New Book on Dynamics GP Web Client

A new book by fellow Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Ian Grieve is now out about the Web Client - Implementing the Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client. I was fortunate enough to review the book as Ian was writing it.

Ian has created a great tool to supplement the ton of documentation available from Microsoft. His personal experiences, and easy to read instructions will make a web client install much easier than it actually is. If you don’t follow Ian’s blog – I highly recommend checking it out – http://www.azurecurve.co.uk/

Six Microsoft Dynamics GP Predictions for 2014

Mark Polino shares his Five Microsoft Dynamics GP Predictions for 2014 over at MSDynamicsWorld.com. Its a great list, and if I may add a sixth prediction -

Significantly Increased Adoption of Dynamics GP on Azure

Hosting GP on Azure Infrastructure Services is quick, cheap, efficient and scalable. I have already seen quite a few customers, and partners take the lead on this. If you haven’t yet started looking into it – Microsoft has a dedicated page at Partnersource.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure

There’s video training, business value – but don’t miss the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on Windows Azure Deployment Whitepaper. The web client is revolutionary technology, and if you have the option – I always recommend going for it. Unfortunately, not a lot of major ISVs are compatible with the web client which has slowed adoption. Meanwhile, on Azure infrastructure services – everything works.

As Partners we have significant benefits with hosting on Azure -

• Ability to reuse virtual machines
• So much easier to create test environments
• Less initial investment costs for small and mid sized businesses.
• Flexible licensing - there's no need to procure and install hardware locally or rewrite your solutions to deploy to the cloud.

Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client Beta Troubleshooting

Playing around with  GP 2013 web client over the last few days – I’ve started compiling a list of common error messages, and resolutions. This is a work in progress, but hopefully it might be of help to others trying out the beta.

Common Troubleshooting steps that worked for me in all cases below [ remember these steps apply only for the beta on a test system – don’t go about trying them on your production system]

1. Review the web client install pdf file (yes, I know you read it -  please go read it again)
2. Make sure that the GP Session Services and GP Session Central Services is setup and running [ this is something I have to do a couple of times everyday, I am using my PC which I put to sleep whenever I travel, so maybe that messes up with the service]
3. Use an admin account to run the services
4. Restart the GP Session Services and GP Session Central Services
5. Restart IIS  (from the command prompt iisreset)
6. If you have all the dictionaries loaded, the login screen will take some time to load up. Go get a coffee, till the status bar says connected in green – even if the login screen is active, you have to wait.
7. If you can’t print a report or export to excel make sure you have permission to the folder you are saving the file to. Some reports are saved by default to the server, so you would want to change that to a path on your local machine.
8. Review the event log for any specific case
9. Restart your system (this worked for me a couple of times, as I have the demo setup on my local PC)

Error : “Error” in the status bar with login window hung up.

Resolution : Check the event viewer logs, make sure the gp session services are running.

 

 

 

Error : Unexpected Error
Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. System.Web.HttpUnhandledException (0x80004005): Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. ---> System.ServiceModel.EndpointNotFoundException: There was no endpoint listening at http://XXXXXXX:48650/SessionCentralService that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details. ---> System.Net.WebException: Unable to connect to the remote server --->

Resolution : Make sure the GP session service and GP Session central service are running

 

Error : Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. System.Web.HttpUnhandledException (0x80004005): Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. ---> System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[System.ServiceModel.ExceptionDetail]: The user is not authorized to call this service operation. (Fault Detail is equal to An ExceptionDetail, likely created by IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults=true, whose value is: System.InvalidOperationException: The user is not authorized to call this service operation. at Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.Web.Services.Session.Service.SessionCentralService.ValidateCallerIsMemberOf(String principalCollectionKey) at Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.Web.Services.Session.Service.SessionCentralService.GetSessionHostWithMostAvailability

Resolution : Make sure you are using a user who has admin rights to run the services

Unexpected Error

Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. System.Web.HttpUnhandledException (0x80004005): Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. ---> System.ServiceModel.EndpointNotFoundException: There was no endpoint listening at http://XXXXXX:48650/SessionCentralService that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details. ---> System.Net.WebException: Unable to connect to the remote server ---> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it [2001:0:9d38:6ab8:8eb:3876:3f57:b499]:48650 at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.DoConnect(EndPoint endPointSnapshot, SocketAddress socketAddress) at System.Net.ServicePoint.ConnectSocketInternal(Boolean connectFailure, Socket s4, Socket s6, Socket& socket, IPAddress& address, ConnectSocketState state, IAsyncResult asyncResult, Int32 timeout, Exception& exception)

 

Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. System.Web.HttpUnhandledException (0x80004005): Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. ---> System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[System.ServiceModel.ExceptionDetail]: The network path was not found. (Fault Detail is equal to An ExceptionDetail, likely created by IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults=true, whose value is: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: The network path was not found. 

Resolution : In this case – I had to restart the system after trying everything else. 

