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Microsoft Great Plains Upgrade ? Version 8.0 Overview for IT Director/Controller If you have Microsoft Great Plains as main accounting and ERP system you need to know some technical details on Great Plains version upgrade and what is going on behind the scenes, which options do you have in case of Dexterity, VBA, SQL customizations, ctree/Pervasive migration to MS SQL/MSDE. As of right now it is reasonable to upgrade to Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 Is upgrade required? Not actually, but you have to consider these factors ? Technical Support discontinuation - the old version may not be supported - currently if you are on version 6.0 - support is already discontinued. You can not have Microsoft Business Solutions help you, but obviously you have MBS partners who can still help you. If you are on Ctree or Pervasive SQL, then your support expires December, 31 2004. ? Tax Updates/Magnetic media expiration - if you have US Payroll module and depend on it with W2 and other forms - you must stay with the version, which is supported and has tax updates. If you are on Ctree or Pervasive SQL - then you will not have tax updates for these platforms at the end of 2004 and your W2s maybe inaccurate. If you have a lot of employees - you may have issues with government.? Following the Technology and Microsoft rules - Microsoft wants you to be on the newest platform and provides you the best support when you follow this rule? If you do have heavy customization - we recommend you to skip one version, for example if you are on version 7.5 - do not upgrade to 8.0 and wait for the next version What is upgrade in the language of technology? Upgrade has server and client sides. ? Server side - upgrade converts tables from old format to the new one. In general words - Microsoft Business Solutions developers may change table structure, append additional fields to add new functionality, things like that. Upgrade copies the table with changes to temporary table, then drops original table, recreates it with new structure and copies all the data from temp table to the newly created one. ? Workstation side - workstation is written in Great Plains Dexterity and has Dynamics.exe - engine and DYNAMICS.DIC - dictionary. These two plus all the additional files will be replaced with the new ones. Other dictionaries, such us REPORTS.DIC and FORMS.DIC should be also upgraded and upgrade will try to deal with them automatically. In some cases modified reports (in REPORTS.DIC) could not be upgraded and need to be recreated in the new version. What is customization upgrade? You should consider different types of customizations: Dexterity, VBA/Modifier, SQL, ReportWriter, Crystal Reports? Dexterity Customization - being very short - Dexterity may have so called Custom Forms - these do not need upgrade - they should work as is. Then Dexterity may alter existing Great Plains forms (so-called Alternate Great Plains forms) - in this case Dexterity customization should be redone for these forms/screens. Plus additional consideration should be given to Dexterity triggers, shadow tables, etc. ? VBA/Modifier customization - Modifier allows you to modify existing Great Plains windows - it creates so called modified Great Plains windows, stored in FORMS.DIC. Usually modification is placing new buttons or fields, which in turn will be given VBA scripts (stored in DYNAMICS.VBA). VBA scripts may call something nice, like Crystal Report, or have some data access logic. Usually the old version of DYNAMICS.VBA workds with the new version. You may need to rearrange buttons on the modified form.? SQL - you may have some stored procs for data integration, EDI or the like - if the addressed tables will be changed in the new version then you need to analyze your SQL code. The good news is - Microsoft Business Solution doesn't make a lot of changes since version 7.0, because Microsoft is now trying to merge the products it owns: Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Axapta - and so has different priorities? ReportWriter - MBS doesn't change tables, but it keeps changing Dexterity formulas used in ReportWriter original reports - this is the problem in so-called Modified Reports upgrade - usually you have these reports modified: SOP Blank Invoice form, SOP Blank Picking ticket, etc. If report can not be upgraded - it should be redone in the new version with some exceptions.? Crystal Reports - the nice thing about Crystal Report - id doesn't need to be upgraded (if the fields in the tables exist in the new version - which is usually true statement)What is upgrade for third-party modules? Your Great Plains may have so-called third party modules: Mekorma, Kampdata, Horyzon, Wennsoft, Avalara, Truepay, Trinity, Intellisol to name a fewThird party modules may have their own utility for upgrade. You just need to know that your third-party is ready for the new Great Plains version - if not - you just wait and stay on the old version. What is migration from Ctree/Pervasive.SQL 2000 to MS SQL/MSDE? MBS has migration tool. You need first to install Great Plains on SQL Server with exactly the same account/segments structure and then install migration tool (it is Dexterity chunk) on your ctree/Pervasive workstation - then, when you integrate the chunk - you will map it to target SQL-based Great Plains Company, select all system and company tables, click the button and it will move all your tables one-by-one. In the case when your Great Plains ctree/Pervasive has third parties - you need to check if the vendor has migration tool - otherwise you have to do manual move, use SQL Linked server to your legacy data Do I need consultant? It is probably good idea to have consultant to do the upgrade. We strongly recommend you to use consultant in the following cases? You have Dexterity customization? You are doing migration from Pervasive/Ctree to Microsoft SQL Server/MSDE, especially when you have third-parties without migration tools? You have a lot or ReportWriter Modified Great Plains Reports? You have old version of Great Plains: Dynamics