Microsoft Great Plains PM: Payables Management

Microsoft Great Plains PM: Payables Management

by: Vincent Ong

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is marketed for midsize companies as well as Navision (which has very good positions in Europe and emerging markets where it can be easily localized).

Great Plains Payables Management (PM) module improves control over your payables. With easy access to comprehensive vendor information, payment scheduling and tracking, and uptothe minute answer to your cash flow status, this module allows you to manage your expenses more effectively.

PM maximizes operational efficiency by empowering employees with advanced search capabilities that provide quick and easy access to the information they need. This module also simplifies expense allocation like deferring payments or costs over multiple periods with automatically managed calculations and journal entries customized to fit your business needs.

Features:

Extensive DrillDown – Crossmodule drilldown capabilities give you the ability to locate the exact details you need.

Comprehensive Vendor Information – Streamline your vendor information with vendor categories for consistent record maintenance and comprehensive data, including addresses, shipping methods, default purchase accounts, and userdefined information.

Installment Management – Automate your vendor installment payments by creating schedules, calculating interest, amortizing amounts, and forecasting the impact of variable interest rates, payment amounts, and installment changes.

Expenditure Control – Manage expenditures with full control over check runs and tracking of afterthefact payments that use manual check entries, credit cards, or cash for transactions.

Control Account Management – Manage your payables control accounts by reporting segments, such as cost center, division, department, program or fund, and display a breakdown by segment values of your central control payables account. Eliminate the need to manually reconcile reporting segments and get a true account of amounts owing by segment value.

Automatic Posting Automate posting for each vendor to designated General Ledger accounts for recurring transactions, or streamline distribution for vendors without specified purchase accounts.

Complete Payables Reporting – Create a comprehensive suite of payable reports that can be sorted by calendar or fiscal year with onscreen display and search, or combine with Microsoft® Business Solutions–Great Plains® applications such as Report Writer or Crystal Reports® for greater reporting flexibility.

Good luck with implementation, customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call 16309615918 or 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Vincent is a Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, New Orleans, Toronto, Montreal and having locations in multiple states and internationally

This article was posted on April 01

by Vincent Ong

Microsoft Great Plains customization and developme

Microsoft Great Plains customization and development – overview for programmer

by: Andrew Karasev

When Great Plains Software was designing and developing Great Plains Dynamics/Dynamics CS+/eEnterprise it placed several fundamental principles into the system

1. Computer platform independence. If you consider the situation in the computer software industry those days (earlier 1990th) nobody knew which office computer platform will be the winner: IBM PC clones with Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh with Mac OS or something like Sun SPARC. This is why graphical multiplatform idea was popular among software developers. Also there was a myth about C/C++ languages, working similar on all computers.

2. Database platform independence there was the need for future surviving. Competition on the database market was also very tough: Oracle, Ingress, Sybase, DB2, Ctree/Faircom, Btrieve (Pervasive SQL 2000 later on)

In order to realize these two principles Great Plains Software created its own development environment and programming language Great Plains Dexterity (DYNAMICS.DIC, REPORTS.DIC, FORMS.DIC are Dexterity dictionaries).

At this point customization standards were clarified:

1. If you need seamless integration with Great Plains Dynamics, working in the realm of Dynamics security and database independent data access/modification you do it in Great Plains Dexterity.

2. If your customization should be light then you appeal to the customization tools coming with your computer platform. Very soon Microsoft Windows took the market, so VBA was the way to go.

3. As soon as Microsoft Windows kicked Mac OS from the office computers market, standard third party Microsoftfriendly tools were recommended good example is Crystal Reports

4. When Microsoft SQL Server won the database market Great Plains Software began migration campaign from Ctree/Faircom, Btrieve/Pervasive SQL to MS SQL Server 7.0 and later 2000

Finally, when Microsoft bought Great Plains Software, Microsoft Business Solutions turned to be more concerned about its ERP products migration and transformation into socalled suites: Microsoft Financial, Microsoft Logistics, Microsoft Manufacturing, Microsoft Human Resources and pretty much abandoned the promotion of traditional tools: Great Plains Dexterity, VBA, ReportWriter, Continuum, Integration Manager. As a temporary patch to enable .Net programming it released such tools as eConnect.

