The Technology Corner – Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft Dynamics GP v10

Thanks to the MVP Award Program, I got a hold of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Technical Preview. While the Technical Preview copy has been out since the beginning of July via Microsoft MVP Connect Services, I have just come around to installing it and testing the traditional Dynamics GP operations with SmartLists and Navigation Lists. I have to say I am pretty impressed, but before we get there, let’s take a look at a few Microsoft Office 2010 improvements.

The New Startup Splashes

Well, the old saying has it that “food enters through the eyes” and Office 2010 is not the exception. Microsoft has departed from the old boring splashes to some really modern polychromatic animated art. Here are a few artworks for some of the most recognized products within the suite.

The installation process went pretty smooth and I was surprised to see all my Microsoft Office 2007 components upgrade without a hitch. Visio continues to be provided as a separate install, but even this wasn’t a deterrent to installing the product. The startup process for all these applications is fairly fast when compared to previous versions of Microsoft Office, even the 2007 version.

The Features

Microsoft Office 2010 is jam-packed with new features, but hear it directly from the Microsoft Office Product Management team.

See What’s New in Microsoft Office 2010

See What’s New in Microsoft Excel 2010

See What’s New in Microsoft Word 2010

See What’s New in Microsoft Outlook 2010

See What’s New in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

See What’s New in Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 (Formerly Microsoft Off…

Microsoft Dynamics GP

I am currently running Microsoft Dynamics GP v10 Service Pack 4 on Windows 7 Enterprise. Upon launching Dyanamics GP I thought I would encounter my first issue with the Home Page perhaps not being able to address the new version of Microsoft Outlook 2010 components.

However, it seems that Microsoft Office development team made a concious effort to preserve the COM automation interfaces for compatibility with other applications that have come to rely on these objects. Next step involved testing SmartList exports to Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft Word 2010. I went ahead and selected the Account Summary SmartList and click the Export to Excel button. The test completed successfully as shown in this video:

Microsoft Office 2010 – The Movie

Finally, I leave you with a really cool teaser released on YouTube. I am sure more of these will pop up as the release date approaches.

If you are currently participating in the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview please feel free to add your comments to this post sharing your experiences. In particular, if you are testing Microsoft Dynamics GP with the Technical Preview, I would like to know of your findings.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Microsoft Small Business Summit Online

More on OLE attachments and record notes

Microsoft’s David Musgrave takes on OLE attachments and record notes based on a support case he tackled recently. David reviews the process use by Dynamics GP to retrieve the next note index value and how the system associates the note to a record. He explores the OLE container and how the file names are encoded along with the path.

Furthermore, he provides some Dexterity and SQL code to demonstrate how you would retrieve the hexadecimal value used to compose the notes file name. Be sure to read David’s article to get the complete scoop.

Related articles

All About the Dexterity OLE Container – click here
Understanding Notes and the Note Index Field @ Developing for Dynamics GP, click here

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

MVP Frank Hamelly’s gptip42day

Folks, if you are not taking advantage of MVP Frank Hamelly’s gptip42day daily columns featured in his gp2themax blog, you are missing out on some of the best “from the trench” tips you will ever find (Mark, your “50 tips in 50 minutes” are very good too, so no offense).

Frank explores some of the hidden, dark secrets of Microsoft Dynamics GP in a friendly manner and presents real life examples of their usage and how they affect your daily work. Kudos to Frank!

Until next Post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com

Congratulations to Mark Polino, MVP!

“I would do this stuff without recognition from anyone…”

Dynamics GP MVP Mark Polino has been granted another clean bill of health by Microsoft, renewing his current status as MVP for the 2010 year. Mark has been a regular contributor to the Microsoft Dynamics GP user community newsgroups, the Microsoft Dynamics GP partner forum, and has been featured as one of the Microsoft Dynamics Top 100 most influencial professionals in 2009. Mark also runs one of the most succesful blogs in the community, DynamicAccounting.net, where he is constantly featuring articles around the Dynamics blogosphere and his customary columns, Weekly Dynamic and Weekly Review.

Be sure to stop over at DynamicAccounting.net and congratulate Mark for his MVP renewal achievement.

Related Links

The Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog – Click here.

Until next post,

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Inside multi-platform integrations with Integration Manager

I have been working on a very challenging systems conversion project, from JD Edwards on AS/400 and DB2 to Microsoft Dynamics GP v9. Part of the challenge stems from the fact that certain processes, mainly in-house applications developed for the AS/400 will continue to support existing business processes pass the “go-live” date.

