The Dynamics GP Blogster

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Architecture Whitepaper is now available for download from Microsoft Download Center. Architecture is something dear to my heart so please be sure to download this document and read up. The document discusses the following topics: The structure of the Microsoft Dynamics GP application, which is composed of the Dexterity runtime engine, the Dynamics application dictionary, and the Microsoft SQL Server database. How Microsoft Dynamics GP efficiently uses system resources for both client workstations and servers. The customization tools that are built into the software and are accessible to all users, and the tools that system administrators can use to customize Microsoft Dynamics GP, such as Modifier, Report Writer, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The tools that are available for importing and exporting Microsoft Dynamics GP data, such as eConnect, Web Services, and Integration Manager. The features that provide platform enhancements, such as flexible...

Folks, it's been almost a full week since the official general availability date of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 . I wanted to collect your first impressions on this major product release and have consequently opened a discussion on The Dynamics GP Blogster Facebook page. Please stop by and join in with your experiences. If you haven't had a chance to review Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, don't worry, you are also welcome to drop a note and let all followers know of your plans moving forward. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Folks, as a member of the TAP program, I had been test driving Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 since January, however this is truly an exciting time to be a part of the Microsoft Dynamics GP community overall. Microsoft has made the links to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 available to the general public. That's it! You can go ahead and download the RTM version and begin planning your upgrades. Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 - PartnerSource download Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 - CustomerSource download According to Microsoft , registration keys are being updated for customers and partners and may take up to 24 hours to have all the keys available. Be sure to check the new hardware requirements for each product listed below as they have changed. Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 System Requirements Web Application System Requirements Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Just got off a conference call with some of the Microsoft Dynamics GP executives who announced general availability of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, the highly anticipated new release of Microsoft's ERP solution for the SMB market, on May 1, 2010 -- just five days after Convergence Atlanta event. In preparation for the launch event, Microsoft has scheduled a number of partner roadshow events around 19 cities in the United States, giving partners the opportunity to come in contact with the product and learn the key closing strategies. If you are a Dynamics GP customer, expect a number of partner events that will give you a chance to experience the GP 2010 buzz . Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

You had a chance to review the first set of enhancements in my Part 1 article . Now we will review a second set of features to conclude the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Service Call Management enhancements series. Generate payables vouchers for subcontractor charges You can automatically generate vouchers in Payables Management for subcontractor labor, expenses, or additional charges. The vouchers are created during service call billing. To enable this feature, you must specify a Vendor ID for each subcontractor technician. You also can designate subcontractor service types. Post labor information to U.S. Payroll You can now post labor information from Field Service to U.S. Payroll. New setup options, Payroll Integration and Post to Payroll, are added to the Service Setup window. When these options are activated, Field Service integrates to U.S. Payroll for labor or indirect labor . Payroll transactions can be based on the information that is entered in the Service Call Entry – Labor ...

As I prepare to do more work with the Field Service Series modules, I wanted to blog about a few of the enhancements to the Service Call Management module in the upcoming Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 . So let's get started. 1. Users now have the ability to automatically move service calls to history when the billing process is complete. I don't know about you, but this one is huge! I did not like the fact that this process had to be done as a routine in Service Call Management, but I guess now is a choice. To enable this feature, the Service Setup - Service window has been provided with a checkmark. *Click image to enlarge 2. Field Service Series has been provided with a Check Links routine! Fi-na-lly! However, a bit of a caution: you should only run check links on the Field Service Series if the reconciliation routines have been run, but the original problem persists. In other words: BACKUP YOUR DATA before your try this. *Click image to enlarge You can choose to run Check Li...

After spending a week in Costa Rica enjoying the spectacular beaches and the fabulous weather in San Jose (although my purpose in San Jose was to deliver Microsoft Dexterity training), I thought it was just appropriate to blog about the international features sported by Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 . The bottom line, there are quite a bit of enhancements for the international community, so let's get right to them: 1. VAT Daybook . You will be pleased to know that the VAT daybook has become a feature available for installation to all countries. Since value added taxes are very common across the globe with most countries requiring pretty much the same tracking and reporting capabilities, the good folks at MS have decided to make it available to everyone. For you folks up in Canada, the VAT Daybook can be used to generate the Canadian GST/HST return in electronic format. You can set up the reporting periods for the return as specified by the tax Canada Revenue Agency . You can assign t...

