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Showing posts from 2010

Dynamics Blogger – Blog Analytics for the year 2010

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  P ersonally, I could not contribute much to my blog for this year 2010 due to various reasons, one of which is primarily due to my job transition. However, readers continue to show their interest towards the blog which keeps me encouraging. I have been contributing to the community after being influenced by the fellow Dynamics Community legends like David Musgrave, Mariano Gomez, Mark Polino, Frank Hammelly, Victoria Yudin and several others. I learnt one thing that what we take from the community in the form of knowledge, we are also obliged to give the community the same knowledge what we acquire over the course of time. Coming back to the Blog Analytics for my blog, My intention to publish the numbers here is to keep myself encouraging and help let others take notes on what topics users are interested to read and searching for so that the blog writing can be more focused on those topics. One major observation that I made from my analysis that GP blog readers are specifically int

Name one thing in GP that really sucks

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An interesting question. Isn’t it? I borrowed this Q&A from LinkedIn Group Microsoft Dynamics GPS User Group. The dialogue is initiated by Ian Stewart, Dynamics GP expert and there are pretty interesting submissions by users. This is some kind of raw data that is vital and critical to Microsoft in fine tuning its product upgrades. Because, User feedback is the top most source for the success of any product. I’d say the end users are the actual testers of any application. Key submissions by the users for the question above are summarized below Payroll is not fun for one user though she doesn’t go into much detail as to why it is the case Contract Management as they relate to RMAs’ is not fun  to another user. One user doesn’t like the ‘save changes’ dialog boxes function through Dynamics GP. Another user feels it frustrating since V2 that he cannot pick the printer on the fly. Though Named printers can be an alternative, yet. Another user says Inventory Turns report do

Year-End Closing: Backup And Backup Data

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“Prevention is Better than Cure” We came to the Year-End of 2010 and we would see the Year-end closing Routine in Dynamics GP in most clients in the months to come based on their Year-end Audit schedules. Year-End Closing in Dynamics GP is all that simple it looks. It can also be a night mare if not handled properly. In general, Clients  depend on their Microsoft partners with the year-end process. This is always a safe bet relying on the subject-matter experts on clients side. However some clients do not want to go for Partners support and instead perform the Year-End process. If they have an in house GP consultant, yes, it helps. If not, Be wary of it. MAKE SURE YOU TAKE A VALID BACKUP OF ALL COMPANIES AND DYNAMICS DATABASES BEFORE RUNNING THE YEAR-END ROUTINE. There is no exception to this task. You MUST take the backup. I have seen several clients experience problems who failed to take sufficient data backups. A classical example of what I have seen is the client thought the Yea

DynamicsBlogger Daily

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It’s always fun on Internet with the kind of new tools available for us to explore. One such tool that I recently came across is paper.li, An application that consolidates the data from various twitter posts and presents the readers with a well organized e-magazine format. The source of information can be either the hashtag of a twitter search or specific search terms from which it generates all the tweets into a formatted magazine. Over and above, it also extracts the hidden links behind those short URLs’ and in turn presents us a complete digest. It also update by itself every day! I thought I should give this a try to see how Dynamics GP tweets are turning up on this cute twitter application. I realized it’s worth than I thought it to be! Here is a snapshot of the Dynamicsblogger Daily . let me know your comments.

Microsoft Dynamics Community Website got a new look

Microsoft Dynamics community website has got a version upgrade today with a complete new look and feel. The original community website was launched in 2007 and since then the website has become a one stop resource for Microsoft Dynamics users and professionals. Currently, the site is serving about 40,000 + members. For a detailed information of the new features introduced with the community 2.0 release, visit the link below Community 2.0 Features

How to reverse Revenue Recognition transactions in Project Accounting

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When the revenue is recognized for a project using Revenue recognition entry in Microsoft Dynamics GP Project Accounting module and if there is a situation where we would like to reverse the posted RR transaction. Here in this article, I put up the steps to do the same. 1. Make sure override RR amount is marked in PA | Billing | RR Options setup. Otherwise, the system wouldn’t allow us to change the amounts in RR entry window. 2. Open RR Entry window, Enter the customer ID and the Project ID for which revenue transactions that were posted earlier need to be reversed now. 3. Once the Project ID is selected, click the arrow next to Budget 4. Enter the negative amount in each cost category in To recognize field. If the amount is higher than the recognized amount, then the system wouldn’t allow doing that. 5.  Now Post the RR transaction so as to reverse the posted RR transaction.

