Posts Tagged ‘Ecommerce’

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Ecommerce Programming for Great Plains Dynamics Gp – Introduction

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

If your organization deploys Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains ERP and you are thinking on connecting it to your eCommerce site, we would like to give you initial introduction – where to start digging GP, tools, integration options, limitations, pluses and minuses and others typical FAQ. Current version of Great Plains is 10.0, we assume that it is reasonable to be at list on version 9.0, prior to begin ecommerce connection project â?? otherwise you will be reprogramming your integration with version upgrade. If you are on older versions, especially on Pervasive SQL 2000/Btrieve or Ctree/Faircom (this might be the case if you are on GP 7.5, 7.0, 6.0 or earlier), we recommend you first upgrade to MS SQL Server based version (you should contact you MBS VAR and they will provide you with the migration tool and it is recommended that professional Great Plains consultant does the conversion)

1. Sales Order Processing module or SOP. This module is typically integrated with your e-commerce application. In eCommerce you create either SOP Order or SOP Invoice. The easiest scenario is to create order or invoice without inventory items allocation, this is especially recommended if you are trying to program integration in SQL stored procedures

2. Great Plains tables structure. This is one of the first questions, which we hear from developers. You should login GP, depending on version, we will give you the path for version 10.0: Microsoft Dynamics GP->Tools->Resource Description->Tables. Tables are grouped by GP series: Financial, Sales, Purchasing, Inventory, etc.

3. Microsoft Dexterity technology. You should be aware that if you populate GP table records, you should treat GP business logic accordingly. The most vital is treating GP Dexterity business logic, which is validated when Fantastic Plains client application tries to read records, populated by you â?? if business logic is violated and could not be validated, Dexterity interface will error out and you will make GP ERP inoperable

4. eConnect. Yes, this is what you should consider to use when possible in e-commerce. eConnect core is set of SQL stored procedures, which allow you to make, modify, delete GP master records (customer, vendor, inventory item) and work transactions (such as SOP invoice, or SOP order), plus eConnect allocates invoice or order lines, so the limitation of topic one is not a problem here. What eConnect can not do is post individual transaction or SOP batch â?? this routine is left to GP operator by GP architecture

5. Posting Server. Alba Spectrum Posting Server allows you combine eConnect with autoposting frankly from eCommerce application. Posting server is GP Dexterity application and should be installed on separate GP workstation (or your GP server, where you keep GP workstation with Posting server running). When deploying posting server â?? you will need to place approved batches to custom tables and posting server will take care of posting process

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Ecommerce For Dynamics Gp Notes: Econnect Batch Posting

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Microsoft Dynamics GP is becoming very standard ecommerce ERP and accounting back office. This trend is probably related to success of eConnect SDK, especially for Dynamics GP 10.0 and 9.0 versions. eConnect allows you, being generic C#, VB.Net programmer with excellent SQL and XML skills to program Fantastic Plains objects manipulation: Customer, Address, Sales Invoice, Customer Payment and other attributes of ecommerce shopping cart. eConnect, being coded in SQL Server Stored Procedures (they are encrypted, so you probably should not expect to trace SQL code for Fantastic Plains business logic there). In this small publication we want to share with you ecommerce coding experience and Dynamics GP automatic batch posting from eConnect application frankly:1. Older versions of Fantastic Plains Dynamics GP. If you are on GP 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0 or earlier versions, we recommend you to upgrade to Dynamics GP 10.0 as for this version eConnect is really advanced. If you do not have registration key, probably due to the fact of lapsing in Dynamics GP Fantastic Plains once a year maintenance program, consider deploying Sales Order Connector, or set of SQL stored procedures, produced for ecommerce web developers of older Fantastic Plains version to connect ecommerce shopping cart with GP Sales Order Processing module, please call us for details. If you are on Pervasive SQL or Ctree, your options are very limited, you can still try to program ODBC connection to Pervasive SQL 2000 database, but then you will have to reprogram the logic, which is in fact available in eConnect (if you migrate from Pervasive to Microsoft SQL Server and upgrade to new version GP 10.0)2. Automatic Batch Posting. Here we evenly hear from ecommerce programmers the question – why eConnect doesn’t have the tools and logic to post Fantastic Plains SOP Batches (as well as post batches in other Fantastic Plains modules). The answer is in GP architecture (it is pretty common, and you should expect similar restrictions in other ERP and MRP platforms). The concept of ERP business transactions flow suggests you to use three phases of transaction life: work, open and historical. eConnect allows you to make work transactions, in Fantastic Plains these are newly produced invoices or sales orders, placed in the batch and submitted for Fantastic Plains user review and posting. In order to trigger Dynamics GP batch posting from eConnect application frankly – you have to deploy Fantastic Plains add-on – Alba Spectrum Posting Server3. Posting Server. It consumes one user license and deploys Dynamics GP Dexterity source code to trigger the same coded logic in Dexterity for batch posting. Autopost is targeted to eCommerce web programmers, plus it post virtually all types of Fantastic Plains Batches: GL, Inventory, Payroll, AP, AR, SOP

