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Monday, January 24, 2011

Change the Date at Midnight without the Dialog

A friend asked me recently how to get the date to advance if you are using the .ini switch SuppressChangeDateDialog=TRUE.

First, let me explain the .ini switch. If GP is open overnight, a dialog displays at midnight asking you if you want to advance the date.

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Many firms run integrations overnight and this dialog displaying in the middle of an integration will cause it to crash. To keep the dialog from presenting, the ‘SuppressChangeDateDialog’ .ini switch was developed. If this switch is included in your dex.ini file, the date dialog will not be presented and therefore the integration will not crash.

A byproduct of the .ini switch is that the date does not automatically advance. So, we have a dilemma. In order to force the date to advance while suppressing the Change Date dialog, a tool was developed by Microsoft (then Great Plains). The tool is known as the ‘Update User Date’ utility. There is no charge for it, but you have to ask Tech Support in order to get it.

For versions GP 2010 and beyond, this utility is included as one of the free tools in the Professional Services Tools Library. Every GP installation should include this module because so many free tools are included. You can find the Update User Date utility in the upper left-hand corner of the Professional Services Tools Library window. In order to turn the functionality ‘on’ simply check the box to the left of the radio button.

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I hope this helps you with your integrations.

Until next post!

Leslie

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3 comments:

  1. UnknownOctober 27, 2015 at 8:05 AM

    I check the button to update the date and I get here this morning and the date is still yesterday's date. Not sure what I did wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dynamics ConfessorJuly 20, 2017 at 3:34 AM

    If you do not want the question to pop up asking you if you want to change dates, enter SuppressChangeDateDialog=True in you Dex.ini file.
    If this is the only thing you do, the dialog will not open and the date will not advance. If you want to quelch the dialog, but still change the date, you need to use the PSTL tool under system tools and check the box next to Update User Date. I hope this is what you needed to know.
    Kind regards,
    Leslie

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousDecember 19, 2017 at 3:43 PM

    Good afternoon. Have you ever seen cases where the utility just stops working one night but is fine the next? This seems to be random in which it'll work great for a month or two and then just randomly stop.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete