Snapshot tool from David Musgrave

David Musgrave has released a basic unsupported version of a highly useful product Snapshot to setup, pre-load and migrate data to GP. I am as excited about this as I was about "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "The Dark Knight".

Here are the the example uses -

•  Automatic pre-loading of data into new companies. You could pre-
load tax schedules, charts of accounts, module Setup information, etc.

•  Pre-loading of data into new companies using the wizard to select the
appropriate  profile.    For  example,  you  could  supply  profiles  for
different business types.

•  Copying  specific  data  from  any  product  for  backup  or  support
purposes.  Can be used to send specified table data via email rather
than an entire company. 

•  Backing up and restoring Sales Consultant’s demonstration systems
created for demonstrating specific products.

•  Backing up and restoring specific data to return to a known state for
development SQA (Software Quality Assurance) purposes.

•  Copying data between different companies on a system.

•  Copying  data  between  different  systems,  independent  of  database
platform, account framework or sort order.

•  Corporate data archiving by copying selected data using the where
clause and then clearing those selected records from the table. 
 
•  Migrating data between platforms, especially for 3rd  party products
that do not have migration facilities.
 
•  Creating or re-creating tables, especially for 3rd  party products that do
not have installation scripts.

•  Creating  or  re-creating  the  Dexterity  automatic  stored  procedures,
especially when a Dexterity runtime update recommends recreation of
the store procedures.

•  Ensuring  access  is  granted  to  tables  and  stored  procedures,  by
requesting SnapShot to create the tables without dropping them first.

•  Obtaining a resource description report for tables and fields from any
product.

•  Obtaining resource information as a tab delimited file for importing
into  the  data  dictionary  of  your  favorite  data  mining  or  reporting
application.

•  Obtaining resource information as an XML file for use with any XML
compatible application.

Do check it out!