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Dynamics GP eCommerce Integration Notes

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Certainly, if you are building ecommerce from scratch, then you should consider harvest as the base of your future ecommerce web application.  But, and this is probably your case, in ecommerce scenarios we evenly see legacy ecommerce portal, which does the job, and your role is to give some impulse as software developer in your IT department to ecommerce integration evolution.  In this case you are moving away from emailing orders “involuntarily” from ecommerce to Fantastic Plains users to somewhat like batch overnight ecommerce Sales Invoices and Payments processing or even in ultimate case to real time Invoices creation triggering from ecommerce to Dynamics GP SOP module.  Standard PHP based ecommerce shopping carts also make customer profile on the glide or update existing customer.  In this case integration goes to Receivable Management Customer Master file in Fantastic Plains.  Let’s take a look at technical side or programming tools:

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Benefits Of Rss In Ecommerce

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML-based format for content distribution. News, information, enterprise applications and weblogs (blogs) can all be in print in RSS. When a new article is posted or a exchange is made to an application, RSS feeds can involuntarily say the user. Text, images, audio (including podcasts) and video can be incorporated into RSS feeds.
RSS feeds can help keep you up-to-date on news, information and blog posts, making you more knowledgeable and productive, both at work and at home. According to Technorati as of Development 2006, there are more than 30 million RSS feeds available. Most mainstream news and information sites publish RSS feeds.
There are a number of different use cases for RSS since both internal (enterprise applications, blogs, reports) and outdoor (industry news, competitive information, blogs) content can be delivered as feeds. In particular, many businesses see benefits by not having to periodically check Web sites for key updates or wade through traffic on e-mail distribution lists. In addition to increasing knowledge and productivity, RSS feeds can also be used for brand monitoring, crisis exchanges, internal/executive exchanges and competitive intelligence.
Media Companies and Other Content/Information Providers, RSS feeds place forward readers, visitors and customers a convenient way to read and access their information. RSS feeds can also be incorporated into Web sites to place forward a more personalized and rich user experience, strengthen the brand and maximize revenue opportunities.
To view RSS feeds, you will need an RSS reader or aggregator. There are a number of free or low-cost online, desktop, mobile and Outlook—based readers available. To leverage RSS for a large number of users inside of a company, you will likely need an RSS server to handle security and scalability issues, centrally manage users and groups and present a common interface. To aggregate RSS into an outdoor Web site, you will also need a server-based solution, either hosted or customer-premise based.
RSS and ECOMMERCE
Many online retailers like NewEgg.com are utilizing R.S.S. feeds to keep there customers coming back. If you stay NewEgg.com you will see R.S.S. icons near the sites’ harvest, with messages offering users fixed updates on those harvest. Once a user has indicated a inclination for, say, LCD monitors or daily specials, he clicks on the icon telling the company to send the alerts to his personalized page.
If the user directs NewEgg.com to deliver alerts to a My Yahoo page, NewEgg.com will send the alert, typically an item description with a photo, only when it has a new product or a promotion relevant to the specified bits and pieces.
Customers might not expend the energy to surf through all the merchandise to find bits and pieces of interest each time they stay. But R.S.S. is a way to in the end spot highly relevant interest in front of consumers.
Retailers who are employing R.S.S. feeds are ahead of the curve, but not unreasonably so. It’s still a small too early for this to catch on usually, but as a touch for the future, it can be incredibly rewarding and potentially very lucrative for retailers.
If you are interested in more information about RSS for your company, Bizatomic boosts your site optimization by making RSS feeds containing top search engine keywords and count them to your website. Placing “keyword-targeted” feeds on your webpages will greatly enhance your ability to achieve optimum keyword density. A news feed is preferable to a search engine feed for SEO because news feeds are updated more frequently.