How to copy Smart list to Excel Report Builder

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If you look to copy a report from Smart list builder (SLB) to  Excel Report Builder (ERB) or vice versa, there is an option in both SLB and ERB called “duplicate” in options menu to do this task for us. To copy a report from SLB to ERB, Go through the following steps 1. open the report to be copied in SLB, Go to options | Duplicate 2. Choose Excel Report in New List type and assign New list ID and New list name or accept defaults. 3. Click Duplicate. Now, Go back to ERB. The same report appears in ERB as in SLB. Repeat the same steps for copying report from ERB to SLB.

Display Totals in Smart lists

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While we all know that Smart list doesn’t support displaying totals, We now have a workaround to beat this limitation in Dynamics GP 2010. Though I’m yet to test this functionality, I thought to quickly share this cool feature. In Excel Report builder, Select the report and go to options and mark “ Display totals at the end of each list ”. This feature would then ensure all the numeric fields in the reports sum up when the report is published. We can duplicate all our existing smart list builder reports to Excel report builder using Duplicate option in Smart list Builder to copy them to Excel Report Builder.

EFT Module: Bugs or by Design?

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Quite recently, I had a chance to work on EFT for Payables Management module first time as one of my clients wanted this feature implemented in their environment for Dynamics GP 10 for one of the global bank format. During the feasibility test, I found the following issues which I termed them as “ bugs ” while Microsoft Technical support doesn’t want them to term them as bugs and instead call them “ by design ”. Well, while I understand it is always difficult to accommodate specific requests into a product that has a global reach and instead guide those requests to be routed to a product suggestion however I felt the below issues are far more critical to be fixed as they question the very functionality of EFT module in specific. In EFT File Format maintenance, there is calculation field mapping that is available to map certain fields. Whenever calculation type is selected in maps to field, then various options appear as shown in the image below. The purpose of these calculation

FRx to Management Reporter Migration

If you are looking to migrate from FRx to Management Reporter, There is an inbuilt migration wizard in Management Reporter to do the same. I don’t need to specify the steps involved in the migration process as it has been covered in much detail elsewhere on the blogosphere. Here is a perfect link to accomplish the same. FRx 6.7 to Management Reporter Migration However, Hold on before running the wizard if you are on Management Reporter RTM edition. If you are running Management Reporter RTM edition for Dynamics GP 2010, you’d run into an error that says ' Windows Authentication is not supported for Microsoft Dynamics GP’ . I heard this occurs even if you choose SQL Authentication. If you observe the event logs, it might be like this   Message: Microsoft.Dynamics.Performance.Reporting.DataProvider.Service.DirectLinkException: Windows Authentication is not supported for Microsoft Dynamics GP ---> Microsoft.Dynamics.Performance.DataProvider.GeneralLedger.GLConnectionException

Restrict User Access to Dynamics GP during Maintenance

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In SQL server, We have an option to restrict databases to single, restricted user or multi users. When we want all users to connect to database, the status would be Multi_User. In case we have a maintenance plan and expect the other users not log into the database under maintenance, We can set the database to Restricted user or Single user mode. Restricted user mode allows connections to SQL server through any user ID which is a member of dbcreator, db_owner or sysadmin roles. In other words, Users like “sa” can log into the database and continue with maintenance activities. I tried to test this option on Dynamics GP Application databases and It seems to work perfect in my tests. I find this useful when I have to do some maintenance routines and do not expect the users to be logged into the application while the maintenance is still on. Once my maintenance routine is complete, I can reset the status to Multi_user mode which then enables connections to Dynamics GP databases. If

Requisition Management Enhancements – When?