Right now (20042005) we are in the transformation phase when old tools, such as Dexterity are still playing important role, but if you are thinking about customization, you probably better consider SQL Server scripts/views/stored procs, if you have customization budget make a research on eConnect. Try to make as much web publishing in Visual Studio.Net as possible. Use Crystal Reports design and our recommendation is to base Crystal Report on SQL View or Stored Procedure.

Good luck with installation, implementation, customization, development, upgrade and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Washington, Minnesota, Colorado, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: [email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 23, 2004

by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains Implementation: Verticals

Microsoft Great Plains Implementation: Verticals Wholesale Order Entry center – overview for consultant

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has substantial market share and strong support by Microsoft on the US market. Currently we see the trend in the vertical markets when companies with custombuilt accounting application, usually written on legacy platform are switching to standard and proven ERP solution and customize or tailor it to fit their vertical market requirements. We’ll be publishing series of vertical articles: Logistics, Distribution Centers, Warehouse Management, Barcoding, Shipping/Receiving, eCommerce, EDI, Wholesale. Today we’ll give you Wholesale tailoring scenario

Sales Order Processing improvements to work with large number of wholesale order takers:

Sales Order Processing stand alone Great Plains Dexterity application, which works with Microsoft Great Plains SQL databases to feed in orders. This application, written as from scratch Dexterity application doesn’t requires hundreds of Great Plains user licenses and will work with SOP tables with improved functionality

Online Sales History by Customer. If you are order taker and this is wholesale business – each customer has certain level of negotiated price, which it is comfortable to pay. Also this customer is ordering known set of products from you. It is nice to have list of historical items he ordered in the past several months and their negotiated prices

Recommend Items to your customer. You can easily design items to recommend logic, when you link your new items or related items with the items your customer is usually ordered. This is how Amazon book sale works!

Sales People Competition. In addition to the above online sales tools you can have average profitability of the item per period and by sales person (assuming negotiation scenarios). Here you can have logic implemented allowing certain level of negotiation room and variable commission, related to strong negotiation and sales skills

Considering Microsoft Great Plains – majority of the logic above is implemented and could be implemented in Great Plains Dexterity. Alternative platform would be Microsoft C# or VB.Net ASPX web programming with Microsoft Great Plains at the back end. You can use such tools as eConnect to work with Great Plains object creation and retrieving or go ahead with direct SQL Stored Procedure. To certain level you could use legacy technologies, such as Great Plains Modifier with Continuum for VB, VBA scripting, etc.

Good luck and you can always seek our help in customization, implementation, integration and support. Call us: 18665280577 or 16309615918, [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 25

by Andrew Karasev

Integrating Microsoft Great Plains Accounting/ERP:

Integrating Microsoft Great Plains Accounting/ERP: RMS, CRM, eCommerce, Lotus Domino – overview for developer

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has substantial market share among horizontal and vertical clientele in the USA, Canada (including French version for Quebec/Montreal), UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spanish speaking Latin and Central America, South Africa and Middle East. Nowadays ERP can not stay as it is offtheshelf product – it requires integration with Legacy or newly implemented systems, such as CRM, Retail Management applications, custom inhouse made business systems (transportation/cargo tracking, etc). The tendency is that if company uses Microsoftdriven computer park (Windows domain, SQL Servers, MS Exchange) the rest of the ERP/CRM applications are Windowsoriented. However you can have successful bridge between nonMicrosoft ERP and Great Plains: Oracle, IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, DB2 or others), usually it involves Java/CORBA/EJB/JSP type of expertise.

