The Dynamics GP Blogster

The Integration Runtime (IR) is a customer managed data integration infrastructure used by Azure Data Factory to provide data integration capabilities across different network environments. It was formerly called as Data Management Gateway. It is used by Business Central and Dynamics GP to provide a one-way data synchronization between your on-premises SQL Server hosting your company databases, and your Business Central tenant data store in the cloud via Azure Data Factory. The self-hosted IR is capable of: Running copy activity between a cloud data stores and a data store in private network. Dispatching the following transform activities against compute resources in On-Premise or Azure Virtual Network: HDInsight Hive activity (BYOC), HDInsight Pig activity (BYOC), HDInsight MapReduce activity (BYOC), HDInsight Spark activity (BYOC), HDInsight Streaming activity (BYOC), Machine Learning Batch Execution activity, Machine Learning Update Resource activities, Stored Procedure activ...

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2, I had a first look at the update process, then quickly ran into a situation where the option to set up intelligent cloud insights wasn't showing in my already provisioned Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central tenant - See,  "Set up Intelligent Cloud" option not showing for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central tenants . I also noted that this option was available with the October '18 Release  and that the current tenants would be undergoing upgrades within the next 30 days. In the meantime, if you want to familiarize yourself with the process of deploying intelligent insights, you will need to provision a demo tenant, built on the October '18 release. Here's how you do this: 1. Launch your browser and enter https://demos.microsoft.com in the address bar. This will take you to the Microsoft demo site. The site can be accessed either with your Microsoft account or your Work account (organizational or...

Yesterday marked the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 to the English speaking market - other languages soon to follow. After a few hiccups in the download process (make sure you clear your browser cache before attempting to download), I was able to get my hands on the 1.81 GB zip file containing the actual installation media (1.92 GB unzipped). Since this is not a major release, I went straight for the Updates folder on the image and executed the MicrosoftDynamicsGP18-KB4458410-ENU.msp  file - The msp file was also published separately on the Service Pack, Hotfix, and Compliance Update Patch Releases for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018  page on PartnerSource and CustomerSource and it probably offers a better download experience and less of a footprint, if all you need is to update an existing Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 instance. Applying the msp  is a fairly straight forward process. However, if you need instructions for a full install, take a look at my article...

While in Johannesburg attending GPUG Amplify South Africa 2018, my friend of 1000 battles and fellow MVP David Musgrave and I sat down to prepare for our Day 1 sessions. Mariano Gomez and David Musgrave at GPUG Amplify South Africa 2018 In particular, we were preparing for our Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 Customizing the User Interface session, which featured updated material and sample code from the ones we had shown at previous sessions. In a cursory review of his environment, we noticed that he did not have the Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP templates installed. David noted that he was running Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 on his machine and that the GP 2018 templates did not support this version of Visual Studio. In fact, SDK templates are provided for Visual Studio 2010 through Visual Studio 2015 as of the release of Dynamics GP 2018. I quickly remembered that my good friend in the UK, Tim Wappat had created the extension manifest files for the VST projec...

In Part 1 of this series, I walked through the process of signing up for an Azure SQL Managed Instance preview (further referred to herein as "Managed Instance" for simplicity sake) and the subsequent deployment process once approved. In Part 2 , I looked at some of the issues you would ran into during the deployment of Microsoft Dynamics GP, particularly around the use of Dynamics GP Utilities to create an environment from scratch. From reading these two articles you may have concluded -- rightfully so -- that it's not possible to deploy Microsoft Dynamics GP using a Managed Instance PaaS. This article focuses on a deployment approach that works. Migrating Microsoft Dynamics GP to an Azure SQL Managed Instance Since Dynamics GP Utilities is not yet equipped to create databases on a Managed Instance, the only way to take advantage of this new service is via a migration. This is, taking your on-premise databases and restoring them onto the cloud database service. ...

In Part 1 of this series, I walked through the process and experience of signing up for the Azure SQL Managed Instance preview and the deployment process once approved. I also covered some of the issues I ran into. In this installment, I will take a look at deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP and, again, looking at the process and experiences I encountered while doing so. Pre-Microsoft Dynamics GP Deployment One of the steps within the deployment of a Managed Instance is the provisioning of a VM to be able to connect to the service. The instructions call for downloading and installing Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio on the VM. I figured, this is the VM I would also be using to install Dynamics GP, IIS, and Web Client. NOTE : Currently, you cannot connect to a Managed Instance from outside of the Azure vNet infrastructure, and frankly it makes a lot of sense. A few things I noticed right off the bat after connecting to the Managed Instance: a) A Managed Instance is confi...