I was thinking of much apt title for this post, I couldn’t get one. This post is about some of the pain areas in Requisition Management module for Dynamics GP (BP 3.0 or 4.0 or 5.0 whatever version we are). Because I feel we continue to see the same functionality since the old Business Portal 3.0 for Dynamics GP 9.0, Business Portal 4.0 for Dynamics GP 10.0 or Business Portal 5.0 for Dynamics GP 2010 with few exceptions. Having said that, We also understand there’s a lot of feature enhancements for BP as a whole, Workflows, Web services and Dynamics GP itself that is helping Dynamics GP to withstand as a favorite product to many in terms of choice. I have implemented Requisition Management module in several places and I must say the product is flexible to implement and a robust functionality than what we could expect from. Yet, I opine that It has certain limitations which has to be addressed at least in the upcoming versions (Though not certain about when it would actually happen).

GPWindow.com: Wonderful Resource

I got to look at this wonderful site this morning www.gpwindow.com while trying to catch up myself to the latest developments in our GP blogging community of late. I must admit I’m very proud of my good friend Jivtesh work on the basic idea of this site and how it is structured to be a one-stop K-base for Dynamics GP resource shoppers. I must say it’s a GP shop with an exhaustive list of items that are available free of cost:). I always like the idea of “aggregation” of data and I personally know how tough it is to aggregate and present the consolidated data in a user friendly formats and structures. It’s not an easy task to build a database like this specially segment like Dynamics GP which requires subject specific expertise in organizing data. Jivtesh! Great Effort and Congrats on your great work. Keep going! I’ve already bookmarked the site under my favorites! Jivtesh has given us a user’s guide for us on how to follow this site. Read here .

Dynamics GP 10 Service pack Upgrade Failure

While upgrading from Dynamics GP 10 SP1 to SP4, one of my clients have encountered the error below. “The stored procedure Synchronize TableData() of form duSQLAccountsynch : 27Pass Through SQL returned the following results: DBMS: 102, Microsoft Dynamics GP: 0.” This error was surfacing while running utilities and upgrading DYNAMICS database. I’ve not seen this error before. Taking cue from the error message, I thought initially it might be due to non-synchronization of account framework so tried resetting dex.ini file to Synchronize=TRUE, but it didn’t work at all. To understand the probable cause of this issue, I had to rely on dexsql.log file.  The log showed that there is a possible permission issue, so we tried running the GRANT.SQL and DYNSA DB owner scripts on the databases as these were databases restored from Live instance. The same issue continued. The dexsql.log showed that the database upgrade of DYNAMICS is getting interrupted with this error when it is reaching SY

Remember Username and Password

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We’re quite familiar with this phrase in almost all websites across offering us to store our usernames and passwords so that when we try logging in next time, we just don’t need to enter them again and again thus freeing our time little more. Surprisingly, Dynamics GP 2010 has got a feature similar to this option. In fact, It has not just one but two such options. 1. Remember user name and password – This option when marked, the GP client doesn’t ask you for your credentials and push you to the next screen, Company selection. 2. Remember this company – Now If You’re having 5 companies, and you would be using a particular company most often, You can mark this option so that it will hide this window of company selection as well when you log into GP next time. I find this option more useful when I have even one company. Marking both the options above helps us to just get into Dynamics GP Home screen directly every time we click that tiny cute GP icon on our desktops. Somethi

Unable to connect to the Home Page Metrics URL

In Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, We can get this error. “ Unable to connect to the Home Page Metrics URL. Please contact your system administrator.” Causes of this error is that you’ve activated the option to use SQL server reporting services Home page metrics under Charts and KPIs’ in Reporting tools setup window (Dynamics GP | Administration | Setup | System | Reporting Tools setup)  and provided incorrect URLs’ in your SQL reporting services setup tab in Dynamics GP. Resolution for this error is 1. Ensure your SSRS is running properly 2. In SQL Server Reporting Tools setup tab in Dynamics GP, Check the URLs’ provided for Report server and Report Manager. The standard path of these reports are provided in Help Manual of Dynamics GP 2010. Until Next Post….

Management Reporter on Workgroup

For those who are looking to run Management Reporter on a workgroup machine, this is something to make note of. Management Reporter doesn't work on Workgroup or when we disconnect from the domain network. When we disconnect from a domain network, we get the error message saying "can't connect to MR Server". Once we connect back to the domain, it works normally. Until Next Post....