Monthly Archives: February 2012

GP Homepage Layout Mass Update – Thru’ SQL

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I love SQL. Simply because, it eases lot of pain in doing some redundant work.

When you create a user, by default, GP creates the following segments on his/her homepage:

1. To Do (Reminders/Tasks)
2. My Reports
3. Microsoft Outlook
4. Quick Links
5. Connect (links to Online Resources such as CustomerSource, Forums, Blogs, etc.)
6. Metrics (quick dashboards for users)

All of the above work perfectly, but at some stages (especially when you are working on a GP Terminal Server) some of these components would halt GP for a while, not allowing users to do anything.

One classic example is Microsoft Outlook. We recently migrated our Email Services to Microsoft Office 365. For those users who use Thin Client to on their day-to-day job, Terminal Server is THE destination. Quite obviously, Terminal Server has got Outlook installed.

Before Office 365, Outlook profile used to connect to our on-premise Exchange Server. After migration, we had to change the profile from Exchange Server to Office 365 hosting server.

Whenever a user logs on to Terminal Server and opens GP, GP will halt for at least 3-5 mins to get this Outlook configured. I am getting calls from users (yes, even now) that their GP session does not work and they are not able to do anything. Following icon shows up on their taskbar when this happens:

It didn’t take me much time to realize that all these users had added Microsoft Outlook on their GP homepage.

“Do we really need Outlook on GP homepage?” is a question to be asked to oneself. Yes, Microsoft has integrated your ERP with one of the most used product by maximum business users. Agreed. But is that alone a reason for you to use it? Let’s not get into that argument in this post, anyways.

I had to take a stand and remove Microsoft Outlook from those users’ homepage. But then, I don’t know, right now, about how many users out of 100+ total users have added Outlook on their homepage.

Certainly not without the help of a SQL query.

The table where this information has got stored is SY08100 (Technical Name: syHomePageLayout). In this table, the column SectionID denotes the sections which are available for a user to add to his/her homepage. Following is the legend:

1 – To Do (Reminders/Tasks/Cues)
2 – Microsoft Outlook
3 – Metrics (quick dashboards for users)
4 – My Reports (links to users’ favorite reports and smartlists)
5 – Quick Links (links to users’ frequently used windows)
6 – Connect (links to Online Resources for GP such as Forums, Blogs, etc.)

Typically, for each user, this table will contain 6 rows, each row denoting each of above section. SY08100 also contains a column named Visible. This denotes whether or not to show a particular section on GP homepage.

For instance, if user SA has setup his GP homepage to show To Do, My Reports & Quick Links to show up, the following will be SY08100 records:

So, if I want to hide Microsoft Outlook from all users’ homepage, I just have to execute the following SQL query on DYNAMICS database:

UPDATE SY08100 SET Visible = 0 WHERE SectionID = 2

We must also understand one thing. Users can always add this again thru’ Customize this page… option. So this is NOT A PERMANENT SOLUTION.

Whenever there is a necessity, as in my case, you can certainly rely on this SQL method to do a homepage layout mass update.

VAIDY

Who uses BI? – Dwight Specht

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This one’s an awesomely simple yet on-the-dot post, which I read today. I am not going to brief about this post and I leave it to you read it fully, understand what exactly it wants us to learn.

Here is the post, written by Dwight Specht: Who uses BI?

I myself am working on BI reports, a lot, nowadays and posts such as this only add to my constant improvement.

Special thanks to Dwight.

VAIDY

Customer Credit Summary: Average Days To Pay

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I received an email today with a query on GP’s “Average Days To Pay” on a Customer’s Credit Summary.

Query is: How GP calculates Average Days To Pay for a customer?

According to GP’s Receivables Management user manual:

After a customer has paid his or her first invoice, the average days to pay (ADTP) is calculated based on the number of invoices a customer has, the time taken to pay the first invoice, and the time taken to pay the most recent invoice.

The formula for calculating the average days to pay is: 
ADTP = (Current ADTP) x (Number of Invoices) + (Number of Days Taken to Pay Most Recent Invoice) / (Number of Invoices + 1)

The time it took to pay the first invoice would provide the initial value for the Current ADTP. Any later invoices paid by this customer will provide the values for the number of invoices and the number of days taken to pay the most recent invoice. The ADTP calculated on the customer’s initial invoices then becomes the “Current ADTP.” You can use this value when you recalculate the ADTP for later invoices.

There are two ADTPs; LTD (Life To Date) and YTD (Year To Date).

The important point that you may have to remember is that Average Days To Pay YTD will be calculated only based on Amounts Since Last Close.

VAIDY

Packt’s Microsoft Dynamics Mayhem

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Packt Publications has once again given us an opportunity to get desired Microsoft Dynamics books at staggering discounts.

The list of books are quite handful. You do get favorite Microsoft Dynamics GP books (Cookbook by Mark Polino, Reporting by Liley & Duncan & Implementation by Victoria Yudin); all are awesome books for any GPian.

Visit Packt’s page to learn more about this and get benefited: Microsoft Dynamics Mayhem.

VAIDY