Come to the GPUG 2010 Summit!

Time is running out! If you haven’t already got your ticket to the 2010 GPUG Summit there is still time. If you still need some convincing, check out the ‘Top 6 Reasons to Attend’. If you need to convince someone else that it is essential that YOU are sent, check out Why You Need to be at Summit-Tell your Boss!

I have been to the last three (the only three?) Summit’s and have vowed to go to them from now on. MVP Mark Polino and I will be delivering several separate sessions at the Summit – be sure to attend these sessions! If you want to come in a day early or stay an extra day, sign up for some of the optional training classes being offered.

In addition to all of the other valuable content, GPUG Summit 2010 will be featuring several Focus Areas. Among them is HR/Payroll, Reporting and Potpourri. In the HR/Payroll arena, I will be delivering three sessions, fellow MVP Mark Polino will be delivering a session in the Reporting area and Both MVP Mark Polino and I will each be delivering a session in the Potpourri area. Stop by the sessions and be sure to say ‘hello’!

HR/Payroll Special Interest Group Focus Area

Learn What You Can Now do with HR and Payroll Inside GP – delivered by MVP Leslie Vail
In this presentation session learn about the Dynamics GP functionality currently available in the Human Resources (HR) and Payroll areas. This session will feature a live demo of some of the new functionality brought to us by GP 2010.

Understanding the Latest Government Regulations Around HR and Payroll – delivered by MVP Leslie Vail and Landon Russell
There are a lot of recent regulatory changes in the HR and payroll areas lately. In this presentation learn how Dynamics GP can assist in meeting these regulations. Some of the key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have already taken effect; come to this session for some guidance on what those provisions really mean to us as employers. Topics include the new W-2 reporting requirements as well as what it means to be a ‘grandfathered’ health benefit plan.

20 HR and Payroll Tips to Make Your Life Easier – delivered by MVP Leslie Vail
As a follow up to the presentation session on HR/Payroll and GP, attend this presentation session to see 20 HR/Payroll tips which will make your HR and Payroll department jumping for joy! Learn how you can set up employees faster, enter transactions faster, navigate the interface with more precision and pick up some tips on what to do ‘when things go wrong’. This will be a fun session.

Reporting Focus Area

Leveraging the Power of Extender – delivered by MVP Mark Polino
This presentation session will be about Extender. Learn more about this exciting Dynamics GP feature and how it can be used to enhance your GP user experience.

Potpourri Focus Area

This content area is, in my opinion, the most just pure fun! Be sure to catch the following two presentations:

What's Available for Free in the GP World – delivered by MVP Leslie Vail
Did you know there are plenty of free resources available to assist you and your company in its use of Dynamics GP. In this presentation session see some of these tools in action. You'll be surprised what all is out there for free!

All New! 50 Tips in 50 Minutes – delivered by MVP Mark Polino
Don't miss this always exciting session where 50 new tips for Dynamics GP will be shown. Leave this presentation with immediate take back information that can make your GP installation better! Mark always delivers a top notch performance. This session will keep you talking for weeks and looking forward to the next time you cat attend. So much information in so little time!

Until next post!

Leslie

GP Partner Connections 2010 Conference

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

From our own and fellow MVP Mariano Gomez ‘GP Blogster’

http://dynamicsgpblogster.blogspot.com/2010/09/microsoft-dynamics-gp-partner.html

“Partner Connections 2010 is an ideal setting for Implementation Professionals, Consultants, and Technical Sales Engineers to enhance their competency and effectiveness for their clients. The Conference features a jam-packed agenda, bringing together the best in the GP Community to learn from each other. The pace will be frantic. Although you may feel like you are "drinking from a fire hose" as you soak up this new knowledge, the conference leaders know it is important to get you back out into the field and chargeable again!”

Meet and greet your colleagues and compatriots come join some of the most talented people in the GP community. Mariano, Mark Rockell’s Crew, Mark Polino, Richard Whaley, Leslie Vail, teams from Microsoft, not to mention the fine people from GPUG.

So much information will be available that you will be amazed at how much you can learn in such a short time. I went last year and vowed to go every year if just to see everyone. And I have a new cape I need to check it out! http://dynamicsgpblogster.blogspot.com/2010/09/microsoft-dynamics-gp-partner.html

This is a true peer-to-peer professional networking group for Dynamics GP Implementation Partners and ISVs dedicated to increasing the knowledge and competency of Implementation Professionals, Consultants, and Technical Sales Engineers. If you want to know more than is in the books this is the place to be. Some people are on the phone implementing things they learn before the conference is over. Have a chance to finally meet face to face all the folks you normally only see on the forums!

Taking place Saturday, October 23 - Monday, October 25 at the Renaissance Resort near SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida. The GP Partner Connections Conference will feature:

• Training Workshops
• Break outs / Roundtables
• General Sessions / Speakers
• Microsoft Conduit Focus Groups
• Networking Meals
• Cocktail Mixers

The Conference will occur in conjunction with the Dynamics GP User Group Summit, providing the greatest opportunity for partners attending the Summit to get involved in the GP Partner Connections Conference, as well.

