The Dynamics GP Blogster

If you are a consultant, chances are you run your Microsoft Dynamics GP application demo environment on a laptop along with Microsoft SQL Server and SQL Server Reporting Services. This is all good, because it saves you from having to deal with virtual machine images in most cases. I also happen to be running all my application demo environment components on a Microsoft Windows 8.1 machine which gives me the opportunity to showcase the new Business Analyzer app. Business Analyzer app on Windows 8.1 Traditionally, when you try to connect Business Analyzer to SSRS on a Windows 8.x machine, the setup would go into a tail spin and you would end up with a "Cannot connect to server" error. By default, Windows 8 Modern UI Applications are forbidden to send network traffic to the local Computer. This is, Windows Store apps requiring network access are not automatically capable of communicating with a server application when both are running on the same machine - in this case...

Wednesday, November 20 The Microsoft MVP Global Summit is come to an end, but I am going to finish up the series and as usual wrap up with some thoughts. Frankly, today I woke up dragging feet a bit. It's been 2 grueling days of intense sessions with a lot of material to absorb. Since I am leaving on Thursday with the 1:15 PM flight back to Atlanta, I figured I would pack the day with a bunch of sessions I am interested in. And so, I attended the following sessions: BR078 - DevDay1: What’s Next for the Visual Studio IDE? BR519 - SQL Session 11-EN: Hidden Gems in SQL Server 2014 BR296 - SQL Session 12-BI: Applications on SSIM Platform Again, I cannot really disclose much of the content I gather from these sessions, but suffice to say the future of Visual Studio looks great and you can start seeing some of the UX As for SQL Server, you should be looking into some of the content already being delivered by Microsoft in SQL Server 2014 CTP2  and especially its new In-m...

Tuesday, November 19 This day is very significant for us, Microsoft Dynamics GP MVP. For the first time, the MVP Global Summit features Microsoft Dynamics GP content. I had a late start today. I believe I am starting to slow down. The previous day proved very hectic and tiring, displacing between buildings. However, I was at the Microsoft Conference Center early this morning to begin the day. On my way to the registration desk with Leslie and John, I saw this guy which I can only qualify as the Leslie Vail of the MVP world. He sure looked the part. Just some morning fun But what else could get your day going, if not Clippy , the former Office Assistant? Clippy happened to be running up and down the corridors of Building 33 greeting and cheering MVPs in attendance. Clippy We quickly found our way to Building 34 where the GP Product Team comprised of Daryl Anderson and Mike Hammond was ready to rock and roll. The following were the topics for the day: BR133 - Dyna...

Monday, November 18 Seattle has some rain in store for us this week and it did not disappoint. The morning started with a hearty continental buffet over here at the Hilton Bellevue hotel where MVPs were clearly gearing up for the long day ahead. MVPs heading over to MSCC After wrapping up, I headed over the Microsoft Conference Center in Building 33 to begin my Monday sessions. First up was BR404 - What's New in Windows Azure AD presented by Vittorio Bertocci , Principal Program Manager in the Windows Azure Active Directory team in charge of the Developer Experience. I was fascinated by the upcoming improvements Following the BR404 session, I headed over to building 122 to attend the rest of the sessions on my agenda for the day: BR286 - SQL Session 2-ALL: Information Management and Data Stewardship BR287 - SQL Session 3-BI: Under the hood of Power BI BR288 - SQL Session 4-BI: PowerBI IT Admin Experience While I can't comment on the details of the sessions, ...

Sunday, November 17 This week finds me in the beautiful city of Seattle, Washington, partaking in my first Microsoft MVP Global Summit The MVP Global Summit is a multi-day event that is hosted in Bellevue and at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. With a large catalog of technical sessions and a variety of networking opportunities, the MVP Global Summit enables MVPs to connect with other MVPs, build relationships with Microsoft product managers, and provide feedback on Microsoft products and technologies. My day started with a fairly quiet travel between the cities of Atlanta, GA and Seattle, WA. Arriving into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport  was its usual self around this time of the year: cloudy, cold, and misty. View of the Port of Seattle After landing, I grabbed a cab that would take me straight to the Hilton Bellevue hotel, where registration was a breeze. Up I went to my room to change into some jeans and headed over to the Bellevue Hyatt Regen...

A few days aback I encountered a really interesting discussion on the Microsoft Dynamics GP Community forum  where the user needed to get the parent customer information on the SOP Blank Invoice Form. I asked myself, "Well, how difficult can that be?" The first thought around these requests is, you create a table relationship between the Sales Transaction Work (SOP_HDR_WORK) table and the RM Customer Master (RM_Customer_MSTR) table by Customer Number and you get the parent customer ID. In that train of thought you immediately realize that there's no way to alias the RM Customer Master table back into the table relationship to retrieve the parent customer ID information. [NOTE TO SELF: this would be a cool Report Writer feature, but I digress.] Of course, a second alternative is to use VBA, but many customers and partners are wary of implementing a VBA solution, especially when they are considering upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and taking advantage of the we...

Continuing with the Web Client Wednesday series, today I wanted to highlight the fact that the web client is still a work in progress. While a lot of ground has been covered over the past 3 years, the product continues to evolve, and of course, in the meantime there will be little issues here and there that may affect the way you work. Previous articles in the series: Web Client Wednesday - Browser Support Web Client Wednesday - User Interface Differences Just recently I ran into a Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 web client deployment case where the advanced SQL Server options are enabled to enforce password expiration. These properties are a part of the Enforce Password Policy options on the User Setup window. User Setup When a password expires and a user attempts to log into the desktop client, they are immediately prompted to change their password and the Change User Password dialog window displays to allow the user to enter the old password, and enter and c...

Last week MVP Mark Polino started a series called Web Client Wednesdays, which is actually a Microsoft Dynamics GP community outreach to start building up the body of knowledge around Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 web client. If you are a blogger, consultant, customer, or partner who has had some experience with the web client, Mark would like to hear from you. As part of my contribution to this series, last week I started talking about the UI differences between the desktop client and the web client. Of course, after publishing the article I realized a probably left out a few things, but then again, I can use this as additional material for a future blog. Today I want to provide some answers to a question I know a lot of you go to bed thinking about at nights: can the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 web client run in other browsers other than Internet Explorer? Of course, if we are going to talk browsers , it's probably good to mention that this article will focus on t...