The Dynamics GP Blogster

Recently, Business Applications MVP Steve Endow and I delivered a session at the User Group Summits in Phoenix, and in particular, to the GPUG Summit titled, "Microsoft Dynamics GP and Azure Services". In this course we detailed a number of Azure Services (among the hundreds) that could potentially be used with Microsoft Dynamics GP. Being that I have also been working my way through completing a Microsoft sanctioned PowerApps, Flow, and CDS self-paced, online training class offered by edX (click here for more info on the course) and presented by Business Applications MVP Shane Young , I asked myself, what could I do with Microsoft Flow and Azure Services that could benefit Microsoft Dynamics GP users? Playing with some Azure Services, I came across Azure Cognitive Services  which offers the capability of reading images and analyzing them for text via its Computer Vision service . As it turns out, this service offers an optical character recognition (OCR) feature, which...

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...

I was (still am!) seriously excited about the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 - I mean, how can you not? This Intelligent Cloud thing is just superb! The simple premise of being able to sync your data to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and use the power of the cloud to get actionable insights is just too good to pass up on. See my article,  Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: the perfect complement for Microsoft Dynamics GP users . In fact, I already had an Office 365 Business Premium tenant provisioned with an instance of Dynamics 365 Business Central for IW. This is my playground, where I learn about the new stuff, where I try to build up my AL development skills, etc., (albeit at a turtle's pace 😊). After updating my GP 2018 RTM instance to GP 2018 R2 , I proceeded to setup the Intelligent Cloud Insights which, in a nutshell, involves setting up an integration between my on-premises Microsoft Dynamics GP application databases and Microsoft Dynamics 3...

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...

Back in January of 2009, I wrote an article showing a method of calling a SQL Server stored procedure from Dexterity by calling a stored procedure prototype script (sproc) in sanScript. See,  Calling SQL Server stored procedures from Microsoft Dexterity  (January 26, 2009). This sproc tells the runtime engine (Dynamics.exe) that it must connect to either the system or company database to run the stored procedure of the same name. I particularly like this method because it basically it shields the developer from dealing with connections, etc. Also, the procedure executes under the user's security context. However, there are times when it is necessary to go the extra mile, especially if you have to call procedures you do not want to prototype into your code as a sproc - case in point, calling third party stored procedures, or eConnect stored procedures. Enter the use of Dexterity SQL library functions and pass-through SQL. The Dexterity SQL library functions are well doc...

Working recently on an issue, I ran into a situation where I would get the following template processing error attempting to print a SOP Invoice - if you look at the bottom status bar, next to the user ID, you will see a Template Processing accompanied by a yellow warning triangle. Upon inspecting the Template Processing status, I ran into the following Exception Detail message: The following error occurred while processing this report: One or more templates could not be processed. View the exception log for more details. Since the error was referencing a template, I figured I would go back and check to make sure I could edit the template, which was based on the original SOP Blank Invoice Form Template. Upon attempting to modify the template, I received an error: File Not Found:"C:\Users\ \AppData\Local\Temp\SOP Blank Invoice Form Template.docx". After attempting to print the template, and after all the subsequent tell-tell sign errors, I attempted to ex...

Microsoft Dynamics GP users rejoice! If you were a part of the long list of users, partners, and ISVs scared by some imaginary deadline set (by Microsoft) for you to migrate from Dynamics GP and onto Dynamics 365 Business Central, it's now my pleasure to separate fact from fiction in this era of, well, fake news - at least in the Dynamics space. Microsoft has recently published the October '18 Business Applications Release Notes , a 239 page document describing all the upcoming features and functionality to be included with Dynamics 365 for Sales, Service, Marketing, Finance and Operations, Talent, Retail, and Social Engagement; the Power platform (Power BI, PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, Common Data Services), and Dynamics 365 Business Central. The words "Dynamics GP" appear 7 times in this document (including the table of content) and span from pages 117 through 133, explaining what is an imminent reality: Dynamics GP is now part of the Business Central plan, alth...