Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Released to Manufacturing (RTM)

12/12/12 only comes once in a lifetime - at least in our lifetime - and whether the Microsoft Dynamics GP Development team believes in superstitions or not, the fact is they worked against the clock to deliver the product to manufacturing yesterday. By the way, the Development team spent a whopping 78,000 hours building the BIGGEST RELEASE EVER! of Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 RTM commemorative banner

What started out as the lone idea of a developer has now crystalized into tens of thousands of hours building the most notable feature to be delivered with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013: the Web Client. I had the distinct pleasure as a Microsoft Dynamics GP MVP and partner to participate in the beta testing process and I have to say I am very proud to have worked with some of the most talented individuals one could wish to meet.

In the process, I learnt a great deal about the development considerations, product architecture, deployment, and troubleshooting. I also learnt heaps about the 140+ features that went into the new release as well. In other words, even if there was no web client to be had with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, you still would have the single most comprehensive set of enhancements released to date.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 will be made available to the general public on December 19. The question is, are you ready?

Be this the chance to invite you to a Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 webinar hosted by IntellPartners on December 20, 2012. In this webinar I will be talking about Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 features and technology and considerations for upgrading. If you are interested, please add a comment to this article with your email address. In return, I will send you instructions for joining the webinar.

Read more about Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 shipping over at Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 "Feature of the Day" - Week 20 & 21 Digest

Well, we knew this moment was coming. The "Feature of the Day" series at Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP is over as Microsoft Dynamics GP is now released to manufacturing (RTM). The end of this series marks tens of thousands of hours of work that went into making this THE BIGGEST RELEASE EVER in the history of the product. Enjoy the final set of features.

Feature of the Day: Manual Prepayments

Purchase Order Entry: Prepayment Amount field

Purchase Prepayment Entry window: Manual Payment option

Manual Payment Posting Journal

Original article: Feature of the Day: Manual Prepayments
Link to presentation: GP2013 Manual Prepayment.ppsx
Learning script: Purchase Order Computer Prepayments


Feature of the Day: Web Client

Web Client

Original article: Feature of the Day: Web Client
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Web Client.ppsx


Feature of the Day: Web Client User Interface

Web Client User Interface

Original article: Feature of the Day: Web Client User Interface
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Web Client UI.ppsx


Feature of the Day: Web Management Console

Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Management Console

Original article: Feature of the Day: Web Management Console
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Web Management Console.ppsx

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 "Feature of the Day" - Week 19 Digest

By now, you are aware that the planned release date for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 is December 19, 2012. As such, the "Feature of the Day" series will be concluding soon. Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP brought 4 more features last week, ranging from HR/Payroll to Encumbrance, to Purchase Order Processing and Payables Management.

Feature of the Day: FICA Tax Sheltered Annuity Changes

Deduction Setup window

Employee Deduction Setup window

Original article: Feature of the Day: FICA Tax Sheltered Annuity Changes
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD FICA Medicare and Social Security TSA.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Encumber General Journal Transactions

Encumbrance GL Transaction Entry and Journal Inquiry

Original article: Feature of the Day: Encumber General Journal Transactions
Link to presentation: GP2013 13740_GL Encumber FOD.ppsx

Feature of the Day: PTO Detail & History and PTO Exception Reports

PTO Detail & History Inquiry

Original article: Feature of the Day: PTO Detail & History and PTO Exception Reports
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD PTO Detail - History and PTO Exception Report.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Computer Prepayments

Purchase Order Entry / Payables Batch Entry / Receivings Transaction Entry

Original article: Feature of the Day: Computer Prepayments
Link to presentation: GP2013 Computer Prepayment.ppsx

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Release Date

Couple days aback, Microsoft announced the planned release date for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, in a combined press release which included updates on Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Release Candidate 0 build

Of interest to this community, of course, is the target release date of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, which has been planned for December 19. As we all know, plans can change, but bar some major issue, we should be seeing RTM pretty soon. Currently, Microsoft is testing Release Candidate 0 (build 12.00.1273) and is probably getting prepared to compile a new build for partners in the beta program.

Still not ready? Take a look at my article 5 Ways to Prepare for the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client over at MSDynamicsWorld (free registration required). Other resources to help you get there can be found on this blog and on the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog's Feature of the Day series.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 "Feature of the Day" - Week 18 Digest

As we approach the release date of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, the Feature of the Day series will inevitably begin to die out. However, the features are here to stay, so hopefully this series remains a place for you to continue learning about the new features long after the RTM version of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 hits the market.

Let's see what goodies we had in the basket for last week.