Microsoft RMSGreat Plains integration. There are few options – first one is to use standard integration, coming with MS RMS. It has Dexterity interface in Great Plains, does integration to single company at the time. Doesn’t integration on SOP/AR level, however. Second option is to use integration, maintained by Alba Spectrum Technologies – it integrates unlimited number of stores, SOP/AR/POP, posts through Bank Reconciliation module and so allows to track Check Books/Credit Card balances. This integration also has Dexterity interface for StoresGP Companies mapping and could work as nightly or real time SQL Server routine

Microsoft CRMGreat Plains integration. This integration is maintained by Microsoft Business Solutions and allows you to synchronize SOP and Customers in Great Plains with Microsoft CRM Quotes and Orders. Microsoft CRM has open Microsoft CRM SDK and so you can customize and integrate Microsoft CRM at will, having C# or VB.Net inhouse expertise. The above mentioned integration could be altered and tuned by programming MS BizTalk server (it can use either BizTalk runtime or regular license)

Microsoft Great Plains as Back office for eCommerce website. Here we need to mention interesting thing, The product, created and dedicated to eCommerce developers – Great Plains eConnect is often considered as a bit expensive and licensingrestricting solution. If your company is ISV and implements eCommerce product, integrating to Great Plains – you would rather prefer set of open and simple stored procedures, moving data to and retrieving from Microsoft Great Plains Sales Order Processing (SOP) module

Microsoft Great Plains integration with Oracle. Well – you can do it either from Oracle or from MS SQL Server side – in both cases you have linking tools and heterogeneous queries mechanisms

Microsoft Great Plains integration with Lotus Notes/Domino. – If you want Great Plains documents lookup from Lotus – you typically use ODBC connection to MS SQL Server. You need to know Great Plains tables structure (Tools>Resource Description>Tables in Great Plains)

Good luck in upgrading and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call 18665280577, 16309615918! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: [email protected].

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 17

by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager – worki

Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager – working with text file

by: Andrew Karasev

Great Plains Integration Manager advanced programming, working with text files, aggregation, unionizing, VB scripting, translation

Microsoft Business Solutions main middle market ERP application Microsoft Great Plains has multiple integration options: MS SQL Scripting (stored procedures and views), ADO.Net programming, Microsoft SQL Server DTS packages. You certainly can deploy such SDK tools as eConnect. However here we would like to show you how to program the simplest user friendly tool: Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager.

Multiple times in our consulting practice we saw the need to integrate General Ledger transactions from one text file and here we give you this and even more complex case, when credit and debit amounts are present on the same line with their own account numbers. Let’s assume that we have tab delimited text file, GLSOURCE.txt. Here is how the line looks:

ก11242004ก (date) ก11020016000ก (debit account) 212446.68 (debit amount) ก15260005400ก (credit account) 212446.68 (credit amount)

Pretty challenging, isn’t it?

Let’s begin

First of all and this is probably easy – you need ODBC DSN, use Microsoft Text Driver, change default directory, select the file and switch to tab delimited type.

Next, open Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager and create two new queries – one will be for the Header and the second for distribution lines in GL transaction. In both cases use Advanced ODBC type of text queries.

GL Header should aggregate by date, so in its SQL window enter this:

select F1 from GLSOURCE.txt group by F1

Now the lines – here we need unionizing and checking if amount is not zero:

select F1, F2, F3, 0 from GLSOURCE.txt

where F3กก

union

select F1 F4, 0,F5 from GLSOURCE.txt

where F5กก

The one above is the most difficult part of this article. Please understand it – we are splitting line into two by union, first we create debit part and then we attach credit part, plus we are weeding out 0 amounts.

Next – we need to link two queries – simply link them by F1 field (date). Do it in query relationship. When you are done with linking, right click on the arrow, open properties and in Select Relationship Type window change to:

There can be 0 or more records in the child for each record in the master.

This is important – we’ll have more than one line in GL distribution.

The rest should be familiar for IM consultant.

Select destination as GL Journal, assign transaction date and batch ID as F1 from Header query, switch to entries and select them from debit and credit parts of the lines query.

As additional tools in filtering your text query you could use VBA scripting and even translation.

Translation is the way to go when you need to replace account numbers from the text file with different or translated accounts in Great Plains.