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Dynamics GP ecommerce programming: eConnect, Dexterity, SQL Scripts

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

If you by now have Microsoft Dynamics GP, formerly known as Fantastic Plains Dynamics, implemented in your company, and you also have established and in-house supported ecommerce application, it is natural next step to automate integration.  Typically automation covers Catalog bits and pieces synchronization and publishing from Dynamics GP Inventory Control module; Sales Orders or Invoices batch mode or real time integration from ecommerce web site to Fantastic Plains Sales Order Processing module; new Customers creation and existing customers info update in ecommerce and moving or updating them in Dynamics GP Receivables Management module.  Sometimes you go beyond these basic integration routines and do Stock availability for specific item in specific warehouse or place; Sales order tracking, where you check order lines fulfillment in Dynamics GP SOP module with shipping via Starship or a further FedEx or UPS tracking add-ons.  We are here to place forward you help in tuning our existing custom solutions and scripts to expedite ecommerce integration projects, please read ecommerce integration highlights not more than:

1. eStore ecommerce server integration to Fantastic Plains.  We place forward scripts for eStore integration to Dynamics GP SOP, Receivable Management and Inventory Control modules.  We are pleased to provide several case studies and customer references, where ecommerce is deployed on eStore and Dynamics GP tandem

2. eConnect coding.  With Dynamics GP eConnect SDK you can expect master records (customer, inventory item, address, vendor, etc.) and work transactions in the batch creation and update frankly from your ecommerce C#, VB.Net application.  Again, here we are emphasizing Solutions approach, where we will give you integration codes and guide your eConnect MS Visual Studio programmers in tuning and deploying these codes

3. Microsoft Dexterity and eCommerce integration.  One of the obvious advantages in deploying Fantastic Plains Dexterity engine is GP batches posting frankly from your eCommerce application.  We have special product, dedicated to Posting Fantastic Plains Batches involuntarily – Alba Spectrum Posting Server or Autopost.  It is written in Dynamics GP Dexterity and it deploys original GP Posting logic

4. SQL Scripting in GP ecommerce.  This approach is a bit challenging as you will have to imitate Dynamics GP business logic in direct SQL insert statements, and here we encourage you first to review eConnect, as it does exactly the same things in encrypted SQL Stored Procedures.  We have Dynamics GP Order Connector, this is the set of our custom SQL Stored Procedures and it enables ecommerce programmer to integrate Sales Order and Invoice frankly to GP SOP module.  The advantage of Order Connector is high performance, comparing to both Dexterity and eConnect (as we use simplified business logic, assuming that you are following simple ecommerce integration rules)

5. Please, feel free to call us: 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

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Dynamics GP Ecommerce Programming and Integration Notes

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Microsoft Dynamics GP is open to ecommerce programmer via eConnect SDK, as well as Microsoft SQL Server programmability tools (typically Stored Procedures and Views).  Previous to you dive into technical project of eConnect programming, please, review Fantastic Plains Integration Manager module and its customization options: VBA scripting of Previous to Document Commit (as very common modification point) event; you can schedule IM integration with Windows Macro or deploy free and ready for buy applications, extending basic Windows Macro with bonus functionalities.  Dynamics GP Integration Manager based (for version 10.0 and future versions 11.0 and up) on eConnect technology (in addition to supporting ancient OLE Server integrations), meaning that IM integration should be able to achieve the same goal with less efforts.  And as you should expect the same limitations for eConnect as you have for Integration Manager – most evenly manifesting limitation is eConnect and Integration Manager Batch Posting incapacity.  Now straight to the Fantastic Plains eCommerce Developing topic:

1. eConnect is Software Development Kit, written in SQL Stored Procedures (encrypted), it allows you to program GP master records (Customer, Vendor, Employee, GL Account, Inventory Item, Address, Project, Budget, etc.) and so-called Work Transactions: SOP Quote, Order and Invoice, POP Buy Order, GL Transaction, Employee Paycheck, Inventory Adjustment and Transfer, to give the thought.  eConnect is friendly and requires very fleeting learning curve for Microsoft Visual Studio .Net C#, VB and other .Net compliant languages programmers.  Bonus pluses if you have XML, SQL Scripting skills

2. Sales Order Processing and Inventory Control modules and tables.  These two are the most standard in ecommerce integrations.  SOP tables have SOP prefix (well-known SOP10100 transaction header and SOP10200 lines), and Inventory INV (INV00101 – item master and INV00102 Quantity master) respectively.  Sometimes, especially in ancient Fantastic Plains ecommerce legacy integrations you find Invoicing module (IV prefix)

3. Posting problem.  In ecommerce application you evenly want to do all the way transaction processing: Sales Invoice creation and modification, applying credit card payment deposit, allocating merchandise, approving and posting Sales Order Processing batch (or individual transaction).  Here, you will hit the wall and realize that Posting functionality is not included in eConnect or Fantastic Plains Integration Manager.  There is no shortcut here (we assume that you are Not Dynamics GP Dexterity software developer with tons of programming experience, including Dexterity Source Code Programming), you will need to buy Dynamics GP Add-On, we recommend Dynamics GP Posting Server, also known as Autopost