I am tasked with developing multiplatform integrations to support application processes in place and by doing so, I’ve had to dust off my DB2 – AS/400 skills. Per the client’s request, the integrations need to be easy to use, extremely flexible and adaptable, and low maintenance (as in little to no programming required). Many of you may think that due to the nature of the systems involved, this could very well be an eConnect implementation. However, Integration Manager was chosen because of the characteristics previously described.

As I work through implementing the first integration to manage expense reimbursements from Lotus Notes, my integration needs to read data from some interface tables in a DB2 catalog. As such, we deployed the IBM Client Access ODBC driver. Working through the configuration was fairly simple, but due to the driver features I was afraid Integration Manager was not going to be able to store the DSN configuration.

One thing I discovered while working with IM v9 SP4 (9.00.0054) is that due to it’s underlaying implementation of the almost outdated use of ADO technology, it cannot perform a preview of the source queries, with the following error message:

Upon further research, it seems this error is generated because server-side cursors are not supported with ISAM (Indexed Sequential Access Method) files. As it turns out, ISAM was originally developed by IBM and later replaced with a storage file system called methodology called VSAM (Virtual Storage Access Method). VSAM is the physical access method used in DB2.
What does this have to do with IM? Well, IM — version 9 specifically — uses ADO to connect and retrieve data. The problem with ADO and VSAM file systems is that the cursor location needs to be set to AdUseClient and the cursor type needs to be checked for bookmark support:

oRecordSet.Supports(adBookmark)

Apparently, this is not being done in IM v9’s internal ADO implementation. The good news is, I checked this against IM v10 and I have to say it works just fine, since, IM v10 was developed from the ground up with ADO.NET.

Given there was no preview available, testing began with a small dataset.

Integration Manager began importing expense vouchers and in the process neglected randomly to import the distributions. I executed the same integration a few times and obtained random results: transactions that previously imported fine along with their distributions did not import and failed the second time around. I verified the RecordSource Rule and Source properties to make sure they were set to Default Non-Imported and the source query for the distributions, respectively.

Upon adding some VBScript to write the records that were being read and attempted during the integration, I noticed that the header records were being read in order while the distribution records were shifting randomly. In some cases IM would match the header record with the distribution record, but in some cases it would skip a valid set of distributions for an expense voucher. By changing the UseOptimizedFiltering flag in IM to False the imports began to work as expected.

Integration Manager is a very useful tool and should not be overlooked when considering multiplatform systems integrations, especially if the customer insists on easy of use. All the integrations will be scheduled on a server and will run unattended, which only validates IM’s flexibility.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

Microsoft Dynamics GP Roadmap Update

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 interface update. I won’t be surprised to see more improvements to the GP ribbon and perhaps even extensibility of forms and reports with Visual Studio Tools for Applications. What is Visual Studio Tools for Applications? It’s Microsoft’s replacement for VBA. After all, VBA is old technology –reminiscence of Visual Basic 6 — and served it’s purpose already if you ask me.

What else to expect? Integration, integration, integration… tighter integration with Microsoft Office, tighter integration with Microsoft SharePoint Server, bigger-broader enhancements to BI, and even support for cloud computing deployments with SQL Azure.

Keep in mind as you read this article that these comments are my personal point of view based on the trends I am seeing across all Microsoft product stacks and do not represent the views and/or directions of Microsoft.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

How to startup GP with a default navigation page rather than the home page

So you want to be able to startup GP with a navigation bar option instead of the typical home page? This request was posted today by Mary Fetsch on the Microsoft Dynamics GP community public newsgroup.

After playing around with the navigation bar for a while and some head scratching, the light bulb went off… use a macro! One peculiarity about the navigation bar is, while click actions are off limits to the macro system — the navigation bar is part of the .NET managed code application wrapper — each option can be accessed with a combination of the Control key on the keyboard and a numeric sequence associated to the option. As such, Home can be accessed with the CTRL+1 keyboard combination; Financial, with the CTRL+2 combination, and so on.

