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Great Plains Reseller in Chicago

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:33:23 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP successfully serves mid-size and large companies as their accounting and for smaller organizations MBS offers Microsoft Small Business Financials. Microsoft Dynamics GP, which is current name of former Great Plains Dynamics is sold and implemented through Value Added Reseller or VAR channel. If are in process of selecting your next ERP application and think that GP is a good fit, you should request presentation from one of the GP resellers in your area or in your industry niche if you are larger organization and need nationwide support. We would like to provide additional highlights to help you in the selection:



1.       GP overview. This ERP system is supported and developed by Microsoft Business Solutions and it has so-called core set of modules as well as numerous vertical and horizontal solutions supported either by MBS or by add-ons developers or GP ISV partners. Great Plains fits you if you are in the majority of industry niches: wholesale and retail, discrete manufacturing, project organization, service firm, consulting business, employment agency to name a few

2.       GP technology. Great Plains is available on Microsoft SQL Server DB platform only since version 8.0, current version is 10.0. GP architecture is often associated with its historical Integrated Development Environment and programming language GP Dexterity. Dex in turn was written in C programming language and it is in essence the shell to resolve computer and DB platform direct dependence

3.       GP modifications. Great Plains is flexible and gives you several customization options: Dexterity, eConnect, SQL stored procedures, SDK. You can also consider publishing GP data through web extensions, written in .Net C# or VB with eConnect SDK

4.       GP Integrations.   Great Plains Integration Manager is the first tool to consider, recent version is reshaped and now has connectors, deploying eConnect methods and under laying encrypted stored procedures

5.       Openness to eCommerce developer. eConnect was initially dedicated to e-commerce programmer to enable GP objects manipulation: Sales Order Processing Invoice, Inventory Item, GL account and transaction

Sap Business One Consultant Atlanta, Chicago Newsflash: Customization

admin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 15:38:27 +0000

Sap B1 ERP is on the rise in gaining its ERP and MRP for small and mid-size businesses market share. This publication should help you in your next accounting software selection, as well as in deciding on who will be your SB1 VAR or Reseller and Implementation Partner. When you are in software selection phase you should see SAP Business One presentation and in this demo you should identify which functionality fits your business processes and where you might need modifications. We will give you highlights on SAP B1 software development and programming, plus integrations

1.       First, if you are programmer, please know that in SB1 you can only do select statement, but you can not modify or insert data into SAP B1 tables directly, as you probably did with your legacy ERP application, such as Great Plains, for example. SAP Business One installation controls your direct database access in order to prevent possible data integrity problems

2.       SAP Business One SDK programming. Your SAP B1 customization partner should give you custom logic estimation. Modification should be programmed in SB1 Software Development Kit. SDK programming should be entrusted into certified SB1 SDK developer hands, and SDK is available for SAP Business One Certified VAR. Programming itself could be done either in VB or C# in Visual Studio .Net. If your SB1 implementation crosses US borders, then you should know that your custom module should be separately compiled for A and B versions (where version B is international). Plus you should be aware about future SAP Business One customization upgrade cost – as custom code will need to be verified and recompiled in the new version. Current SB1 version is 2007A and B. If you are upgrading from 2005, you will need to recompile it

3.       SB1 Workbench and Integration methods. If you got it working with Excel templates and this is OK for you, then the following paragraph should be skipped. However if you do not like Excel way, you should consider ODBC queries instead, where you can go and try advanced SQL scripting: select, union, group by, having clauses for example

Great Plains Reseller Chicago, San Diego News: Verticals

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:55:49 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP in its core set of modules is ready for implementing in industries as ERP and MRP platform, however every business is unique with its business processes and workflows. If you are on the edge of your industry, chances are high that existing GP add-ons do not exist or do not do the job for your company. In this case Dynamics GP implementation requires customization, and new unique add-on development specially for your company. These add-ons are often referred as vertical ERP solutions or verticals. In the case of Microsoft Great Plains we would like to give you GP add-ons programming highlights:

