Implementing Dynamics GP in Chicago and Northern Illinois
Corporate ERP selection and following implementation cycle could be very impacting, especially considering the fact of money and key personnel time investment and involvement in business processes design and user training. This is why it is important to select Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner, who can do the right job the first time and who can prove its experience and your industry expertise.
If you are at the point of Great Plains implementation,
where it is about to fail, you should make your homework second time and decide when it is time to call for second opinion. Microsoft Dynamics GP is mid-market Corporate ERP, MRP and Accounting system and it requires commitment (or at least very high level of IT and executive management involvement) to secure successful implementation. We would like some technology highlights for Great Plains (especially the ones expected to be featured in Chicagoland implementation), where implementation could potentially fail and how to find the way out to recovery:
1. Dynamics GP technology layers. This corporate ERP application comes from Microsoft Business Solutions and you should expect it to based in Microsoft SQL Server (2008, 2005), hosted in Windows 2008 or 2003 server with Dynamics GP workstations hosted in Windows 7, Vista or Windows XP. There are special technology articles on deploying GP on Microsoft Terminal Server or Citrix
2. Great Plains customization tools. These are Microsoft Dexterity, eConnect (especially in ecommerce integrations), Extender, Modifier with VBA scripting. Great Plains Dexterity is original shell (programmed in C language) with its own scripting language Sanscript, and Dynamics.dic (GP metadata or business logic dictionary) is programmed in Dexterity. At the same time Dex might be too complex for generic programmers, who are trying to show incentive and learn Dexterity in-house. eConnect is better fit for in-house software development and Great Plains customizations
3. GP Integrations methods. Here we recommend you to consider Integration Manager first - it is end user friendly if you are looking for simple integration or could be customized by VBA programmer, who could, handle integration events and alter them in VBA scripts (before integration, before document, before document commit, etc). IM as is requires integration to be called from Dynamics GP by the user. However you could schedule integration (Windows macro tools and add-ons, typically third party, often free, there is module available from Microsoft Business Solutions to schedule IM for automatic execution). If IM integration is scheduled to run every twenty or so minutes - it probably could be categorized as real time or maybe quasi real time integration
4. Where Dynamics GP implementation typically fails. In data conversion, where customer is forcing (insisting) to convert "everything"
5. Illinois technology challenges. Here we have light manufacturing and assembly small and mid-size businesses. Barcoding, Warehouse Management, Supply Chain Management and Logistics are especially needed in Illinois