Feature of the Day: Custom Fields in Advanced HR

User Defined Field Setup window

Original article: Feature of the Day: Custom Fields in Advanced HR
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Advanced HR Custom Fields.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Use Multiple Budgets with Encumbrance Management

Encumbrance Budget Setup window

Original article: Feature of the Day: Use Multiple Budgets with Encumbrance Management
Link to presentation: GP2013 13929_Enc Budget Combine FOD.ppsx

Feature of the Day: PTO Manager Enhancements

PTO Options window

Original article: Feature of the Day: PTO Manager Enhancements
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD PTO Manager Enhancements.ppsx

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP Excel Dashboards

Over the past two weeks, I have downloaded, installed, and been playing with my latest demo toy: Excel Dashboards for Microsoft Dynamics GP! In all fairness, this is not a new product, but rather a research being conducted by the Microsoft Dynamics GP Product Management team on the subject of Business Intelligence. However and to drive the topic, they have created a really cool dashboard using Microsoft Excel 2013, which I also happen to be running on my machine.

Excel Dashboard

Installation

The first thing to do is to download the dashboard which you can find here. Of course, most of the settings are tailored for my friend and Microsoft Program Manager, Jared Hall's computer, who kindly put this dashboard together for your delight, so some work is needed to make things work.

Once you have downloaded the spreadsheet, you will need to follow each of the steps provided on the Instructions sheet in the workbook, including running an embedded stored procedure against your company databases. This stored procedure compiles some GL ratios and piggy back on a few already pre-written table valued functions created for the SRS KPI reports.

Dashboard Instructions sheet

The additional steps (3 thru 6) explain how to change the data connections to look at the company database in your environment. Very key is, if you ARE NOT running Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you should follow step 6 to disable the data connections. In particular, I did not have CRM on my laptop, so I removed the data connections and remove the rows where data was supposed to be pulled from CRM to have a clean looking spreadsheet.

I have now showed this dashboard to two prospective clients and needless to say they have all drooled over it, since it works with the financial data in real time. This dashboard plus the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client, and Microsoft Excel 2013 have all been a total hit!

NOTE: Microsoft Office 2013 is available via MSDN or you can download the preview from the Microsoft Office site.

Of course, a research won't be complete without feedback, so here's where you come in. The Microsoft Dynamics GP Product Management team is asking you to answer 3 simple questions:

1. What changes would you make to the current dashboard? Of course, to answer this one you effectively need to have downloaded and play with it for a bit.

2. What other dashboards and what information would you incorporate according to your role in your organization?

3. Of course, what do you do? What's your role in the organization and what challenges do you face?

Please feel free to direct your answers to the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog as comments to the original article:

Business Intelligence Investigation

Now, to my esteemed colleagues in the Product Management team, it would be cool if these questions could be added to a short survey on your site (or elsewhere) as it would make people want to actually provide some feedback... just saying!

Until next post!

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

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What are you doing to prepare for the Web Client?

My latest article is out over at MSDynamicsWorld. In it I take a swipe at 5 things I believe you should be doing today to get up to speed with the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client. Of course, these are only my observations. If after reading you feel there's something else to add, please feel free to drop a comment.

5 Ways to Prepare for the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 "Feature of the Day" - Week 16 & 17 Digest

Since Week 16 brought little movement in the Features department - Pam was out of town and Jay, well I really don't know - I saw it fit to combine it with week 17 features into one Digest article for your reading pleasure. On we go with the Futures of the Day.


Feature of the Day: Payroll integration to Payables

Payroll Vendor Setup window

 Original article: Feature of the Day: Payroll integration to Payables
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD PIP Voucher Integration FOD.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Inactivate Item/Site

Site Maintenance window

Item Quantities Maintenance window

Original article: Feature of the Day: Inactivate Item/Site
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Inactivate a Site and Item Site.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Create Equipment from Manufacturing

Service Setup window: these options will only display with Manufacturing module installed

Original article: Feature of the Day: Create Equipment from Manufacturing
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Create Equipment from Manufacturing.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Honor Discontinued Item Status in Field Service

Discounted Item Quantity Available window

Original article: Feature of the Day: Honor Discontinued Item Status in Field Service
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Honor Discontinued Items in Field Service.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Return Quantity Types

RMA Type Maintenance window

Original article: Feature of the Day: Return Quantity Types
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Return Quantities to Any Quantity Type.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Document Attach

Sales Transaction Entry window: document attach buttons

Document Attach Management window

Original article: Feature of the Day: Document Attach
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Document Attach.ppsx

Feature of the Day: Prevent Purchase Order Closing

Edit Purchase Order Status window

Original article: Feature of the Day: Prevent Purchase Order Closing
Link to presentation: GP2013 13928 Prevent PO Close FOD.ppsx

Until next post!