1.       Customizations. If we are talking about intervention into Great Plains user interface, then this is technically customization (not integration, where it is happening on data feeding or exporting level). Great Plains customizations traditionally are written in Great Plains Dexterity with SQL stored procedures and sometimes eConnect extensions. Dex allows you to plug in your add-on into GP user interface and security realm. If you need Dexterity modification, you should probably seek professional Great Plains consultant help, as Dex learning curve is pretty long and not practical in most of the cases

2.       Integrations. You can use Dexterity for integration development, however you can deploy also eConnect or SQL stored procedures, which you could call directly from C# or VB.Net MS Visual Studio project

3.       Reporting. Reports design could be done again in Dexterity, however you can use more open tools, such as Crystal Reports, MS SQL Server Reporting Services (SRS), MS Access and even MS Excel reporting plug-ins (Pivoted Tables, for example). Integrated Reports are written in GP ReportWriter (which is Dexterity based interface), where you modify such popular and needed forms as Check, Sales Invoice, Purchase Order, Aging Reports, Bill of Lading, to name a few

4.       Financial Reporting. Here you use FRx, which is naturally linked to your General Ledger accounts and their summaries, plus it allows you to create reporting trees and consolidate multiple GP companies

Dynamics GP Partner Chicago, San Diego News: Integration Manager

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:32:31 +0000

Great Plains integrations, especially in Edi and ecommerce scenarios are very popular and in our opinion they are not overly too complex to design and implement. If you are MS Visual Studio C#, VB .Net programmer with some SQL and XML skills, you should be able to program real time or batch mode integrations in eConnect SDK for Dynamics GP, and as such your integration could be called directly as part of your ecommerce web site instruments. However if you do not carry programmer in your IT department, but have some SQL expertise, you do not even have to touch eConnect, as most of the job could be done in Great Plains Integration Manager directly, and you could schedule integration as macro, and the rest of work for EDI or ecommerce integration could be done in SQL Views. Read this small publication as orientation session in GP IM:

1. Simple integration scenarios. If you have text CSV or tab delimited file as integration source, then all you need to do is to establish simple text file source and if your target has header and lines, where you have only single file, you need to look at grouping feature. For example, if you plan to import GL transactions – one per each day of Retail operations, natural grouping would be transaction date. Two sources will be based on one text file, where header will be grouped by date and transactions will be as they are and you link header and lines by Date field

2. Advanced ODBC over text file. Imaging that you have CSV or Excel file, which has several columns, staying for SOP Invoice Item lines each column. In our opinion, this one is pretty challenging in creating Advanced ODBC Source and then creating unions over the same text file, pulling specific column in first select, then unionize it with the second column in the second select and so on. This natural technology of building unions is unfortunately complicated by bugs in ODBC Text driver, where you cannot save Select statement field format in INI file. The work around – have driver guess on field format every integration once again

3. Advanced ODBC over SQL View. This is the most advanced scenario, when you can expose transactions from ODBC compliant DB: MS SQL Server, Oracle, Linux PHP MySQL, Microsoft Access, Lotus Notes (with repetitive records). Our favorite technique is this – create linked server in MS SQL Server 2005 Management Studio or SQL 2000 Enterprise Manager and then create heterogeneous, meaning cross-platform SQL View and base Advanced ODBC Source on that view. Here you can practice with EDI (precisely formatted SQL Select statement). To make your integration more powerful, consider creation SQL DTS package, where you expose specific day transactions set and mark them as exposed and when integration is accomplished with success flag, mark those transactions as integrated

4. VBA scripting in IM integration. Here you have additional alteration options in even driven scripts: Before Integration, Before Document Commit, etc. Good example would be something like this – imagine you are in Collection business and you have to issue checks to your customers with 30 days payment delay. In Before Document commit script you can increase check date accordingly

Sap Business One Partner Atlanta, Chicago Newsflash: Data Conversion

admin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:38:24 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP ECommerce Partner in Chicago

