One of the things that not going to be supported in web client is VBA customizations. Therefore, its a good time to start upgrading your VBA customizations.

1. Planning:

In vba, code is saved in *.vba files in GP folder. For each dictionary file there is a corresponding vba file. You have to write your code in those existing files. You can’t divide these code files based on projects.

In VS Tools you can create projects for logically related customizations. This will help you in maintaining code in longer run and also isolating the issues related to different customizations. Therefore, if you are upgrading your vba customizations from vba to VS Tools, it’s a good time plan them carefully.

2. Select language- C#.net vs VB.net

VS Tools supports both C# and VB.net languages. You can select languages based on your personal preference and past experience. However, both languages are powerful developer tools and first-class programming languages that share the common language runtime in the .NET Framework. Here are some article which outlined difference between two languages

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/9978/Complete-Comparison-for-VB-NET-and-C

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308470

If you have lot of code which you want to convert as it to VS tools you can consider using VB.net because in terms of syntax VB.net is closer to vba and you will need fewer changes in the code.

3. Cross dictionary:

If your vba include cross dictionary references, you will need to add reference to assemblies for other dictionaries in your VS Tools solution. You can add reference using Project>> Add Reference menu option, browse to the dll you want to use. You can find dlls for core products in VS Tools installation folder.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics\GP2010 VS Tools SDK\

Or

C:\ Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics\GP2010 VS Tools SDK\

Unlike vba, you don’t need to worry about circular reference in VS Tools environment.

4. For modified form and third party dictionaries, use DAG to generate assemblies

If your customization is based on modified forms or third party products. You can use  Dictionary Assembly Generator (DAG.exe) to create managed code assembly that provides access to resources in an dictionary.

The DAG.exe is installed in the location where you installed Visual Studio Tools SDK. Typically this will be the following location:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics\GP2010 VS Tools SDK

Or

C:\ Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics\GP2010 VS Tools SDK

Here is an examples of using DAG to generate dll for modified forms dictionary:

http://dynamicsgpblogster.blogspot.com.au/2009/10/vst-amount-in-words-on-sop-entry-window.html

DAG is command line utility, you can find Graphical User Interface (GUI) in following blog post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/developingfordynamicsgp/archive/2012/05/30/microsoft-dynamics-gp-addins-dag-utility.aspx

5. Access the Microsoft Dynamics Global Variables

Each dictionary has global variables related to it. Globals for an application dictionary are accessed through the dictionary class. This class has a Globals property that provides access to the collection of globals in the dictionary.

For example, to access the collection of globals in the Dynamics dictionary, use the following syntax:

Microsoft.Dexterity.Applications.Dynamics.Globals

To access a specific global value, such as the current user’s ID (UserId), use the following syntax:

Microsoft.Dexterity.Applications.Dynamics.Globals.UserId

6. Debugging the VS Tools code:

Debugging code in vba was very simple, you just add a break and perform action to hit the break point. However, in VS Tools the process you need to carry out the for debugging the code is:

1. Build and deploy the integration in GP addins folder
2. Set breakpoints in your code.
3. Start Microsoft Dynamics GP
4. Choose to attach to a process using menu option Select Debug >>Attach to Process from the menu in Visual studio
5. Select the Dynamics.exe process
6. Perform the actions you want to debug in Dynamics GP to hit the break points

Debugger in Visual Studio is very powerful tool. Refer to following article for using debugging in visual studio:

http://www.dotnetperls.com/debugging

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k0k771bt(v=vs.71).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/01xdt7cs.aspx

7. DUOS objects:

Dynamic User Object Store (DUOS) is usually used for storing data from additional fields added using modifier. In VS Tools you can use table SyUserObjectStoreTable to save and access DUOS data

8. ADO Connections

If you are using ADO in your vba customization, you can use the GPConnNet.dll so that you don’t have to hard code a connection string. You can find this file in folder

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Dexterity\v2.0

However, you will need to get keys from Microsoft support to use it. Refer to following article for details about how to use it to connect database

http://mbsguru.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/visual-studio-tools-integration-with-gp.html

9. San Script Alternative:

If you are using San Script in your vba code, consider using continuum. Continuum is the COM programming interface available for Microsoft Dynamics GP which has ability to run sanScript code in the Microsoft Dynamics GP application.