The macro

The macro I created is the typical login macro documented in the Integration Manager manual with an extra touch: I recorded extra steps to close all windows and the keyboard combination for the default startup navigation option, in this case the Purchasing option. The macro looks like this:

Purchasing.mac

# DEXVERSION=10.0.324.0 2 2Logging file 'macro.log'CheckActiveWin dictionary 'default'  form Login window Login  MoveTo field Password  TypeTo field Password , 'somePassword'  MoveTo field 'OK Button'  ClickHit field 'OK Button'NewActiveWin dictionary 'default'  form sheLL window sheLLNewActiveWin dictionary 'default'  form 'Switch Company' window 'Switch Company'  MoveTo field 'OK Button'  ClickHit field 'OK Button'NewActiveWin dictionary 'default'  form sheLL window sheLLNewActiveWin dictionary 'default'  form sheLL window sheLLNewActiveWin dictionary 'default'  form syReminders window syRemindersActivateWindow dictionary 'default'  form sheLL window sheLL  CommandExec dictionary 'default'  form 'Command_System' command CloseAllWindowsActivateWindow dictionary 'default'  form Toolbar window 'Main_Menu_1'ShellCommand 'Navigate to \cmdNavigationPane\PurchasingButton\PurchasingAreaPage' # PurchasingActivateWindow dictionary 'default'  form sheLL window sheLL

Once the macro was ready, all that’s needed is to change the Dynamics GP application shortcut to launch and play the macro all at the same time, as follows:

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics\GP\Dynamics.exe” Dynamics.set purchasing.mac

One thing I like about these type of user questions is, they are real life situations that can shave minutes from someone’s daily routine making life a bit easier.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com

Microsoft Dynamics GP v10 and supported virtualization platforms

The Windows Server Catalog site may just be one of the best kept secrets on the web. According to the About This Site page, “[t]he Windows Server Catalog lists thousands of hardware and software items compatible with the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. In addition, products may also be compatible with other versions of Microsoft Windows as shown in each product details page.“

In response to my friend Steve Endow’s inquiry on Microsoft’s support of vitualization environments and Dynamics GP, I went in quest of finding the answer since it is not always apparent where to find this information. The first place of course, the Systems Requirements page of CustomerSource/PartnerSource. On this page, you can clearly read the software and hardware virtualization platforms supported, but as usual the fine print is rather more interesting.

It turns out this page points to the Windows Server Catalog page where furthermore you can inquiry on other tested solutions by clicking on the Server Virtualization Validation Program site link.

The site has a Support Policy Wizard link that will take you to a wizard-based tool where you can select the products you would like to obtain support information about.

Next, in the product drop-down, you can choose any of the Microsoft products listed, in this case, Dynamics GP. Version 10 is the only release listed, but I am sure this will change in a couple years from now with the advent of new releases.

After clicking Next, the wizard presented a drop-down list with the supported virtualization technologies. Among the ones listed:

• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Cisco WAAS Virtual Blades 4.1
• Novel SUSE Linux Ent Server 10 SP2
• VMWare ESX 3.5 Update 2, 3, 4
• VMWare ESXi 3.5 Update 3, 4
• VMWare vSphere 4
• Citrix XenServer 5, 5.5

But there had to be more, right? Right! The wizard allows you to check on the guest operating system configurations and processors along with the environment to verify which configurations have been tested and are currently supported.

As indicated in the screenshot, I decided to try something not too common: I selected Cisco WAAS Virtual Blades 4.1 as the virtualization technology, Windows Server 2008 R2 as the guest OS, and x64 as the OS architecture. When I pressed Next …

…I was pleasantly surprised to see that Cisco WAAS Virtual Blades with Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64) was a supported platform. The good news is, as long as a platform and a configuration is supported you are able to obtain technical support.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com

The Technology Corner – Windows 7 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 Update

In the previous article I reported having an issue with Support Debugging Tool not unchunking and generating a “Table not found” issue. After a couple of minutes online with my good friend David Musgrave he made me realize that unchunking applications with User Account Control activated can also cause the Dynamics application runtime engine to wreak havoc in the process.

After running Dynamics GP as administrator (only needed for unchunking the Support Debugging Tool) everything went just fine. One can make the general assumption that if you are installing any third party Dexterity-based application, then UAC must be disabled or Dynamics GP must be run as an administrator to allow chunk files to install properly.

PS. David took offense in the part where I said “SDT remains broken” as he felt I was blaming him. The problem is there will be little or nothing I can do to make up for this one, because the guy don’t even drink Coca Cola or smoke anything… ah, I just remembered Veal Parmagiana!

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com