4. Dynamics GP eCommerce SQL Scripting.  If you have the opinion that your ecommerce integration routine is very simple and eConnect is too cumbersome and heavy in being considered for deployment, you can always rescue to SQL direct insertion statement.  Please review GP table structure: Dynamics GP -> Settings -> Resource Description -> Tables.  Or, simply install GP Software Development Kit from CD #2.  Dynamics GP Business Logic might be too complex for intuitive programming, so if you will get the buggy situation, consider making test transaction in GP user interface and review the records in GP tables.  If you prefer proven set of stored procedures – we place forward them as Order Connector, feeding data into SOP tables

5. Feel free to call us on Microsoft Dynamics GP eCommerce integrations concerns: 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

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Dynamics GP and SAP Business One eCommerce integration options

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

ERP and ecommerce system integration is probably vital question for established ecommerce operations as well as for those who are in startup mode.  It is perfect situation if you find appropriate Corporate ERP software, where ecommerce is working out of the same tables as core ERP Sales Order Processing, Inventory Control with Price Lists.  But, this might be excellent hope for the future, real life shows the pattern, where ecommerce store deploys unique business logic and pricing schemas – and in order to implement these rules you evenly have to either do custom ecommerce web development or pick very generic and powerful ecommerce web stores (which may not be necessary integrated with major Small and midsize business Corporate ERP packages).  In this small article we want to draw the picture in the case of deploying and implementing SAP Business One or Microsoft Dynamics GP, formerly known as Fantastic Plains Dynamics:

1. eCommerce extensions.  If you do not have existing ecommerce website in production, then for both SB1 and GP, please look for ecommerce extensions.  For Dynamics GP look at GP Business Portal Order Management module.  For SBO review its ecommerce module.  There are ecommerce add-ons on the ISV harvest market for both ERP, out of scope here.  Regarding BP and SB1 ecommerce module, please see presentation and be sure that it fits your requirements at least 95%, as you may find the solution to be too hard to customize.  If you find your case resolved, we are pleased for you, for the rest of us, let’s go to the next paragraph

2. Real time versus Batch mode integration.  Now, you are trying to find reasonably priced integration technology, allowing you to export ecommerce documents: invoices, sales orders, price lists into your new ERP and potentially integrate back to ecommerce document status from the ERP.  You may choose to start in your pilot mode with Batch mode integration, where you initiate data synchronization by calling user friendly integration tool.  In the case of SB1 you can deploy Data Transfer Workbench with Advanced ODBC Sources and Dynamics GP has Integration Manager module.  Real time integration, as you could expect requires custom programming, in the case of SB1 it is SAP Business One SDK coding, and in GP it is eConnect.  Both eConnect and SB1 SDK could be a way to go if you need very advanced custom ecommerce integration, especially when you are large company and can meet the expense of ecommerce to ERP integration budget

3. Document Status export back to ecommerce.  Here in simple and inexpensive scenario you read Dynamics GP tables: SOP10100, SOP10200, or in SB1: OINV or INV1.  In both cases, please review Dynamics GP or SAP Business One SDK help documentation, where you can review table structure.  How you update statuses in eCommerce, please review your ecommerce application documentation, or talk to your in-house ecommerce programmers

4. Documents posting in accounting application.  In SAP B1, when you add Invoice – it involuntarily posts itself all the way through General Ledger, so posting is available to SB1 SDK developer.  In Dynamics GP, in draw a distinction you have more flexibility in batch reviewing and approving, but this flexibility blocks you from posting GP SOP batches frankly from eConnect methods, as Batch and Transaction Posting is in GP user competence and eConnect can only make so-called Work documents and place them into the Batch.  To place forward you work around for eConnect ecommerce programmer we produced Alba Spectrum Posting Server, where you place batch into queue table and Autopost launches posting process involuntarily

5. Master Slave scenario.  You should choose if your Corporate ERP (Dynamics GP or SAP Business One) should become Master in entering initial Inventory Bits and pieces, Price Lists, Promotion Campaign,  etc. and then uploading these objects to ecommerce or this role is for your ecommerce application – then SB1 is Slave and ecommerce is sort of Master.  This choice should orient you in strategy and potentially avoid long choice making IT meetings.  Normally, for the Master application you should have very high amount of comfort in technical knowledge and be confident in its future, as Slave role is less critical and maybe in the future remapped to a touch else

