Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Airlift 2013 - Day 1

The Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Airlift 2013, hosted by GP Partner Connections is now in full session.

Unfortunately, last minute circumstances prevented my participation as a presenter this year, but in retrospect, it was probably a good thing as I really don't want to become like those actors that show up in just about every movie.

The sessions list for this year is off the chain and if you are a propeller head like me, you can certainly attend some really cool sessions:

• Developing for the Web Client: a Microsoft Dexterity Perspective (Sept 18, 1:15 PM CST)
• Dynamics GP Multitenant for Developers (Sept 18, 2:30 PM CST)
• Dynamics GP Development Team Unplug (Sept 18, 3:45 PM CST)
• Dexterity and Services: Can they be friends? (Sept 19, 11:15 AM CST)
• Web Client Customization with VST Deep Dive (Sept 19, 4:00 PM CST)

In addition to these development sessions, there are tons of other development related sessions around Window 8 and Windows Phone, and BI for GP.

You will not want to miss the closing session on Friday either. That promises to be a complete surprise, according to my friend Jay Manley. Find detailed information on sessions here.

Being away, however, doesn't give me the right to not know what's going on and I can tell you that the first major update coming out of Fargo is a roadmap refresh.

Roadmap Update

The next big thing in the horizon, of course, is all the buzz surrounding GP Next, Microsoft's next generation of the award winning Microsoft Dynamics GP -- okay, I sounded a bit like a salesman there, but hey, ain't we all? To deliver the "next generation" of products you have to imagine there will be a "next generation" of tools. What will happen with Dexterity? What will happen with Visual Studio Tools and, of course, Silverlight development? As GP expands more into a service model, and away (in some sense) from its Client/Server roots how will the development tools be enhanced?

Microsoft delivered ahead of expectations on the SP2 updates for GP 2013 in the second half of this year, which included close to 20 new enhancements, drifting away from the traditional Feature Pack concept. Pam Misialek explains this as a way to deliver functionality out the door much, much quicker to customers. You can read more here.

The next major wave will be coming in the first half of 2014 and will see significant enhancements to Workflow, a move to add Requisitions into Microsoft Dynamics GP, a Windows 8 Procurement app, and some Identity Management concepts.

I also have my spy reporter at the conference and this is the first picture coming out from Fargo with MVP Leslie Vail presenting the Support Debugging Tool session (with MVP Belinda Allen).

Leslie in the Support Debugging Tool session

The credit for the above goes to Tanya Henderson at S2 Technology.

I challenge you to be my reporter by taking pictures and relaying your experience. Email  your pictures and updates and I will make sure you get credit for your work in my article. All pictures will be uploaded to The Dynamics GP Blogster on Facebook for everyone to see. If you attend an interesting session and/or hear of the latest buzz around the corridors, please feel free to email me too.

I wish everyone in attendance a great conference and hope you enjoy every bit of it.

Until next post!

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

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VST: Rendering WinForms in Microsoft Dynamics GP web client

In my previous article I discussed applying Service Pack 2 to update your VST development environment. The SP2 update introduces the ability to render VST WinForms in the Web Client.

Background

Prior to the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 RTM, the application development and technical consulting communities got to preview the web client at the Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Airlift 2012 in Fargo in a Web Client Jumpstart Training for partners. Following the training and attendance to some sessions, VST developers got the bad news: "Only Dexterity applications are fully compatible with the web client". That left a number of you with the proverbial (and probably literal) bad taste in the mouth and scrambling for answers. Microsoft came back with a consolation price announcement: "Only VST applications written without using WinForms will be supported in the web client". In retrospect, I feel the message could have been delivered differently, but I digress.

Fast forward to SP2 and Microsoft did what it does best: make things right! VST developers now have the ability to render WinForms in the web client... with a few caveats.