You can download documentation from Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Tools Documentation: Continuum Application Programmer’s Interface (API)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=17499

Here is an example of using Continuum

http://mohdaoud.blogspot.com.au/2009/10/practical-example-on-dynamics-continuum_7208.html

Note: The use of the Continuum Integration Library to execute Dexterity scripts from VBA is not supported.

10. Additional features available in VS Tools

a. Additional menu option in existing form:

You can additional menu option in Dynamics GP Forms through VS Tools. Here is an example to add menu option DynamicsGPAddin1 in Customer maintenance form

Microsoft.Dexterity.Applications.DynamicsDictionary.RmCustomerMaintenanceForm.AddMenuHandler(menu1, “DynamicsGPAddin1″);

b. Adding main menu using VS Tools

You can use “Menus for Visual Studio Tools” for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 to an menu option. You can download the dll for from partner source or customer source. Example you can a new menu option under Cards>> Sales using it.

Menus for Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 (CustomerSource)
Menus for Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 (PartnerSource)

c. Function and Procedure Notifications

VS Tools has option for Function and Procedure Notifications, you get before and after Notifications for the procedure and function call. It can be very handy to execute code globally based on procedure execution. Refer to following post for example:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/developingfordynamicsgp/archive/2010/02/12/what-s-new-in-visual-studio-tools-2010.aspx

11. Not supported

a. Report Writer reports with VBA

If you have some existing vba code with report writer reports, you can consider using dexterity for such customizations.. VS tools does not have event handler for the report writer events.

b. Forms designed in VBA

You can design forms in VS tools and use them in customizations to replace the forms designed in VBA. However, they are not going to be supported in web client. Only forms designed in dexterity or modified using modifier will be available in web client. If your vba customization has custom forms you should consider using Dexterity to upgrade this customization for web client instead of VS Tools

Resources:

Other resources to help you get started with VS tools are:

Getting started with VS Tools:

http://dynamicsgpblogster.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/getting-started-with-vst-winforms-and.html

http://dynamicsgpblogster.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/getting-started-with-vst-winforms-and.html

Adding config file in VS Tools customization

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/developingfordynamicsgp/archive/2009/03/26/how-to-read-your-own-config-file-with-a-vstools-application.aspx

For testing, I created two GP addins – DynamicsGPAddin1 and DynamicsGPAddin2.

In both addins, I added simple code to display a message box during initializing process and added additional menu option for Customer Maintenance Window.

DynamicsGPAddin1

rmForm.AddMenuHandler(menu1, "DynamicsGPAddin1");

MessageBox.Show("DynamicsGPAddin1");


DynamicsGPAddin2

rmForm.AddMenuHandler(menu2, "DynamicsGPAddin2");

MessageBox.Show("DynamicsGPAddin2");


Idea was to check which message box is displayed first to determine the order in which assemblies are loaded. When I added both dlls in my GP folder order in which message box were displayed was DynamicsGPAddin1 and DynamicsGPAddin2.

The two possibilities that came to my mind were alphabetical order or by date modified (DynamicsGPAddin1 was compiled first).

Order of menu options visible in the Customer maintenance was also same.

To further isolate the order, I simply renamed my DynamicsGPAddin1 dll to DynamicsGPAddin3

Now, the order in which message boxes were displayed was reversed. Also, the order in which menu were displayed was reversed

This helped me to reach the conclusion that  assemblies in the addins folder in GP are loaded in the alphabetical order. It depends upon the name of dlls and not on the caption of the menu items.

