Andrew Karasev

Ecommerce Posting Solution for Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics GP

If you are eCommerce developer, you probably deploy Great Plains eConnect to integrate your established ecommerce web site with GP ERP back office

eConnect is great tool, it allows you to create or update customer records, including addresses, create sales order or invoice in Sales Order Processing (SOP) module.  eConnect business logic is realized as a set of stored procedures behind the scenes, these procedures are encrypted, so you can not directly modify them.  You may soon realize that eConnect allows you to create so-called work transactions, but it doesn’t have posting capabilities.  Posting is left to GP operators, who supposed to verify sales invoice first and then post it in the batch.  It is often the case in eCommerce, that you want posting to be done automatic in GP, initiated by your e-commerce application logic.  In order to extend eConnect with autoposting, you need Alba Spectrum Posting Server:

• Native Microsoft Dexterity posting engine.  If you are or would be the old-good-days Microsoft Dexterity developer, you would know that you can call Dexterity procedures and functions, especially if you review Great Plains Dexterity SDK and analyze DYNAMIC.DIC with source code (not available to general development pool).  Posting Server calls this dex logic and have Dexterity post “approved” by posting server batches\
• Approved Batches Table.  Yes, you need to place the record for the “approved” batch into this custom table and posting server will initiate posting from there.  It checks table status every few seconds, so posting is happening in real time
• Batches Types.  When we are talking about ecommerce programming, then more likely it is SOP module: SOP10100 and SOP10200 tables, where SOP invoice header and lines are stored and where eConnect places the work records.  However posting server is not limited to SOP only.  It works with all known GP modules (you may expect issues with so-called satellites or third party modules, such as Mekorma, Wennsoft, etc.)
• SQL Server Store Procs alternative.  This alternative approach may look straight forward, however GP posting transactions flow is complex and it includes multiple scenarios: different item types, different price levels, lot or serial number tracking, sophisticated inventory allocation process to name a few complications and trying to discourage you to dive into stored procedures coding

Article Tags: Great Plains, Posting Server

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