GP2013 Web Client – Test Drive #MSDYNGP


It’s been an awkwardly long time since I had written anything on this blog. Now is the time probably to break that jinx.

I have been working on testing GP2013 Web Client on our environment. I have been constantly keeping myself updated with GP Web Client by reading our community blogs and forums, but never had seen it on my own machine till today.

Below is the snapshot of GP2013 Web on my MacBook Pro; on Mac OS X Safari browser.

Snip20131202_4

All you need to do is to install Silverlight for Safari on Mac. If it’s not there, you would be prompted to download and install.

I am now excited to get my customisations work with it. Will post anything that’s interesting and worth to be shared in coming days.

VAIDY

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GP2013 – Purchase Invoice Inquiry Zoom Bug (Change)


I received a strange support request today from one of my users that PO number is not shown fully on Purchase Invoice Inquiry Zoom window. Just tried to inquire some purchase invoices myself and I got what she mentioned:

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If you see above highlighted PO number, it’s not shown fully. This will be the case only if you use GP’s standard PO number sequence or used entire PO length of 17 characters.

When I checked it on Modifier, I found a nice little icon sitting right next to PO number field, but overlapping it by some millimeters.

Snip20130807_11

This icon denotes whether the PO line item is Drop-Ship or not.

And boy, isn’t that icon looks cute? But unintentionally, it is overlapping on PO number field. Not sure how folks at GP dev team skipped this.

Solution to this issue? Modifier. Use modifier to resize the field, till we get this fixed by GP dev team.

VAIDY

syExcelReports Table & SQL Server Native Client 10.0 – Thanks Aaron Berquist


While upgrading our GP from GP2010 SP3 to GP2013 SP1, DYNAMICS database upgrade stopped unexpectedly with GP crashing without any information for me to debug.

But it stopped exactly at table syExcelReports and crashed. Without spending anymore time, I just went and checked my ODBC DSN setup, as explained by Aaron Berquist on his blog High Dynamics Range. Expectedly, the ODBC DSN driver was not pointing to SQL Server Native Client 10.0.

For some reason, GP fails to process upgrade further if your DSN driver is NOT native client 10.0 or above.

Those who upgrade your GP to latest version, please check DSN before you start database upgrade using GP Utilities.

VAIDY

Quick Tip: Debugging Visual Studio Tools – Developing For Dynamics GP


Awesome tip up there on Developing For Dynamics GP blog on how to debug VS Tools For Dynamics GP.

I am late in blogging about this post. But NOW is the time, as this post just saved my 1/2 day. Seriously. Not kidding. I was stuck with one SQL query execution. There were records to be retrieved, but my code didn’t. After 5-10mins of frustrated troubleshooting, I remembered this post. I should have done that immediately then, but I didn’t.

I setup my VS Tools project to launch GP as instructed on this post and within 2 minutes I could find the issue.

This one deserves to be there on Microsoft Dynamics GP Cookbook (technical).

VAIDY

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


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:

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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:

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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:

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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

Extender 2013 Has Arrived – Thanks eOne


Awesome news to me this afternoon…

eOne Solutions has released Extender 2013 for Dynamics GP 2013 today (late yesterday for some regions). Read their official blog post here: Extender Delivered.

Instructions on how to get the new version and license keys can be obtained from either your Partner or eOne directly. Shoot an email to them and they would be more than happy to guide you.

Let me continue with my customisations’ upgrade. Hectic times ahead.

VAIDY

Extender For GP 2013 – Release Update


eOne Solutions has got an update on release dates of their products for Dynamics GP 2013, including Extender Standard and Enterprise.

Since I am one among those who wait for Extender Standard for GP 2013, the release date has been planned before March 8th, 2013.

Highly important post; read it and plan your schedule of implementation (upgrade/fresh) accordingly.

VAIDY

GP 2013 Home Page (Re)Design Horrors


Well, I could understand what you might think after reading the title of this post AND if you had read my previous post on GP 2013 Home Page Redesign.

I did admit that the redesign was kind of great for users. Ian Grieve had commented back with an important #FAIL factor of this redesign.

With that #FAIL factor, I just got one more to crib about. So lets list it:

  • You cannot scroll within a frame. You MUST rely on mouse clicks(or a trackpad). You have no other option. (Thanks Ian, for your feedback with this point).

UPDATE (GP2013 SP1): Looks like this one’s fixed. You can indeed scroll within a frame using a standard mouse scroll wheel or a trackpad’s scrolling functionality. It’s a welcome fix.

  • If you ever want to realign the frames of a module (for instance Manufacturing), you can. But wait, that would stay ONLY TILL THAT SESSION IS ACTIVE. Once you log out from GP and log on back, your realignment is gone. Poof!!!

I am sure it is going to be highly irritating for users who rely mostly on GP home page.

And with that above statement, I now reverse my opinion on my first post.

VAIDY

Canada is Phasing Out Penny – How it affect GP Transactions?


Canada is so bold in phasing out Penny from its coinage. It is a very bold move. But how does it affect Microsoft Dynamics GP? How customers could adapt to this new situation?

Microsoft Dynamics GP Support team has answers to it. Read their post on their blog: Phasing out Penny in Canada.

Very informative and important post.

VAIDY

Caps Lock Reminder – For Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013


I had developed a small customisation module which would alert users while logging on to Dynamics GP with CapsLock key on. You can read more about it here: GP Login Form – Caps Lock Reminder Update.

That customisation was developed using Modifier with VBA. But with Dynamics GP 2013, much emphasis has been given to the new Web Client. Which means, all our VBA code logic won’t be supported by web client.

That said, I have now converted my code from VBA to VS Tools (using C#.Net as programming language). Those who are interested can download it FOR FREE from following link:

CapsLockMessage-12.0.0.1.dll

Instructions to use:

  1. Copy this DLL file and paste it on to GP AddIns folder (can be located inside GP 2013 application folder).
  2. Ask users to log out and log on back.
  3. If you do not need this tool anymore, just remove this DLL from AddIns folder, after all users log out.
  4. This can be used safely in production environment. This tool doesn’t interfere in any of your day-to-day transactional activities. The scope of this is restricted only to GP login form.

Your feedback is always welcome.

VAIDY