The Boring Theory

With the RTM release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 web client, VST developers needed to make a slight change to the way assembly add-ins were exposed to the desktop client and/or web client. By default assemblies were not loaded by the Runtime Engine and Web Client Runtime engine. In contrast, VST assemblies placed under the traditional AddIns folder would load in the desktop client (Dexterity client) only.

Now, to have an integration load on the Microsoft Dynamics GP web client, you must add the SupportedDexPlatforms attribute to the class that implements the IDexterityAddIn interface to indicate that the integration works for the web client.

Once you have indicated what platform your application will be compatible with, it's time to address your WinForms. Microsoft has leveraged its rendering engine to support two different types of rendering for WinForms: dynamic and custom rendering.

To use dynamic rendering, your Visual Studio Tools form must use controls from the supported list. The following controls are automatically rendered:

• Button
• CheckBox
• ComboBox
• GroupBox
• Label
• ListBox
• RadioButton
• TextBox

If the WinForm uses controls that aren't included in this list, those controls won't be rendered on the form when it is displayed in the web client. In those cases, you must implement custom rendering.

 

Dynamic rendering is the simplest technique for implementing a Visual Studio Tools form that works on the Microsoft Dynamics GP web client. With dynamic rendering, the web client runtime does the necessary work to display the Visual Studio Tools form in the web client. It also handles the communication between the web client machine and the web client server.

To enable dynamic rendering for a form, the form must derive from DexUIForm class. You must add the WCCompliantWindow attribute to the class that defines the form. This attribute indicates that the form should be automatically rendered by the web client. If this attribute isn't found on the form, the form will not be displayed in the web client.

The fun part!

Let's take canned PostingSOPBatches2 example. The first task at hand is to determine what platform the VST application will support:

In the above, we have added the SupportedDexPlatforms attribute, which takes one parameter that indicates which platform or platforms are supported by the integration. In this example, the logical-or operation is used to indicate that both the desktop client and the web client are supported.

With the client defined, the next focus is on the WinForm itself.  The following is our WinForm layout:

Once you complete the layout of the form, double-click on it to open the associated code:

The WCCompliantWindow attribute takes one boolean parameter that indicates whether dynamic rendering is supported for the form.

That's it! Compile away and test, test, and test, your code to make sure it works and that no rendering issues occur. You should place the resulting assembly, in this case postingSopBatches2.dll and its config file in the AddIns folder under your Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 root folder. Launch the Web Client and display the form. For this example, we have placed the form under the About Microsoft Dynamics GP box, but could have well written an event handler to display it under SOP Entry where it really belongs.

So what happens to things like grids and custom controls? Those will need to be rendered using Custom Rendering. In my next article I will discuss this method and some of the drawbacks you may face while doing so.

Thanks to Kevin Racer (Twitter: @kracer123) and Michael Hammond (Twitter: @mhamm_msft) for their valuable contributions to this article.

-//-

Remember, the best application development techniques usually involve a Hybrid Development approach. There's always a way to accomplish the end goal and ultimately, is up to you the developer to consider at all the options available.

Until next post!

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

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VST: Updating your Visual Studio Tools Web Client Development Environment

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2 (12.00.1482) introduced some really cool new updates to a lot of application components. Yesterday, for example, I talked about the SmartList Designer and how it really takes the SmartList experience to new heights.

Visual Studio Tools and Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2 introduce support for WinForms rendering on the Web Client - more of that in my next article, but before we get into the details, here's what you need to know to prep your development environment:

1. You must install Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP Service Pack 2 in your system. The VST msi update can be found under MDGP2013_SP2_DVD_ENUS\Tools\SDK\VS Tools\Updates folder in the full DVD image available from CustomerSource or PartnerSource. This should bring the VST components to version 12.00.1488.00 while updating all templates in your Visual Studio development environment.

Visual Studio Tools SP2 build number check Control Panel | Programs

2. You must apply Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2, which in turn should upgrade the Web Client Runtime components on your session host machine(s). The Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP build number is 12.00.1482 and the Web Client Runtime assemblies will be updated to version 1.0.170.0.