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

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Windows 8 and the Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client Series - Update

Since the last time I blogged about Web Client and Windows 8, a lot has transpired since - and I mean a lot! You can read the complete series of previous articles here:

Windows 8 and the Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client Series - Wrap Up

The first major development is, since the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Beta code was released on PartnerSource, around the time of the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Airlift 2012 event in Fargo, the Microsoft Dynamics GP development team has put out two major build updates - internally, they continue to create builds almost on a daily basis to keep up with testing demands.

The two builds I have received so far (12.00.1118 and 12.00.1204) have been pretty darn stable on Windows 8 Professional and Windows Server 2012 Standard editions, with the latter build featuring a blazing fast - and I mean super fast - web client. Much faster than the Beta release and certainly much faster than build 12.00.1118.

The second major development is the web client installation process now adds a few more setup screens (I will follow up in a new article), creates one more database for the Session Central service (GPWEBCLIENTSESSIONCENTRAL), and automatically install the certificates for Silverlight access to the local resources on your computer - the Silverlight certificate installer works well on Windows Server 2008 R2, but had issues with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, since the certificate stores are slightly different on these releases of Windows. We (with the help of Aaron Donat) completed the certificate installation manually, which wasn't much of a big deal.

If installing Multi-Tenant Services, the main item to keep in mind is that the user account that is running the Application Pools MUST NOT BE an administrator account - I ran into this issue and this is probably what was causing the following error when attempting to access the Web Management Console.

The only solution to this problem (at the moment) is to uninstall web client and reinstall using a non-admin user for the Application Pool. The installer takes care of setting the proper SQL Server permissions for the account to be used on the application pool.

In summary, if you are going to use the same user account for ALL of the services, then you won’t be able to get into the Web Management Console. Please use a different account for the Application Pools. All other services could use the same account if desired - even on a Single Machine deployment.

Some of the logging options have also changed with build 12.00.1204 (and presumably any new build after that).  In order to get the exceptions to appear in the Dynamics Event Log or back to the Errors.aspx page, the web.config file must be edited to include additional information right after the closing system.servicemodel tag and between the system.diagnostics tags. This will start dumping the exceptions to the Dynamics event log. This should be incorporated as part of the web.config by the time Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 is ready to be shipped.


Web.config

If you also want to have the stack trace dumped out to the Errors.aspx page as well, add the following KEY to the appSettings section and set the value to true.

Stay tuned for my next article which will walk through the new installation procedures for web client and keep an eye over at Developing for Dynamics GP for new articles further detailing some of these changes.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 "Feature of the Day" - Week 15 Digest

Week 14 saw no activity from the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP team, since all the relevant players were out at the GPUG Summit 2012 Seattle event - read GPUG Summit 2012 Seattle - Wrap Up! to find out more.

Last week, the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP team, however, went nuts (probably as a result of jet lag) with Pam and Jay mixing things up a bit in renaming the "Features of the Day" to "Feature when Pam or Jay Reveals it". The truth is, these two are a bit unpredictable, so I will simply continue to call this - and in the interest of keeping your sanity and mines in check - Feature of the Day.

Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: Reprint Payables Management Remittance

Now you can reprint remittances from Payables Payment Zoom window

Original article: Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: Reprint Payables Management Remittance
Link to presentation: GP2013 13716_Reprint PM Remit FOD.ppsx
Learning script: N/A

Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: RMA Sales Order Consolidate

Consolidate SOP Order Document now an option in Service Setup

Items entered on the RMA...

... are consolidated on the Order in SOP

Original article: Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: RMA Sales Order Consolidate
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD RMA SOP Consolidate.ppsx
Learning script: N/A

Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: Search by Contract in Revenue Recognition

Search by Contract Number now an option in Contract Revenue Recognition

Original article: Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: Search by Contract in Revenue Recognition
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Search by Contract in RR.ppsx
Learning script: N/A

Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: Shipping Address Overrides Remain In Service Call

Original article: Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: Shipping Address Overrides Remain In Service Call
Link to presentation: GP2013 FOD Shipping Address Overrides Remain in Service Call.ppsx
Learning script: N/A

Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: Copy AA Trx Dimensions for POP, SOP, GL

Now you can copy analytical accounting info across the board

Original article: Feature When Pam or Jay Reveals It: Copy AA Trx Dimensions for POP, SOP, GL
Link to presentation: GP2013 12245 Copy AA Trx Dimension Info FOD.ppsx
Learning script: N/A

Until next post!

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

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