Microsoft Dynamics GP has various customization options and tools, which should fit to your specific modification need. But as typical mid-market ERP it requires tools research prior to performing custom programming. Let’s quickly review the tools:
1. eConnect. This is the most modern and really cool SDK. If you are Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB.Net programmer and you are reasonably excellent with SQL stored procedures, you should invest your time in eConnect research. But there are some drawbacks in eConnect programming: it is rather for integrations, and it is hard to modify GP screens with eConnect – use rather Modifier with VBA or Dexterity for that. Also, eConnect doesn’t post batches in GP – consider deploying Alba Spectrum Autoposting Server to proffer eConnect with batch posting logic
2. Microsoft Dexterity. Former name was Fantastic Plains Dexterity. This tool allows you to break through virtually any limits of other tools. Well, of course there is the learning curve – Dex is not rapid customization option, it requires long programming experience in order to produce qualified and competitive Dexterity coding
3. VBA and Modifier. This tool is rather legacy, but it is and was very standard, as simple and really quick modifications could be automated with simple VBA scripting. If you plot to do database update, select and insert statements – you can deploy ADO technology in your VBA code
4. SQL direct scripting. If you are very advanced SQL programmer and DBA, then you probably like to disregard all the tools and try or rely on your experience in SQL stored procedures coding. Please, review GP SDK (install it from CD #2)
5. Integration Manager. IM module also opens modification possibilities, related to data translation, VBA coding. In GP version 10.0 IM you will find eConnect connectors, which are breaking through former IM performance limits
6. Third Party Add-Ons. At this time (June 2008), GP ISV harvest are written in Fantastic Plains Dexterity and are distributed via Dex chunks technology. But there is the trend to adopt eConnect in the third party add-ons, related to eCommerce integration harvest
Posts Tagged ‘AddOns’
Great Plains Customizations: Dynamics Gp Add-ons
Thursday, May 13th, 2010Great Plains Reseller Chicago, San Diego Newsflash: Add-ons Development
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010Traditionally, Microsoft Dynamics GP or former Fantastic Plains Dynamics and eEnterprise customizations were programmed in Fantastic Plains Dexterity, where you can make your screens working integrated into GP workstation and user security rules. Dexterity modifications are typically outsourced to Fantastic Plains Technology Partner and Certified GP technical consultant. If you are doing modifications on your own and your are technically comfortable with Fantastic Plains, then you can review eOne Extender. If you are engaged in ecommerce website integration project, then your tool of choice should be eConnect. In this small publication we want to give your technical highlights:
1. Dynamics GP Dexterity customizations. GP Dexterity has its own scripting language Sanscript, which is cursor like in the manner of database access. When Microsoft bought Fantastic Plains Software, Dexterity was enriched with MS SQL Server direct SQL code calls, COM objects access library and other features, facilitating integration with Microsoft .Net programming. Dexterity add-on is distributed via so-called chunk file, which should be copied into GP workstation directory to be involuntarily integrated on the next GP user login. The best practice is to make new Dexterity forms and windows and place triggers in order to modify existing GP tables. But you can also modify or alter existing GP forms, but if you do so – likely that you will come in conflict with other add-ons and third party module, plus there will be more work in Dex customization version upgrade
2. Extender. With eOne version you can proffer GP form, and make it intuitively. But in fact Extender is the bombard over Fantastic Plains Dexterity and behind the scenes you are making Dex objects
3. eConnect programming. It is advisable to have Fantastic Plains eConnect programmer or consultant to be involved at least in the tech specification writing and be available to help on case-by-case when programming is in progress. eConnect is written in encrypted SQL stored procedures and replicates Dexterity logic, but is more object oriented and so, more friendly to C# or VB.Net programmers, who are also familiar with MS SQL Server stored procedures. eConnect doesn’t post batches, so you will need Fantastic Plains Posting Server or Autopost
Dynamics GP B2B, B2C eCommerce tools: Business Portal Order Management and ISV add-ons
