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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Excluding Inactive Vendors/Customers from Lookups

One of the common pain points with Dynamics GP Lookups is that they show both Active and Inactive Vendors. For people who deal with lots of Inactive customers and vendors, this is a problem.

In Dynamics GP 2010 – you can use the  “Exclude Inactive Vendors” option to address this.

GP 2010

In Dynamics GP 2010 – there is a “Exclude Inactive Vendors” option implemented in the lookup.  There is “Set as Default View” options as well.  The default view you select will be the view displayed when you open the lookup window the next time.

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GP 10

If you are using GP 10, the steps below are an alternative.

1. Create a new SmartList, click on Search and select the search options as shown below. Save this SmartList as a Favorite with the name like “Active Vendors”

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2. When you open the Vendor Lookup, click on the arrow on the top left corner and select the Active Vendors Option under favorites. It will display only active vendors.

The small problem with this is that you will have to select the option every time you load the Vendors Lookup Window. This can be solved with writing some basic VBA code using the Grid_BeforeLinePopulate event for the lookup you want to filter.

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Field Level Security in Dynamics GP 2010

In Dynamics GP 2010 all Business Essentials(BE) users receive Field Level Security(along with Account Level Security and Electronic Banking Suite) at no additional cost.

This makes the recent post by Frank Hamelly on Field Level Security worth highlighting -  http://gp2themax.blogspot.com/2010/05/gptip42day-fiield-level-security.html – He has a nice example “let's say you want to hide the Current Cost field in the Item Card from everyone but your cost accounting department.  Here's how you do it with FLS:”

Using Field Level Security you can hide any field on a window from specific users. Without Field Level Security if you want to hide the Post or Approve Button on the Batch Entry window from specific users, you would have to use a customization or VBA Code. Field Level Security offers this out of the box. Field Level Security also allows you to assign passwords to make a field or window available to the users.

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Some more resources -

Post by Janakiram at http://janakirammp.blogspot.com/2009/07/optimize-security-using-field-level.html

FAQ about Advanced Security and about Field Level Security in Microsoft Dynamics GP and in Microsoft Great Plains - https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?WTNTZSMNWUKNTMMYKKQRRUZVRPSSXNSNWTQZRSXSPOKVWULOKVZQXRMWLXVVUMZK

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Frank Hamelly’s ‘Enhance Your Dynamics GP Skills and Get Noticed’ Presentation

In the final GP presentation at Decisions 2010 - Frank spoke about how important it is to keep your skill sets up to date in today’s environment (with a scary story to begin with of Joe).

He discussed ways to keep your skills up to date for Dynamics GP – with their pros and cons

Check out Franks Blog at http://www.gp2themax.blogspot.com/

He really works hard putting in GP tips every other day.

The presentation should be available online soon. Check it out!

Mark Polino’s Fast Close for Dynamics GP

Today at Decisions 2010, hotshot GP blogger Mark Polino made a presentation with tips to help people close the month faster. His theme was ‘Take Back your month’ – and have a life :)

Mark spoke about in detail what it takes to succeed in the goal of making a fast close  –

I have put in links with tips on Mark’s website with details of some of the tips.

Do check out this presentation when it goes online on demand later today. Mark had lots of examples - show it to your controller or better the entire accounting department, and they will love you for it.  He gave a secret mantra which would be available when you watch the presentation !

He gave another great resource regarding Fast Close Steve Bragg’s Book. 

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Jeff McDowell’s ‘Are You Ready for Your Next Audit with Microsoft Dynamics GP?’ Presentation

I expected this to be the most boring presentation of the day. However, the talk by Jeff Mcdowell (from FastPath), was enlightening and entertaining with lots of practical examples.

He had a presentation about meeting audit requirements with Dynamics GP.

In his presentation - Jeff covered

  • Audit Compliance
  • Achieving Compliance using Dynamics GP
    • Making the Most of Audit Trail and Logging Information – Who, What, When of changes. Tracking what’s necessary
    • Segregation of duties
    • Security Configuration – Limit Sys Admin access, Identify and monitor critical transactions. Strong Pwd Policies.
  • Preparation and Automation - Challenges with Compliance with your current Implementation
  • Challenges with GP and Auditing – reliance on sa, SQL authentication and password administration
  • FastPath’s Products – Audit Trail, Assure and Config AD

Mark Polino has covered FastPath on his blog a couple of times last year, with a nice introduction to their products. 

http://msdynamicsgp.blogspot.com/2009/03/fastpath-configurator-ad-gets-better.html

http://msdynamicsgp.blogspot.com/2009/07/fastpath-security-for-dynamics-gp-what.html 

Should be available on demand tomorrow evening. Check it out!