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:36:02 +0000

e-Commerce web site integration is real challenge, especially when your Corporate ERP is Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics, eEnterprise, Great Plains Select, Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows and Macintosh), and your ecommerce web application is PHP/MySQL/Linux or Unix/Oracle based. We are happy to connect Microsoft World with Non-Microsoft based platforms, Databases and concepts. We have several off the shelf products, as well as so-called solutions (where we are ready to deploy proven ecommerce integration codes and tune them to your business requirements). Let’s take a look at typical Microsoft Dynamics GP eCommerce integration project:

1. ecommerce to GP integration frequency. Yes, you are right, this is one of the key ecommerce to Microsoft Dynamics GP integration questions or FAQ. Every customer would prefer real time or quasi real time integration (meaning that ecommerce shopping cart is sent to GP instantly or with very short time lag – let’s say 20 minutes). Ideally – this is very cool, however the business is often about saving money on purchasing and in sales just the opposite – try to sell in marketing buzz as dear as possible. We are happy to estimate both scenarios for local customers in Chicago, Northern Illinois, North West Indiana, Southern Wisconsin. When we are talking about Microsoft Dynamics GP ecommerce integration limitations, we usually mean GP Integration Manager – this is really user friendly tool, but if you are not a programmer or software developer – you have to call Integration Manager manually via GP User Interface. However, if you are experienced IT specialist or programmer, you can schedule IM integration via Windows macro add-ons (or rescue to Microsoft Dynamics GP IM Scheduler tool, which could be purchased from Microsoft Business Solutions, if you are current customer of Microsoft Dynamics GP and in good standing with GP annual enhancement program)

2. If Quasi Real Time is not the way to go and you really need Dynamics GP ecommerce real time integration. Then the answer is eConnect SDK for Microsoft Dynamics GP. eConnect is friendly to experienced Microsoft Visual Studio C# on VB.Net programmers, who are familiar with MS SQL Server Stored Procedures and XML

3. eCommerce Order Connector for Dynamics GP and earlier versions of Great Plains Dynamics. If you would like solution, built in SQL Stored Procedures and which works reasonably simple, without the need to program in eConnect, we have Order Connector. This product sends ecommerce shopping cart to Sales Invoice or Order, plus it creates or updates Customer information

4. Posting Server. Neither GP Integration Manager, not eConnect post Dynamics GP batches – batch posting is designed as routine for GP user. Alba Spectrum Posting Server allows you to mark batches for automatic posting and they are posted by our Posting Server every few seconds. Posting Server is perfect add-on for GP ecommerce application, as well as for any possible eConnect coded application, which needs to post GP batches: EDI, Purchase Orders and Purchase Receipts integration, Payroll integration, etc

5. Local eCommerce integration service is available in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego. We also serve you USA nationwide and internationally – we speak English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian

Great Plains Dynamics Gp Consultant Chicago Newsflash: Working With Comments

admin — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:36:09 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains ERP was designed in earlier 1990thwith new Shell Great Plains Dexterity. Dex was in turn programmed in C++ to resolve operating system and Database platform dependency. However C programming language was in time and probably now, especially when you are trying to use platform independent functions – not perfect in working with new Windows drivers: PDF printing, pictures formats, working with Unicode and International ASCII collations, web publishing, etc. In this small publication we would like to review long text attachments, which you can do in Dynamics GP – comments:

1.       OLE and Pictures. Great Plains was initially supporting and currently supports these technologies, however OLE compliant applications and pictures are stored in the files, and not in SQL database

2.       Text attachments or Notes. Comments are stored in MS SQL Server company database. Dynamics GP supports only four lines of notes, plus you should be aware that they are stored in the following table: SY04200 – comment master. Here you can assign comment id to each specific comment. However when you are attaching comment to, let’s say, SOP invoice line – you are copying its contents to the comment instantiation table – SOP10202 in our example. However on this instantiation level GP actually splits comments text into four comment lines: COMMENT_1, 2, 3 and 4 – system makes a judgment and decides if the line should be split