Thursday, February 11th, 2010If you are in committed ecommerce integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP Fantastic Plains ERP application, we want to place forward you this article with highlights on Dynamics GP web based Business Portal and its ecommerce module Order Management, plus some highlights on Fantastic Plains eCommerce ISV and technology partners custom add-ons. eCommerce is very diversified and it is evenly too complex for simple ecommerce product to cover numerous requirements, that businesses in various industries might have. Microsoft Business Solutions offers Dynamics GP Business Portal Order Management (for Fantastic Plains 7.5 and earlier this product was known as eOrder, but it was redesigned from scratches on Business Portal platform). Business Portal is certainly cool management and future technology orientation, but if you find it too limited in customizability (the same limitation was applicable to eOrder, where you would have to customize existing ASP pages in InterDev to adopt new logic, and every version upgrade required you to reapply these changes), then you should appeal to Dynamics GP ISV community and try to find appropriate ecommerce extension, or connector product. We made the research and figured out that ecommerce integration is underserved for both Dynamics GP Fantastic Plains and Dynamics AX Axapta harvest, where at this time you can come to the close, that third party add-ons have domination
1. Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal, for B2B. If you have GP implemented you know the price of user license, it is akin to k$1. The thought of web base Business Portal is simple – you add ten times more users to Dynamics GP database via web application, where use license cost will be ten or even five percent of the fixed GP user license. BP could be connected via internet browser and it is natural expectation that you would attract your USA country side, or international employees, B2B customers or Vendors to your BP web site and have them do ERP, MRP, Sales and Purchasing routines in the least. Previous to we leave BP significance, we want to mention about Electronic Document Delivery module for BP. This module allows you to enable specific customers or vendors for their invoices to be delivered to them via email. In sort of kick off scenario Business Portal requires infrastructure to be hosted internally, but with some limitations it could be outsourced. If you are hosting Exchange Server (even in Windows 2008 Small Business Server scenarios), you should consider to get some knowledge about SSL Certificates for Microsoft Exchange 2007, 2003, this is especially applicable when you deploy OWA with MS Exchange 2007
2. If Dynamics GP Business Portal Order Management is not doing the job – then please try to reckon about connector approach, where you as Software Developer or ecommerce programmer will have complete control and the product you about to buy will help you as friendly connector or the library in your ecommerce application. Our company Alba Spectrum offers Order Connector to connect you ecommerce shopping cart to Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing documents: Sales Order, Invoice, Quote, Return, Back Order
3. eConnect programming. This software development kit was introduced in 2003 and at that time it was dedicated to ecommerce programmers, but it is now expanded to cover most of Fantastic Plains master records and work phase transactions. Previous to you dive into eConnect programming, please review GP Integration Manager – this tool is also in process of being redesigned on eConnect technology, and it should be excellent option if you do not need real time integration, and batch integration one a day or every hour is OK. There are options to schedule Integration Manager integration to run involuntarily with Windows macro add-ons, available from third party developers (in some cases free), or you can buy IM scheduling tool from Microsoft Business Solutions. Both IM and eConnect should be excellent options in B2B and B2C (business to business and business to customer) ecommerce scenarios. If you need advanced eConnect custom ecommerce programming project done, please feel free to call us. eConnect should be friendly to Microsoft Visual Studio C#, VB developer with some excurse to XML and SQL Stored procedures
4. Posting Server. Alba Spectrum Porting Server or Autopost allows you to proffer eConnect logic with GP batches posting. This is theoretically optional feature, but if you want to post your batches frankly from your ecommerce C# or VB.Net application Autopost allows you to do the job
5. B2C ecommerce bonus notes. We recommend you not to invent the wheel and take one of the leading and usually reasonably priced harvest as the base for you ecommerce web site, shopping card and credit card or other sorts of payment processing. Then, you should program integration in eConnect, or simply buy connector to Dynamics GP. We would be pleased to resolve your integration to GP issues with our Order Connector or even tune it for advanced logic. In the case of small business ecommerce operations, you can export customer orders log to EDI compliant or even text file, which could be then imported via Fantastic Plains Integration Manager. You may reckon to get some help in synchronizing GP Pricing and Promotion Campaigns on your ecommerce website