Amber Bell’s ‘Discovering Dynamics GP Features that Add Value Now’ Presentation

Decisions 2010, an excellent presentation by Amber Bell. Covered a lot in quick time -

  • GP 10 List Feature
  • Excel Export Solutions in SmartList – Pretty cool ! One of the lesser used features of Dynamics GP.
  • SmartList Builder and Excel Report Builder
  • Reviewing Live GP Data in Excel – Data Links. Can be setup from Setup > System > Reporting Tools Setup 
  • Letter Writing Assistant in GP 10

Amber pointed to the GP Tips and Tricks articles on her website at – http://www.calszone.com/client-resources/gp-tips-tricks/

Presentation should be available online tomorrow evening at http://decisions.msdynamicsworld.com/

Mariano Gomez’s Dynamics GP Security Administration

Just attended Mariano’s excellent Decisions 2010 Presentation. Mariano spoke about the Support Debugging Tool

  • Gave a background and history of the tool.
  • Explained the standard and advanced mode features
  • Recommended Configuration
  • Security Profiler in Support Debugging Tool
  • Executing Dexterity commands
  • XML Table export/import for transferring security records (Useful for transferring from Test to Production)
  • Gave an overview of other Support Debugging Tool features

I was hoping there would be a video demonstration at some point, and I think his slides planned for it, but might have been a technical difficultly.

I believe this would be available on Demand soon. Do check it out!

Review more information about the Support Debugging tool here http://blogs.msdn.com/developingfordynamicsgp/pages/support-debugging-tool.aspx

Decisions 2010 – Booths and Dynamics GP Sessions

The booths are pretty cool, as good as it gets close to the real thing. You can talk to the people involved, there are further resources to check out the products, and prizes and contests thrown in as well.

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Dynamics GP Sessions at Decisions 2010

 

Details with Time here - http://decisions.msdynamicsworld.com/product/gp/sessions

Microsoft Dynamics GP Security Administration
Mariano Gomez (60 min)

Using What You've Got: Discovering the Dynamics GP Features That Add Value Now
Amber Bell (30 min)

Using What You've Got: Discovering the Dynamics GP Features That Add Value Now
Amber Bell (30 min)

Are You Ready for Your Next Audit with Microsoft Dynamics GP?
Jeff McDowell (30 min)

Fast Close for Dynamics GP
Mark Polino (60 min)

Sharpen the Axe—Enhance Your Dynamics GP Skills and Get Noticed
Frank Hamelly (30 min)

 

The Networking Lounge

 

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Decisions 2010 is Underway

Pretty cool concept.

See Mark Polino and Mariano Gomez highlighted below :)

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Monday, May 17, 2010

Dynamics GP Professional Tools Security

GP Professional Tools Library requires the user to be logged in as ‘sa’.

The tools that specifically require this are -

• Toolkit
• Database Disabler
• Customer Modifier
• Customer Combiner
• Customer Name Modifier
• Item Number Modifier
• Item Number Combiner
• Vendor Modifier
• Vendor Combiner
• Vendor Name Modifier
• Login/User Generator
• Account Modifier/Combiner
• Salesperson Modifier
• Territory Modifier
• Territory Combiner

This is often a problem with customers as administrators don’t like giving out the sa password to end users, who could be running a tool like say Customer Combiner.  Right now, Administrators have the option to go up to the users and log them in every time they want to use these tools, or give them the sa password.

In Microsoft’s SQL Server Security Best Practices, Microsoft recommends -

· Do not manage SQL Server by using the sa login account; assign sysadmin privilege to a knows user or group.

· Rename the sa account to a different account name to prevent attacks on the sa account by name.

As of now, if you are using the Professional Tools Library, you have to use the sa login. You cannot use DYNSA, or any other user with sysadmin rights.

You would simply get the message - “You must be logged in as ‘sa’ to utilize this Utility”

Or maybe, I am missing something here …

Vote for this feature to be implemented,  fliehigh had put this as a product suggestion in May 2008 - https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamics/feedback/details/347992/gp-professional-service-tools-security

Friday, May 14, 2010

SQL Server 2008 R2 (Code name Kilimanjaro) with GP 10

An Important note if you are planning to setup GP 10 with the recently released SQL Server 2008 R2 - Service Pack 5 for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 required. Service Pack 5 is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2010.