Happy integrating! if you want us to do the job give us a call 16309615918 or 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Colorado, Arizona, New York, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Canada, UK, Europe and Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 15, 2004

by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Small Business Manager Customization opt

Microsoft Small Business Manager Customization options overview

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions Small Business Manager is Great Plains Dexterity based application and successor and small business market niche version of Microsoft Great Plains. Microsoft Great Plains itself has variety of customization and integration tools: Integration Manager, VBA/Modifier, Great Plains Dexterity, SQL Server stored procedures to name a few. By one reason or another MBS decided to restrict Small Business Manager and do not provide VBA/Modifier, restricted Great Plains ReportWriter version and didn’t include Great Plains Dexterity IDE installer on SBM CD. Here We would like to give you your options and tools available in your disposition

If you are developer who is asked: how do we customize Microsoft Small Business Manager – read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.

Great Plains Dexterity – this is proprietary programming language and technology, designed back to earlier 1990th with the goal to build platform independent graphical accounting package – Great Plains Dynamics. Dexterity itself is written in C (following popular those days hope – that C will provide platform independence). You can install Dexterity from Great Plains 7.5 /8.0 CD #2. In case of Small Business Manager – you need to call to MBS Partners, such as Alba Spectrum Technologies/ Obviously it requires a lot of learning / training, but it allows your custom piece be seamlessly integrated with Great Plains interface. Nowadays, however – and this is a good thing – most of Great Plains installations are moved to SQL Server – so you can use Dexterity for custom forms drawing only and make the buttons run SQL stored procedures.

Crystal Reports. Great Plains has its own ReportWriter, but its functionality is limited – you can’t do cross modules reports (you can’t link Sales and Purchasing tables in one report, for example). So – you use Crystal. The GP tables structure is in Tools>Resource Description>Tables … and you are in control. Feel free to create views and stored procs directly in the companies databases – it doesn’t hurt the Dexterity engine

Direct web publishing from Great Plains SQL databases, using Visual Studio.net and your language of choice (VB.Net, C#, J#, etc). Plus you probably want to have several SQL stored procs.

eConnect – this tool is type of SDK with VB.net samples. It allows you to feed data into Great Plains and was primarily created for eCommerce developers.

SQL queries as a developer you have unlimited potential in using SQL queries, because the database in MS SQL Server. Be careful, it is kind of surgery you can easily delete all your customers, by executing: DELETE RM00101

Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job give us a call 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 21

by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains Project Accounting – overvi

Microsoft Great Plains Project Accounting – overview for IT Director/Controller

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions is now in process of creating so called Microsoft Suites: Microsoft Financials, Microsoft Logistics, Microsoft Manufacturing, Microsoft Professional Services this last one will be based on Solomon Project module. The long story of Great Plains Software Project Accounting it was originally created by MatchData, which was bought by Great Plains in late 1990th and renamed into Great Plains Project Accounting. Great Plains Project accounting future is uncertain it will not ( according to rumors in Microsoft) become the base for one of the Microsoft suites. However right now it is used by variety of businesses and has good functionality to fit general project accounting needs.

Strong Points:

It is very simple and intuitive if you are certified accountant and know the GAAP on project accounting you should be able to understand all the data flow and distribution in GL Great Plains Project Accounting is following the rules.

Simple budgeting and project tracking if this is your goal consider it, especially if you already have Great Plains implemented in your company.

Microsoft SQL Server platform allows you to deploy all the industry tools, such as Crystal Reports, SQL Stored Procedures and Views

Seamless integration into Great Plains interface Great Plains Project Accounting is Dexteritywritten module, so it is in Dexterity interface and security model.

Weak Points:

Poor customization possibilities I would say that Dexterity is now a good option here, because Project Accounting is itself Dexterity third party dictionary Dexterity is good to customize core DYNAMICS.DIC, not third parties. VBA/Modifier are available but we would not recommend them, because they are now legacy technologies.

Poor integration with Microsoft Office tools as of right now Microsoft is in process of moving all its ERP packages: Great Plains, Navision, Solomon into .Net platform. So, this is where all the efforts are applied. Microsoft Office is now the second priority

Good luck deciding and implementing and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: [email protected].

