Congratulations MVPs!

I would like to offer my hardiest congratulations to the July MVP awardees! I am very humbled yet thrilled to be included with such a group of talented people.

You each are very generous with your help and benefit all consultants, resellers and users alike. Your blogs are the standard for information about Dynamics and Dexterity. Before looking on PartnerSource, I check with you first.

Congratulations again, you guys are the best!

The list:

Victoria Yudin- Dynamics GP- Design (The expert on helping us ‘find the data’. Definitely the ‘go to’ person for table information and cool SQL queries)

Charles L. Allen- Dynamics GP (Another ‘old timer’ like me, we need to get together and share stories!)

Andrew Anatol Karasev- Dynamics GP- Development (Great job! How about learning Spanish? There are so many people that need your talent in Mexico and Latin America. Gosh, after English, French, Latvian and Russian it should be a breeze! Thank you for all of your valuable contributions to the community)

Leslie Vail- Dynamics GP- Training (That’s me!)

Mark Polino- Dynamics GP- Systems Administration (Buy his fabulous ‘Great Plains Recipe Book)! Don’t miss any of his ‘50 tips’ sessions! Mark, you are as funny as you are informative. You can make accounting software ‘fun’!)

Monzer Osama AL Shaikh- Dynamics GP- Engineering (I need to meet you! It looks like you know just about everything!)

Frank Hamelly- Dynamics GP- Systems Administration (don’t miss his tip 4 today! I finally got to meet you Convergence. You are every bit as fun in person as you are on the forums! You can always help me without making me feel dumb!)

Mariano Gomez- Dynamics GP- Development (Talented in so many ways, your blog is an absolute must for developers. Thank you Mariano for all the help you have given me over the years. This man is very funny in person, and sets the new standard for Convergence and Tech Conference presentations). We expect to enjoy your sessions for years to come.

Ian Stewart- Dynamics GP (So often our savior on the forums. Where’s your picture?!)

Good luck to you all this year! And keep up the good work, the community would never be the same if any of you left.

Kind regards,

Leslie

You NEED this book by Mark Polino!

This is an exciting year for all Dynamics GP partners and users!

The Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook is available for preorder.

This is a fabulous book covering so many tips and tricks that you will want it in your personal collection. Imagine, 400 pages of tips with step-by-step instructions on how you can take advantage of these unique topics.

My hat (pink with LED lights) is off to you Mark, great job!

Until next post!

Leslie

Change your Fiscal Period Names!

Fiscal periods should not be named Period 1, Period 2, Period 3, etc. These are the default names assigned by GP when new years are created. These names are editable and are easily changed just by typing into the field. Recording a macro to change the period names can make the job much easier and can be used year after year.

Access this window in the Administration Area Page in the Setup Content Pane, using the Fiscal Periods item in the Company menu.

The default period names

Better period names

These period names will appear in reports, range selections, and even FRx!

Until next post!

Leslie

Change your Account Segment Names

Account segments should have meaningful names. They should not be named ‘Segment1’, ‘Segment2’, etc. Turn them into relevant names using the Account Format Setup Window.

How it is now

So many look similar to this:

 

The ‘Name’ field is an editable field. Type the proper name of the segment and many of the reports and views will have meaningful names.

How it can look

This change will cascade down to all of your range descriptions and inquiry screens throughout the system!

Until next post!

Leslie

Taming the Accounts Lookup Window

Some features exist in Microsoft Dynamics GP that have been there ‘forever’, but are not given much attention. This post explores the ‘Include in Lookup’ option on the Account Maintenance window.

What’s the big deal?

The big deal is that when new accounts are created the default selections are most likely not the appropriate settings for your accounts, yet these selections are often left ‘as is’. Take a look at the familiar Account Maintenance window below.

Focus on the ‘Include in Lookup’ box, notice that all of the items are highlighted. I do not think this is the best setting for most accounts.

Restrict the accounts displayed

If you are entering a sales transaction, do you really want to see ALL of the accounts when you hit the lookup button on the distribution window? I don’t think so. For the accounts you do NOT want to display in the initial lookup window, simply remove that series from the ‘Include in Lookup’ option.

Here’s how it’s done

Open the Account Maintenance window. Select an account that should not be displayed in the Sales lookup window. Hold down the CTRL key and click on the Sales item to remove the highlight. 

Now, whenever the account lookup is selected in any sales series module, this account will not appear in the list. By using the View menu you can select to see all of the accounts, but this is an effective method to limit the initial choices presented.

There are several methods to limit the items that appear in a lookup window, but this one is often overlooked.

Until next post!

Leslie