blogoffline.net

Microsoft Dynamics GP is becoming very popular ecommerce ERP and accounting back office.  This trend is probably related to success of eConnect SDK, especially for Dynamics GP 10.0 and 9.0 versions.  

eConnect allows you, being generic C#, VB.Net programmer
with good SQL and XML skills to program Great Plains objects manipulation:
Customer, Address, Sales Invoice, Customer Payment and other attributes of
ecommerce shopping cart.  eConnect, being
coded in SQL Server Stored Procedures (they are encrypted, so you probably
should not expect to trace SQL code for Great Plains business logic there).  In this small publication we would like to
share with you ecommerce coding experience and Dynamics GP automatic batch
posting from eConnect application directly:

Microsoft Dynamics GP version 10.0 is current at this time, December 2008.  If you are planning GP version update from earlier versions, such as 9.0, 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0 or from Great Plains Select on Pervasive SQL or Ctree, then you may read this orientation paper

It is intended primarily to IT departments and not to
Dynamics GP professional consultants (as consultants have access to Technical
Knowledge base through their GP Partner Source).  If you are IT support technician and you was
chosen to lead Great Plains upgrade project, first recommendation is to get
access to Dynamics GP Customer Source. 
If you are not sure how to accomplish this task, please contact your
Great Plains VAR/Reseller, call Microsoft directly or call our office.  Please, read these highlights:

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP application, or popular old name Great Plains Dynamics and eEnterprise, if you have relatively recent version, is based in Microsoft SQL Server.  If you are experienced SQL DBA yourself, just this fact should give you the idea on structuring select statement and make it Electronic Document Interchange code compliant. 

Of course, for luxury EDI solution you can purchase Add-Ons and simply setup EDI export in the user friendly interface, however this publication is for people, who are either on the tight budget, or who have really complex EDI requirements and data format export rules.  This news should also ideally help you with your Great Plains Partner, ISV and technical consultant and programmer selection:

Microsoft Dynamics GP or former name Great Plains Dynamics ERP has large number of installations in USA, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Asia.  Modern market forces companies to go online and expose their stock through B2B or B2C e-commerce stores

If you are starting from scratch, then you should pick existing e-commerce add-on for GP, however if you ecommerce web store has long history and works as you need, then you should map custom integration to and from Great Plains.  Obviously each case is unique and each company has different criteria and business procedures, in this small publication we will try to give you just general highlights in custom eCommerce programming

Microsoft Dynamics GP, or former ERP name is Great Plains Software Dynamics / eEnterprise gives you, programmer or software developer vide spectrum of report design tools: Crystal Reports, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, GP ReportWriter, MS Access, MS Excel to name some of the popular. 

In this small technical paper we would like to introduce you into Crystal Reports design for Dynamics GP, assuming that you are new to GP and need some starting help.  We also assume here, that you are on MS SQL Server Database: GP 10.0, 9.0 and 8.0, if you are on GP 7.5 and earlier: 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0 or 4.0 where Great Plains was available on Ctree or Pervasive SQL/Btrieve, please review database connection options, described in our earlier articles ? you will need to install Ctree/Faircom or Pervasive ODBC drivers.  Let’s come back to Crystal for GP on MS SQL Server:

Microsoft Dynamics GP could potentially go beyond its out-of-the-box standard functionality and you as software programmer and developer could deploy it as ERP platform for your company ecommerce, EDI, wholesale and other extensions and integrations.  aa

In this publication we would like to concentrate on eConnect programming and technology.  Please, note that eConnect should be considered as solid SDK for C# and VB.Net developers, however for older versions of GP, such as 7.5, 8.0 and probably even 9.0 ? we recommend you to upgrade to version 10.0, prior to investing into eConnect research and programming:

Microsoft Dynamics GP implementation in ecommerce or EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) environments often requires documents creation in Dynamics GP from external applications, such as e-commerce web site. 

We recommend you to make a research in the SDK and integrating tool, named eConnect.  eConnect creates, deletes and updates GP master records: customer, vendor, employee, GL account, address for customer or vendor to name few examples.  Also eConnect creates so-called work documents: Sales Order Processing Invoice, Sales Order, Purchase Order, GL transaction, Payroll Payment and Check, etc.  Please, note here, that these documents have work status, they are not posted and awaiting for your review and posting on the batch level.  It is often the requirements to post Great Plains batch automatically from ecommerce or EDI integration application ? and here you will get the limitation of eConnect ? it doesn’t have batch posting functionality and it probably should not due to GP architecture.  In order to post batches in GP you will need add-on GP Autopost

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP requires data massage and initial conversion as well as data repair and day-to-day maintenance. 

If you are mid-size or large enterprise, you should consider having Microsoft SQL Server DBA in staff, however certain data repair routines might be too complex and dependent on the GP tables and data flow architecture, where you will need GP technical consultant to do the job.  In this small publication we would like to review data management techniques and the most convenient ways to do these jobs:

Microsoft Dynamics GP software licenses sale, implementation, data conversion, user training, customization, integration, reporting, version upgrade. 

Normally we serve you over the phone and web session from our call center, plus we onsite visits for to implement your new ERP ? this service is especially on demand in the country side.  You can request your implementation and business processes mapping via our submit quote web form, please visit our web site, see info below

1.       GP customizations.  This is our emphasis ? we pick up abandoned old Great Plains Dexterity custom modules, recover and upgrade them for you.  For this purpose as well as for new Dex modifications we maintain so-called Microsoft Dexterity Software Development factory

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP system is a good fit for manufacturing, energy plants in downstate Illinois as well as mid-size and smaller businesses in agriculture, services, wholesale and retail (especially with integration to Microsoft RMS), non-profit organizations and virtually all the others potential Great Plains Dynamics customers in the state of Illinois.  

We invite you to see GP presentation and business processes mapping.  Let’s take a look at GP implementation phases:

1.       ERP selection.  Here you must review many if not all major MRP packages to see which one fits your business and has the functionality to support your business growth and expansion if planned