Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2013

A few weeks aback I talked about Updating your Visual Studio Tools for web client development environment and soon after I started receiving numerous emails from developers wanting to know if they could leverage the current Visual Studio Tools 2013 SP2 (VST) templates with Visual Studio 2013.  As of yet, Microsoft has not released Microsoft Dynamics GP Add-In and Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client Add-In templates for Visual Studio 2013, but with the help of my good friend Michael Hammond, Sr. Engineering Lead at Microsoft I have instructions on how to move the current Visual Studio 2012 templates to Visual Studio 2013

1. Locate the current VST template folders under your Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 program files folder. These can usually be found as follows:

Visual C# templates folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Dynamics GP

Visual Basic templates folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\VisualBasic\Dynamics GP

2. Copy and paste the Dynamics GP folder from under the above folders to their corresponding Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 program files folder. These are consequently found at:

Visual C# templates folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp

Visual Basic templates folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\VisualBasic

3. Configure Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 to recognize the templates. Start a Command Prompt as an administrator and change directories to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE. Once in the directory, you can type the following command to setup the Visual Studio 2013 environment:

Command Prompt

The setup process should take no more than a couple minutes. Once you finish, you can launch Visual Studio 2013 and click to create a project using the Dynamics GP templates installed.

Visual Studio 2013 with Dynamics GP templates

Now, the beauty of all this is I can focus on my Windows Store applications without losing track of my Dynamics GP apps - the beauty of having everything under one roof.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

Read More

Web Client Wednesday: Microsoft Dynamics GP on Azure

Back in February of this year, I did a full walk-through of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 deployment on Windows Azure. I realized that one of the things that make it hard for partners and customers to determine whether to use the Windows Azure platform for hosting their Microsoft Dynamics GP solution is the scattered information regarding (application) features that are supported on the platform. In fact, did you know that even if you are not running Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, you can still take advantage of Windows Azure to host other versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP? You can always run the desktop client with Remote Desktop Services (RDS) to accomplish this.

So, the objective of this article is to go over the Microsoft Dynamics GP components that are supported on the Windows Azure platform, which can be categorized into features that are Fully Supported and features requiring RDS licensing.

Full Support

These are features that are internet facing (accessed via a browser) from the Windows Azure platform, without requiring much interaction with the desktop client.

• Web Client
• Web Services
• Business Portal
• Workflow (limited Dynamics GP desktop client use)
• Management Reporter Web Viewer feature
• Tenant Services
• SQL Server Reporting Services Reports

RDS Licensing

These are features that you will access via a remote desktop connection and is no different than your traditional Terminal Services or Citrix experience.

• Microsoft Dynamics GP desktop client
• eConnect (determined by consuming application)
• Integration Manager
• Management Reporter Report Designer and Viewer
• Excel Reports
• Analysis Cubes

As you can tell, Windows Azure presents a great opportunity for those of you trying to leverage a world class data center. In addition, Azure allows connectivity to your LAN via its virtual network infrastructure. You can try it out free for 30 days by visiting http://www.windowsazure.com. All you need is a Microsoft Account (formerly Windows Live ID) to get started.

If you need a walk-through, please feel free to add your comment to this post with information on how to reach you.

For more info on RDS licensing, take a look at RDS Solution for Dynamics GP on Azure over at Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/

Read More