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 15, 2004

by Andrew Karasev

Great Plains Dexterity Source Code Programming t

Great Plains Dexterity Source Code Programming tips for developer

by: Andrew Karasev

As of now Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise is transformed/renamed into Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft Business Solutions is in process of merging all its accounting applications: Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Axapta into somewhat granular: Microsoft Financials, Microsoft HR, Microsoft Distributions, Microsoft Project Accounting, etc. So the original design of Great Plains should be deemphasized. But even now Great Plains is written on the programming language and technology, created in early 1990th, named Great Plains Dexterity. And the graphical interface looks very user friendly and nice these are all Dexterity forms and screens. In some cases of Dexterity customization you need access to Dexterity Source code (DYNAMICS.DIC with all the scripts). Currently MBS doesn’t offer new MBS Partners this program you can only have access to the source code if you was in the program when it was available for newcomers.

Assuming that you are developer, who have access to the source code, read this if you are new to it.

Usually you need source code in the following cases

Zoom Buttons. Imagine you need to select the customer from the list of customers and you want to use Great Plains Customers and Prospects screen to make you live easy. You need to know what kind of code is behind zoom button in GP original code. Iกll help you in this specific case, but for other similar scenarios you got to have source code:

open form Customer_Lookup return to กCustomer Numberก.

set กCustomer Sort Byก of window Customer_Lookup of form Customer_Lookup to 1.

run script ‘redisplay Buttonก of window Customer_Lookup of form Customer_Lookup.

When you use GP source procedure This is when you want to use GP procedure in your logic and you know that in order to create similar procedure you need to spend weeks. Typical example you need Sales Order Processing screen customization when you introduce margin % field and want it to be editable and update cost or price. When you edit such margin field you should try to call existing Great Plains logic.

When you transfer GP logic into your SQL application. Imagine you have to feed data into Great Plains and you don’t want it to be processed there but you need all the info, like taxes, summaries, etc be properly calculated and recorded. In this case you need to analyze original Great Plains Dexterity logic available in Source Code. Integration with legacy systems or with front end web custom application are typical cases

What to do if you don’t have source code? Try these technologies

eConnect this one was created to address eCommerce application integration. This is SDK with VB samples

Place a call to GP Tech support theyกll tell you that they can help you in this specific one case but you have to pay for placing the case

Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job give us a call 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Florida, Georgia, New York and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 06, 2004

by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft CRM USA Nationwide Remote Support

Microsoft CRM USA Nationwide Remote Support

by: Andrew Karasev

Remember old good days when your company probably had Great Plains Dynamics? If you are in San Francisco Bay Area – you had local Great Plains Software partner consulting company, who served you basically coming onsite and charging you four hours minimum, even if the problem deserved 5min fix? This was at the end of 20th century and remote support technologies were not very advanced – Citrix was making good progress and taking market over from Symantec PCAnywhere. Today, when Microsoft Terminal Server and Citrix are remote support standards and IT department uses them to host application server for nationwide and worldwide users, you should probably be thinking of getting remote support for your ERP and CRM systems. In this small article we’ll take a look at Microsoft CRM remote support, customization, reporting, implementation and integration.

Why Microsoft CRM Remote Support? Microsoft CRM market niche is still narrow and MS CRM consulting companies do not have enough clientele in their respected locals markets: Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York – even in these hypermarkets. In order to survive Microsoft CRM VAR went to nationwide and even international markets to get clients base.

Technologydriven consulting companies. Microsoft CRM has web and MS Outlook clients and so by its nature it is web application. When you are considering hosting your web site – you typically do not care where hosting company is located – you consider price and quality. Microsoft CRM could be hosted with .Net hosting companies and implementation could be done remotely with websessionbased training.

Customization. Today, even if Microsoft Business Solutions has open technology Microsoft CRM SDK – the complexity of the specific tasks (messaging through Lotus Notes Domino, generic MAPI, advanced MS CRM – Exchange connector) requires precision programming, which should be outsourced to nationwide development centers. As our experience indicates – clients are demanding the expertise, not just cheap generic developers. Whoever comes for the cheap price – they usually get poor results.

