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Microsoft Great Plains implementation, customization, report design, integration and software development notes. Illinois MRP customers needs and solutions highlights

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is very robust mid-size ERP platform. With Microsoft Dynamics project trends, GP is now integrating with Microsoft Office product stack and exposed through such tools as eConnect and Microsoft Dexterity to Microsoft developers community. In this small article we would like to highlight Illinois businesses specifically and how Microsoft Dynamics GP fits

• Distribution & Logistics. The city of Chicago is one of the largest railway hubs, plus the west suburbs we see flourishing warehouses with light manufacturing & assembly with following delivery across the Midwest, US nationwide and Canada. Microsoft Dynamics GP could be integrated with legacy cargo tracking system through eConnect or SQL stored procedures integration. Considering XML Web Services interface option and MS SQL Server linked server mechanism – such an integration could work in cross-platform environment: Oracle, Sybase, IBM DBII data migration to GP on MS SQL Server

• Chicago downtown service businesses. Such businesses as advertisement & publishing usually needs robust collection management functionality, allowing to assign collection calls to regional and product collection officers. In recruiting & staffing you could consider deployment of some features of GP Project Accounting, where your customers are your projects and you have your temps log time & expenses against these project to be accurately billed out.

• Food Processing. This is typically referred as process manufacturing, when you can not exactly predict what will be the outcome from one unit of incoming ingredient (opposite to discrete manufacturing). Process manufacturing requires such third parties or custom modules, which allows you to catch random weight items, store them in units in your inventory and then sell by pounds to retail or small wholesale customers – this is classical Dexterity customization realm

• Agriculture. When we are talking about farmers cooperation, good example would be repair crews, serving elevators and farm machinery – Service Management Suite fits this scenario with possible customization and extended reporting

• Non-profit & government. Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 offers rich non-for-profit application logic.

Please feel free to call us: 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-628-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Great Plains consultant at Alba Spectrum Group ( albaspectrum.com albaspectrum.com enterlogix.com.br enterlogix.com.br ), Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains implementation, customization and software development partner, serving clients in Aurora, Warrenville, Naperville, Romeoville, Rockford, Joliet, Villa Park, Springfield, DeKalb, Elgin, Arlington Heights, Berwyn, Bloomington, Bolingbrook, Cicero, Decatur, Des Plaines, Evanston, Schaumburg, Peoria, Wheaton, US nationwide from our facilities in Chicago, IL and Houston, TX and internationally from our call center in São Paulo, Brazil

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When you are facing e-commerce transactions volume growth – typical solution is to remap backoffice ERP system to more scalable. In this small article we consider the case, when you remap eCommerce to Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics GP. If you make your homework and search the internet to understand your options, you will see that several out of the box solutions are out there, however it is typically not what you are looking for: you would like to keep your existing ecommerce solution with shopping cart, checkout and credit card processing. In this case – you way is eCommerce integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP

• Remapping technology. Let’s assume that you had something like SAP Business One, where you deployed SAP B1 SDK and programmed eCommerce to SB1 integration in Microsoft Visual Studio C# project. When you remap to GP – you also use MS Visual Studio and C# programming language and GP integration tools, described in the next section

• eConnect. The core logic of eConnect is realized as a set of SQL stored procedures and you can manipulate such GP objects as Customer, Sales Invoice (or Order if you plan to transfer order to invoice later on)

• Automatic Posting dilemma. Looking back to SAP Business One – there when you create Invoice – it is already “posted”. In the case of Great Plains – Invoice is created in so-called “work” status, then typically placed into the batch for approval and posting by GP operator. eConnect does allow you to create Sales Inovice, but it doesn’t allow you to post it automatically from eCommerce application. This is natural restriction of Great Plains Dexterity architecture

• Posting Server. This solution is available for purchase and it uses Microsoft Dexterity posting engine. What you need to do as eCommerce developer is to place the batch into the table, and so approving it for posting. Posting Server checks the approved batches table every five seconds and posts the content of the table. Alba Spectrum Posting Server requires GP workstation running on separate computer – expect one additional user license

• Excurse to Microsoft Dynamics GP Dexterity. It was designed as a shell, written in C programming language to resolve DB and OS dependency. Dex.exe is the application and it launches dictionaries, such as DYNAMICS.DIC. you can find Dex dictionaries, listed in Dynamics.set file. Programming Dexterity should be left to professionals, as it proprietary and pretty unique scripting language: sanscript – plus dex programmer should be familiar with dex architecture and tables structure. Dexterity enables various customizations, integrations, modifications to existing GP business logic.

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group. albaspectrum.com albaspectrum.com mailto:help@albaspectrum.com help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving MS Dynamics GP customers locally in Houston: Richmond, Rosenberg, Dallas, Katy, Sugar Land, Galveston; Chicago: Naperville, Aurora, Morris, Glen Ellyn, Winchester, Oak Park, Lyons, Alsip, Lemont, Seneca, Ottawa, Joliet, Plainfield, Romeoville, Barrington, Crystal Lake, Rockford, DeKalb, Wheaton, Lisle, Downers Grove, Batavia, St. Charles, Norway. Dex customizations USA/Canada nationwide support is available via remote support/connection: California, Minnesota, Florida, New York, Virginia, Oregon, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Mexico