Bank Reconciliation and Fixed Assets
2.Technical Consulting covers installation, data conversion, customization and integration with external application or database. Technician is typically experienced in Dexterity, Integration Manager, Modifier with VBA as well as SQL data querying and repair, Pervasive SQL Control Center and Report Writer
3.Tools. First of all lets mention Dexterity as it is Great Plains architecture and customization environment. The idea is to abstract ERP application from computer operating system and graphical libraries. Dex is in essence the shell coded in C as this language was considered computer platform neutral in late 1980th and earlier 1990th. Second tool we would like to review is Modifier with VBA scripting. It was and still is important to have an instrument which is relatively simple to use but powerful in small interface modifications. Modifier allows you to move the form into Forms.dic dictionary and add fields with scripts or change position of the field
4.Integration Manager is veteran of all kinds of data imports into Great Plains. Initially it exploited the idea of OLE Server where you turn your Great Plains workstation into OLE automation processor. IM was entering editable fields (think about barcode scanner) with OLE technology with astonishing speed
5.FRx. At this time it is in progress of being replaced by Microsoft Management Reporter. FRx has such concepts as reporting row, column and tree. Reporting tree crosses the borders of single company and allows you create consolidated Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet reports. FRx supports multicurrency and could be deployed to produce consolidated financial reporting in multinational firm
6.Great Plains on Pervasive SQL/Btrieve. The last version was 7.5. Btrieve was acquired by Pervasive Software but the idea is still the same. User workstation file interface is managing data insertion, updating and deletion on the server
At this point lets begin questions answering:
Q. We have Dexterity customization but our source code is no longer available as programmer left the industry. Is it possible to upgrade our custom module from version 8.0 to 2010?
A. Without source codes it is impossible to make changes including something related to version table structure improvement. If you still have the chunk file or dictionary listed in Dynamics.set then you can try to deploy old customization and see if it is compatible or not. Experienced Dexterity programmers were favoring trigger technology to make their code version update immune. So the answer is it depends
Q. About seven years ago our consultant deployed Modifier with Visual Basic and technology known as Continuum. We tried to use the same Forms.dic with new version an it doesnt work
A. Continuum was popular in switching Dexterity Sanscript code from one Dynamics.set listed dictionary to another which was the challenge in pure Dexterity. VBA code can include Sanscript scripts. There is one minus however as debugging is not possible. Technically if you have Forms.dic the VBA code is there and it should be possible to review it and make adjustments to fit new version
Q. We have Great Plains DOS and the version is 9.2. We would like to design several Crystal reports including Sales Commission, Project Profitability. Our GP consulting folks told us that they are not familiar with our release
A. GPA for DOS was kind of predecessor of GPS Dynamics. Database platform is Btrieve and it is compatible with Pervasive SQL 2000 32 bit. In order to create Crystal reports you need DDF files and ODBC connection (DSN). If you still have GPA 9.2 CD ODBC manual should be there
Q. In FRx we are getting error message that periods were not activated. It was working OK for at least ten years. What happened?
A. Login to GP and activate fiscal periods for new year
Q. We are using GP in Poland and client interface is in Polish. In seems like versions 9.0, 10.0 and 2010 are no longer available in Polish. What is our next move?
A. You are probably right as MBS recommends Axapta and Navision in East Europe
Q. We are in small town in Southern Indiana. Our GP consultant retired and we are orphan at this point. How do we get further support?
A. There is no need for the guy to come out onsite as we believe. Consider remote support option via web session and phone conference
Q. Our question is about eConnect. We would like to post the batch of SOP ecommerce shopping carts with CC customer payments. How do we do that?
A. eConnect allows you to create work file including SOP Invoice with credit card payment and save it into the batch. Then this batch should be edited approved and posted in GP client interface. Both eConnect and IM do not have posting functionality because it is not supposed to be there
For additional information please call us: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 or email us: help@albaspectrum.com
