Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains Custom Logic Programming – Alba Spectrum

United States of America (Press Release) November 30, 2007 -- When you have to deal with mid-market ERP application, such questions as modification, integration, data massage, fixing and conversion, cross-platform reporting are not trivial and require homework, prior to appealing to external consultants help. Here we would like to give top level introduction, which should give you directions on where and how to go deeper into the GP software development layers:
1. GP Programming tools. Microsoft Dexterity is very traditional and matured EDI with Sanscript programming language: Dynamics.dic, Dex.ini, Dynamics.set – these files are defined by Great Plains Dexterity architecture. eConnect – this tool replicates Dex logic in encrypted SQL stored procedures, and as such it is a bit faster than Dexterity itself; eConnect was created for eCommerce developers to enable GP accounting backoffice integration with e-commerce front end. Modifier with VBA – Visual Basic for Applications scripting language was introduced for Microsoft Windows applications, such as Excel; in GP you can modify existing Dynamics screens – place new fields and buttons and animate their logic with VBA scripts. Extender – please note that this tool deploys Dex behind the scenes and being easy to learn for GP end-users, it has some drawbacks as you could expect – as Dex objects are generated in wizard manner – their naming convention and structure might be not friendly for SQL select statement and custom reporting; saying that we encourage you to avoid large scale customizations with Extender and use Extender where you need minor GP business logic tailoring
2. Popular Customization Areas. The most popular custom programming exercise for GP is Sales Order Processing module tailoring. Scenarios for SOP integrations are EDI (Electronic Document Interchange), eCommerce (where you push eCommerce invoices to GP SOP module, often with applied credit card deposits). Second popular module is Purchase Order Processing, where we often see third party requisition systems integrations with GP POP module
3. GP Modified Integration Scenarios. Great Plains Integration Manager is preferred tool for GP integration routines, especially considering the fact that latest GP IM versions (10.0 and 9.0) work with eConnect IM connectors – eConnect boosts IM performance, especially comparing with traditional OLE-based IM connectors. Plus IM is flexible enough for integration logic alteration – you should research VBA pre and post scripts and data translations


Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group, http://www.albaspectrum.com - help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving customers USA/Canada nationwide: Illinois, California, New York, Quebec, Ontario, Colorado, Utah, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas. Local service is available in Houston & Dallas: Richmond, Sugar Land, Katy, Rosenberg, Missouri City, Pearland, Friendswood, Meadows, Mission Bend, Jersey Village, Fort Worth; serving GP customers in Chicago, IL: Naperville, Aurora, Joliet, Wheaton, Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Lyons, Niles, Downers Grove, Lisle, West Chicago, Barrington, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Lombard, Morris, Ottawa, Marseilles, Seneca, Oswego, Plainfield, Darien, Winchester, Hinsdale.