Dynamics GP, or as it was formerly known and still referred Great Plains Dynamics, eEnterprise, Great Plains Select, is mid-market Corporate ERP application with flexible settings and various customizations, reporting and integration tools.
Regarding Wholesale industry,
we will be concentrating on Warehouse Management, EDI (Electronic Document Interface), B2B eCommerce add-ons for Great Plains as well as on Distribution sets of native GP modules: Sales Order Processing, Inventory Control, Purchase Order Processing, where majority (if not all) of required Wholesale trade ERP business logic is available. We will be also talking about Barcoding, the key technology for the Wholesalers:
1. Dynamics GP and Barcoding. One of our affiliated Great Plains Consultants was very optimistic on training Dynamics GP users to walk on the warehouse floor with netbook computer with Great Plains Dynamics client application loaded and barcode scanner connected via USB port. In this scenario you have to use keyboard and possibly mouse and barcode scanner (which gives you the same functionality as keyboard, but it works a way faster, reading barcode labels). This approach could be tried in our opinion in small Retailing business with limited number of Warehouse barcode scanning needs and highly trained (in Dynamics GP distribution business logic and screens) personnel (for example in family owned business with most of the family members working under the family business roof). We can definitely help you with this method, but we believe that for regular contemporary Wholesale business you need Dynamics GP Warehouse Management extensions, where barcode scanning is automated and user training is minimal
2. Distributions in Dynamics GP or in older Great Plains Dynamics versions. What is in our opinion critical for Wholesaler is the ERP functionality in the following situations: Customer Sales Order Fulfillment (Picking and Packing, Shipping and Receiving and sometimes Assembling on order) – this is covered in Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing module, exposed to Barcoding via WMS extension. Second required feature is likely to be Inventory Restocking (where you are reordering items from your worldwide vendors in China, India, Brazil, Latin America, Philippines or another place in South East Asia). In Dynamics GP inventory replenishment is in POP Purchase Receipt, it is again open to Barcode scanning and integration via Warehouse Management System. The third required component is Inventory transactions: transfers from one site to another (on requested local customer order), inventory cycle physical count or casual inventory quantity adjustments (due to expired best by dates, merchandise returns, manufacturer recall and other reasons)
3. Warehouse Management System, technology behind. WMS add-on has two layers: WMS client, running directly on the Barcode Scanner processor, where we deploy Microsoft Visual Basic programming technology to minimize the impact on Barcode scanner operating system processor and memory resources. Barcode scanner WMS user talks to WMS server (recommended protocol is wireless). Warehouse Management System Server is Windows computer (net required to be super powerful, regular Windows XP or Windows 7 user workstations will do the job), this computer should be on your Ethernet office network (or even better on fiber optic). WMS Server talks to Dynamics GP databases via ODBC connections to complete Barcode scanning integration directly and in real or quasi real time to Dynamics GP distribution documents
4. Dynamics GP Wholesale Business to Business eCommerce. Here you are probably facing two scenarios: B2B Ecommerce shopping cart integration (Magento, Asp.Net Storefront and other popular platforms) directly to Dynamics GP SOP Invoice or Sales Order or EDI channel (precisely formatted text file or in newer EDI versions XMP file format). All these situations are programmable directly in Microsoft Dynamics GP or handled in Dynamics GP ISV partners add-ons
5. Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows and Macintosh. This is bonus topic, as we are supporting Great Plains Accounting USA, Canada nationwide and Worldwide, but in essence GPA is legacy application which is only compatible with Windows XP/Vista/7 32 bit platform (the situation might change in the future, but we are reporting on what we have to face in July 2010). The hot cases currently are the situations, where you WindowsNT or Novell server crashed and now you are willing to redeploy Great Plains Accounting on Windows 2003, 2007 or Windows 7 32 bit platform based server or workstation
6. Getting support from Alba Spectrum. Please call us 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum.com We are serving USA, Canada and International clientele via web sessions and phone conferences (skype). If you require local walk in service we are local to you in South West Michigan (St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, Kalamazoo, New Buffalo, Holland, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, South Haven, Grand Haven, Ludington), in California we serve you locally in Los Angeles, Irvine, San Diego and Orange County, Chicagoland Illinois area, Houston Texas
