The Dynamics GP Blogster

David Musgrave's GP logos throughout the years article continues to receive great reviews and has brought back many great memories for those of us who have been around long enough in the business of building customer success stories with Microsoft Dynamics GP. I thought I would bring back some very familiar images to many of you: the Dynamics GP splash screens! The splash screen is a bitmap file (.bmp) and was initially introduced with the release of Great Plains Dynamics and eEnterprise version 5.5 and has since been used by partners and customers to bring a more personalized look to their individual implementations. NOTE : the functionality to load a splash screen was introduced with Dexterity 3.x. Splash images have since been blended with company logos, ISV logos, product logos, replaced with soothing landscapes, tropical scenes, calming horizons, and anything customers, partners, and ISVs could envision to bring a level of personalization and pride of ownership after a ...

My friend David Musgrave has been busy lately. He has brought to us great products like Named Printers, Advanced Security, SnapShot, and Support Debugging Tool . He has done it again with the release of Menus for Visual Studio Tools (MVST). For those of you not familiar with MVST, it's a Dexterity-based product that exposes an API to Visual Studio developers for them to add their own menu items to the Microsoft Dynamics GP interface, providing even more transparent integrating products and customizations. If you may recall, there was no (out of the box) way to go about this with standard Visual Studio Tools functionality, which forced VS developers to create their own Dexterity customization to add their own menus. Of course, every developer has a different approach to writing code and coming up with an integrating solution -- IF they happen to know Dexterity, which wasn't always the case. As a participant in the of the beta testing phase I played with some of the tool's fe...

The GPUG Summit 2008 is in full swing and the keynote speech delivered by Jeff Young, product unit manager for Microsoft Business Solutions came with a surprising presentation of Microsoft Dynamics GP 11.0. While the preview was very limited, it focused on the extended workflow capabilities for Office 14 and improved Sharepoint integration. 2009 has been targeted as the release for GP 11.0, however no specific quarter has been identified for it's release. Microsoft execs promissed a better preview at Convergence 2009. More information at MSDynamicsWorld.com. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MVP, MCP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Ever walked into a site where customizations to the Dynamics GP system seem to be endless? Are you confused as a consultant by what was done in what tool? This one may seem as a no brainer, but it is one of the biggest issues I face when I go to a customer's site, especially when I am not the first to walk in there. In addition, many of my customers also ask about windows with titles enclosed by periods, i.e., " .Customer Maintenance. ", or preceded by one period, i.e., " .Customer Maintenance ", or suffixed by one period, i.e., " Customer Maintenance. ", of course, for the trained and qualified eye, all created with Modifier and/or VBA, and/or both. The question is often, why is it that we have these two periods around the window name? Can't we change it to something more visually appealing and truly indicative of existing customizations?The honest truth is, unless you have a much trained eye, these periods can escape you very easily and can make ...

Fellow bloggers Dwight Specht a Mark Polino tackle the formatting of currency fields being pulled into Excel from Analysis Services. Dwight and Mark provide detail steps on how to overcome this issue, but fundamentally on how to get rid of it forever. Please stop by DynamicAccounting.net to read this very interesting article . Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MVP, MCP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

It is always good to see fellow consultants willing to share their knowledge and experience. Christina Phillips (The Knaster Technology Group) and Steve Endow (Precipio Services) have become a part of the select list of Dynamics GP bloggers who have decided to share their collective knowledge on their new site: Dynamics GP Land . Visit Christina's and Steve's site and drop them a note of support for their efforts. They will sure appreciate your insight. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MVP, MCP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com

Well, it's gotta be the Southern air that produces so many great GP consultants, writers, MVPs, and the alikes! Fellow MVP, Frank Hamelly decided to break his "pen's silence" and explores BOM and Assembly Transactions for companies requiring minimum manufacturing functionality without getting into the complexities of a full blown product. You can find Frank's first article on MSDynamicsWorld.com. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MVP, MCP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC. http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

The following post started out as many of my other posts -- with a question on the Dynamics GP newsgroup: how to display record notes for items on the Item Inquiry window . When I first thought of this question, it was immediately apparent that a few SQL calls in VBA to read the notes table and return the text to some VBA form, and bit of old fashioned "hide" and "show" of fields could get the job done, but then I thought, what if I could make this code act and behave just like that of standard Microsoft Dynamics GP windows with record level notes? That is, the buttons had to look and feel just like standard GP windows, then when you click on the buttons, they had to open the standard GP notes windows, and even better, what if you could attach new notes a la Dynamics GP from those same inquiry windows too. Code History On my first iteration, I used the new VBA UserInfo object to create an ADO connection to the company database to retrieve the Note Index from the Re...