Web Client Runtime build number check under About Microsoft Dynamics GP | Additional | Web Client

NOTE: If you are, in addition, doing Dexterity development you must follow the procedures outlined in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910527 to complete the update of your Dex application, since SP2 will also update the Dynamics dictionary.

3. Finally, you can upgrade the Web Client components themselves, by running the msi found under \MDGP2013_SP2_DVD_ENUS\AdProd\WebClient\Updates on the full DVD image on your IIS server. The Web Client components should be at version 1.0.516.0 after the update is completed.

Web Client build number check under Control Panel | Programs

If you are anything like me, all this stuff runs on your development laptop. However if you are a part of a dev team, you should determine where each of these components reside in your environment and update accordingly.

For more information on Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2 take a look at my article Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Service Pack 2 is now available.

For additional information on updating your Visual Studio Tools applications to Service Pack 2, you will want to follow instructions outlined in the Upgrading an Integration section of the Getting Started chapter of the Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Dynamics GP content online at MSDN Library.

-//-

In my next article, I will talk about rendering Visual Studio Tools' WinForms in the Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client.

Until next post!

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

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SmartList Designer: a nice addition to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2

12.00.1482 - the build number for Microsoft Dynamics GP SP2 - brought with it a new list of awesome enhancements. The SmartList reporting tool saw some big improvements with the addition the collapse/expand of the left navigation pane, and a splitter between the tree view and the list box control that displays the actual results. 

*Soapbox*
I have to say, I like the concept, but not the implementation as I believe Microsoft could have used the splitter code written with the Support Debugging Tool as a more elegant solution.
*End Soapbox*

However, the biggest improvement/addition to SmartList is the new SmarList Designer.

SmartList Designer

SmartList Designer allows you to create queries based on table definitions found in Microsoft Dynamics GP and any third party application. You can create a new SmartList or to create a new SmartList based on an existing SmartList. You also can modify the SmartList that you created using SmartList Designer.

I have to say, if you have had a number of SmartLists built with SmartList Builder, then using the SmartList Designer should be a piece of cake. I've found the user interface to be extremely intuitive and all the controls and navigation just seem to be in the right place.

Now, the one-million-and-one-dollar question...

How is this tool different or similar to SmartList Builder?

The similarities are obvious: they both allow you to create SmartLists from scratch based on any Dexterity dictionary table definition using a very intuitive UI. SmartList Designer however, goes a bit further and allows you to preview the data without even releasing the new list into production. If nothing else was provided, this would be the one feature to cherish. SmartList Designer also allows you to build SmartLists based on other SmartLists, a feature currently not available in SmartList Builder.

SmartList Builder allows you to access tables and views that aren't a part of a Dexterity dictionary, this is, tables and views created directly in the SQL Server company database. Of course, on of the advantages of this approach is being able to access data from other non-Microsoft Dynamics GP databases on your server. I also believe calculated fields in SmartList Builder are more powerful as you can access the wide array of functions provided by the version of Microsoft SQL Server you are running on. SmartList Designer, in turn, provides a preset number of commonly used (as in limited) functions catalogued as Arithmetic, Text, Date & Time, Math, and Aggregate.

I also like the slick the deployment method of SmartList Designer Smartlists: "OK and done!". SmartList Builder, in turn, has to push these to SmartList, which in turn reads the elements and convert them to an actual SmartList - a pseudo compilation, if you will.

To access SmartList Designer, click on the New button on SmartList's toolbar.

SmartList Builder

I invite you to weigh in on the new SmartList Designer. Tell me what you like or don't like and let me know if you consider it alternative to SmartList Builder.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Service Pack 2 is now available

Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 is now available for your consumption. Microsoft has released the product ahead of schedule - originally, September of 2013. I guess this will make for an even more exciting Microsoft Dynamics GP Technical Airlift 2013.

