The Dynamics GP Blogster's best articles of 2012

It's that time of the year again! Time to say goodbye to the outgoing year, 2012, and receive the new one, 2013, making all sort of resolutions that we never seem to be able to achieve and with good measure, since most of us are simply consumed with the daily grind that lifting our heads up to take a breather and see the forest from the trees seems difficult and sometimes downright impossible.

2012 however was a very good year and gave me tons of stuff to write about. In retrospect, 3 conferences, 2 virtual conferences, the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and the Web Client are simply a subset of the activities that allowed me to write some really cool stuff that you expressed through your comments to enjoy. Without further due, here is a list of the "best articles of 2012" written on this site (in no particular order):

1. Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2012 Houston. Convergence Houston in March of 2012 was a very cool experience and probably one that I will never forget as I was able to meet up with my good friend David Musgrave and his wife, Jennifer. I also had the opportunity to share some time with some of my customers in attendance. As always, the good part is meeting tons of people and the thrill of presenting.

2. Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Airlift 2012. In the realm of cool, the Technical Airlift in Fargo, North Dakota was a very awesome conference, but also marked the first time I presented without my compadre, David Musgrave. The Tech Airlift also demanded tons of prep work and was built upon cooperation between Microsoft and GPUG's GPPC and featured a record number of partners in attendance. I also liked the fact that I met up with some of my fellow MVPs.

3. GPUG Summit 2012 Seattle. Seattle has this aroma of coffee mixed with sea all over the city and I have to say the GPUG summit was a very charming conference, with lots of topics for the attending crowd. Seattle, Seattle...

4. Windows 8 and the Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client Series. Okay, so I confess. I was a nuisance to the Escalation Engineering team testing the Web Client. You see, the Web Client was not supposed to even be working on Windows 8 as a compatible installation platform, but after months of annoying I had my way with this. The best part though was working with the team of Aaron Donat and Jason Lech and understanding the nuances of the deployment process of GP Web Client. Thanks guys for putting up with me and for making this happen.

5. Adding Customer Item User Defined fields to SOP Invoice. I love the Support Debugging Tool and how it can make live easier for things that seem unconceivable. How about this cool article on getting customer item user defined fields onto the SOP invoice? Well, I have to say I had tons of fun getting this to work.

6. How to add a "Cover Letter" page to a Microsoft Dynamics GP Word Template document. Life is not complete without a Word Template article. I hope to keep these coming in 2013 since Word Templates are essential to Web Client.

7. Resizing SmartList panes with the Support Debugging Tool. Now, did I say I love the Support Debugging Tool? David Musgrave leverages some obscure Dex functions to make SmartList a dream tool to use.

8. Leveraging Custom Links to track carrier shipments in Sales Order Processing. You know, I am always amazed at how underutilized GP seems to be sometimes, but my duty as a blogger and consultant is to expose these underutilized features to the community.

9. Microsoft Dynamics GP Add-In for Microsoft Word not enabling despite several attempts to install. I had a number of clients come to me with this issue. Upon doing more research, I realized it was a community wide problem and I had to do something about it.

10. Adding more comment lines to POP Purchase Orders. Building on a previous article written by David Musgrave for SOP, I thought I would show how to accomplish the same in POP - it was all worth it as the community gave praises for the solution.

101 articles throughout the year are simple quite a bit of stuff written. I just hope I can keep the good stuff coming. Happy New Year!

Until next post!

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

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The Dynamics GP Blogster's best articles of 2011

It's simply amazing! When it's all said and done, I will have published close to 160 articles for this year alone. Sometimes I find myself asking, "what will I write about next?". The truth is, I simply don't know or can't tell: I enjoy writing about issues I work on, challenges in my implementations, conferences I attend, etc. And the outlets to get my thoughts out just keep increasing. I am actively for:

This site
MSDynamicsWorld.com
Microsoft Dynamics Community

I also have Facebook and Twitter accounts to keep up with. So, when I look back at 2011 to choose the best articles of this year, I must consider the various outlets where they are published. After all, The Dynamics GP Blogster is no longer a site, but a person... me! With that said, these are some of the best articles I personally enjoyed writing this year:

1. The Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Conference 2011 - The Technical Conference was a great experience up in Fargo, ND. I definitely enjoyed presenting with my dear friend and Microsoftie, David Musgrave. It's always an awesome challenge to introduce technical topics to a bunch of propellerheads.

2. Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Atlanta 2011 - Who could forget Convergence in Atlanta? Not only was the conference in my backyard, but it also gave me a chance to enjoy myself presenting while not having to worry about sleeping in a hotel. It also gave me the opportunity to catch up with a number of my fellow MVPs who live in the sorrounding states. Convergence is always a fun experience! See you in Houston 2012.

3. Hybrid Development for the Managed Code Developer - At Convergence, I got a number of request from Visual Studio developers to dive a bit into hybrid solutions using Dexterity and VST, given the fact that they had attended the session that David and I presented on development. The article certainly got a lot of hits and truly enjoyed writing it, since the issue was a bit obscure at the time.