3.       Updating comments on the existing documents. If you have a need to update comment on Sales Invoice line level you will have to produce the algorithm from SY04200 comment master table, where you will be splitting comment text field into four comment lines. These four comment lines will be used by GP workstation to print popular reports, such as SOP Invoice Blank form

4.       eConnect eCommerce programming. Here you have encrypted stored procedures, which you can call from MS Visual Studio C# or VB .Net project, however comment restrictions apply and you still have to deal with four comment lines. If you decide to introduce customization, then you can potentially break trough

Dynamics GP in Chicago, San Diego suburbs: Corporate ERP for mid-size firm notes

admin — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 02:02:26 +0000

If you have Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics and eEnterprise) implemented in your organization and plan for additional modules deployment and Great Plains integration with you legacy systems: ecommerce websites, Barcode scanners and Barcoding servers, Logistics and Warehouse Management, Consignment, EDI, Shipping and Receiving, Picking and Packing, integration with Oracle based custom applications, CRM, POS and Retail applications (including Microsoft Retail Management System or MS RMS), need custom add-ons programming service, Integration Managers advanced integration design, Crystal, SSRS, or GP ReportWriter reporting, including Barcode labels printing for your newly received or recounted merchandise, light manufacturing and assembly, please feel free to read this orientation article. if you are in Corporate ERP selection process, feel free to request executive or technical presentation from your selected Dynamics GP Partner. We would like to begin our technical and functional highlights:

1. DB Platforms and Versions. It is available on Microsoft SQL Server exclusively. Current version Dynamics GP 10.0 is supported on MS SQL Server 2008, 2005, and 2000. Older versions, such as GP 7.5 were supported on Pervasive SQL 2000 and Ctree. If you have these legacy versions: 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, 3.2 or Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows or Mac: 9.5, 9.2, 9.1 or earlier, please consider upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics GP, you will get discounted price for currently owned GPA modules, however discount percent might be changed by Microsoft Business Solutions, so we do not specify discount percent in this publication

2. Does GP fit to my industry? If you are generic mid-size business: wholesale and retail, light or heavy discrete manufacturing (not process manufacturing), not for profit organization: grant funds management, membership services, charities, church, deli foods store, international freight forwarding firm, recruiting and placement. Please, request your industry and industry niche case study and requirements analysis to see if Dynamics GP fits your organization Corporate ERP requirements.

3. Local and Remote Service in USA, Canada and Internationally. We serve you locally in Chicago, San Diego, Houston, Atlanta (SAP Business One and remote support with Great Plains). However we have Dynamics GP and SAP B1 customers USA nationwide and internationally, so local presence is not a decisive criterion for our existing customers. Remote support is typically requested by our customers with Customizations, Integrations, Reporting requirements. We carry Great Plains Software Development factory, where we program Microsoft Dexterity, formerly known as Great Plains Dexterity, SAP Business One SDK, Microsoft CRM SDK, Great Plains Integration Manager, SAP B1 Data Transfer workbench, Dynamics GP eConnect

4. International Support specifics. US, Canada, UK, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand corporations, who have Dynamics GP as their Corporate ERP, are typically requesting ERP implementation for their subsidiaries in such regions as Brazil, Russia, East Europe, China, India, South East Asia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand. Dynamics GP is localized for English and Partially Spanish speaking countries (except motherland Spain), plus it is available for Quebec in French. However for the rest of the World Microsoft Business Solutions recommend Axapta, Navision, plus check for current policies for Small businesses. Dynamics GP Great Plains doesn’t support Unicode, and this was probably one of the reasons, why Microsoft BS preferred AX and NAV as general direction for the future for international ERP, MRP and Accounting applications markets

5. Manufacturing: Discrete versus Process one. If you are engaged in Process manufacturing, please review Microsoft Dynamics GP AX, formerly known as Axapta. Microsoft Business Solutions targets Axapta to Process Manufacturing (typically food processing) clients