 

Service Pack 2 is probably the most comprehensive update so far to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and includes a number of fixes and enhancements. Let's take a quick look:

 

Modules activated for Web Client:

• Field Service
• Service Call Management
• Depot Management
• Preventative Maintenance
• Project Accounting
• Manufacturing
• Bill of Materials
• Manufacturing Order Processing
• Master Production Scheduling
• MRP
• Manufacturing Suite
• Fixed Assets Enhancements
• Business Activity Statement (BAS) for Australian GST
• Payment Document Management (PDM)

 

Features Exclusive to Web Client:

• Visual Studio Tools for Web Client v1.0
• Keyboard Shortcut enhancements
• Change single machine configuration to support both the Web Client web site and runtime service using the same port  
• Add styling to ribbon to show focus  
• Web client messaging retry/refresh & Client Side error handling / notification improvements
• Better scrollbars for standard reports 

 

New Desktop & Web Client Features:

• GL - Roll down changes to Account Segment Description
• Reconcile checkbook without marking transactions
• Cash Receipts Inquiry display checkbook ID
• Customer Combiner & Modifier
• Vendor Combiner & Modifier
• Payables Void Enhancements
• AA Finance Charge assessment
• AA and Sales order deposits
• Payroll Inquiry Check Date Sort Options
• Applicant E-mail in HR
• Doc Attach 2.0:
• Document Flow
• Status Tracking
• Delete Password
• Attachment Properties
• Attachment Email
• Delete Utility
• SmartList Splitter
• SmartList Designer

Note: the SmartList Splitter was a cool piece of code made available with the Support Debugging Tool initially. If you are running Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, you can take advantage of this via the Support Debugging Tool.

 

Service Pack 2 can be recognized by its new build number, 12.00.1482 and the Dexterity version is 12.00.0269. For more version details download the MDGP2013_MSPVersionList.xls file. For the install guide and a list of issues fixed, download the 12.0SP2_install_guide_ENUS.pdf file. Both files are available from the main Service Pack page (or from the links here).

 

Service pack 2 is available from the Service Pack 2 page or you can download the full updated DVD image:

PartnerSource
Product Release Downloads for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013
Service Pack, Hotfix, and Compliance Update Patch Releases for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 

CustomerSource
Product Release Downloads for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013
Service Pack, Hotfix, and Compliance Update Patch Releases for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 


The Microsoft Dynamics GP Support and Services Blog has more information related to Service Pack 2. Please visit their page for more information:

• Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 is now available!

Until next post!

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

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Accessing Microsoft Dynamics GP Default Settings from Visual Studio Tools

Rarely you will hear the Dex.ini file being called the Microsoft Dynamics GP defaults file. However, the Dex.ini contains keys (and their associated values) that define how Microsoft Dynamics GP behaves in some cases. For example, SQLLastUser=sa stores the login of the last user who accessed the system on that specific instance of Microsoft Dynamics GP, in this case, 'sa'. Likewise, AutoInstallChunks=TRUE, allows Microsoft Dynamics GP to bypass prompting the user for new code (chunk file) to be installed at the time of launching the application. There are other settings controlling how certain features behave.

You can find a list of Dex.ini settings here.

Recently, I was helping a good friend of mine up in Maine who attended my Dexterity class in Boston and this time he wanted to know how to read the path for the Microsoft Dynamics GP help file. Of course, there's a simple (predefined) method for this as my good friend Patrick Roth with the Escalation Engineering team in Fargo pointed out, if you are familiar with some of Microsoft Dynamics GP form procedures:

string strPath = "";
strPath = Dynamics.Forms.MainMenu.Functions.GetDynamicsHelpPath.Invoke();
MessageBox.Show(strPath);

So, let's assume you had no clue this function existed. How would you address this issue? Frankly, I can think of at least 3 ways to do this:

1) Using a hybrid method whereby you create a Dexterity dictionary to wrap the Defaults_Read() Dexterity sanScript function into a user-defined global function. This method presents a challenge as you need to use the Dictionary Assembly Generator (DAG.EXE) to create an assembly you can reference from your VST project. In addition, you may or may not want to add an entirely new dictionary into the picture, when delivering your final solution. However, in case you are interested, this is the implementation:

GetDexIniSetting function

For more information on developing hybrid applications with Dexterity and Visual Studio Tools take a look at my articles:

Developing Microsoft Dynamics GP hybrid integrating applications
Hybrid development for the Managed Code developer
Hybrid development for the Managed Code developer (cont.)