You would get the error - “your current SQL Server is not a supported version” if you try to install GP 10 with SQL 2008 R2. 

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GP 2010 is supported out of the box - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - Enterprise Edition or Standard Edition

SQL Server 2008 has better support and integration for the PowerPivot feature in Office 2010 among many other things. People have reporting using PowerPivot with large amount of data. Microsoft says that with enough memory, 100 million rows can be imported.

Some other really cools things about SQL Server 2008 R2

1. SQL Server 2008 R2 can now scale with Windows Server 2008 R2 up to 256 logical processors.

2. Utility Control Point, which enables a centralized view of SQL Server instances and database applications and their utilization across the designated managed server group

3. Utility Explorer that provides a tree view of the servers, and a dashboard with summary information on the servers.

4. A new Unicode compression scheme, USC-2, can save up to 50% of storage requirements with Unicode data.

Check out the SQL Server 2008 R2 Feature Pack here

Video

Microsoft seems to be producing nice videos about everything – See R2 Videos here -  http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/tour/en/videos.aspx

Office 2010 and Dynamics GP

With Office 2010 going to retain stores this week, a lot of questions are coming up about upgrading to Office 2010 from Dynamics GP Users.  Office 2010 has already been released to partners and via Technet, and is getting good reviews.

Preston Gralla from PC World writes -

“I review plenty of software packages throughout the course of a year, and it's rare that I come across one that I believe will truly make a difference in the way that I work or use my computer. This is one of those times.”

I recommend you check out the review, highlights the outstanding features of Office 2010, especially Outlook.

Pam at the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP has highlighted the new features of Excel which would be useful to Dynamics GP Users. PowerPivot and Slices do look wonderful!

“Microsoft Excel 2010 has a number of new features that make information more visual, helping to interpret data easier to avoid overload.  When connected to Dynamics GP, Excel empowers people by delivering new insight into business information making it easier to share and act.  New Excel 2010 features such as Slicers and Sparklines bring numbers to life

PowerPivot  for Excel 2010 is super cool and has a huge value to Dynamics GP customers.  Mash data together from Dynamics GP, Dynamics CRM, and other data sources and create graphs and charts against your key business metrics in one place.  This is a must do.  Check it out.”

Dynamics GP 2010 and Office 2010 (Supported)

As per the GP 2010 System Requirements the supported version of Office with GP 2010 are -

Microsoft Office 2007
Microsoft Office 2010

Note –

1. Based on the feedback from users and a Microsoft tech looks like the Email Functionality in GP 2010 is not compatible with Office 64 bit at this point. It does work seamlessly with the Office 32 bit version.

2. If you want to use Word templates with Office 2007, you need to install the GP 2010 work add-0n

Dynamics GP 10 and Office 2010 (Not supported)

As per the GP 10 System Requirements the supported versions of Office are -

Microsoft Office XP
Microsoft Office 2003
Microsoft Office 2007

Although based on Mariano’s testing last year with the Office 2010 beta, he didn’t run into any problems .

I am currently running Microsoft Dynamics GP v10 Service Pack 4 on Windows 7 Enterprise. Upon launching Dynamics GP I thought I would encounter my first issue with the Home Page perhaps not being able to address the new version of Microsoft Outlook 2010 components.
However, it seems that Microsoft Office development team made a conscious effort to preserve the COM automation interfaces for compatibility with other applications that have come to rely on these objects. Next step involved testing SmartList exports to Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft Word 2010. I went ahead and selected the Account Summary SmartList and click the Export to Excel button. The test completed successfully …

We’ve just setup Office 2010 on a couple of workstations and haven’t  run into any problem with Smartlist exports either. I will post my notes of more testing later.

However, if you want to go the correct  route and get Office 2010, you should start planning your GP 2010 upgrade. Most people already are.

Video

The Next Wave of Business Productivity: Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 with Microsoft Dynamics

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Monday, May 3, 2010

Upgrade Path to GP 2010

Mariono Gomez and Mohammad R. Daoud have previously covered Upgrade paths to GP 10 from older versions

Microsoft Dynamics GP upgrade path
Upgrade Path to GP 10.0 From Older Versions

While they come up with their lists, here is the upgrade path to GP 2010 that I know of.

From GP 9 – Required 9.00.0371 (Hotfix KB 971017) or later (GP 9 SP 4 was 9.00.0352 )

From GP 10 – 10.00.1368 (Service Pack 4) or later

NOTE: There is no direct update from Microsoft Business Solutions-Great Plains 8.0 to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. You must update to Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 or Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 first.

See the Updating to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 hot topic