or eEnterprise 6.0 or prior - in this case you can not appeal to Microsoft Technical Support - it is discontinued ? Your Great Plains has more than 20 users and you have to have upgrade done over the weekend - if it fails - you have business problems? You don't have support - in this case you have to select your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner and pay for the annual support/enhancement plan - you will get new registration key and will be ready for the upgrade Good luck with 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 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com Microsoft CRM Implementation - US Market Lessons Microsoft CRM is CRM answer from Microsoft Business Solutions. If you compare it to other traditional CRM applications, such as Siebel - you will see that Microsoft CRM does use all the resent Microsoft technologies, that means that Microsoft targets its CRM to Windows market exclusively, plus this means that Microsoft CRM is more difficult in its installation. Microsoft doesn't even have to care about other platforms, such as Linux/Unix or Apple. Now - we see kind of paradoxical situation when Microsoft CRM is gaining market share even in recession and early post-recession time. Where is the secret? Cisco Certification: Introduction To ISDN, Part IV In part III of this ISDN primer, we learned that PPP has two main methods of authentication that Cisco certification candidates need to know how to configure: PAP and CHAP. Basic Steps To Optimize Your Internet Security After seeing many people complain about their weak Internet security I decided to write down some things that will help you for your Internet security. Microsoft Great Plains Implementation: Collection Management ? Overview For Consultant Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is very good fit for mid-size company and probably good budget solutions for large corporation. Being matured product ? Great Plains provides such horizontal solutions as Collection department automation. The most common question we hear in collection department is how we assign problem clients to specific collection manager and how she/he works with them one by one, simply by hitting next arrow button. This is not possible in Great Plains Accounts Payable module and this is where Collection Management module comes to the scenes. Make 2005 the Year You Save Time! Today's business world is fast-paced. No matter what it is you do, finding a way to do it better and faster makes sense. But being faster does not have to mean being sloppier. You can be fast and efficient if you use the right tools to get the job done. So this year, why not add "Saving Time at Work" to your list of 2005 New Year's Resolutions? How to Build a Basic CSS Layout Designing without tables by using CSS layouts is fastbecoming the new standard on the Web because of thebenefits mentioned in my previous article. Web browsersused these days are now able to render web pagesproficiently. In this article I will endeavor to create abasic 2 column CSS layout which you can use for futuredesign projects. Professional Software Icons For Your Standalone Application User interfaces and accessibility are some of the most important aspect of an application. It can have a million features, it can do a thousand things once, but if it doesn't look quite right then it will be a disaster. Take Linux for example. This open source (free) operating system has been around for quite a while, and it has been very appreciated for its stability and speed. However, in its earlier days it lacked a user interface, which made it very unattractive to the general public. While a few years back Linux was used only by system administrator and computer freaks, Microsoft's Windows was all over the place, pumped up by its friendly user interface, even though it had a lot of bugs and was very unstable. Today's things are quite different. People have learned from their mistakes and now, most operating systems, including Linux, use a graphical interface and are very user-friendly - things that in the past you could do by writing lines and lines of instructions, you can now do with a few clicks. This major improvement has brought in a whole new class of users, and the popularity of this operating system has increased considerably. Microsoft Great Plains Integration with Microsoft Access ? Overview for Developer Microsoft Business Solutions stakes on Microsoft Great Plains as main Accounting/ERP application for US market. At the same time it seems to be staking on Navision in Europe and has Axapta as high end large corporation market competitor to Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, IBM. This article is brief review of Microsoft Great Plains integration with Microsoft Access. This is also applicable to Small Business Manager (which is based on the same technology ? Great Plains Dexterity dictionary - DYNAMICS.DIC and runtime DYNAMICS.EXE) and Great Plains Standard on MSDE or MS SQL Server.If you are developer who is asked: how do we implement Great Plains integration/interface with your MS Access-based system ? read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.Great Plains Integration Manager - this is rather end-user tool - it is very intuitive, it validates 100% of business logic, brings in/updates master records (accounts, employees, customers, vendors. etc.) brings in transactions into work tables. The limitation of Integration Manager - it does use GP windows behind the scenes without showing them - so it is relatively slow - you can bring 100 records - but when you are talking about thousands - it is not a good option. By the way you can program Integration Manager with VBA. Microsoft Access is ODBC compliant and so you can do direct Integration Manager query to MS Access eConnect ? it is type of Software Development Kit with samples in VB.Net. Obviously the development environment should be Visual Studio.Net. eConnect will allow you to integrate master records - such as new customers, vendors, employees, etc., plus you can bring transactions into so called Great Plains work tables (eConnect