Supporting Dynamics GP in the Real Life Situations

These Great Plains resellers definitely push the market and make the good things for US economy in general.  When the software licenses are sold and system is implemented in its basic configuration, you may get a feeling of some disappointment, as the attention level from your chosen Dynamics GP Partner might become weakening.  This is also understandable, as you are now moving to the category of so-called “secondary ERP customers”, where there is no longer opportunity for high volume software sales, just some maintenance and support money, plus probably some work on the integration with legacy systems, ecommerce, EDI, Warehouse Management, etc.  As you may probably agree, however, that these post-implementation routines require different skills, comparing to generic Dynamics GP user licenses selling and pretty standard (often CPA stile) implementation.  That’s one of the reasons for you to be in good mood, and for your former Dynamics GP VAR to shift focus from your account to pursuing new customers, where they will repeat ERP licenses sales cycle and initial implementation…  In this small paper we would like to review Dynamics GP and even old Great Plains Dynamics and Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows technical support, custom programming, reporting:
1. Phase Two of the Implementation.  After you have Dynamics GP initial installation, basic data conversion and user training and have your ERP application to work stable for couple of months (or maybe half a year), the next step might be expanding into the integration with your IT systems infrastructure.  The most popular scenarios, we observe in real life for mid-size and smaller businesses – various in-house programmed Business Management Systems, CRM, Warehouse Automation, e-commerce.  Here custom application is often programmed in MS Access with VBA scripts, or even in MySQL/PHP or even in such advanced DB servers as Oracle, MS SQL Server.  We recommend you here to resolve the dilemma – either keep existing system and integrate it with reasonable budget to Great Plains Dynamics or replace it with more professional software add-on for Dynamics GP.  In either case the decision making should be done in collaboration with really skillful and experienced Dynamics GP technical consultant.  Integration is often done in the Dynamics GP integration Manager (on demand integration, or quasi real time) or eConnect programming in MS Visual Studio (VB or C#.Net projects with eConnect libraries – this method provides real time integration, if this is what you are expecting to accomplish)
2. User Interface Customization.  This phase is typically not a high priority in the first couple of months being in production with your new Corporate MRP application, however down the road it might be the required step to provide competitive advantage.  We would like to recommend you to consider four popular tools to choose from: Microsoft Dexterity, Modifier with VBA, Extender, MS Visual Studio Dynamics GP SDK libraries.  If you are business owner or IT director, please do not take our advise as is and do not rush to hire programmer who is experienced in one of the tools recommended above, let’s say Microsoft Visual Studio .Net VB software development.  Programmers tend to be over optimistic and might believe that their favorite programming language (C, Delphi, Visual Basic, Fortran, Java, SQL, etc.) is almighty and even if they never had this specific job done before, they will learn as the project progresses.  Your job is to be rather on the conservative end and be sure that you are making the right selection of the customization tool and engaging the programmer with the adequate skills and certifications.  If you are facing large scale interface modification project we recommend you to consider Great Plains Dexterity on the first place, then, Modifier with VBA, then Extender and only some portions of the project to be done in Visual Studio SDK
3. Reporting.  It depends on the reporting nature, usually you should be able to classify the report as Financials (Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss, Statement of Cash Flow) or Managerial (Sales Commission, Product Line Profitability, R&D Expenses, etc.).  For Financial reporting the best tool was FRx (with Dynamics GP version 2010/11.0 Microsoft Management Reporter is recommended as replacement for FRx, for older versions we recommend you to stick to FRx, until more information is available on backward compatibility for the MMR).  Managerial Reporting could be done in more generic design tools, consider something like Crystal Reports, SSRS (Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services), Excel, MS Access.  Please do not try to do something like P&L in Crystal Reports, as FRx has advantage of having connectors, linking to General Ledger tables (combining Historical GL3XXX, open GL2XXX or work GL1XXX tables in one report and honoring Dynamics GP GL business logic).  Consolidate Financial Reporting, so far it was successfully done in FRx with such instruments as Reporting Tree (FRx also supports multicurrency, allowing you to operate worldwide).  Dynamics GP Report Writer and forms design, here you usually modify such popular forms as SOP Blank Invoice form (placing logo on the Invoice header would be the most popular)
4. Support Format.  We do recommend web sessions for Great Plains tech support, even if your Dynamics GP consultant is local to your office.  High speed internet (including such emerging technologies as 4G LTE and WiMax and 3G, enabling high speed cellular broadband internet in rural areas).  For international customers we recommend web session in combination with VOIP (Skype would be one of the most popular at this time, 2011)
5. Warehouse Management and Dynamics GP.  In the warehouse automation, as we believe, you expect such technologies as Barcode laser scanners and even newer technologies, such as RFID (tags and readers).  This is not something available out of the box in Great Plains.  However various WMS products and Add-ons are available for Dynamics GP, please see your GP Consultant for further advise and module selection cycle
6. Ecommerce for Dynamics GP.  This is very generic discussion and theory.  There are various established eCommerce B2B and B2C shopping carts, such as Magento/PHP/MySQL, ASP.Net Storefront.  However these shopping carts are often incorporated into your custom ecommerce web application, which works in production and generates reasonable revenue and you do not like to change the status quo.  This is very legitimate dilemma to discuss
7. Supporting Great Plains legacy vintage versions: Great Plains 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0 on Pervasive SQL 2000/Btrieve/Ctree, Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows and Mac 9.5, 9.2 and 8.X versions.  We are ready, having trained consultants and access to GPA tech support database.  We’ve also migrated GPA for DOS customers to Great Plains Dynamics 6.0, 7.5 in the USA, and even in Oceania (Republic of Palau)
8. For additional information please call us: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 or email us: help@albaspectrum.com