Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP, MRP and Accounting application, formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics and eEnterprise (not Great Plains Accounting for DOS and Windows, this legacy application was written on different platform, and for Btrieve database) implemented in your organization, then this small article is for you. Dynamics GP as Corporate ERP is good fit for California businesses in Los Angeles, San Diego or San Francisco metropolitan areas. It fits to generic business model with AR, AP, Sales Order Processing, Purchase Order Processing, Human Resource Management, US Payroll, Discrete Manufacturing, CRM (Microsoft Dynamics CRM integrated with GP), Non for profit. Port of Los Angeles is gateway for US importers and we are very comfortable to implement Great Plains in seas shipping, transportation and logistics. SF Bay Area high tech startups are also good fit for Great Plains, as it is open for reasonable customizations, integrations, innovative reporting, OLAP and Data Warehousing. Finishing this small excurse, let's begin our concentration Great Plains Integrations:
1. GP Integration Technology trends. Microsoft Business Solutions is currently (2007-2010) under the Project Green, later on renamed into Microsoft Dynamics project, where (in PG) some level of several MBS owned Corporate ERP applications: Axapta, Navision, Great Plains, Solomon was set as the goal. Microsoft Dynamics owner or user should not feel much of the difference on which Microsoft Dynamics product he or she owns or uses: AX, GP, SL, NAV. Initial PG plan was even bolder - to package best modules from Great Plains, Axapta, Solomon, Navision into interconnected packages, so you could assemble your future Corporate ERP from the blocks. In this plan such proprietary technologies as Great Plains Dexterity or Navision CSIDE had to be either rewritten in Microsoft C#.Net or masked via exposure Great Plains/Navision object via such technologies as eConnect, as in the case of GP. Let's finish here our generalization and concentrate on Great Plains. eConnect, being initially the idea for ecommerce programmers to open Great Plains object in Sales Order Processing module, plus customers and Inventory items, turned out to become the integration technology. For Dynamics GP 10.0, such module as GP Integration Manager is in process to be reprogrammed in eConnect connectors. So, as we see, and hear it currently from Microsoft Business Solutions eConnect is the trend: current and for the future
2. Great Plains Integration Manager. This integration tool is open for end user and you can design Dynamics GP integration in minutes, assuming that you understand your target GP objects. You can intervene Integration logic by handling it in VBA scripts, attached to events: Before Integration (reading current dates, setting global variables, for example), before Document Commit (changing Sales Invoice date from global variable as an example)
3. Direct Dynamics GP eConnect programming. If you are large organization with Microsoft Dynamics GP as Corporate ERP, you can consider direct eConnect software developing. eConnect allows you to program real time ecommerce, EDI or other type of integrations
4. Beyond eConnect and IM. Please, feel free to review Dexterity, which is in our opinion not the way to go if you plan to program it internally, however if you would like to outsource Dex development, this option is very powerful. Other tools, such as Extender, SDK, Web Services have either Dexterity or eConnect in its background technology layer. We are basing our text on Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0. If you are on older versions: 9.0, 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, 3.2, please check with us on the best options - to upgrade or to maintain current version. Please, note that Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows or Mac could also be upgraded: versions 9.5, 9.2, 9.1 and earlier
Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum , help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577 http://www.albaspectrum.com Serving ERP and MRP community since 1994, local service in Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Atlanta, Los Angeles. Information portal: http://www.pegasplanet.com We serve you USA and Canada nationwide from our SAP Business One call center: California, Illinois, New York, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Ontario, Quebec, Washington, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Montana, Oregon, New York, New England. International clients welcome from Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South Africa, UK, Brazil, Caribbean, Russia, Central America