The excitement around Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 could not be any higher. Traffic on my site has doubled since I began releasing information about the upcoming version, which is currently being beta tested by a number of partners and have even seen a customer gone live as reported by Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP . For past articles, click on the following links: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 - Navigation Enhancements Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 - Security Enhancements However, none of these application enhancements could have been possible without the hard work of the Microsoft Dexterity team, which brought the following enhancements of their own to version 11.0 of Dexterity : IDE Enhancements Enhancements to Report Writer - While a number of you still dredge the fact that there is still Report Writer, the bottom line is I believe there will be Report Writer for a while. There's simply too much code tied to Report Writer and way too many reports in the system to simply replace them a...

After the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Security Enhancements mentioned in my previous article, I wanted touch base on some of the enhancements to the overall navigation experience. One of the first things that jump out right at you when you get to the desktop is the new Microsoft Dynamics Online Connect feature. Think of this feature as your window to the Dynamics Community. That's correct! Behind that window there are hundreds of thousands of other Dynamics GP users just like you. The problem? The Connect link seems to be down since sometimes yesterday, as of the date and time of publishing of this article. By the way, you can find the Connect site link (also known as the GP Role Center site) in the HomePage.xml file stored in your temp folder (%temp%). You also have the ability to now view reminders as visual cues and multiple metrics on the page. I have to play more around with this feature as I was not quite sure I was able to get all metrics to be displayed at once. The Navig...

This article opens the series on the new features and enhancements available in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. I will start out with something dear to the heart of systems administrators and that's security. So let's take a look at the first set of enhancements that have been introduced to the new release. Automatic Login Now you have the option to log on to Microsoft Dynamics GP and a default -- favorite if you will -- company automatically. In order for the login to take place automatically, the system administrator must mark the Enable Remember User field in the System Preferences window. You will notice a new checkmark on the Welcome to Microsoft Dynamics GP window to Remember user and password . And you will also notice a checkmark on the Company Login window to Remember this company . As mentioned before, having the ability to access these new enhancements is a system wide administrative option set via the System Preferences window - MSDGP > Tools > Setup > Sys...

Folks, if you haven't been keeping up lately with the news, there's lot of buzz going on in the Community about the upcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 (Get used to it! GP "11" was just the codename). The Microsoft Dynamics GP Product Management and Marketing team kicked it off big with an exclusive Parner webcast which I attended, demonstrating some of the key features and messaging to be delivered to existing and prospective customers. Can you believe they were more than 500 partners signed on at once? As I mentioned couple days ago , I got a hold of the Beta version minutes after the link was available and could not wait to install it to start playing around with the new features, but before I start blogging about these, here are a few sources you will want to start checking for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 information: Start Getting Up to Speed on Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 @ Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP It is a GREAT Day! @ Inside Microsoft Dynamics...

Well, I really don't want to make you envious of my fortune (but at the same time I do!) as I just got a hold of the Beta release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, thanks to the folks at Microsoft and some of the perks that come along with being a Microsoft MVP . For now, I cannot disclose anything about the Beta release due to NDA restrictions, but I am already exploring the new features and enhancements to existing modules. I don't know when the NDA period will be over, but sure can't wait to start blogging about these new features. If you are a customer reading this and you are still running older releases of GP (9.0 or prior), well let me say that NOW is the time to begin planning your upgrade. Why? Well, you pay for a maintenance plan, don't you? In addition, this is the biggest release EVER! The economy is slowly turning around and you want to have all the tools at your disposal for when things are at peak: better inquiries, better BI capabilities from within GP, bet...

"2010 will be a milestone year for Microsoft Dynamics GP..." Microsoft Dynamics GP has a new Nostradamus in MVP Mark Polino . Mark looks into his crystal ball and predicts the fortune of Microsoft Dynamics GP 11, BI, Management Reporter and FRx, and the Microsoft Dynamics GP Community as a whole in his latest MSDynamicsWorld article ... heck, the guy even talks politics! Don't miss out on this great article. Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Back in April I published an article describing Microsoft Dynamics GP roadmap up to release GP 11 Future Pack. The timeline also described what would happen at least up to 2011. Just recently the Microsoft Dynamics GP Product Management and Marketing team released a new stub titled Microsoft Dynamics GP "11" Preview with a link to the Dynamics GP "11" Presentation Pack (visit their site for more info). The presentation pack contained a Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentation describing the Dynamics GP roadmap up to GP "14". To comment a bit on the roadmap, the Product team has a vision that extends beyond the initial 2011 scope delivered back in April, throughout to 2016, which quiets down rumors as to the future of Dynamics GP and reafirming Microsoft's real commitment. While the bullet points accompanying GP "12" and GP "14" are pretty vague, it's worth mentioning that GP "14" is contemplating a major user interf...