4. Microsoft Dynamics GP "12" Web Client Architecture - It took me a good amount of research and using some of my charm with the Product Management and Development teams in Fargo to get the information I published in this series. It certainly paid off! After the articles were released, including a follow up in my Microsoft Dynamics Community column, it was clear that everyone wanted to know more about codename GP "12".

5. The Future of Microsoft Dynamics GP: 5 Cool Technologies You Should Watch For (and Learn) in the Coming Years - This article had a lot of traffic on MSDynamicsWorld as I was coming off the Tech Conference in Fargo when I wrote it. Interestingly enough, I highlighted how Microsoft Dexterity would be one of the 5 cool technologies to keep an eye on. With the advent of GP "12", doubts anyone?

6. Running Fixed Assets Depreciation causes Microsoft Dynamics GP to "hang". This was an issue I faced after a very long upgrade from GP 9.0 to GP 2010 R2. I consider it one of the best articles, because little did I know people would write back to let me know they had run into the same issue and coudn't figure out why.

7. Microsoft Dynamics GP, the next generation of end-user customization tools? If you going to speculate, it needs to be based on facts. There's nothing more rewarding to a writer than seeing the interest his/her publications generate. This article has had closed to 2000 views since it short release in September. But honestly, who won't like to see Integration Manager being beefed up with Visual Studio Tools for Applications or even PowerShell.

8. GPUG Summit 2011 Las Vegas - Being in Las Vegas delivering training and presenting for the user community was an awesome experience! But, being able to capture that experience and share it with the rest of the community was even more gratifying. I can't stress the importance of joining GPUG and attending these events.

9. Codename GP "12" preliminary features - Along with the Microsoft Dynamics GP "12" Web Client Architecture series, this particular series added some "meat and potatoes" behind what could be expected in the next Microsoft Dynamics GP major release. If you have not looked into the features a suggest you review the series.

As you can see, many of the "best articles" selected were truly complete series of articles and represent my touring throughout the country at conferences and working along with folks at Microsoft to get the scoop on what's in store for the next release of GP. Things will only get more exciting for next year with Convergence in Houston, GPUG Summit in Seattle, and the awaited GP "12". So stay tuned to The Dynamics GP Blogter and thank you very much for your readership throughout this year.

Until next post!

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

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The Dynamics GP Blogster's best articles of 2010

Wow! 2010 is on its way out and this mark the second year I have the opportunity to publish a list of the best articles I wrote this year. The Best of 2009 was a hit, so let's give this year's a chance:

1. Using Business Alerts with Extender Tables (Jan 12) - This one came straight out of the newsgroups with Microsoft's Dawn Langlie providing a neat solution.

2. Autogenerating Customer IDs (Feb 28). Many of you seemed to have found this one very useful for whaterver projects you were working on. Up to today I still receive offline notes of thank you! for this script.

3. Microsoft Dynamics GP Architectural Foundations featuring Tim Brookins (Mar series). Many of you who had been in the channel for a while, enjoyed reading this forgotten and hard to find whitepaper, which is still today one of the best produced on the topic, even though the Dynamics GP architecture has evolved over the years. Unfortunately, Tim Brookins was not available for the closing remarks on the series.

4. Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2010 (Apr series). For those of you who could not go to Convergence, I made an interesting series of articles with tons of pictures of the event and tapped out with the closing materials for the sessions presented by David Musgrave and I. Better yet, we will be present at Convergence 2011 Atlanta!

5. Urban Legends - "I cracked Dynamics GP encryption algorithm!" (May 21). This article was created in response to a widely circulated article claiming at the time week password encryption in Microsoft Dynamics GP. Followed were a slur of articles and official response from MS calming the fears raised among customers. In all fairness that post was later updated and corrected by the author.

6. Dexterity and Intellisense. (Jun 23) In an attempt to get a response from the community and MS, I launched a campain and created a product suggestion to implement this feature in the Dexterity. Low and behold, my friend Tim Gordon developed DexSense to fill the void.

7. Enforcing Password Policy with Microsoft Dynamics GP (Jul 15). In this article featured a SQL script that many of you who administer Microsoft Dynamics GP have found useful, as it allows you to track what GP user passwords will expire.

8. Using SQL CLR stored procedures to integrate Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft CRM (Aug series). In this article, I featured a technique to integrate Microsoft Dynamics GP with Microsoft Dynamics CRM using SQL CLR stored procedures. All I can say is, the client cannot be any happier!

9. Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Word Templates summary (Sep and Oct series). Working on a series of Word Template topics, I had a chance to exchange ideas with the none other than Microsoft's Rob Wagner, a.k.a. the Word Templates god. This wrap up containes links to all the articles published in the series.

10. How to change your Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Map Services (Nov 12). As the Third Law of Newton's physics suggests, this article was created in response to a bug in the map button available next to all address ID fields in Microsoft Dynamics GP. Since I published this article, I have had requests to create interfaces to some truly obscure map services. The answer remains the same... let me think about it!

11. Do I have to use those "Z-" currency IDs in GP?. Not even 2 weeks into publishing this article and I have had a number of comments and emails flowing into my inbox with a common theme: really? I did not know that! Well, now you know.

I hope you enjoyed the selection and if you think I missed something just chime in with some of your best articles.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/

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