Item Qty Allocated, Oh But Actually Not…! – Issue & Fix

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

This took my life past 2 days and yesterday I was so relieved to have to fixed.

Issue: For a specific set of Inventory Items, Item Stock information was showing up incorrectly. The Qty Allocated is showing some units, but the user swore on everything in this world that it’s not possible. Well he had a point to substantiate his argument. Upon drilling down from Qty Allocated in Item Qty/Site Maintenance (or Inquiry), nothing showed up.

Troubleshooting Steps:

1. First thing, I checked is whether any of these items had been used on a Service Call Parts Entry. If that’s the case, then Qty Allocated will be of that respective units, but it won’t be listed in the Allocated Documents list when we drill down. Result: NONE.

2. Ran a reconciliation on these items, hoping that it would clear any unnecessary Qty Information. Result: NONE.

Now that’s a real mess. Need some quirky way to find the cause & solution.

3. [CAUTION: Do not try this out unless you know what you are doing.] I took a backup of Live and restored it on Test. Then I updated the Quantity Information in IV00102 table manually based on User’s inputs. BUT, decided to run the reconcile since I was not sure about this manual update. Result: It reverted back whatever I had updated. And back to square one.

GREAT…!!! The above step at least confirmed that there IS A VALID DOCUMENT which is holding this quantity.

4. Queried SOP10200 (SOP Line Work) table to see the lines containing one of these items. There was one SOP Order, which was doubtful. Queried SOP10100 (SOP Header Work) for that Order. THAT’S IT… I FOUND IT…

Cause: The erroneous SOP Order had not been either posted or saved properly. The reason may be due a GP Application Hang which would have forced the user to kill the session. Once we kill the session when we are entering SOP Document, SOP10200 table will contain the records without any issues, but SOP10100 table would lose all the information that we had entered other than SOP Number, SOP Type and SOP Document ID. Not even Customer ID and Default Location.

These items had been allocated on this Order technically, but since the user would have killed the session, he thought he had to reenter the document and did so. Didn’t face this issue, till he ran out of stock.

Solution: I released this SOP Order for the user to retain/delete so it would release those Allocated Units from our Inventory. Check my article, SOP – “This document has been posted.” Error & Resolution, on how to release such SOP Documents.

VAIDY

CRM GP Adapter Series – Overview

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

The best thing that could happen for Dynamics GP is the CRM Integration tool. This leverages the GP Functionality and extends it to CRM (or vice versa may be). There are so many things that I could talk about this beautiful Integration Tool. Some of them are:

1. Free of cost (though it must be obtained thru’ a Partner).
2. No extra software licenses.
3. eConnect as backbone.
4. Utilizes GP Web Services thoroughly.
5. Easy to use.

6. Scheduling each and every Integration to and fro GP & CRM.
7. A perfect two-way integration model without much hassles.
8. Very intuitive configuration (though it requires a bit of technical knowledge).
9. Tools such as Picklist Configuration, enhances the control of data flow.
10. Standard CRM Fields & Custom CRM Fields mapping To & Fro GP.

… and more.

There are several comprehensive tools available from reputed ISVs such as SmartConnect from eOne. And those are pretty elaborative and extensive. But this particular tool from Microsoft Team does give you what you require as basic need. To integrate data from CRM to GP and vice versa.

Not all clients would require elaborative tool for their day to day business. For instance, a business unit which require to integrate only Accounts (CRM) and Customers (GP) alone does not require a tool more than Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter.

Let’s start discussing about this tool in depth thru’ coming posts in this series.

Disclaimer: I discuss this based on what I have learned and how I have implemented this. I may be focussing on a particular way of implementing and using this. That’s not the end of it. We may have more ways (optimized ways) of implementing and using it. I welcome comments, feedbacks, advises, etc. from all of you to make this series meaningful and informative.

VAIDY

Upgrading 150+ Companies – Now that’s A REAL UPGRADE

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

Mariano quotes us from Randal Mayer on How to Upgrade 150+ GP Companies.

