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Microsoft Great Plains upgrade, customization redesign, placing back into Microsoft Dynamics annual enhancement program, custom reports version revision, Dexterity and VBA/Modifier custom logic upgrade

When you have out-of-the-box non-modified version of Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains 6.0, 7.0, 7.5, 8.0 or 9.0 upgrade is pretty straight forward process, Dynamics GP Utilities do the job. However this ideal case is rare, real customers have Microsoft Dexterity customizations, ReportWriter modified reports, modified Great Plains forms (Modifier with VBA scripts), Crystal Reports, SQL stored procedures - all these modifications needs professional consultant to be analyzed, upgraded and even redesigned. Let’s look at technical highlights:

Microsoft Dexterity. Great Plains Dexterity customizations were introduced in earlier 1990th and since then the whole spectrum of Great Plains clients depends on these modifications. Dexterity was initially aimed to provide database independence (with Dexterity cursors - these were working with Btrieve/Pervasive SQL, Ctree as well as MS SQL Server 6.5). In 2004 Microsoft Business Solutions stopped support for all the other DB platforms, except Microsoft SQL Server 2000/7.0. This single fact makes Dexterity cursors pretty slow and less efficient, than aggregated logic of SQL select and update statements. The other typical Dexterity customization upgrade issues are alternate forms.

ReportWriter reports. Microsoft Dynamics GP upgrade guidelines list reports, that needs to be recustomized, or modified from scratch. Our experience indicates that in the majority of cases we can “upgrade” these reports without “demolition” by analyzing change to Dexterity functions, introduced in the new version.

VBA Modifier. These mods are the likely candidates to be redesigned on the new technology base: eConnect, MS Visual Studio.Net and even Dexterity. VBA is not a .Net technology

Please give us a call: Alba Spectrum Group: 1-866-528-0577, Brazil: 55-11-3444-4949, help@albaspectrum.com skype: albaspectrum

Andrew is consultant at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

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Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains serves to the wide spectrum of horizontal markets and could be also considered as generic ERP/MRP/Accounting platform for light and advanced customization to fit verticals. In this small article we describe distribution sector with the example from metal distribution - Dealer/broker of industrial nonferrous by-product scrap, de-tins and de-oils industrial by-product scrap and finished parts. It might sound a bit complex - but we think this is typical for this horizontal market niche. The language of the article is targeted to primarily technical consultant and in-house programmer/software developer. In our opinion - ERP applications should be implemented with the leveraged help and support of internal IT people - we are entering into the epoch of technical specialists and IT departments - smile.

Industry specifics:

Cost / Price with 5 decimals of the dollar. Well - if you sell thousands of pounds with the price per pound - then every tiny fraction of the cent makes a difference in vendor selection. In Microsoft Great Plains you have reserved 5 digits in the currency datatype to be able to track 5 decimals of the $. In case of Euro or other currency in multi currency environment - this should be applicable to your local currency: Rand, Peso, Real, Pound, Yen, Chinese Yuan.

Settlement Report. This report is typical for distribution and logistics type of business. In case of metal distributor - this report shows either monthly transactions log or HBL (House Bill of Lading) /MBL (Master Bill of Lading). Again we should implement 5 digits fractioning of the main currency. This report is classical Great Plains Dexterity or Crystal Report - depending on the level of integration with Great Plains screens (Dexterity gives you seamless integration - Crystal requires Modifier/VBA scripting to call Crystal Reports engine)

Historical Customer Orders. When order taker gets order by phone she/he should have instant access to customer’s recent purchases and comparisons with average recent sales for the specific alloy or metal item. The customization you need is Great Plains Dexterity sales pad and instant item sales inquiry. Both should pull info from Sales Order Processing (SOP) module and have item lookup to Inventory Control (IV)

Compliance Reporting. We recommend you to use Crystal Reports - this tool should stay for five years and plus. These reports should publish Great Plains company database data at your will and the requirements of the federal or state authority

Customization & Modification. You should consider using these tools: Great Plains Dexterity (requires some training and experience), Crystal Reports, Visual Studio.Net web publishing, MS SQL Server stored procedures for data integration and feeding.

Good luck with localization, customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns - we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Author is a Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) - USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, New Orleans, Toronto, Montreal and having locations in multiple states and internationally

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The evolution of ERP/MRP comes together with the change in business processes and new businesses models emerging. If we look at the companies, going public in .com era and now, we could recognize very unusual business models, such as Google, which is neither really paid services, nor advertising media. Looking at the other companies, such as eBay, Amazon.com - we could say that the shift for the ERP is made from traditional business processes, such as manufacturing, customer service, project management, accounting to more generic processes, such as Supply Chain Management (SCM), where you can’t identify “standard” functionality - it is mixture of warehouse management, EDI and extranet for your business vendors and customers, barcoding, consignment, shipping & receiving, etc. Considering these trends, ERP design should be really revised and geared toward the future change and systems integration, customization and interoperability

Late 1980th - this was the time when ERP functionality was kind of agreed upon: Finance, Discrete or Process Manufacturing, Sales Order Processing, Accounts Payable, etc. The real challenge was in surviving through computer hardware, operating systems and database platform battles of 1990th. We see multiple major ERP products currently on the market, architectured in this period: Microsoft Great Plains/Dynamics GP is very good example. This product architecture is Great Plains Dexterity, which had hardware, OS and DB independence in its design - C programming language was a hope and Dexterity is a shell, written in C. In 1990th there was a conception of rich functionality MRP (Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft) and standard functionality ERP - mid-market - Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, etc.

Global Market. Even small or mid-size consulting company, having its own ERP add-ons and small products, has to go for Worldwide clientele. Plus clients themselves are going Worldwide and require its ERP partner to support their subsidiaries “overseas”

Axapta or now Microsoft Dynamics AX. Being designed at the end of XX century with the three-tier model and supporting such modern technologies as Unicode (Chinese, Japanese languages), MS SQL Server, XML Web Services, having CRM module and being localized for over 30 nations. Axapta is targeted to upper mid-size and large corporate markets, plus it has excellent positions to automate worldwide operations for multinational corporation.

Brazil. Microsoft Business Solutions in Sao Paulo has Axapta as a rising star to win over Brazilian market. In our opinion, Brazilian agriculture and food processing/export businesses might be in the best synergy, plus telecommunications, franchising network, services. Multinational corporations are also in the loop - Microsoft Dynamics AX is Microsoft answer to Oracle e-Business Suite and SAP mySAP

MarphX/X++ versus C#. As it was announced on Convergence 2006 - MorphX will be ported to .Net platform, so you as software programmer/developer could us all .Net languages, including X++ to customize Axapta.

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com

http://www.ronix-systems.de

http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.
We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Europe: Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, OAE, Bahrain), Asia: China, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South & Central America: Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

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