Category Archives: Debugging

Refresh Application Navigation – Support Debugging Tool (SDT)

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Are you serious about your Dynamics GP as ERP and are you serious about retaining it till GP becomes completely irrelevant to your business requirements? Contact your partner NOW and get Support Debugging Tool (SDT).

Let me come to the topic now. Earlier, before SDT happened to all of us, when I created a menu item using Extender, I had to restart GP to get this new menu item effected. What’s there in that? It’s something common in GP, isn’t it?

How about creating a menu item using Extender, but instead of restarting GP, just click on an option to get this new menu item immediately effected? Magic? Nope, it’s a reality now. With Support Debugging Tool (SDT), you can.

Open Security Profiler of SDT, and select the menu item Refresh Application Navigation, as shown in below screenshot:

Snip20130418_1

 

This does exactly what happens when you log on to a company. Cool, isn’t it?

Now, reach out to your partner (if you are a customer) OR download this gem from above SDT portal link (if you are a developer/consultant/partner) and install it on your customers’ GP environment.

This post is to show you a very simple yet tremendously useful feature of SDT. Trust me, there are hundreds of such terrific features available in SDT which will ease your life and earn you reputation as smart consultant.

Find time to appreciate the people who made this SDT possible (and made it a FREE tool for all); David Musgrave & Team. There is a voting going on DynamicsWorld to select Top 100 Influential Microsoft Dynamics People and David’s on page 4. Go ahead and vote for him. Without him and his team, Dynamics GP would be just a mere ERP product, like any other.

VAIDY

Where is my Custom Reminder window to add reminders to my GP home page?

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I was reported with a very vague issue: user could not create a custom reminder from a smartlist. He received an error message as follows:

Snip20130417_3

Basically, below is the window which user is trying to open:

Snip20130417_5

Ideally, you would think that this window is a part of Microsoft Dynamics GP dictionary. But it is NOT. It is a part of Smartlist dictionary.

But trick here is, you cannot see this window listed on when you try to assign this window a particular Security Task using Security Task Setup window. Then, how? How would I give access to this window?

After around an hour or so, with several script logs and profilers misleading me, I found one interesting statement on SQL Profiler trace, that was executed when the user tried opening that window:

Snip20130417_6

Exactly after this SQL statement, the above error message was thrown at the user. Which means, I must focus my troubleshooting efforts on this table; DYNAMICS..SY10000. This table is simply called User Security.

When user tried to open Custom Reminder window, system checked this table and see whether this user has got access to a window whose resource ID is 1452 in dictionary 0 (which is nothing but product Microsoft Dynamics GP) inside company ID 1 (which is my production GP company).

I was always thinking about something in Smartlist (which is, without any doubt), but system was checking something else in a different dictionary altogether. I wanted to see the window in Microsoft Dynamics GP dictionary which is of resource ID 1452. Opened the DYNAMICS.DIC on Dexterity and checked it, only to realise with disbelief that it was referring to following window:

Snip20130417_7

I did not understand first. Why would it check something totally irrelevant from what user wanted to open? Why would it check access to this window, when opening a window in different dictionary? I have no answer to these questions.

But I just thought I would take a chance. I checked this user’s security task setup and found that Reminders window was not assigned. I assigned that window for this user as shown below:

Snip20130417_8

Tested whether he could open Custom Reminder. To my utter disbelief, IT DID.

So, if somebody is facing same issue and has already lost almost all your hair, here you have, a solution that would bring upon peace.

VAIDY

Fixed Assets Depreciate Button Disabled For User – Solution

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This issue was a bit tricky but not THAT tricky, though.

One of the users reported to me that he was not able to run depreciation because when he opened the Depreciation Process Information window (Microsoft Dynamics GP -> Tools -> Routines -> Fixed Assets -> Depreciate), the Depreciate button was disabled. Below was the screenshot that he sent to me (disabled button is highlighted in RED box):

Depreciate Window

 

Reason: After quite a bit of analysis (Dex Script Log & SQL Profiling using SDT), I found that there is a table where FA module temporarily records the depreciation activity initiated by any user and will retain that record the process is complete.

User confirmed to me that last time when he ran the depreciation process, it got stuck at the time of printing the results.

Solution:

The table which records the activity is FA40203 (display name: Book Setup for Depreciation). The table contains three fields: User ID, FA Book Index & FA Book ID.

I took a backup of this table (a simple T-SQL SELECT * INTO…) and removed that stranded activity record for that user.

User confirmed that he could then start depreciation process.

Its always good to start a day with some brainy troubleshooting. But not certainly good for users to start with an issue, though.

VAIDY

Infamous “Sales distribution amount is incorrect” Error

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I received an email from one of my users seeking my help in clearing this issue. While posting an invoice, this error message popped up:

SDE-01

 

Upon running the Edit List for this invoice, I realized that it was due to an imbalance in Markdown Amount and corresponding distribution line. Below was the error report that I got:

SDE-02

There seemed to be Markdown entered on one or more line item(s), but there was no distribution line for that amount. But the issue was not THAT simple and didn’t stop there.