6. How to get help?  Please call us 1-866-528-0577, internationally: 1-630-961-5918, or email us: help@albaspectrum.com.  We are also comfortable to help you if you are international client, we speak English, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Chinese.  SB1 is localized for numerous countries and it supports Unicode (Chinese, Japanese, Korean hieroglyphs).  SAP Business One or Dynamics GP licenses sale or reenrolling you into MS or SAP once a year support program is possible if you are orphan client.  We will help you if you need to implement and integrate Timesheets in Microsoft CRM and upload them to SB1 or GP as Invoices, feel free to call us for details

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B2B, B2C ecommerce for Dynamics GP notes for IT and consultant

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

If you are consulting, or programming for ecommerce oriented company, or you work in Information Technology department, and the organization has Microsoft Dynamics GP, formerly known as Fantastic Plains Dynamics ERP implemented and now you are looking to either implement ecommerce from scratches or integrate existing ecommerce B2B or B2C application, this article is for you.  First of all, you should reckon about dilemma to choose ecommerce product, of build ecommerce website internally or program it with software development partner firm.  In our opinion, if your are small ecommerce channel reseller, then you should stick to your franchisor ecommerce recommendation:  eBay, etc.  But, if you are trying to start up new technology selling business with ecommerce accent, and you have backing capital – you may find that your ecommerce requirements are too unique and existing shopping cart/ecommerce harvest are too simple to fit your business – the you consider assemble ecommerce in Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB.Net web project (purchasing ecommerce libraries or SDK from trusted ecommerce vendors).  If you are large corporation, you should do your homework as the final answer depends on various factors.  Again, in our opinion, ecommerce at this time is not ready to be considered as simple choice, it is rather thorough process of selection, reselection, implementation and reimplementation:

1. Dynamics GP Business Portal with Order Management Module.  Here you are working with existing Fantastic Plains company Inventory bits and pieces, and you make orders that end up in GP SOP tables: SOP10100 and SOP10200.  You can have committed catalog, which is outside of GP – in separate BP Catalog tables in your Company database.  In B2B scenario, you have BP module Electronic Document Delivery which enables Sales and other types of documents emailing to your business partners.  Outside of ecommerce, if you need to save on Payroll stub postage, you can implement HR employee self service (assuming that you are deploying GP Payroll module).  You should certainly review Business Portal and if it fits your requirements, perfect, we are pleased to sell and implement it for you.  Some remarks we heard from our customers and prospects – Dynamics GP Business Portal is not very flexible in customizations, besides color schema and pictures or logos uploading.  We may agree and disagree with these comments, as you should probably be more open to adopt the technology of the future, as Microsoft is likely very committed to its Dynamics harvest Business Portals.  Excellent example is Microsoft CRM SDK, where in the initial versions 1.2 and 3.0 you had very slow customization interface and restricted programmability and now with CRM SDK 4.0 you can virtually do whatever you like as programmer.  We believe that Business Portal for Fantastic Plains Dynamics GP will improve dramatically in the fleeting future and third party ecommerce add-ons will have hard time to compete with it, but for now you may choose to implement third parties, as they are several steps ahead of Dynamics Business Portal

2. OK, now to third party modules, such as Alba Spectrum Order Connector, Posting Sever or Autopost.  At this time we are launching multiple ecommerce GP dedicated harvest, in fact by repackaging our former customizable solutions to become out of shelf type of harvest, plus we are expanding our Microsoft Dynamics GP ecommerce Software Development Factory.  We assume that you by now did research on the competition.  In B2C scenarios, we recommend you to consider our Order Connector product – it is for simplified ecommerce integration to Dynamics GP SOP module: Quotes, Sales Orders, Invoices, Returns.  We are writing these lines in August 2009, and we are in very rapid progress, so for current offering, please stay our website or call our office

3. Direct eConnect programming.  If you have C#, or VB.Net software developers in material, we recommend this management.  If your ecommerce web application is coded in house, then you should have complete control with eConnect SDK programming.  We do not discuss in this article specific eConnect objects, but you should expect as coder reasonable familiarity with Dynamics GP tables structure and object model.  If you feel that you need bonus help, please install Dynamics GP SDK from GP 10.0 CD #2.  Talking about eConnect for GP versions 10.0 and even 9.0 we heard frequently positive opinions from third party programmers, Dynamics GP ISV and consultants

4. Fantastic Plains Integration Manager.  If you are OK with Fantastic Plains surgical procedure initiated integration, or in advanced IM scenario with scheduled integration, this approach is worth to consider, as IM is rewritten in eConnect for GP 10.0.  If you are on older version of Fantastic Plains, IM requires OLE Server to be running in integrating time, meaning that you have to consume open Fantastic Plains User License if GP workstation is running 24-7