6. eCommerce for legacy GP versions. Theoretically ecommerce integration is possible for Dynamics GP eConnect compliant versions (in our opinion GP 10.0 and 9.0, with some restrictions to GP 8.0). eConnect was introduced for Fantastic Plains 7.5 in 2004. We recommend production eConnect integration for Dynamics GP 10.0 and 9.0, if you are on lower version, please consider to give us a call on upgrade scenarios and options
7. How to get help? Please, feel free to call our office at 1-866-528-0577, if you are outside of USA: 1-630-961-5918, or email us: help@albaspectrum.com We speak English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, including Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Filipino. Please, be aware that Dynamics GP is not UNICODE compliant application, and if you need help in having GP Screens to be translated to Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and other hieroglyph based characters language, this is not possible. We would be pleased to make Chinese precious stone Reports out of your Dynamics GP system with the help of third party Dynamics GP ISV tools, such as NJ Star. If you are trying to consider Fantastic Plains for your Brazilian subsidiary, we would have to discourage you and question you rather to consider SAP Business One, which is localized for Brazil. Fantastic Plains Dynamics GP is also not localized for Russian market, we invite you to call us to help you know ecommerce and Corporate ERP options in Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldova, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia, Uzbekistan
Google Blogger Addons To Take Your Blog From Fit To Fab
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009Blogger is a fantastic stand-alone blogging platform. But when you consider the more than 20,000 addons available from Google, it becomes outstanding.
Google and other service providers place forward some of the most useful and appealing add-ons you can imagine. And the vast majority are free and simple to use. Let’s take a look at how you can use them to enhance the value of your blog.
Where to find Google Blogger Addons
The protect lode of Blogger Addons can be found on the Google Gadgets website. To find this site, go to Google and search for ‘Google Gadgets For Your Webpage.’ You do not want to go to ‘Google Desktop Gadgets,’ because you won’t be able to use those gadgets on your blog. As of today, there are 22,119 gadgets available with more being added every day. Here are some of my favorites.
Fun & Games
Games and humor are two of the top reasons that visitors come back to the same blog and you can add tons of both with Google Gadgets.
Games include PacMan, Bowling, Tetris, Checkers, Hangman and virtually every other game you remember playing at the arcade. With respect to humor, you can add cartoons like Garfield, 9 to 5, SpongeBob, Bloom County and the Cartoon of the Day. Google offers dozens of gadgets to add cheery and comical information to your blog. Some of my favorites are Pun Cat Photos, the Bart Simpson Phrase of the Day (what does that tell you about your author?), Horoscopes and This Day In History. Your largest problem will not be finding engaging gadgets for your blog, but knowing when to stop count them.
News
On a more serious note, you can find gadgets that have to do with the news. These are some of the more common gadgets on both websites and blogs.
When people come to your Blogger blog they can see a gadgets that shows the local weather, breaking news, hot storm warnings and even traffic reports in major cities. These are fantastic gadgets to add if your blog is targeted to a local audience.
Tools
If you want to place forward your visitors useful tools, you won’t be disappointed with Google Gadgets. Many of my blogs are populated with these gadgets and I find myself going to them evenly.
This is a fantastic place to find calendars, world clocks, dictionaries, driving directions and maps. You can make and add a video message to your blog with one doohickey in as small as a minute. The list of useful tools you can add to your Blogger blog is incredible.
Communication and Technology
For those of you who delight in the more technical side of the Internet, these gadgets are for you. Add a doohickey that gives instant access to Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM Messenger, Hotmail and your Gmail account on your blog. You can add a Desktop Chat doohickey and communicate with readers while they’re visiting your blog. I’ve seen this tool used on some of the better customer service sites and it’s fantastic.
If you’re interested in space, Google has a doohickey that shows images from the Hubble telescope, NOAA satellite images, current moon phases and daily astronomy pictures. These gadgets are quickly becoming as limitless as the universe.
Lifestyle
This is huge. These gadgets are the equivalent of People Magazine. This is a fantastic place to find the top five movies at the box office, Jon Stewart’s quote of the day (permanently pun), music, bible verses, Inhabitant Geographic photos and even live TV.
