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Showing posts from February, 2009

This week, free Visual Basic for Applications workshop with the Dynamics GP Blogster

Hi folks! I have been asked a number of times about some of the Modifier with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) customizations featured on my blog and those over at Developing for Dynamics GP . It's no secret that I co-author a number of development posts with my friend David Musgrave in the spirit of educating and delivering some of the best articles to the end-user and development communities alike. In light of this, this week I will deliver a 3-day Online Modifier with Visual Basic for Applications workshop , featured right here on this blog, that will step through a real-life customization from end to end. What you will need For the workshop, you will need a registered copy of Microsoft Dynamics GP v10, the Fabrikam sample company, and familiarity with the overall Dynamics GP navigation. Prerequisites This workshop assumes you have some familiarity with Modifier and have prior programming experience in Visual Basic or any other development environment. If you are an end-use

Some Dynamics GP humor

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It's not often that I publish some humor on the blog, but I thought this would be a good one. I have been working on a few projects at my current Dynamics GP customer for the last 8 months now and walked up to one of the buyers in the Purchasing department to ask an EDI related question, with my eyes wondering around his cubicle walls, and came across this hilarious picture with the following caption. I guess after all, this is how some users feel despite our upbeat efforts to help them day in and day out. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Developing for Dynamics GP weekly summary

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Over the past weeks I have neglected publishing the Developing for Dynamics GP weekly summary you have come to rely on for a breakdown of some of the coolest articles around the blogosphere , but this obeys a bit to a bit of breakdown in my own health -- late nights writing are not helping the case either :-). So lets get to work: First, my personal story... My dear friend, David Musgrave has been very hard at work on the topic of translating Dexterity applications , delivering some nice articles on the subject and showing how Microsoft Dexterity can help you in the process. This is a topic that brings a lot of good memories of my early days with the Dynamics GP system and Dexterity. As many of you know, I am the original architect and developer of the Microsoft Dynamics GP Spanish release and back in 1996 the tools were available, but the details on the translation process were very sketchy. The "does" and " dont's " were pretty much built on the fly and base

Displaying Hijri dates in Microsoft Dynamics GP

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In the last few days, many of my friends in the Middle East have been asking how to display Hijri dates -- as opposed to Gregorian dates -- in Microsoft Dynamics GP . It has been among the latest topic on the Microsoft Dynamics GP Developer Community newsgroup as well, and of course, the object of my curiosity for the last few days. First, a bit of background! The Hijri calendar is used to date events and celebrate Islamic holidays and festivities. It is based on the lunar cycle, having 12 lunar months in a year of about 354 days. Because this lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, Islamic holidays, although celebrated on fixed dates in their own calendar, usually shift 11 days earlier each successive solar year, such as a year of the Gregorian calendar. Islamic years are also called Hijra years because the first year was the year during which the Hijra occurred—Islamic prophet Muhammad's emigration from Mecca to Medina. Thus each numbered year is designat

New Article on MSDynamicsWorld: "Customizing for the wrong reasons"

" When carefully planned, customizations can be the difference between a successful and smooth business operation and a system that only gets you 80% of the way.. " Once more I have managed to publish a new article over at MSDynamicsWorld.com . This time around, I address 5 (wrong) reasons used by companies to begin customizing the system. Please take a look at the article and let me know your thoughts. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Effects of disabling Multicurrency Management

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If not working for a company that does business outside of the United States, it is difficult to understand all of the implications of the Multicurrency Management module. In fact, I would venture to say that it is one of the least understood functions in GP despite it's obvious name. For those of you however using the module, you may find that in these times of organizational downsizing and consolidation, Multicurrency may no longer be necessary and perhaps may need to be disabled to prevent entering transactions in other currencies. This is just what happened to a user seeking some advise on the issue on the Microsoft Dynamics GP newsgroup. Disabling Multicurrency Let's start by saying that once transactions have been entered in other currencies, you may no longer use the Multicurrency Access Setup window to disable these currencies for a Dynamics GP company. This would be, if it were possible, my preferred method to prevent a user from entering transactions in other curren