Select registration type:

1. ISV Partner: $499.00 Details

   Enter a discount code:

2. VAR Partner: $499.00 Details

   Enter a discount code:

3. Microsoft Support: $499.00

Register here: http://gppartnerconnection.org/

http://www.gpwindow.com/ – an absolute Masterpiece!

A Window to the Dynamics GP World!

The Dynamics Community now has the mother of all websites! This is your one-stop access to every imaginable resource on the web for Dynamics GP.  Jivtesh Singh has raised the bar and created a phenomenal site at http://www.gpwindow.com

Can you imagine. Entering a search for ALL of the blogs? Simply incredible. This is a must add to the ‘Favorites Toolbar’.

Check it out!

Great job Jivtesh!

Delete all but Master Files

Here’s the scenario. You have set up a Pilot environment, loaded all of your setups and master files, tweaked the settings, tweaked the master file setups, have your security perfect, entered some test transactions and are ready to go live. Well, you do not want to leave the test transactions in there, but you want everything else.

Where’s the Tool?

In my world, this scenario is a common event. I saw a question on the forum asking if there was some sort of tool that would strip out all of the transactions and leave us with a clean company to take to production. I was hoping there was.

Richard Whaley answered the question succinctly - “Nope”. While I do not have a tool, I do have a ‘starter list’ of things the go-live team performs to prepare the company for production. Some of the things are redundant, but it works and I haven’t spent the time to be precise.

What are the Clearing Steps?

As many of you have learned, there are many more things to change then just clearing out the transaction files. I posted a list I used in a recent implementation for download. It isn’t all encompassing – but it will get you started.

http://www.4shared.com/file/i_-DFZ8Y/Clear_Work_Open_History.html

Help me complete the List

It would be nice to develop a more organized list. I invite your comments so that I can continue to improve this. I can see this list becoming a passion for me like the dex.ini switches.

I know this is a pretty rough format, but I hope this can help someone make a cleaner cutover.

Until next post!

Leslie

Using ODBC to read the On-Line Field Descriptions File

This post describes how to read the On-Line Field Description Tables (OLFD001.dat & OLFD002.dat) using the c-tree ODBC driver. It is the tool I have used forever to put the table and window names in a spreadsheet for easier access.

FairCom c-tree Plus

Dynamics GP v 7.5 and prior supported three databases. Pervasive SQL 2000 (Btrieve), FairCom’s c-tree Plus and MS-SQL. Dexterity still supports these formats. If you search the GP folder, you will find a few tables with the extensions .dat and .idx. These are c-tree tables. Although there are others, I’d like to focus on the On-Line Field Description tables. When you navigate to Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Resource Descriptions > Tables, you are reading those files. While you can, of course, access these tables using Dexterity, you can also read them with an ODBC driver.

The c-tree ODBC Driver

GP used to sell a read-only ODBC driver for c-tree files. I think it was about $300 per workstation. They do not sell it anymore, but you can get it from FairCom http://www.faircom.com/ace/ctpodbc_information_t.php.

If you still have your CDs from version 6 of Great Plains (September, 2000), the c-tree drivers are located on CD 2 in \ODBC\Ctree. You must still pay FairCom for the drivers, they are not shareware, nor were they included with your purchase of GP. Although they are 10 years old (at least), I have been using them on Windows 7 Pro on a 64-bit machine with no problems (and yes, I paid for them).

Instructions on how to use these drivers are scarce, so I thought I would tell you how I use them.

Setting up the c-tree ODBC

After installation, you will have a folder named OTREE of off your root (if you installed to the default location). Inside that folder is a file named faircom.db. This is a text file that documents the  path of the .dat files to the driver. It’s a simple format. Name the table something, space, and then put in the full path to the .dat file.

This is what my faircom.db looks like:

CN40102 C:\OTREE\DATA\CN40102.dat
OLFD_Tables C:\OTREE\DATA\OLFD001.dat
OLFD_Windows C:\OTREE\DATA\OLFD002.dat
IUHeader C:\OTREE\DATA\SY50000.dat
IUDetail C:\OTREE\DATA\SY50100.dat

The configuration of the driver itself (in Control Panel) looks like this on my machine. Notice it is a 32-Bit driver:

As you can see, you can name the .db file anything you wish, so long as you tell the system where it is located in the Data Dictionary field.

From there it is a simple process of using the Microsoft Query wizard to create a connection between Excel and the .dat files. You can even create an .odc file! You can do this from any connection you make, not just FairCom.

Generating the OLFD files

‘Out-of-the-box’, the OLFD files do not exist. In order to generate them and populate them, you need to open each product under the Resources menu. If you add any new products, you will likewise need to populate the tables by opening that product under the Resources menu. Recently, I was told that these tables were not automatically re-populated when resources are added to existing dictionaries, so you should go through this process each time you do an upgrade or install a service pack to any product you are using. This is only necessary if new tables were added, or existing tables deleted.

Download the Excel file

Here is a link to the most recent spreadsheet I created using this method. This is current as of build 1411. If anyone has a product they would like to see in an Excel spreadsheet, just e-mail me the .cnk file (or a link) and I will be happy to create another spreadsheet for you and post it.

http://www.4shared.com/account/file/d6x1cNPR/Table_and_Window_Names.html

I try to put fairly original material on this blog, I hope you benefit from it!

Until next Post!

Leslie