Category Archives: Tips

OFF-TOPIC: Increase Productivity By Adding Shortcuts To “Send To”

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I often copy my chunk file on to GP application folder as part of my development work, so I must keep two explorer windows open always. Copy from my development folder and paste it on to GP application folder. Difficult and frustrating (at times) to shuttle between two folders every time.

Not anymore; I just created new shortcuts to Send To menu as shown below:

Snip20130213_2

Just select my chunk file from my development folder, invoke Send To menu and send it straight to GP application folder. Awesome, isn’t it? It is, indeed. It saves almost 15-30 minutes a day depending how many times you perform copy paste with same source and destination folders.

Follow the steps explained in this blog post: How to add SkyDrive shortcut into your ‘Send To’ Menu.

The post discusses on how to add a shortcut for Skydrive, but it’s the same steps that you have to follow for any shortcut (internally on your computer or an external location).

I assure you that this trick alone would save you tremendous amount of time and effort in a day.

VAIDY

OFF-TOPIC: Snip For Mac OS X – A Snipping Tool Alternative

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This is another off-topic. But I wanted to highlight this most handy application called Snip, developed by Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Company Limited and is also available on Mac App Store.

Snip20130209_1

Those PC users, who also used to be Snipping Tool dependants, and then became Mac OS user, would love to have an application in Mac OS X which would compensate Snipping Tool’s absence.

I used to crib about the lack of an application that I would use to do screen capturing and post-processing those captures. This tool Snip, which I came to know very recently, has done what other applications on Mac platform couldn’t.

We have built-in capturing commands in Mac OS X, such as SHIFT+CMD+4 (to capture a portion of screen), but those commands would simply take the screenshot and immediately save it on your desktop. You then have to reopen it on some other graphics tool to post-process it, such as narrating or simply painting on some text which you do not want to show to others.

This tool is amazingly simple and does exactly what you need. It just sits on that menu bar with a customisable keyboard shortcut to invoke a screen capture.

Go to the official website (link is provided in the beginning of this post) and know more about it.

Trust me, you would most certainly fall in love with this application, if you do tons of screen capturing on your day-to-day Mac OS usage.

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

Quick SQL Tip: Keyboard Shortcut for Database Selection in SQL Server 2012 SSMS

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Till SQL Server 2008 R2, if you want to change the database on which you would like to execute a SQL query in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), the keyboard shortcut to do so was CTRL + U from the query window.

Now from SQL Server 2012, it is CTRL + ALT + J.

So those who tried this using the old shortcut, keep in mind that the new shortcut.

VAIDY

Performance Issue with Received/Not Invoiced Report in POP

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Angela Ebensteiner (Technical Lead, Microsoft Dynamics) share a fix on Microsoft Dynamics GP Support blog for the performance issue with Received Not Invoiced report in Purchase Order Processing (POP).

To brief you here on why this performance issue occur, it’s because of huge pile of PO records staying on POP open tables, even after they are closed. When you run the report, it goes through each and every record on POP open table, due to which you got to wait for some time till query processing finishes.

Fix is to remove completed POs from open tables to history, which we have a standard utility available in GP.

VAIDY

Clearing “Recent Projects” list on Visual Studio 2008 Start Page

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Ever wondered how to clear all that cluttering of recently worked projects list on your Visual Studio 2008 start page? I did. Till I found an article posted by Brent Lamborn.

Brent’s post, Visual Studio 2008 – Clear Recent Projects List, solved my issue. Thought I would sort of reblog it. Those who looking for a solution to this issue, look no further.

VAIDY

Cross Dictionary Triggers on DEX.DIC

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This post is kind of reblogging David’s post, Cross Dictionary Dexterity Development, for just one reason.

We can write cross dictionary triggers on DEX.DIC. I had tried this once, some years ago, and could not succeed. I never got a chance or requirement again that would push me beyond that limit. Looks like that chance is here and now.

And this is certainly the right time for me to reblog this point and the post itself.

VAIDY

To all Budding GP developers – Screen Resolution Does Matter

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This is very silly point, but quite a huge dampener when it comes to Customer satisfaction.

I had given a simple customization as a trial to a budding developer as part of an exercise. I received the chunk to test it out.

What I could see was a huge window containing almost 50-75 fields (including labels, several text boxes, etc.) with lot screen real estate being wasted between fields. Secondly, this window went out of my test machine’s screen space. The only possibility for that, in my opinion, is the resolution of the developer’s machine was way too higher than my test machine’s screen resolution.

Always, keep in mind, that when you develop a customization on a computer with higher resolution than that of the customers’, it’s going to be an issue. Customer would have to scroll horizontally each time to enter or view data on each field. And trust me, that’s very irritable than a bad and buggy customization itself.

Always, try to limit the window size that would fit inside a 1024 X 768 screen resolution (that’s the lowest that I feel is still existing in this universe), so it would fit in almost all resolutions.

This possibly be a non-issue soon with technology being so advanced nowadays and customers are willing to shed out some bucks on higher resolution & wide screen monitors.

But you never know.

VAIDY

SQL Tip: Find Table(s) Having A Particular Column

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This SQL query is my savior for a long time now. Thought I would just share it with all budding SQL developers.

Q: How to find the table(s) which contain a particular column which I know?
A: Below is the query that would do the trick.

SELECT name 
FROM sys.objects 
WHERE object_id IN 
(
SELECT object_id 
FROM sys.columns 
WHERE name = [columnname] –Column which you would want to locate
)

This query will return all tables which contains the specific column. And this query also would save your time immensely.

VAIDY