Large Business ERP. Microsoft CRM proved its market strength and ability to automate large publicly traded corporation. It sits in Microsoft SQL Server and uses all the spectrum of Microsoft technologies: .Net, Active Directories, MS Exchange, FullText Search, Crystal Reports Enterprise. We are confident in Microsoft CRM ability to automate Aerospace & Defense, Pharmaceutical, Supply Chain Management, Medical & Hospitals, Distribution & Logistics, Oil & Gas, Wholesale & Retail, Education, Nonforprofit

Integration. Microsoft CRM has standard integration tool with Microsoft Great Plains, Navision and Axapta integrations are on the way. However you can integrate Microsoft CRM with heterogeneous databases, such as Oracle, DB2, Lotus Notes Domino, Sybase, Pervasive SQL or Ctree/Faircomm.

WebSessions and Skype training. Web Seminars are normal these days and you should be OK with the idea of remote web training. This will allow you to get the best expertise with moderate price.

You can always have us help you, give us a call: 16309615918 or 18665280577, [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is consultant and CTO in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Business Solutions partner, serving clients in Illinois, New York, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Minnesota, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, Asia, Russia. He is Microsoft Great Plains certified master, Great Plains Dexterity, Microsoft CRM SDK C#.Net, Crystal Repots developer.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 07

by Andrew Karasev

eCommerce development for Microsoft Great Plains:

eCommerce development for Microsoft Great Plains: tools and highlights for programmer

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics and eEnterprise was designed in earlier 1990th as ERP, which can be easily transferable to the winning Database and OS platform and it was originally available on Mac and PC – Mac OS and Microsoft Windows respectively. Graphical platforms battle is pretty much over and now with eCommerce demands, we should look at Great Plains Dynamics tables structure:

Naming Convention. Great Plains was designed to be ready to move to the winning database platform and probably this is why we see this a bit complicated naming convention in place: SOP10100, RM00101, IV00101 – these are samples: SOP header, Customer master, Inventory master. First – we see module prefix: SOP – Sales Order Processing, RM – Receivables management, IV – Inventory control, etc., then 0 stays for the master files, 1 – socalled work files (before transaction being posted), 2 – open files (after transaction is posted) and 3 – historical files (when you close the year in General Ledger – transactions are moved from open to history files). So as you see – logic is present and structured, but it is not friendly to the developer, who never seen and worked with Great Plains Dynamics.

Tables Groups. Great plains was designed to first serve midsize businesses and then with the availability of third party modules – the intention was to compete on corporate ERP market with Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and others big players. This is why we see the whole cluster of tables to store, say Sales Invoice: SOP Header, SOP Lines, SOP Distribution, RM Key file, etc.

From the Forms side (or screens) you can see more humanreadable names: SOP Entry, RM_Customer_Maintenance, POP_Entry or the like. But these legacy Great Plains Dexterity names do not help eCommerce developer – only probably as the reference on which table works with specific screen.

Let’s take a look at the tools available:

eCommerce – together with eOrder, and other eXXX products it should be considered as legacy and phase out product, based on Microsoft eCommerce server and ASP technology, today Microsoft has new paradigm .Net and ASPX World

eConnect – was specially created for eCommerce developers, who integrate Microsoft Great Plains with eCommerce web interface. This tool covers a lot of Great Plains objects creation and retrieving functionality, however it does have restrictions, because it was not intended as replacement to Great Plains Dexterity shell. For example – if you create Orders in SOP via Web interface/eConnect – it is difficult manipulate these orders (transfers to Invoices, backorders, reallocations, etc.). Another issue with eConnect – developers are kind of used to the fact that Microsoft provides free SDK to its products, Microsoft CRM for example has freely downloadable Microsoft CRM SDK. For eConnect you have to pay license and be on Microsoft Business Solutions annual support to get version upgrades. Also if you are ISV and develop your GP integration to your customers – you have licensing issue with Microsoft.