V11? No more. I could not help noticing that on the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2009 , they were no references to Microsoft Dynamics GP "v11", and rather every sessions GP related has introduced the future product as Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 . It's no secret the Product Management and Marketing team had been thinkering on whether to continue with the consecutive versioning, or adhere to the year versioning approach used by all other Microsoft products. I guess it's clear now! The new product release name coincide with multiple "2010" products we will see from Microsoft: Microsoft Office 2010 Microsoft SQL Server 2010, code named Killimanjaro Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MVP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

"A beta VPC image for GP11.0 will likely be available in the winter of 2009/2010" In reading carefull through the latest blog article posted by the Microsoft Dynamics GP Product Management & Marketing team , I found, burried at the end, likely timeframes for the availability of "v11" beta and General Availability demo images. Ben Courin, author of the article, says: " In the August/September timeframe, we will be releasing a differencing disk with the Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 SP4. No additional improvements, just the SP install. We will then take a few weeks off from building images, and then turn our focus to the Microsoft Dynamics GP 11.0 VPC/Technical Demonstration toolkit. This project will be built from scratch/from the ground up. It will NOT be an upgrade of the current Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 series of vpc’s. A beta VPC image for GP11.0 will likely be available in the winter of 2009/2010 and then a GA image will likely be available at Conver...

Strategies to gear up for the future My new article is out on MSDynamicsWorld.com! This article focuses on the coming shifts in priorities inside IT departments running Microsoft Dynamics GP. The article is based on some of the strategic initiatives coming out of Redmond and carried around to customers and partners over the last few months. You can read the full article here . Until next post! MG.- Mariano Gomez, MIS, MCP Maximum Global Business, LLC http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com

For those of you who did not attend Convergence 2009 and have been asking about release dates of service packs and new versions of Dynamics GP, the following shows the anticipated product roadmap . Keep in mind that release dates and product features may change on a dime and by no means can be considered absolute Microsoft commitments. One things is very sure: Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 Service Pack 4 is just right around the corner and with it comes a revamped Extender product. For those of you wondering about the feature of the customization tools, David Musgrave has some reflections on that subject. Click here to read what he has to say. Plus I have the following to add: if you are a Microsoft Dexterity developer or a Visual Basic for Applications guy, Extender is still not the panacea for complex business requirements. Yes, you will be able to add new windows, yes you will have the ability to create transaction workflows . However, there is only so much Extender can do as ...

I usually don't talk much about product strategy, because it tends to vary all too often, and what is said today, may not necessarily be what will be delivered tomorrow. However, and I as mentioned yesterday in the ad campaign post , I went to a rehashed sales seminar with excerpts from Convergence 2009 in New Orleans, where the roadmap for FRx and Enterprised Reporter was presented. Among other things, Management Reporter will become the de facto financial reporting tool built on the ever expanding Business Intelligence and MOSS platforms, and the overall Corporate Performance Management strategy. However, Management Reporting is undergoing some major development to incorporate support for Multicurrency -- currently supported by FRx and Enterprise Reporting. While Dynamics GP "V11" will offer support for both FRx and Management Reporter, new customers will only be shipped Management Reporter (MR V2), but can continue using the Forecaster product. Dynamics GP "V1...

I was reading carefully through The Official Blog of Microsoft Dynamics GP and could not help to notice the fine print on the next release of Microsoft Dynamics GP covered at Convergence 2009 , among them, "version 11" is just the code name of the product and according to Microsoft's Product Management and Marketing team. In their own words " this is the internal name…we’ll likely ship with a different moniker for this release ". It is also said that code name "version 11" will ship with yet more integration capabilities to the Microsoft Office suite of applications, especially the all too neglected integration to Microsoft Word. The Dynamics GP home page is getting a face lift with tons of graphics and charts that will allow users to drill-down to the details behind those charts up to the point of reaching inquiry and transaction windows. You can click here to read more information about code name "version 11". Until next post! MG.- Marian...