When Microsoft acquired Great Plains Software and then integrated Great Plains into so-called Microsoft Dynamics ERP products family as Dynamics GP, modification tools became more Microsoft and .Net oriented, as you could expect.
However in the initial design in earlier 1990th Great Plains Dynamics was intended as multi platform product and its fundament was built on new technology named Great Plains Dexterity. Considering complicated origin of GP, let’s review development tools:
1. Dexterity. Great Plains Dexterity, as we already mentioned is the heart of GP design, and it is in turn written as the shell in C programming language to secure certain flexibility, especially the option to switch from one operating system or computer platform to another. Being very powerful and flexible, Dex doesn’t facilitate so-called rapid development scenario as it is not object oriented and it requires you as programmer to have several years of extensive Dexterity programming prior to participation in Dexterity programming project. Dexterity has its own scripting language Sanscript. Latest versions of Dex support such cool Microsoft technologies as COM objects and Web Services, plus you can call SQL Stored procedures from Dex code. To get quick tour into Dexterity architecture, you may install it from GP CD #2 and open Dynamics.dic file – this dictionary has core GP logic and it is written in Dexterity
2. VBA and Modifier. We were watching closely the competition between various GP customizing tools. And we still think that Modifier should be reviewed prior to eConnect. Modifier is in essence the module, written in Dexterity, which allows you to add buttons and fields to existing screens of GP as well as take them off. To animate new fields you use VBA scripting language, often you use ADO technology to access GP tables from modified forms
3. eConnect. This SDK opens for you GP objects: master records (customer, vendor, GL Account, employee, prospect) and work transactions (SOP invoice, Purchase Order, Payroll Entry). eConnect is based on encrypted SQL stored procedures, plus it has several layers of technology wrappers – in fact it is friendly for Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB developer. If you are integrating eCommerce website with your GP back office, we recommend you to consider eConnect as the main integration tool, also consider Autoposting Server to post batches of SOP invoices in GP
4. SQL Stored Procedures Integrations. If you think eConnect is too heavy and complex and you are comfortable to do light SQL insert statement to populate GP tables, then SQL scripting is an option. However, we discourage newcomers from trying SQL insertion prior to researching other integration tools first
5. GP Integration. Of course integration is not the same as customization, however we would like to orient you here as well. GP traditionally has Integration Management Module. With current version 10.0 IM has new connectors – from now on you can use eConnect connectors to do integrating
Dexterity Customization for Dynamics GP Evaluation Level Paper
When you are developer it is always a good idea to read technical manuals. But if you was just assigned to the IT team to decide if Dexterity is the right tool to customize your ERP application then first you need something which is in style of ‘easy reading papers’ or FAQ
Planning Dynamics GP Customization in Large Corporation
If you are reading this page then chances are high that you were not able to find ISV add-on and need customization project. Let’s talk about planning, quality assurance and future event such as version updates.
Dynamics GP Invoice Logo Attributed to Specific Company or Crossing the Borders of Three SOP Forms
Initial Great Plains Dynamics architecture had three SOP Invoice forms: Long, Short and Blank. Modern GP is popular in scenarios where you have more than three companies under one business entity umbrella
