From the Newsgroups: Configuring Business Alerts to report posting errors

Welcome to another edition of From the Newsgroups. In this installment we will look at a question posted in the Partner Online Technical Community newsgroup. The partner needed to know if it was possible to configure Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Alerts to submit posting errors to application adminstrators when using an auto-posting tool.

Q: Is it possible to setup a GP Business Alert to notify someone when a scheduled SOP batch (or any other GP batch) fails to post? The background to this is we are using MC2 GP Agent module to autopost the imported SOP invoice batches. This will happen many times a day. To avoid the need for a person monitoring the automated posting process, we want an alert to be generated when the posting process fails.

The response comes courtesy of Dave Bader, Moderator of the Partner Online Technical Community, enhanced by me with pictures to facilitate the explanation.

I have been looking at the SY00500 which is the Posting Definitions Master and I have an option that may work for you on the Business Alert.

1. Create a new Business Alert.




2. Select the Series as Company.
3. Select the Posting Definitions Master as the Table.



4. In the Define Alert Formula window select the table and use the column name Batch Error Messages 1 and add that to the formula.
5. Select the <> symbol.
6. In the Constants field enter in 2 single quotes ''.
7. Select the OR symbol.
8. Select Batch Error Messages 2 and add that field.
7. Select the <> symbol.
8. In the Constants field enter in 2 single quotes ''.

The formula should look like the following.

SY00500_T1.BCHEMSG1 <> '' OR SY00500_T1.BCHEMSG2 <> ''



9. Click next and select the notification information and the message text.



10. Click next and enter the schedule information.



11. Click Finish.

Below are the values that can be held in the error message fields.

Batch Error
Messages 1: Indicates a general batch error causing the batch to not post.
1 - Recurring batch posted too many times
2 - Series is missing or invalid
3 - Missing or invalid system-posting settings
4 - Batch currently being posted
5 - Batch currently being edited
6 - User posting access denied
7 - Next Audit Trail Code invalid
8 - No transactions found to post
9 - Batch Source is missing or invalid
10 - Batch Number is missing or invalid
11 - GL posting date is invalid
12 - Batch has not been approved for posting
13 - Actual batch total does not equal the control batch total
14 - Actual transaction number does not equal the control transaction number
15 - Fiscal period for the posting date does not exist
16 - Fiscal period for the posting date is closed
17 - The General Ledger module is not registered
18 - The Receivables Management module is not registered
19 - The Payables Management module is not registered
20 - The Inventory Control module is not registered
21 - The Invoicing module is not registered
22 - The United States Payroll module is not registered
23 - Fatal posting error occurred. Please revert to backup.
24 - Fatal posting error occurred. Please revert to backup.
25 - Actual number of journal entries does not equal the control number.
26 - Another user is editing this batch. Some information may not be updated.
27 - The Sales Order Processing module is not registered.
28 - The Bill of Materials module is not registered.


Batch Error Messages 2:
1 - The Receivables Management module setup information is missing or damaged.
2 - The Payables Management module setup information is missing or damaged.
3 - The General Ledger module setup information is missing or damaged.
4 - The Inventory Control module setup information is missing or damaged.
5 - The Invoicing module setup information is missing or damaged.
6 - The United States Payroll module setup information is missing or damaged.
7 - The Inventory Control module is being reconciled.
8 - The Inventory Control module is changing valuation methods.
9 - The Inventory Control module is changing decimal places.
10 - The Inventory Control module is performing a year end close.
11 - Not enough system resources. Please close some windows.
12 - The Multicurrency setup information is missing or damaged.
13 - The functional currency is missing.
14 - This company does not have access to the selected functional currency.
15 - The functional currency for this company is inactive.
16 - The Purchase Order Processing module setup information is missing or damaged.
17 - The General Ledger posting date is missing or invalid.
18 - The Bill Of Materials module setup information is missing or damaged.
19 - There is no Released transaction.
20 - The Euro Currency ID is inactive.

I hope this information is helpful to you. Please post back if we can be of any further assistance.

Business Alerts can be a powerful tool to assist Microsoft Dynamics GP administrators in their daily tasks by keeping an eye on a number of activities ocurring throughout the system. Definitely, this is one to keep in the arsenal of tips and tricks and one that I expect to see in a future edition of 50 MORE Tips in 50 Minutes session presented by my friend MVP Mark Polino.

Until next post!

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

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SQL Mail to be deprecated in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

If your organization is considering upgrading to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and relies on SQL Mail to generate Business Alerts notifications for Microsoft Dynamics GP, then this is for you.

With the introduction of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, a number of database features will be deprecated, this is, the feature will not be available in a future release of SQL Server -- SQL Mail being one of them. You can find the complete list of features that will be deprecated here:

Deprecated Database Features in SQL Server 2008 R2

A couple things about SQL Mail:

1. SQL Mail runs in-process to SQL Server service. The issue here was, if SQL Mail crashed so did your SQL Server. Certainly, not an optimal situation in a production environment.

2. Using SQL Mail requires installing an extended MAPI client component on your server. Most of you would have typically resorted to install Microsoft Outlook to overcome this situation, as without a MAPI client SQL Mail would not run.

So here comes Database Mail:

1. Unlike SQL Mail, Database Mail runs in a separate process thread. If Database Mail goes down, it will not take down SQL Server with it.

2. Database Mail does not require an extended MAPI client component for it to run.

3. Database Mail can be configued with multiple SMTP accounts and with multiple profiles. This increases the robustness of the system. In a realtime environment, if one mail server goes down, Database Mail will still be able to send emails through the other configured SMTP accounts.

4. In Database Mail, all mail events are logged keeping history of emails.

5. You can configure Database Mail to limit file sizes, disallowing large attachments and filtering of file extensions such as .exe or .bat

To configure Database Mail please check the following Microsoft video:


Video source: Technet (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/dd939167.aspx)

Be sure to include Database Mail setup as part of your SQL Server 2008 R2 implementation and to test all your Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Alerts in the process.

Until next post!

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

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Using Business Alerts with Extender Tables

For those of you looking to create Business Alert events for Extender tables and data, follow these instructions provided by Microsoft's Dawn Langlie from the Partner Online Technical Community.

"In order to add Extender tables so you can see them in Business Alerts, first go to Tools-Utilities-System-Business Alerts. Here is where you will select the tables. Pick "eXtender" as the Product and Pick "Project" for the series. If you are interested triggering off eXtender windows, the tables you will want to insert are the Extender Window Field Dates, Extender Window Field Strings, Extender Window Field Times and Extender Window Field Numbers. Then click the process button in the lower right corner. This will move the tables in the Tables Available for Alerts section.



Then create your business alert by going to Tools-Setup-System-Business Alerts. Choose to create a new alert. Select your Database and give the Business Alert a name. In "Select Tables" window, you need to change the series dropdown to "Integrating Applications". This will allow you to see your eXtender tables. Insert the tables and hit next."



I added the screenshots to enhance Dawn's instructions, but there you have it! Now you know how to create alerts on your Extender data too!

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

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