6. Dynamics GP eCommerce options. If you are doing B2B ecommerce, please consider first Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal Order Management module, as here you are virtually expanding GP Sales Order Processing and Inventory Control modules to the web customers. Formerly this module was known as Great Plains eOrder, however with GP 8.0 it was redesigned on Microsoft Dynamics Business Portal platform. If BP is not a good fit, we recommend you to consider eConnect ecommerce integration programming in C#, VB.Net as eConnect is generic MS Visual Studio programmer friendly. For those of you who need automatic posting from eConnect ecommerce we have Alba Spectrum Posting Server or Autopost

7. Intellisol APOP and Project Accounting migration. If you are still on GP 7.5 and earlier, you may have Intellisol Advanced Purchase Order Processing or Project Accounting deployed. Intellisol was in business presence phasing out in around 2002, so consider Intellisol APOP migration to Great Plains POP, migration tool is available for GP version 7.5 and some earlier

8. EDI notes. Of course you can purchase Electronic Document Interchange Add-ons for Dynamics GP, or SAP Business One. However we recommend you first to consider budget option where you code your EDI lines in SQL formatted Select and Insert statements

9. Great Plains Accounting Support options. We respect your decision to stick to historical version of GPA on DOS, Windows, or Macintosh. We have consultants in staff who had supported this ERP application in the past, plus we have access to GPA Customer Support knowledge base. If you are on GPA we could move you from obsolete Novell server to Windows 2003 or 2008

10. Mexican Cheese Distribution Chicagoland and USA Nationwide. This one of the favorite customers in Chicago Southern Suburbs. We have designed and programmed catch weight utility for them in earlier 2000th

11. How to get help? Please feel free to call us: 1-866-528-0577, help@ albaspectrum.com internationally 1-630-961-5918 or skype Albaspectrum . We speak English , Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Portuguese

Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner Chicago: Great Plains Customizations

admin — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:40:07 +0000

If you are deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP, formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics, Microsoft Great Plains (and their predecessor Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows and Macintosh), we would like to review Great Plains customization support options in Chicago, Northern Illinois, North Western Indiana, Southern Wisconsin. Special emphasis on Dynamics GP software development, integration, custom programming and modifications. If you have legacy version of Great Plains Dynamics or Great Plains Accounting, your options may differ, but we still should be positioned to help you with legacy Great Plains system recovery, redeployment on new Windows 2003 or 2008 server, including Great Plains Dynamics (and GPA) on Pervasive SQL Server 2000. For new Dynamics GP customers in Chicagoland metro area we already described Microsoft Dynamics GP 11.0 and 10.0 licensing schemas and pricing policies, feel free to give us a call. If your Dynamics GP implementation was screwed up by local Dynamics GP VAR, feel free to ask for second opinion and likely to preserve investment into GP software licenses:

1. Dynamics GP Customization Tools. Historically, and still now in 2010, the customization tool of choice is Dynamics GP Dexterity. Dex was architectured in earlier 1990th as the Shell coded in C programming language. C was expected to outlive competing DB and Operating System platforms, such as Oracle, DBII, Microsoft Windows, Unix, Solaris. Now we know that those old good days concerns are no longer actual and we are living through different paradigms (Internet, Thin Clients, Web Clients). Whatever is the history, Great Plains Dexterity is very popular in GP customizations, as it allows you to incorporate custom modules directly into Dynamics GP security realm and user interface. Dexterity programming should be outsourced to Dex developers with at least several years of experience, or better to Dynamics GP Dexterity technology partner, who is in Dexterity Source Code program. If you are trying to recover and upgrade Dexterity customization, please be sure that you have Dynamics.dic or Extract.dic dictionaries with Dexterity Sanscript codes