I have never even imagined more than 15-20 companies, and this advise IS needed for all of us.

And this post also answers a major question: Is Dynamics GP really capable of handling loads and transactions? Now a customer having 150+ companies in Dynamics GP 9.0. And we have already got Dynamics GP 2010 with SQL Server 2008 R2.

That’s a lesson to all who doubt GP’s capability.

VAIDY

Home Page Metrics Error in GP2010 & Resolution – Janakiram MP

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

With GP 2010 going great guns and people have started implementing it everywhere, we are bound to have bits and pieces of issues here and there.

Janakiram MP explains one such error, Unable to connect to the Home Page Metrics URL, resolution given as well.

Those who are implementing GP 2010, please do read this.

VAIDY

Void OR Return? – Belinda’s Advise

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

Belinda advises on what needs to be done when we want to reverse a wrong SOP Invoice. Read it here: Void an Invoice or enter a Return.

Now, let me add to that advise. As she has pointed out, if you have posted an SOP Invoice and if it involves an Inventory Item, it’s a thumb rule that we must pass a Return.

Return does the following:

1. Returns Inventory Items to our Stock.
2. Returns Serial / Lot Numbers for the respective Item as well.
3. Reduces also the Customer Receivables.
4. Passes a reverse GL.

So your Inventory is correct, Receivables is correct & is your GL.

VAIDY

SmartConnect 2010 Hotfix – Crucial

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

There is a SmartConnect 2010 Hotfix available now, which is crucial for 64 Bit Installations specifically.

More details here: SmartConnect 2010 Hotfix.

VAIDY

VBA – Adding Extender Windows to GL Transaction Entry Lines : David Musgrave

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

This is another code wonder from David Musgrave.

A Hybrid approach (VBA & Dex) which solved a GP – Extender issue. Read it here: VBA – Adding Extender Windows to GL Transaction Entry Lines.

A Must Read for GP Developers.

VAIDY

GP, ODBC DSN & 64 Bit Systems

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

This post is long pending, since I had worked on the topic around 2 months back.

According to GP Installation Instruction, To set up an ODBC data source, enter the name you assigned to the SQL Server when you installed Microsoft SQL Server. A data source name called Dynamics GP also is created using SQL Native Client. If you don’t want to set up an ODBC data source, mark the Do not create a data source option.

It’s very handy (and recommended too) to create the ODBC DSN thru’ GP Installation, when we install GP on a 64 Bit System. We all know that GP is a 32 Bit Application. When we install GP on 64 Bit System, it gets installed with 32 Bit Compatibility.

Typically, on a 64 Bit System there are two ODBC Data Source Maintenance wizards available. One is for 64 Bit and other for 32 Bit. What you open from Control Panel -> Administrative Tools (or Start -> Run -> ODBCAD32.exe), is nothing but default 64 Bit ODBC DSN Maintenance wizard.

If you manually create a System DSN for GP, GP Application does not recognize this DSN at all. We have to actually create a System DSN for GP in 32 Bit ODBC DSN Maintenance wizard, which is accessible from the following path:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe

We have to explicitly open this application from the above path and create System DSN for GP there.

Trust me, both look exactly the same. Application Name ODBCAD32.EXE is also the same for both. But location & compatibility factor is different.

In case, you are stranded when your ODBC DSN is not listed in GP’s Welcome Screen Server Dropdown, on a 64 Bit System, rest assured that you have not created DSN on the correct DSN Maintenance wizard.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP & CRM – A Gradual Progress

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Vaidhy Mohan

I am currently working on a realtime GP & CRM 2-Way Integration.

Needless to say, I have learned a lot and would like to share what I have learned. And moving forward, you would be seeing a mix of articles which talks about both Dynamics GP (my life) and Dynamics CRM (my interest).

As a first step, I will be posting my first CRM article about CRM – GP Adapter’s Picklist Configuration utility in a couple of days.

I hope you all would be interested.

VAIDY