Recording Custom

Great Plains Customization: How to Integrate Legacy Application With Dynamics Gp

Microsoft Great Plains or current ERP name is Dynamics GP has various modification tools and SDKs.  Your diligence duty is to review them on the top level to understand which tool will do the best job in the specific case.  Let’s begin reviewing tools in brief one by one, being sort of a bit technical, so it should be targeted to IT people, programmers and DBA:

 

1.       GP Integration Manager.  IM has long evolution from pure OLE server to more modern and advanced technologies and connectors.  For GP version 10.0 you have rich collection of eConnect integrations.  eConnect in turn is the set of encrypted SQL stored procedures, which are working a way faster than traditional connectors (OLE Server, using GP workstation forms and fields to validate integrating business logic).

 

2.       Text and CSV files integrations.  It seems like Text and CSV integration drivers were sort of released in beta testing phase in 2003 and 2004, so if you are using Advanced ODBC integration with union SQL constructions – you may receive strange error messages about saving integration format for text tab or comma delimited files.  There is work around, however outside of the scope of this article, call as for assistance

 

3.       eConnect.   As you already know from ready the topic above, IM deploys eConnect connectors, however you can program eConnect methods directly in MS Visual Studio directly, being C# or VB developer.  This is especially helpful if you are dealing with eCommerce integration, sending data to GP ERP backoffice

 

4.       eConnect limitations.  This nice tool works on the level of master records: customer, GL account, vendor, employee, project, contract, etc. and work transactions: SOP invoice, POP receipt, GL transaction to give you few samples.  However eConnect doesn’t post batches or transactions (with single exception – it posts Bank Reconciliation documents, however it is not a big help for e-commerce integration).  If you really need automatic posting of GP batches from e-commerce website application, you should consider deploying Alba Spectrum posting server

 

5.       SQL data feeding.  This is when you create and deploy SQL stored procedures or insert statements.  If you plan something like that, you should be really familiar with GP data distribution on the table level – please review GP SDK, which could be installed from Dynamics GP CD #2

 

6.       Great Plains Dexterity.  If the case when your integration should address custom tables and logic, created in turn by past developers in GP Dex, please consult with Dex programmers or GP ISV partner to understand your options

 

About the Author

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum http://www.albaspectrum.com help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving Great Plains USA and Canada nationwide. Local service in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, San Diego. Please visit our information portal Pegas Planet: http://www.pegasplanet.com . If you need custom programming for GP, we are happy to help you with Dexterity, eConnect, VBA/Modifier, SQL Stored Procedures, Crystal Reports. We also provide instant support to new and existing clients via web sessions

Recording Custom

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