2. Dynamics GP eConnect. This is new paradigm in Microsoft Dynamics GP technology, where Dexterity logic is rewritten in SQL Stored Procedures (encrypted, so you cannot alter them). Initially eConnect was dedicated to GP ecommerce programmers to open up Great Plains objects for ecommerce integration (Customer, Inventory Item, Sales Invoice, Price List, Address, etc.). Later on with eConnect success, its methods were expanded to cover most of the Dynamics GP modules: General Ledger, US Payroll, Purchase Order Processing, Bill Of Materials, Project Accounting, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Bank Reconciliation. Please, note that some of the Dynamics GP modules are not covered in eConnect, for example Invoicing module (which was historically budget option to Sales Order Processing). eConnect also is lacking Batch posting logic, and if you would like to post your GP batches directly from ecommerce web application (Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB.Net project), you would need to review and deploy Alba Spectrum posting server

3. Dynamics GP Extender – it is Microsoft Dexterity shell, which allows you to modify GP logic without being Dexterity programmer. Enterprise version of Extender, available from eOne allows you to include Dexterity scripts (Sanscript codes). Extender innovative idea is really great, however some drawbacks are related to Extender performance, especially for new Dynamics GP versions 11.0 and 10.0

4. Dynamics GP Modifier with VBA. This technology is a bit outdated, but very efficient. You can modify Dynamics GP existing screens by placing new fields (editable field, push buttons, etc.) and activating them by associated VBA scripts

5. Give us a call: 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

Microsoft Dynamics Gp Partner In Chicago: Barcoding And Warehouse Management Notes

admin — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:37:28 +0000

If you are located in Chicago metropolitan area and you have light assembly with warehouse management, picking and packing, barcode automated (or intentions to be automated via barcode scanning and upload to your Corporate ERP application) logistics (possibly with consignments), mid-size retail stores with POS application to be integrated to your Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) central application – this small publication is for you. Great Plains Dynamics traditionally is strong for mid-size businesses with its set of Distributions modules: Sales Order Processing, Purchase Order Processing, Inventory Control, Bill of Materials, expandable to full featured set of discrete manufacturing modules. Barcode scanner could be connected to virtually every GP screen, which has editable data entry fields. This is one of the reasons for our company to recommend solutions, if existing products do not have required integration in out-of-the-box functionality. Solution has proven set of code assemblies, ready for tuning (modification) for your specific and often unique barcode automation requirements. If you have retail operations, we recommend you to consider Microsoft Dynamics RMS integration to GP, please read details below:

1. Barcoding technology and its challenges. Technically barcode scanning and uploading is identical to entering data directly via keyboard, and being in retail store you probably saw how cashier enters barcode directly into POS keyboard, when barcode scanner cannot read corrupt barcode label. Real life is typically more complex. Barcode scanner usually needs to read multiple barcode labels and then upload them to your Accounting or ERP system in so-called batch mode. For example, imagine you have Warehouse worker, who is scanning received goods in receiving department. When all goods are scanned with quantities received, the worker have to upload all the information from Barcode scanner to Dynamics GP Purchase Receipts. This is the point, where you are moving into the world of Great Plains barcoding driven customizations

2. Barcoding Programming for GP. Custom logic is typically programmed in either Microsoft Dexterity or eConnect. Dexterity gives you full control over GP master records, work and posted transactions, settings, screens and business logic, however Dexterity is semi proprietary and typically requires more programming hours (and it is challenging from the sense of learning curve for novice Dexterity programmers). eConnect is more open and friendly to Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB .Net programmer, but eConnect also has its restrictions, as it is rather geared toward integrations to GP on Master records and Work Transactions level only. We do not feel comfortable to recommend you to begin programming neither Dexterity nor eConnect on your own. It is probably better idea to invite experienced Microsoft Dynamics GP Barcoding Partner to review your business processes and recommend the approach for Barcoding automation to Great Plains

3. Microsoft RMS integration to Dynamics GP. Great Plains has integration connector, which moves RMS POS transactions directly to GP General Ledger. This approach is definitely reliable and bullet proof, however often you need more: RMS POS transactions integration to GP Sales Order Processing or Receivable Management modules. Alba Spectrum has RMS to GP integration doing what we just mentioned

4. Please feel free to call us in Chicago: 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com We are also happy to help you with Barcoding automation for Dynamics GP or SAP Business One USA nationwide and internationally. For international customers, please email us or call 1-630-961-5918