Microsoft Dynamics GP Autoposting server – overview for consultant

Apr 23

22:53

2007

Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains has nice ecommerce web development tool: eConnect. This module allows you to program sales order processing orders, invoices, pick inventory items, and even add customers (here we are not considering the other eConnect features – POP, Payroll, GL, etc.). Some dismay happens with development team when they finally realize that eConnect does allow them to create work invoices and place them in the batch, but batch automatic posting from ecommerce application is actually beyond the reach of eConnect.

This is actually architectural restriction of Microsoft Dynamics GP, former Great Plains Dynamics Dexterity: work documents must be reviewed by GP operator and manually posted through GP interface. These facts had Alba Spectrum developers to build up autoposting server, which utilizes GP workstation with modified logic to post batches, flagged for posting by ecommerce application. E-Commerce developer typically work with Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB.Net and doesn’t need to know and program dex scripts. How does it work:

Batch Posting Process in GP. Autoposting server checks batch status table every 5 seconds. If it finds batch approved for posting, it initiates internal Dexterity process to post batch. Posting Server utilizes dex logic and so, is very reliable in posting business logic validation. Batch status table is part of custom logic and you as e-commerce developer should include the batch record into this table to let it be posted
Additional GP licensing. Posting server should be installed on stand alone GP workstation, which should be always on, and be processing ecommerce orders as they come in 24x7/365.
Sales document allocation. If you are working with eConnect, you probably don’t think about this inventory items allocation question, however your accounting counterpart may rise this question to you. Don’t worry, eConnect validates GP logic and as being written in SQL Stored Procedures, it replicates GP Dexterity logic, including order line allocation
Dexterity excurse. This is core of GP, if you think about DYNAMICS.DIC – this is business logic and tables structure dictionary, which is being used by dex.exe – this is Dexterity application file. In order to go deeper in dex understanding, please review Dynamics.set file to analyze which products you utilize for your company and your dex.ini file to understand your dexterity settings. One of the extra tips – if you need to resynchronize your GP workstation with new or changed GP accounts segmentation you should modify dex.ini line: change Synchronize=FALSE to Synchronize=TRUE

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