A few weeks aback, I went through a series of video articles explaining the limitations preventing you from deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP on Azure SQL. See my video blog series here: Microsoft Dynamics GP: Running System and Company Databases on Azure SQL - Part 1 Microsoft Dynamics GP: Running System and Company Databases on Azure SQL - Part 2 Microsoft Dynamics GP: Running System and Company Databases on Azure SQL - Part 3 A few days later, my friend and fellow MVP Steve Endow introduced me to a new Azure preview feature called Azure SQL Managed Instance . Being a preview feature, there was a lengthy application process in order to gain access to it. Overview According to Microsoft, Azure SQL Managed Instance (further referred to herein as "Managed Instance" for simplicity sake) delivers the full capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server running on Azure service infrastructure. This is, all the limitations currently imposed by Azure SQL are, technically speaking,...

In Part 2 of this series, I showed the data migration process for the Microsoft Dynamics GP system database. I also provided a few reasons why the Azure SQL platform is not supported. This vlog article will skim through the migration process for the company database and will examine more reasons why Azure SQL is not a supported configuration. In this video I also examine other topics like the Azure SQL Query Editor which is currently in preview mode, and vertical elastic queries. Until next post, MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP

In Part 1  of this series, I showed how to create the Azure SQL server and initialize the shell databases needed to move a set of existing Microsoft Dynamics GP on-premise databases. This video shows the first set of problems you will run into, in order to support Microsoft Dynamics GP on Azure SQL, namely: You cannot deploy CLR assemblies on Azure SQL. Both the Workflow and Document Attach architectures rely on CLR assemblies to facilitate some of the functions they perform.  Some schema objects are blocked from creation on Azure due to references to system objects that are only available to the on-premise version of SQL Server.  Some SQL JOIN operations can create significant performance bottlenecks and would need to be refactored to improve performance. Part 3 of this video will allow you to see how far we got with this experiment. Until next post, MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP

Hi all, Before you get too excited, please know that there is no immediate plans for Microsoft to support Dynamics GP on Azure SQL. This vlog is rather an attempt to demystify some Community forum claims to his effect, but rather than simply saying "It doesn't work!", what I want to do is walk through the motions of provisioning the Azure databases, configuring the SQL Server, defining the elastic pool container, migrating the databases, and attempting to run Microsoft Dynamics GP and GP Utilities, while highlighting the current limitations preventing this configuration from working. For ease of consumption, I have divided this vlog in two parts. Please enjoy part 1. In part 2, we will work on migrating the databases and getting GP connected to them. If nothing else, you would have learned how easy it is to get Azure SQL up and running :) Until next post, MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP

I finally managed to get to this video! Every so often I come across Community forum posts requesting instructions on how to replace an expired certificate being used with the Microsoft Dynamics GP web client. The traditional response has always been to uninstall and reinstall the web client after replacing the certificate in IIS (single-machine installation), or to repair the installation (custom install). I frankly find those two processes a bit cumbersome and prone to errors, since system administrators often need to remember steps and entries that they may not even have initiated themselves. The procedures I outline in this video make use of the netsh  command prompt utility to accomplish this and I intend to soon publish a PowerShell script that would automate the entire process altogether. For now, enjoy this video and don't forget to provide your feedback. Until next post, MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP

Is not too often that you will hear me saying anything negative about my beloved Microsoft Dynamics GP, but it is quite disheartening, to say the least, to see Microsoft not addressing the industry move away from TLS 1.0 as it relates to Dynamics GP. Background TLS or Transport Layer Security protocol provides privacy and data integrity between applications wishing to exchange data. TLS ensures that the connection is private, because it uses symmetric keys to encrypt the data between the parties; the identity of the communicating parties can be authenticated via some public key; and the connection ensures some level of message integrity, because there's a message integrity check via a message authentication code. As you would expect, TLS 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 (draft), etc., are simply, progressive implementations, albeit with substantial differences that in some cases preclude interoperability between versions, of the same protocol. What is key however to this discussion is the ...

Back in June of 2009 - I know, right! Time flies - I wrote an article,  Retrieving dictionary build numbers outside of Dynamics GP , in which I described two methods to retrieving the build number of a particular Dexterity dictionary, none of which involved opening Dynamics GP to do so. The first method involved hovering over the dictionary itself, which would display a summary of the properties, including the build number; the second method involved right-clicking on the dictionary, then selecting Properties, then clicking on the Dictionary tab to obtain the Dictionary Version, Name, ID, associated forms and reports dictionary, compatibility ID, and compatibility message. Sample Dictionary properties tab Shortly after the publication of this article, I started seeing messages on the forums and discussion boards that the Dictionary tab was not available in certain environments, but I never really paid attention enough to find the reasons why. Just recently I was checking t...