Sports
I’m a sports fan. I especially delight in baseball and NCAA football. Thank goodness there are gadgets to keep me posted on the sports world. You can add gadgets to your Blogger blog that will show the BCS standings, live sports scores, body building tips, boxing schedules and what your resting heart rate should be. There is even a doohickey for you to keep footstep of your workout routine, assuming you have a workout routine and aren’t just an armchair quarterback like me.
As you can see there are more Google Blogger addons than you can imagine and they’re remarkably simple to place on your blog. Just select the doohickey you want to use, copy the code generated by the doohickey and add it to your Blogger blog under the HTML tab. If you would rather add the doohickey to your sidebar, you can do that too and it will show up on every page of your blog. You’re going to like Google Gadgets and so will your readers.
5 Must Have Add-Ons for a Blogger Blog and Where to Find Them
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009When you first sign up for a blog on a site like Blogger, there is a wide variety of options made available that allow you to reach out to your readers. From customizable templates to imbedded videos, audio and advertising, the new blogger seemingly has the world at his or her fingertips. That warm and fuzzy feeling ultimately starts to wear off though as new thoughts pop up that may not be immediately covered by Blogger’s built-in features.
Luckily, Blogger and essentially any other blogging platform allows its writers to add any number of open source add-ons to their blogs for enhanced features and interaction with readers.
AdSense
The single greatest thing you can do for your blog is turn it into a profitable outlet for your daily writing. Google’s very own AdSense add-on is one of the simplest and most effectual ways to do this. The best part is that it is incredibly simple to add AdSense to your blog through the interface provided by Google in Blogger.
All you need to do is sign up for an AdSense account using the same login ID you currently use for Blogger. Go to the template page of Blogger where you will find a visual layout of your site. Click on any of the “Add a Page Element” links on the page and you will be questioned how huge you would like your ads to be, how many to place, and what background colors they will have. It is quick and simple and integrates frankly into your account.
Templates
The templates page is a fantastic place to find and make a fantastic deal of changes to your blog, the best and most visible impressive add-on being a new template. The code for your template can be located here, within the Template tag of your blog settings. To exchange your template, all you need to do is find a new one that you like and copy the code.
While Blogger comes with a couple dozens templates by now installed, there are thousands more options available nearly somewhere you look on the Internet. So, despite what Blogger may want your site to look like, you can make nearly any changes you want, assuming you can find a name who has built a template to match your desired look.
Subscribe to Comments – by email
This simple add-on can be found within Blogger’s own Buzz page, the company blog that announces new changes and updates to their website and air force. To find it, look for it just not more than your list of blogs on your dashboard.
This new add-on makes it simple for you to stay in the conversation loop after you comment on a post. Blogger now gives you the opportunity to receive an email every time a name comments on the same post. This way, if you question a question of the post author, you will get instant notification of their response without having to check back on their blog. To use this feature you will need to have a Google account which will insure that a name else can’t provide your email causing your to receive email that you didn’t question for.
Amazon Widgets
A further fantastic way to make a few dollars from your writing, Amazon widgets allow you install links to harvest on Amazon that your readers may be interested in buying. Sign up for a free Associates account with Amazon and you can then install these widgets with your own Associate ID number and get commission for any sales made through your site. It is a fantastic way to make relevant ads on your site linked to posts you have written.
Bookmarking Buttons (Digg, Tasty, Facebook, etc)
These are nearly required in today’s age of social bookmarking and networking. By default, the only way a reader can interact with you on your blog is through the commenting feature. But, you can install simple button links on your site to air force like Digg and Tasty where they can bookmark your posts and share them with millions of other social bookmarkers. To add these buttons to your page, stay the websites for Digg or Tasty and search for buttons and links after signing up for a new account. They install easily within the code of your template (which these sites will guide you through doing).
There are countless additions you can make to your Blogger blog through widgets and third party applications. When a name has an thought, a name else has probably by now produced an application to serve that thought. The best way to find new widgets is to search Google for “Blogger Widgets” or “Blogger addons” and search through the listings provided. You can do wonders with your blog with the right resources.