doesn't allow you to bring open or historical records - you need to post work records in Great Plains, the same limitation applies to Integration Manager above) eConnect is rather for ongoing integration. It was initially created for eCommerce application integration to Great Plains. SQL Stored Procedures. Obviously you have unlimited control and possibilities with SQL queries. You need to know Great Plains tables structure and data flow. Launch Great Plains and go to Tools->Resource Description->Tables. Find the table in the proper series. If you are looking for the customers ? it should be RM00101 ? customer master file. If you need historical Sales Order Processing documents ? they are in SOP30200 ? Sales History Header file, etc. Do not change existing tables - do not create new fields, etc. Also you need to realize that each GP table has DEX_ROW_ID - identity column. Sometimes it is good idea to use inbound/outbound XML in the parameters - then you can deploy web service as a middle party between two systems. Data Transformation Services (DTS) ? Good tool for importing your third party data into staging tables in GP - then you can pull them in using either stored procs of Integration Manager. You can also deploy this tool for EDI export/import. You can have DTS working with Linked Server - SQL Server Construction for linking to Microsoft Access Great Plains Dexterity Custom Screens. Sometimes users prefer to have seamlessly integrated into GP interface custom screens - for parameters settings and initiating integration. Dexterity is a good option, however remember - it is always better to create new custom screen versus customizing existing one - due to the future upgrade issues. Also - Dexterity is in phasing our by Microsoft Business Solutions. Modifier/VBA custom buttons on the existing screens - alternative to Dexterity is you are comfortable with VBA and ADO. SQL Linked Servers ? you can do direct SQL queries to other ODBC compliant platform via SQL Linked Server (including Microsoft Access) - you may need to familiarize yourself with OPENROWSET command in Transact SQL. This is also good option if you need cross-platform Crystal Report - pulling data from SQL Server and third party databases on the same report. Warning - do not place existing GP tables into Replication! - you will have upgrade issues.Happy integrating! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com Groupware: What Works the Way Businesses Do? Groupware How To Develop Software For Your Business Software development is a risky business. Microsoft Great Plains in Construction & Building ? Implementation & Customization Highlights Microsoft Great Plains could be tuned and setup to fit most of horizontal markets. You can deploy third party modules or build your own custom logic in Great Plains Dexterity. Today we'll look at the options to automate building & construction business. We'll try to use technical language to be understood by programmer, technical consultant, IT system/database administrator, web developer. How To Create A Data Capture Procedure Checklist For Your Small Business CRM Software Fortunately one of the most common reasons cited for the high failure rate of CRM systems - poor data quality - is also one of the easiest to avoid. Your CRM software is only as good as the information it contains. As the old programmers motto goes 'garbage in, garbage out'. Computer Phones ? Facts and Fallacies The stakes are high when considering security, privacy, and savings, and the old adage, "look before you leap" might be a more judicial approach when searching for a computer phone provider, aka VoIP (voice over internet protocol). Fleet Maintenance Software Reviews Innovative Maintenance Systems (IMS) is one company that offers solutions for companies in need of fleet maintenance software. One of their most popular products is Fleet Maintenance Pro®. According to the website and fleet maintenance software reviews, this product offers automatic calculations of maintenance, assists in tracking PM and repair maintenance, helps you analyze fleet costs over time and much more. This product is recommended for maintaining vehicles that are tracked by date, mileage, hours and etc. Prices range from $189.00 - $750.00 for single users, but networking capabilities are also available. Does your Company have Documentum? Are you lost in the mess of documents that get passed around your company, never knowing what the latest version is and which one you should work on without worrying if someone else has already made the same editions that you are making? Perhaps you have heard of collaboration software solutions such as Documentum to help your company manage its documents that are passed around. Documentum is a very good solution to this problem but is it the only one? In this article you will be presented with some basic information about the differences in collaboration software from Documentum and NextPage. An Easy Way to Develop JAVA Enterprise Applications Research bears that less than 70 percent of development projects are actually completed, and more than half come in late and over budget. AlachiSoft TierDeveloper is a Rapid Application Development tool that helps Software Developers do better, more creative, and useful work by reducing redundant hand coding. No run time fees, No server-CPU fees, and no development fees charged by AlachiSoft. Customers only pay for developer licenses. Review of TikiWiki Content Management System TikiWiki is open source software - it is written in PHP, uses phpAdmin for mySQL database administration, and uses the Smarty Template Engine. Data Quality Best Practices for Salesforce.com Executive Summary Microsoft CRM Customization Microsoft CRM customization techniques are very diversified and based on the whole spectrum of recent Microsoft technologies. The main terms you should know are: Microsoft CRM SDK 1.2 and Visual Studio.Net 2003. And of course you should be familiar with all the legacy internet technologies, such as HTML, XML, XSLT, JavaScript and be good C#/VB/Net developer.
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