5. Fantastic Plains Dexterity in eCommerce coding.  Dex is initial architecture of Fantastic Plains Dynamics.  This development tool has no limits in count new or altering existing object in Fantastic Plains.  In fact we use Dexterity Source Code programming to develop our harvest, that proffer eConnect limitations (such as posting GP batches frankly from ecommerce applications)

6. eCommerce for older Fantastic Plains Versions.  eConnect is in our opinion reliable for Dynamics GP 10.0 and in most of the areas for 9.0.  If you are on older versions of Dynamics GP Fantastic Plains or eEnterprise: 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, 3.2 or Fantastic Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows or MAC, please consider upgrade to Dynamics GP 10.0.  If upgrade is exceeding your budget, and if you are by now on Dynamics GP on SQL Server 2000 or 2005, we are ready to help you with Order Connector product

7. Non Microsoft ecommerce platform.  If you are on Linux, Oracle, DBII, PHP platform, please review ODBC relations options to Microsoft SQL Server, where Dynamics GP is hosted.  If you are comfortable to make and support these relations (including JDBCODBC bridges), then we can help you to integrate you ecommerce application with Dynamics GP

8. How to get help?  Please call us: 1-866-528-0577, outside of USA 1-630-961-5918, email us help@albaspectrum.com  We speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, including Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Filipino, Arabic.  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

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eCommerce Connectors for Dynamics GP and SB1 notes

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Both Corporate ERP applications: Microsoft Dynamics GP and SAP Business One should be a excellent fit for mid-size or even small ecommerce oriented store.  Both platforms have ecommerce harvest with shopping cart, checkout, item catalogue and other standard estore features.  In this small publication we assume that you by now reviewed existing electronic commerce add-ons (including SAP Business One eCommerce module and Dynamics GP Business Portal Order Management) and you chose or inclined to consider approach of simple integration from GP or SBO from your ecommerce web site, which is in production and does the job.  This approach is excellent for both models: B2B and B2C.  In B2B model you should choose if you would like your special pricing model for each of your customer or for specific customer group to be set in your Accounting (in this case, pricing should be reprogrammed in ecommerce application to imitate changes made in GP/SB1) or it should be originated in ecommerce business logic and then simply pushed to GP on each of the ecommerce invoice line (in this scenario you simply do not use GP/SBO Item Pricing functionality and have your ERP application to accept passively what is coming from ecommerce):

1. Philosophy.  Instead of aggressive ecommerce out-of-the-shelve product selling, we prefer to have as ready for use ecommerce product and in addition to this we place forward them as customizable “solutions” and connectors.  Plus, we are in excellent spot to help you with integration programming, where your internal software developers need help with eConnect, GP and SAP B1 tables structures, Fantastic Plains batch posting frankly from ecommerce application code, helping your with barcode warehouse management custom automation logic and ecommerce logistics.  Plus, we are helping you in thwart platform ecommerce relations, when you may have ecommerce on Linux, PHP/MySQL, Oracle, Java EJB platforms and you need help with heterogeneous ecommerce data feeding query to Microsoft SQL Server based GP and SAP Business One databases.

2. Batch mode integration.  This scenario is perfect for small ecommerce retailers.  Fantastic Plains and SAP BO have Integration modules: GP Integration Manager and SB1 Data Transfer Workbench.  Dynamics GP IM is more advanced, comparing to Workbench, but you have to buy it as separate module to GP, and WB is included into your SB1 buy (free material is vital for small businesses, especially when they are in startup mode).  Let’s first review in brief GP Integration Manager.  IM is user friendly application, where you can setup integration of your new customers, new ecommerce invoices and then have IM operator to call this integration once per day or every hour.  You can also schedule IM – special tool is available from Microsoft Business Solutions or, if you are technology savoir-faire you can deploy Windows macro third party applications to do similar scheduling.  You can consider exporting ecommerce documents in tab or comma delimited text files or simply work with SQL Views – in this case you use Advanced ODBC Queries in Integration Manager.  Now SAP Business One Data Transfer Workbench – you can export your ecommerce data flies in CSV format, which fits exactly to DTW CSV templates – this will allow you even to schedule DTW jobs via Windows scheduled tasks.  Second more advanced approach allows DTW job to work with ODBC connection  to Microsoft SQL Server Views.  MS SQL Server view may call data from Microsoft and non Microsoft DB sources, such as MySQL, Oracle, MS Access, FoxPro, etc.  At this time, SAP Business One version 2007 you cannot schedule DTW ODBC based job – it should be called by DTW operator