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Warning Message:

Message -“Line item quantities are not fully distributed. Do you want to continue?” is displayed when you enter line items in the SOP quote in Sales Transaction Entry window.

Reason:

Option to transfer quote to either Order or Invoice is not selected in quote ID setup. If you try to transfer such quote to order or invoice, all options will be disabled.

Resolution:

Check on Transfer to Order or Invoice in Quote ID setup.

1. Open Sales Quote Setup window from Microsoft Dynamics GP menu >> Tools >> Setup >> Sales >> Sales Order Processing >> Sales Document Setup button >> select the Quote option

2. Select the Quote ID for which are getting the error message

3. Check on Transfer Quote to Order and/or Transfer Quote to Invoice.

• Transfer Quote to Invoice-Mark this option if you want to be able to transfer documents with this quote ID to invoices.

• Transfer Quote to Order-Mark this option if you want to be able to transfer documents with this quote ID to orders.

4. Enter the order ID in ‘Use Order ID’ field and/or invoice ID in Use Invoice ID depending up options you have checked on.

5. When you check on order or invoice options, ‘Default Quantities’ field is enabled. Use it to select whether item quantities will appear automatically in the Quantity to Invoice or Quantity to Order fields in the Sales Transaction Entry window

Below I discuss how you can turn off this message using Dynamics Utilities and SQL.

Reason:

This message is displayed to prevent users from accidentally entering transactions in both the Sales Order Processing and Invoicing modules in Microsoft Dynamics GP. These modules do not share any information with each other. All transactions from Sales Order Processing are saved in tables starting with SOP and all Invoicing transactions are saved in tables starting with IVC (Note IVC and not IV which is for Inventory). Data from these tables flows into Receivable Management (RM) after that it goes into General ledger (GL)

Solution:

You can turn off this warning in the module you are using:

Option 1: Turn off warning using Dynamics GP Utilities

Option 2: Turn off warning using SQL script

Option 1: You can very easily turn off this warning using Dynamics GP Utilities

1. Log in Dynamics GP Utilities.

2. Follow the steps of wizard until “Additional Tasks” Window

3. Select “Remove SOP and Invoicing message from the drop-down list

4. Select the Process button.

5. Check off the checkbox for the module you are using. Example, if you use Sales Order Processing, check off “Warn in Sales Order Processing”. This way the warning will be displayed if user accidently opens the Invoice Entry window from Invoicing module

Option 2: In case, you don’t that access to Dynamics GP Utilities (It happens in some Citrix and cloud hosting environments).

You can run following script against all company databases

To turn off warning in SOP module use

UPDATE SOP40100 SET IVCDSTCK = ’0×00000000′

To turn off warning in SOP module

UPDATE IVC40100 SET IVCDSTCK = ’0×00000000′

If you want to turn on the warning – in these two cases use the 0×01000000 instead of 0×00000000 in the script

For some background about modifying the home page refer to following articles:

How to change GP 10.0 Homepage??

Increasing the Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 Homepage Font Size

Reminders before changes

Reminders after changes

I reviewed files in Background folder in GP installation folder (GP 10  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics\GP\Background and GP 2010  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics\GP2010\Background). I found the css classes used in reminders section are:

• part-content-newlink
• part-content-suffix

I modified the HomePage.css (GP 10  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics\GP\Background\HomePage.css and GP 2010  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics\GP2010\Background\HomePage.css) to change the formatting of these classes. Take a backup of this file before making changes.

part-content-newlink: It is applied on each row displayed in reminder section. If you make any to this css class it will applicable to all reminders

Example I added following section a bottom of HomePage.css file

.part-content-newlink

{

font-size: 12pt;

}

Resulted in increased font size for reminders

Download the updated HomePage.css with this change

However, this was not quite what I wanted. Instead of highlighting whole text I just wanted to highlight the data only.

part-content-suffix: This class is specifically applied to the data value displayed in the reminder. Any changes made to this class are applied on number displayed next to Name of reminder

Example

.part-content-suffix

{

font-size: 12pt;

color: Blue;

font-weight: Bold;

}

Resulted in following

Exactly what I wanted!