When I ran thru’ all line items, none contained a Markdown. Now that’s the problem. After some minutes of thinking, I realized something must be stranded on header record’s Markdown field, for which GP requires a Markdown distribution line, but since line items do not contain any Markdown, it’s not creating one. Strange.

I decided to query the records from SOP10100 (SOP Header) and SOP10200 (SOP Line) to understand the issue. Below is what I found:

SDE-03

SERIOUSLY…?!?!?!?!

But yes, that was the issue. And most baffling thing is, when I tried to reconcile this sales document, this major mishap didn’t get cleared at all.

Obvious solution for this abnormal situation is as follows:

1. Take backup of this SOP10100 record.

2. Update Markdown fields with ZERO.

3. Reconcile this sales document again to see if the above update had caused any imbalance.

Happy new year and happy troubleshooting…!!!

VAIDY

User Access Setup Error: GPS Error RevokeUserAudit: 58

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I faced this error message from the time I upgraded to GP2010 R2. The error message is thrown when we revoke access to a user on a company. Below is the exact sequence of error messages that I received:

Since I had not doing this frequently (it’s maximum 3 users in 6 months) and also the purpose of revoking access was working without any issues, I did not consider this as a harmful message.

Yesterday, I had to revoke access to users for an existing company due to some maintenance. Minimum of 10 users and I started receiving this error message each time I select a user and revoke access. It’s then I decided to check this out and clear it once for all.

I could get only one link with exact error message, which I found on our Community Forum. User Access Setup Error: GPS Error RevokeUserAudit: 58.

Let me explain what I did to get rid of this.

1. Check the second error message. It says it did not find the stored procedure *mxCallRevokeUserAudit*.

2. I checked whether this stored procedure is available on any other company that I had on my GP environment. I could not find one on any company.

3. I was intrigued by the name of this stored procedure since, it’s not similar to any Microsoft Dynamics GP SQL object naming convention.

4. I then launched GP and opened Tables Resource Description (Microsoft Dynamics GP -> Tools -> Resource Descriptions -> Tables).

5. Since the message said something about *Audit*, I thought I would first check with *Audit Trails* module. To my surprise (and joy, of course), Physical Name of all tables started with *MX*.

6. I then concluded that the SQL Stored Procedure what I am looking at, is also of *Audit Trails* module.

Now I could not do much with that, since I could not find that stored procedure anywhere. I checked my GP licenses and it did not cover *Audit Trails* module at all.

When I upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics GP2010 R2, I had selected this module also for installation. Since this module is not covered under my license, it installed the dictionary but it did not create the SQL procedures (that’s my assumption and I may be wrong).

The only option that was left; to remove this product from my environment (by removing DYNAMICS.SET file contents alone and not the dictionary itself).

This removed that now (in)famous error message.

VAIDY

Stuck Receivables Transaction due to Incorrect Amounts

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Yesterday, I received a support request from one of our users who tried posting a batch full of receivables transactions and received an error message for one transaction whose distribution amounts did not match document amount.

It was suppose to be a simple task to release this transaction for edit, but due to some reason this transaction got stuck in between. It did not come back to it’s original batch and quite obviously it did not get posted either due to that error.

Following are the steps involved in releasing that transaction:

CHECKS

1. Check whether the transaction is still in RM10301 (RM Sales Work) table.

In my case it was still in RM10301 table.

2. Check the fields BACHNUMB (Batch Number) and BCHSOURC (Batch Source) in RM10301 table for that transaction.

In my case, BACHNUMB contained the USER ID who tried posting the batch; BCHSOURC contained XRM_Sales instead of RM_Sales, since it was in the middle of posting process and got stuck.

3. Check whether a batch with that user’s USER ID is created in SY00500 (Batch Header) table.

In my case, there was indeed a batch with that User ID. Because of which, this user could not open Receivables Transaction Entry window and was receiving the (in)famous error message “A previous transaction level posting… … …”.

CORRECTION STEPS

1. I first created a Receivables batch (I named it as RM-RECOV).

2. Through SQL Server Management Studio, I updated RM10301 table fields BACHNUMB and BCHSOURC as follows:

BACHNUMB = ‘RM-RECOV’
BCHSOURC = ‘RM_Sales’

3. Deleted the batch [USER ID] from SY00500 table, to remove user’s transaction posting session lock.

4. Tried opening that transaction on Receivables Transaction Entry form. Since the batch number RM-RECOV was updated through backend, it did not obviously update batch information. Due to which, I still could not open this transaction.

5. As a final step, I ran Receivables Reconcile Batch Information (Tools => Utilities => Sales => Reconcile). This step updated the amount from that erroneous transaction on to batch RM-RECOV.

After above steps, user was then able to reopen that transaction and edit it.

Bottomline: SQL approach is not always the only option for consultants to clear such issues. We need to perform some crucial application level tasks that would compliment SQL methods.

VAIDY

Dexterity Script Profile to solve Performance Issue – David

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Waiting for 30 seconds after simply clicking a checkbox is indeed a nasty thing.

David explains us on how to solve Performance Issue using Dexterity Script Profile by taking above issue, reported by some customer.

It’s a detailed post with step by step explanations on how he could solve it.

Must read for all consultants and developers.

VAIDY