3. Real time integration.  In this scenario you proffer your ecommerce application code with SDK libraries.  Dynamics GP ecommerce SDK( it is eConnect) and SB1 SDK – both of them are open for Microsoft Visual Studio C#, or VB.Net developer (SAP B1 SDK also has reasonable openness to Delphi programmers).  Some comments here: eConnect is coded in SQL Server Stored Procedures and its methods are very quick in execution, where SB1 SDK methods are at this time (September 2009, SB1 2007, and former version 2005) slower, expect one invoice in 3-4 seconds, do not expect several thousand transactions to be integrated in ten minutes (but GP eConnect is that quick, we recommend eConnect only if you are Dynamics GP newest versions: 10.0 or 9.0).  You can also review SQL direct programming into Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing tables: SOP10100, SOP10200 and related, but we recommend you rather use eConnect objects to do the same job.  We do not recommend you to push data frankly to SQL B1 Marketing Documents tables: INV1, etc. as SB1 Early Watch is designed to monitor all the changes to SB1 records done outside of the SB1 application, Work Bench and SDK methods realms

4. SAP Business One and Dynamics GP Tables Structure diagrams.  In the case of SB1, you can read SAP Business One SDK documentation – it has table references.  In the case of Great Plains, please consider installing Dynamics GP SDK from CD #2.  As quick reference in GP user interface: Tools->Resource Descriptions->Tables; in SB1 in view menu mark View System Information – when you open SB1 screen, such as AR Invoice, place cursor over the field and read its Table and Field name in left down corner, for example RDN1.ItemCode is the field for item number on return line.  Again, we want to stress that Tables Structures are in ultimate scenario for pulling data from GP or SB1 for ecommerce order status report, if you need certain amount of ecommerce customer self service (and not for pushing data into your Corporate ERP tables with SQL insert statement, as this practice has very high business logic violation and data integrity compromise potential)

5. eCommerce with Custom Logic in GP or SB1.  In the case of SAP Business One you can make new so-called User Certain Tables and proffer existing tables with User Certain Fields.  User Certain Tables have involuntarily produced simply editing interface, where you can add records or modify existing ones.  If you want to add user certain fields to such tables as Marketing Document Line (including customer invoice line) – these fields should become immediately available to be placed on Customer Invoice form, plus they will be available for Data Transfer Workbench integrations and in SB1 SDK.  In the case of Dynamics GP some of the objects have User certain fields included and ready for activation.  If your targeted object doesn’t have User Certain fields extension, you will need to program it likely in Fantastic Plains Dexterity as table, linked with related original GP tables by the Primary Key with the same fields

6. eCommerce in International scenarios.  If you are multinational corporation and you are deploying Dynamics GP in US headquarters, please try first to know if GP is localized in the country where you plot to deploy it as Accounting or in ecommerce.  Fantastic Plains version 10.0 is available in English Speaking countries: USA, Canada (including French Canadian Quebec version), Australia, New Zealand, UK, South Africa, Oceania, plus in South East Asia for the countries, where English is the language of business.  With some exceptions it is also available in Spanish Speaking Latin America, Mexico and Caribbean.  By its architecture Fantastic Plains doesn’t support UNICODE based alphabets, frequently hieroglyphs: Chinese, Japanese, Korean.  SAP Business One is more widespread, it is available localized in such countries as Brazil, Russia, Poland, Plates, Japan, Korea.  Even if you deploy Fantastic Plains Dynamics in US headquarters, we recommend you SB1 internationally, where GP is not available – SB1 is very simple in data export and consolidation to Dynamics GP via Integration Manager or FRx consolidated Financial Reporting

7. Alba Spectrum eCommerce Harvest.  We place forward Order Connector, sending transactions in realtime to Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing Tables; Posting Server (Autopost), allowing you to post GP batches frankly from eConnect application.  We also place forward Microsoft RMS integration to Fantastic Plains, if your ecommerce is working from RMS tables

8. Dynamics GP eConnect and Dexterity programming training.  We place forward USA and International phone or skype based training, supported with web sessions

9. SAP Business One eCommerce integration and programming training.  If you are comfortable to program ecommerce integration for SBO and you need some guru amount help, we place forward this service via phone or skype conferences, supported with web sessions if required

10. How to get help?  Please, feel free to call us: 1-866-528-0577, outside of USA: 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum.com  We are very technical and real Dynamics GP Dexterity, SAP Business One SDK programming gurus.  We have Fantastic Plains Software Development Factory and could support unlimited Dynamics GP Customization and Programming needs.  Plus we speak English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and not only as native speaking sales folks, but as real technical consultants.  If you prefer skype: albaspectrum