Download the updated HomePage.css with this change

Could not find a part of the path ‘\\server_name\Excel Reports path\CompanyID\ CompanyID Report Name\xl\workbook.xml’ when you try to publish the report created using Excel Report builder

Cause

This error message is displayed when you try to publish an excel report to Report Library and report library path is not set up in Reporting  Tools Setup window (Microsoft Dynamics GP menu >> Tools >> Setup >> System >> Reporting Tools Setup)

Solution

Solution 1: If you have SharePoint setup and you want to publish report to SharePoint library, complete the setup in in Reporting  Tools Setup window. Select Excel Reports and select SharePoint in location dropdown and enter the paths for sites

Solution 2: If you don’t have SharePoint installed and you just want to publish reports to network shared folder

Click Publish button on the Excel Report Builder window (Microsoft Dynamics GP menu >> Tools >> SmartList Builder >> Excel Report Builder) or open the Publish Report window from Microsoft Dynamics GP menu >> Tools >> SmartList Builder>> Publish Report

Select the Report ID

Select File as the Publish To option.

Enter the filename and location for the data connection

Enter the filename and location for the excel report

Click Publish

Before starting, you should have following setup

• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
• SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 or SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2
• Report Builder 2.0 or later
• Internet Explorer 7 or later

One of the coolest features of the GP 2010 R2 is -you can add multiple metric on the home page to create a dashboard. To turn this feature on check on the ‘Show All’  check box on the home page Customize the home page window. To open this window click the ‘Customize this page’ link at the top of the Home Content pane

Open the Metrics Details window using the arrow button next to metrics to select the metrics for the Home

Select the metrics and click Insert button. Click OK after selecting metrics

Metrics visible on home

Some metrics might not display data for sample company Fabrikam as Fabrikam has data for year 2017 and metrics display charts and KPIs for current date

You can also open a metric in Internet Explorer from the GP home page using the view button. It is only visible when you take mouse over the top right corner of the metrics

In internet explorer, you can change the parameters for the report/chart, print the metric or export it to various formats

Updating Metrics

Before editing metrics, make sure Internet explorer is set up as default browser. The download fails in the Google Chrome and Firefox

Select the metric you want to edit from the list in the metric Detail window and click Edit

This will download and open report design for making changes

Make changes in the report and click Save. You can test generating the report using the Run button after changes

After saving refresh the home page to view the updated metric

With GP 2010 R2, you don’t have to enter the budget for dimensions(nodes) at all levels of the budget tree. You can simply enter the budget amount for dimension codes at bottom level and roll up the budget to root node and vice versa.

You can roll up the budget amounts from the lowest dimension to the codes on the node immediately above it and so forth till the root node of the tree or you can roll down the budget from root node to nodes at bottom of tree.

For the sake of example, I am using two dimensions in following order Project and Employees.  Use the following table to understand how budget amounts  are rolled up to the parent node.  In this table, employee is on the lowest level of tree, when you enter budget for various employees the project totals are  automatically calculated and then projects total are rolled up to calculate 2011 budget total.

Option to select Budget Roll in the Analytical Accounting Budget Maintenance Window (Cards >> Financial >> Analytical Accounting >> Budget). You can roll up or roll down the budget amounts

Rolling up the budget amounts

Selected ‘Up’ in the Budget Roll Total

Notice the Budget Amounts for  root node are disabled

You can enter budget for Analytical Accounting dimension at bottom most level only(Employee in our example)

This amount is automatically rolled up to dimension above(Project in this case)

Rolling down the budget amounts

Enter total budget for root node

Used the Node button to allocate the total amount among various dimension codes at level 1 (Project in this example)

You can assign percentage for each dimension code or you can divide amount equally among all codes

I divided the budget equally between two projects, so each project has budget of $100