Microsoft has just released Service Pack 4 for Dynamics GP 9.0. These service packs are for English speaking installations of Release 9.0. Translated service packs release approximately 30-60 days following the English speaking releases. Accoding to the release notes, Service Pack 4 will be the final release for Dynamics GP 9.0 Service Pack 4 for Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 can be downloaded here . For all Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 Service Packs, visit the Service Pack download page here . Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP, MCP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

David Musgrave knocks it over the wall with this fun, yet powerful customization that shows the endless possiblities of Dynamics GP's Visual Basic for Applications. For those of you who are not quite familiar with the first four or five releases of GP, upon launching the application, a WAV file would play the now famous words in a sassy voice "Welcome to Dynamics!". In David's script, the PlaySound method found in the Windows Winmm.dll library allows a user to play a sound file. If the flag parameter is switch from 1 to 0, the method will pause while it plays the sound allowing the screen to refresh. By setting the flag parameter to 1, the sound is played immediately forcing VBA not to wait for the screen refresh. As usual, in his article David provides the code, wave file, package file, and step by step instructions for you to recreate this customization and have fun. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MVP, MCP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.max...

If you read my previous article on " Using the Win32 Common Dialog Box API to return a file path to a Dynamics GP Modified form field ", you are now familiar with the technique and the beaty of it. Now Let's take a look at how you would replace Common Dialog Box with pass-through sanScript by creating a reference to the Dynamics Continuum Integration Library object file. NOTE: this method of calling pass-through sanScript is not supported by Microsoft. Replace the previous script in step 6 with the following: Private Sub PBFile_BeforeUserChanged(KeepFocus As Boolean, CancelLogic As Boolean) Dim CompilerApp As Object Dim CompilerMsg As String Dim CompilerErr As Integer Dim CompilerCmd As String Dim winMessage As String Dim lpstrTitle As String Dim sFilter As String Dim l_path As String Set CompilerApp = CreateObject("Dynamics.Application") ' add quote character as part of the filter -- Chr(34) lpstrTitle = Chr(34) & "Select File" & Chr(34) ...

I came across this question late last night on the Microsoft Business Solutions Newgroup and I figured I could not let this one pass me by without giving it a shot. There are a few elements to this request though: 1) An existing GP form that needs to be modified to add a string resource to hold the path and file name, and a button that will launch the File Open dialog. 2) A VBA project that will incorporate all the elements above (modified form, file path string and push button) and will execute the code to retrieve the file. 3) A script that will store the file path for the user. Well we know we are covered with points 1 and 3. We can achieve number 1 with plain and simple Modifier and we can achieve number 3 by either using the Dynamic User Object Store (DUOS) or instantiating the new UserInfo VBA object to store data in a SQL Server table, but how do we launch a File Open dialog? There are two known methods for this: Pass-through Dexterity and the Windows Common Dialogs Box libra...

Dynamic Communities and MSDynamicsWorld.com , two of the largest independent content providers for users of the Microsoft Dynamics family of products, have joined forces to provide "top quality content to their constituencies", according to a recent press release . Collaboration is being achieved in several ways, including the exchange of articles from MSDynamicsWorld.com within each user group newsletter. Additionally, MSDynamicsWorld.com reporters will be able to participate in appropriate user group discussions and interview the thoughtleaders of the groups to enhance the published news articles. Also, the organizations are collaborating on the upcoming gathering of user group members for the Summits of the AX, GP, and CRM User Groups and the Forum of the NAV UserGroup--all being held in Las Vegas from September 16 through September 24 of 2008. For more information on the Summit click here . Disclaimer: I am a member of the MSDynamicsWorld.com Editorial Advisory Board and...

If you are like many companies running GP and having a difficult time keeping up with the economy, be sure to check out Mark Polino's new article on MSDynamicsWorld.com. In his words " ...I take a look at core financial features in GP that you should be using as the economy tightens. Folks get sloppy in good times, tough times are where you earn you pay and GP can help. None of these features have any additional cost, they just require a little attention from you. ". Be sure to read Mark's comments on the subject at his blog too. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MVP, MCP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com

Microsoft has made available the Dynamics GP 8.0 and 9.0 compatible versions of the Support Debugging Tool. All versions can now be found at the following links: Version 10.0 https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/support/selfsupport/productreleases/supportdebuggingtool10.htm?printpage=false Version 9.0 https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/support/selfsupport/productreleases/supportdebuggingtool9.htm?printpage=false Version 8.0 https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/support/selfsupport/productreleases/supportdebuggingtool8.htm?printpage=false Remember that Support Debugging Tool is only available from PartnerSource. If you are a customer and need a copy, please contact your Microsoft Dynamics partner. Check David's latest post on the release of Support Debugging Tool to get an insight on the teams and individuals that made it possible to get the tool released. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MVP, MCP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness...

Folks, the wait is over! Microsoft has finally released the long awaited Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP, a collection of Dexterity-based utilities wrapped in one application to make the job of support, developing and debugging much easier. While the product was made compatible with releases 9.0 and 8.0, only version 10 has been made available for download (what a bummer!). Click here to download Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 Sorry! No CustomerSource downlaods available. If you are interested in acquiring the tool, please contact your Microsoft Dynamics GP partner. Also check my article " First Look at Support Debugging Tool ..." for more information on the subject. In that article I provide numerous links to David Musgrave's blog and other resources that can help you in getting started. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MVP, MCP, PMP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/