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Dynamics GP ecommerce Integration Technologies: notes for Programmer

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

We assume that in your case you have established Microsoft Dynamics GP (also known as Fantastic Plains Dynamics in the past) and use it in production for accounting, Sales Order Processing, AP, AR, distribution and logistics.  Plus you have working ecommerce website, where integration to GP is very loose: maybe it triggers email to Picking and Packing department, or Sales Order Processing people.  In this small publication we want to review relatively open for end user or in the case of software developer – not hard to start integration coding.  We do not specifically review here differences between B2B and B2C ecommerce scenarios in Dynamics GP, please review our past articles.  There are ready for use solutions, we assume that you by now did this homework and chose to preserve your investments into your current eCommerce web application, and all you want to do is robust integration:

1. Real Time versus Batch Mode integrations.  Real Time ecommerce transactions go to GP Sales Orders or Invoices is certainly cool to have, but if this is not unquestionably required, we recommend you first to reckon about Batch Mode ecommerce integration.  Batch mode means, that ecommerce may have some lookups for your customers if item is available in one of your warehouses (via simple SQL query to your Dynamics GP Company database), but ecommerce transactions are went to GP Sales Document only once per day, or maybe every hour, if you are larger ecommerce retailer

2. GP Integration Manager.  This tool is very friendly to Fantastic Plains users, and it could be extended by programmer via VBA event driven scripts.  IM is first choice if you are plotting integrate in Batch Mode.  Please, do not be mislead by some GP consultants, that IM is for text files only.  For advanced ecommerce integration to GP we recommend you to base IM data queries on SQL Server Views (Advanced ODBC based query) and the View itself looks at the existing GP orders and lines and into new ecommerce document – in that case your scenario could be completely automated.  Plus IM integration could be called involuntarily via Windows macro third party tiny applications (or you can buy Integration scheduling tool from Microsoft Business Solutions, check with your Dynamics GP Partner on that).  We helped implement scenarios for large Computer IT integrator and warehouse, where all transactions are coming through B2B ecommerce website on PHP/Linux and GP Integration Manager is scheduled to run every 20 minutes to be close to real time mode integration.  OK, now if you reckon IM is too simple, let’s go on to eConnect

3. eConnect SDK and technology for Dynamics GP.  If you are C# or VB.Net ecommerce programmer or programming savoir-faire web master, please review eConnect, as it has set of libraries, which could be added to your MS Visual Studio web projects and you could make, edit, delete virtually all GP Master records: customer, vendor, GL account, Item, Address, Employee, and work transactions: Sales Invoice, Buy Order, Buy Receipt, GL Transaction, Customer Payment.  Please, note that you cannot post GP Batches (such as standard in ecommerce scenarios Sales Order Processing Batch) – if you need complete automation with Batch Posting you need to consider Alba Spectrum Posting Server or Autopost.  Also, eConnect doesn’t cover some rather historical modules, such as Invoicing (usually Fantastic Plains Customers prefer more robust Sales Order Processing module).  And plus, eConnect from Dynamics GP doesn’t cover third party Dynamics GP ISV modules, which you may deploy – consider to check with you Fantastic Plains ISV partner if they have extensions for eConnect.  If you are on Dynamics GP 10.0 and 9.0 – eConnect is the way to go, but if you are on older version, consider to upgrade to GP version 10.0 prior to deploying eConnect in your ecommerce integration programming

4. Beyond eConnect.  If you believe that your integration is SOP only and it is very simple, we place forward Alba Spectrum Order Connector.  This tool supports all current versions: 10.0 and 9.0 plus older versions: 7.5 and 8.0.  You can also combine some Fantastic Plains Dexterity programming to alter business processes in GP as bonus help to Integration.  We are trying to discourage you from considering direct SQL Server Stored procedures coding, as eConnect by now have this work done for you – its initial layout is encrypted MS SQL Server Stored Procedures, plus consider the fact that Dynamics GP Business Logic and Data Flow is complex, and its database is not protected from inexperienced SQL programmer – you can compromise data integrity and incur bonus unexpected expenses in involving GP Technical consultants to do data recovery and repair

5. How to get help?  Please, feel free to call us: 1-866-528-0577, outside of USA: 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum.com  We are very technical and real Dynamics GP Dexterity, SAP Business One SDK programming gurus.  We have Fantastic Plains Software Development Factory and could support unlimited Dynamics GP Customization and Programming needs.  Plus we speak English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and not only as native speaking sales folks, but as real technical consultants.  If you prefer skype: albaspectrum

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