 

Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. System.Web.HttpUnhandledException (0x80004005): Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. ---> System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: userName at Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.Web.Website.Services.SessionCentralServiceHandler.GetActiveSessionsForUser(String userName) at Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.Web.Website.MiddleMan.Sessions.GetSessions() at Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.Web.Website.Views.Sessions.StartDataLoad() at System.Web.UI.Timer.OnTick(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Timer.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Timer.System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) at Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.Web.Website.Views.Sessions.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain

Resolution : Make sure IIS is running, and you can browse through a page. Go to the login page, and login again.

Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client Beta Video

If you have been following my blog for the last few months, you probably have had an idea about how excited I have been about the web client. I have been trying to share my excitement via conferences Dynamics GP Web Client: What You Need to Know Now and posts.

All through – there have been a lot of questions from existing users after the initial – “wow, that sounds cool”

• Will drill down from summary to detailed transactions work ?
• How will smartlists work ?
• Is it going to be slow like other cloud based ERPs ?

Now that the GP web client Beta is out – I have tried to record a video to give you guys another sneak peek into it. Naturally this is the first version of the web client, and its a beta, so there will be some issues that will get ironed out in the next few months. However, it is amazing technology – its a very responsive UI, and will definitely help Dynamics GP reach out to an even broader market. 

Go check it out – and let me know what you think. Also go and drop your commendations to the GP Product team.

Watch it on Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvLCE3ccwjU

 

Playing around with Dynamics GP Web Client Beta

Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client Installation

The GP Product team announced the release of GP 2013 Beta yesterday. There was a disclaimer “there is no technical support available for the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client Beta release.  One great way to "help yourselves" is by utilizing the Partner OTC Forum, located at social.microsoft.com/.../threads”
I was planning for a long weekend. However, setting up the web client on my test machine with the sample company took less than an hour! How cool is that ? Naturally there will are a lot of considerations when planning deployment in a production environment.
To get started you would want to download the beta from here. https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/support/selfsupport/productreleases/MDGP2013_TAPReleaseDownload
Review the documentation from

• Documentation and resources for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Beta Desktop Client
• Documentation and resources for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Beta Web Client

So I reviewed all that, and got started on my adventure. I first setup GP 2013 client, made sure to select Web Client runtime in the features.

After that I launched the installer again, and clicked on install web client.


I chose the single machine option for this beta version.


You need to make sure you have setup a SSL website.  I found the following article helpful - To Set Up an HTTPS Service in IIS

Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager -> click on the Server (Machine name) -> double click Server Certificates under Features View
From the Actions pane click Create Self-Signed Certificate…
After this I straight away clicked Default Web Site then double clicked SSL Settings. This is the message I got:
The site does not have a secure binding (HTTPS) and cannot accept SSL connections
I only missed out 1 step, that is, I should click Binding… under Edit Site in Actions pane.

Also make sure to create user groups specifically for WebClient.


I skipped that step and got the error - An error occurred while applying security settings. XXXXXXXXX68\Users is not a valid user or group. This could be a problem with the package, or a problem connecting to a domain controller on the network. Check your network connection and click Retry, or Cancel to end the install.



So I went back and created the user group and assigned a couple of test users to it.




Once the installation completed, went to browse at https://machinename/gp/




Ran through the rest of steps, and voila !
It also works in google chrome, though its not supported.



Leslie and Ian have got some documentation with regards to the installation. You can check them out at -

• Dynamics Confessor: Installing the GP 2013 Web Client–roll up your sleeves!
• Ian : How To Install Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 (Beta) – Client
• Ian : How To Install Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 (Beta) – Server Configuration
• Ian : How To Install Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 (Beta) – Deploy Demo Company

Dynamics GP Web Client–What will and will not work

With GP 2012 coming out in Q4 2012, its time to  start preparing. David Musgrave has a nice post out about what will and will not work in the web client -

Microsoft Convergence 2012 Houston - GPPC PreGame & Web Client 

Please go read the complete post. I have quoted the unsupported items and David’s recommendations below -

While I think that the development team have achieved some amazing results and that the GP "12" Web client is just fantastic, there are some features of the full Desktop client which will not work in the first version of the Web client. There are some parts that are just too hard at this time and had to be skipped to allow the first release to stay on schedule. So here is the Not Supported in Version 1 list:

• Workflow
• Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Customizations (note that Modified windows will work)
• UI Templates or style sheets for windows
• Visual Studio Tools (VST) winforms (note that .Net business logic against Dexterity windows will work)

Whether (or when) these features will get into the Web client is not know at this time.

My suggestions at this time to allow customizations to work in the Web client would be:

• For Dexterity customizations: Implement Ribbons and window Tabs for your forms. For best performance: Avoid using move field command. Clean out dead scripts (scripts with source but no executable code) - There will be a new pragma command to mark a dead script. Change hidden or ~internal~ windows to internal window type.
• For VBA customizations: Use modified windows as normal, but transfer the business logic from VBA to VB.Net in Visual Studio Tools. Avoid using VBA Userforms.
• For VS Tools customizations: Avoid using Visual Studio Winforms and use Modifier or Dexterity instead to create/modify windows. Business logic can remain in C# or VB.Net.

Its pretty straight forward – but I think the big decisions that partners would have to make is whether they need to

• Avoid VBA and VS Tool Windows and go for Dexterity/ Modifier windows with C#
• Wait for more information about what’s supported in V2 of Web Client