Custom SOP/AR stored procedures. Microsoft Business Solutions partners in their practice usually have several Great Plains integration projects implemented where integration is realized on the stored procedures level and transactions are created and manipulated in Great Plains SOP. So – you may end up seeking this type of help

Good luck with implementation, customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call 8665280577 or 6309615918! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Orlando, New Orleans, Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, Los Angeles

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 17

by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains eCommerce – additional con

Microsoft Great Plains eCommerce – additional considerations for programmer

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains, designed back in 1990th as database transferable and graphical platform independent ERP application – Great Plains Dynamics/Dynamics C/S+/eEnterprise. For eCommerce developer the most important is to understand Great Plains tables structure and business processes in Sales Order Processing, Accounts Receivables, Inventory Control (inventory items allocation, backordering, etc), posting to Bank Reconciliation and General Ledger. And this is where Great Plains structure seems to be not transparent. Let’s give you highlights:

1. Great Plains Tables Structure. Open Great Plains, if on version 7.5 or prior, Tools>Resource Description>Tables, then you should select Sales series, explore these tables:

2. Sales Order Processing module (SOP)

SOP10100 – Sales Order Processing header

SOP10200 – Sales Order Processing lines

SOP10102 – Sales Distribution Work and History – it is how Invoices will be distributed in GL – in case if you are creating quote or sales order with the following processing in GP backend – you do not need distribution

3. Accounts Receivable module:

RM00101 – Customer Master

RM00102 – Customer Address Master – each customer can have multiple addresses for delivering, billing, statement mailing, etc.

4. Possible issues and recommendations:

If using eConnect – you may decide to transfer Sales Orders to Invoices automatically with eConnect – this might be tricky and additional scripting might be needed, especially if you are doing automatic order allocation by line item. If you are trying to relay on eConnect exclusively and not researching Great Plains Architecture – you will need additions to eConnect from third party vendor, such as Alba Spectrum Technologies, which has the whole set of SOP populating stored procedures

If you are not using eConnect and creating your own custom stored procedures – you should probably create orders or other objects in Great Plains and then look at the way how they were recorded in SOP tables

If you feel that you need to relay on Great Plains engine behind the scenes (because you feel that imitation will require you to rewrite substantial portion of Great Plains logic) – you could deploy Dexterity triggers from Great Plains side – this solution requires professional Dexterity programmer and is more reliable and upgrade – proof

Good luck with implementation, customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call 8665280577 or 6309615918! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in California, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Canada, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Russia

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 19

by Andrew Karasev

Web Front for Microsoft Great Plains – overview fo

Web Front for Microsoft Great Plains – overview for programmer

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains is very popular ERP solution from Microsoft and it is natural desire to enable data entry or querying for the Web users. In this short article we’ll try to give you the most typical cases, when our customers request webdesign for Microsoft Great Plains. We are also trying to be technical and give you some valuable information on Great Plains back end tables structure and data feeding. Beginning with Microsoft Great Plains version 8.0 the only database platform available is Microsoft SQL Server – this makes webenabling even easier and you, developer can use .Net technologies, such as ADO.Net (C# or VB.Net) to publish MS SQL Server data on the web.

Sales Order Processing – this is the most typical case – when client wants to enable order or invoice entry plus have order status querying mechanism. Well, depending on the complexity of the project you as programmer can deploy such SDK tool as eConnect, but in most cases you probably better off with direct transact SQL programming – stored procedures or queries. The tables you need to take care off are: SOP10100 (SOP work header), SOP10200 (SOP work lines), SOP30200 (SOP history header), SOP30300 (SOP history lines), RM00101 (customer master). Our recommendation – do not try to implement immediate allocation for your orders/invoices – this will make your SQL programming very complicated. You should probably have your Great Plains order takers to do allocation by orders batch. The really simple solution would be also using Great Plains eOrder – however this web publishing module has poor customization options and uses legacy ASP technology

Purchase Order Processing – this is not that popular, but we see the cases when customer wants its purchasing agents use web front to make requisitions. You have to deal with Great Plains Purchase Order Processing tables. The other option to use eConnect.

Payroll stubs – this is on very high demand – if you have several hundred employees – you are required by law to enable webpaystubs or have them mailed in paper to your employees

Good luck with customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job give us a call 16309615918 or 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: [email protected].

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 02

by Andrew Karasev