Leslie Vail presents "Dynamics GP Distribution Cost Savings" at Convergence 2009

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Fellow MVP Leslie Vail will be presenting a jammed packed, money saving tips session on Microsoft Dynamics GP distribution modules, at the upcoming Microsoft Convergence 2009 in New Orleans. Leslie is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and has years upon years of experience delivering quality presentations at Microsoft technical and non-technical events. Leslie's presentation is coded GP33 in the Convergence agenda. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com

Mark Polino's "50 tips in 50 minutes" goes prime time at Convergence 2009

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"Gather information on how to get more out of your existing implementation without a lot of cost or effort" Folks, I have been working on Dynamics GP since 1,996 and I would never dear trying what fellow MVP Mark Polino is about to do. Picture this: the stage... Convergence 2009, the audience... 200 - 300 people, the objective... deliver 50 Dynamics GP tips in 50 minutes . This is no game! However, Mark will turn it into one of the most exciting presentations you will ever want to attend during this year's Microsoft Convergence event. Make sure you separate some time for this and I would suggest you bring a camcorder to this one. Related Articles: For all Convergence 2009 articles on this site, click here . Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MCP, MVP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/ Panoramic of New Orleans The home of Convergence 2009

The importance of linking your fields to their prompts in Microsoft Dexterity

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When you have been doing Dexterity development for as long as I have been, a lot of things are automatically assumed and taken for granted when developing an add-on solution. A recent article by Patrick Roth over at Developing for Dynamics GP got me thinking on a common mistake that Dexterity developers (novice and experienced!) run into when developing add-ons for Microsoft Dynamics GP, or even in their own standalone solutions. In his article, Patrick points out the fact that you can change the caption of a field -- in Dexterity lingo, this is called a prompt -- by using VBA. The code he published can be generalized as follows: Generic Private Sub Window_AfterOpen() Private Sub Window_AfterOpen() fieldname .Caption = " Some Prompt Here " End Sub So, why the need to link fields with their corresponding prompts? -- I will get back to Patrick's article later and it's relation to this topic. The answer is simple. Because they are a number of field properties tha

Internet Explorer scripting errors on Microsoft Dynamics GP Home Page

Microsoft Dynamics GP home page is a relatively new and fascinating feature. While users are becoming more and more familiar with its use, it is still puzzling when errors show up inadvertly. The following error was reported by a user of Dynamics GP a few days ago: Home Page Error Line: 335 Char: 6 Error: The data is invalid Code: 0 URL: file:///c:/Documents%20and%20Settings/[user_folder]/Local%20Settings/Temp/tmp16A.tmp Each time the user refreshed the home page, the same error would manifest with a different temporary file. In fact, the line number, character, and temp file may vary from machine to machine in this case. However, the resolution to this problem is relatively simple: 1. Close all applications on the user desktop 2. Open Microsoft Windows Explorer and go to the folder indicated, c:\Documents and Settings\[user_folder]\Local Settings\Temp . 3. Highlight all files and delete them 4. Launch Dynamics GP and log on into the system. This should take care of the error! Rel

Dynamics GP upgrade from 8.0 to 10.0 and Year End closing

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My friend Doug Pitcher over at Rose Business Solutions has more information on GL year end closing after upgrading from Dynamics GP 8.0 to Dynamics GP 10.0. Apparently, there is an issue with the GL_Account_SUM_HIST_View not being updated correctly after the upgrade, causing a failure near the end of the closing process. Doug also has some recommendations on overcoming this issue. Please click here to read more. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MCP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Developing for Dynamics GP weekly summary

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This is the part my 3-year old loves the most... David Meego! Over at Developing for Dynamics GP the week went by with a common topic: "think before you customize!". We are all familiar with customizations and why we do them. However, I have seen customizations made for all the wrong reasons: a) This is how it used to work in our old system b) This will save us hours of processing time c) Our business is very complex d) Our requirements are unique and there is no one doing it like us out there e) The person who has this function in the company refuses to work in GP without the customization I have an answer for each of these, but you will have to read it in my next MSDynamicsWorld article. :-). So here are the articles that made the headlines this past week: 1. Before you write a customization, check Solution Finder . That's correct! Solution Finder is the leading source for ISV third party products and customizations and chances are, there is a product out there that