2) You could use the Continuum API from Visual Studio Tools to access the Defaults_Read() sanScript function. The Continuum API is the Component Object Model (COM) API that is available for Microsoft Dynamics GP. The Continuum API documentation is available for download here. In this method, all you have to do is add a reference to the interop.Dynamics.dll COM library, which hosts the Continuum API.

// Created by Mariano Gomez, MVP
// This code is licensed under the Creative Commons 
// Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
// http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode

public string GetDexIniSetting(string searchKey)
{
   ParameterHandlerClass myParamHandler = new ParameterHandlerClass();
            
   try
   { Dynamics.Application gpApp = (Dynamics.Application)Activator.CreateInstance(Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Dynamics.Application"));
     if (gpApp == null) 
       return "";
     else
     {
       string passthrough_code = "";
       string compile_err;
       int error_code, result;

       result = gpApp.SetParamHandler(myParamHandler);
       myParamHandler.IN_Key = searchKey;

       passthrough_code += "local boolean err_val;";
       passthrough_code += "local string dex_key_val, dex_key;";
       passthrough_code += @"err_val = OLE_GetProperty(""IN_Key"", dex_key); "; 
       passthrough_code += "dex_key_val = Defaults_Read(dex_key);";
       passthrough_code += @"err_val = OLE_SetProperty(""OUT_KeyVal"", dex_key_val);";

       gpApp.CurrentProductID = 0; 

       error_code = gpApp.ExecuteSanscript(passthrough_code, out compile_err);
       return myParamHandler.OUT_KeyVal;
     }
   }
   catch
   { MessageBox.Show("Failed to initialize gpApp");
     return "";
   }
 }

public class ParameterHandlerClass
{
  public string IN_Key { get; set; }
  public string OUT_KeyVal { get; set; }
}

In the above code, we define a parameter handler class with couple properties for the key that will be read from the Dex.ini and the key value to be retrieved.

In our GetDexIniSettings method, we instantiate our class and use the Continuum SetParaHandler() method to load the IN_Key property value. We then setup our pass-through code and invoke sanScript's OLE_GetProperty() function to retrieve the value of the IN_Key from our VST application via some old fashioned OLE automation. The OLE_SetProperty() function then returns the value to our class property, OUT_KeyVal.

That's it!

3) The third method uses some classic C# reflection to get the path of the AddIns. It then converts this to the path of the Data folder and the dex.ini file, and then uses the Pinvoke() method to read the key in the dex.ini and return the value.

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
 static extern uint GetPrivateProfileString(
 string lpAppName,
 string lpKeyName,
 string lpDefault,
 StringBuilder lpReturnedString,
 uint nSize,
 string lpFileName);

//get path which should be the addins folder
String strPath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

//look for \Addins path
if (strPath.EndsWith(@"\AddIns", true, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) == true)
{ //and if we find one replace with the data folder
  strPath = strPath.Replace(@"\Addins", @"\Data\Dex.ini");
}
else
{ //if not in addins then we must be in the root GP folder (like GP 2013 does with GP addins) so tack on \Data
  strPath = strPath + @"\Data\Dex.ini";
}
 
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(100);
uint res = GetPrivateProfileString("General", "Pathname", "", sb, (uint)sb.Capacity, strPath);
MessageBox.Show(sb.ToString());

// Copyright © Microsoft Corporation.  All Rights Reserved.
// This code released under the terms of the 
// Microsoft Public License (MS-PL, http://opensource.org/licenses/ms-pl.html.)

The above method comes courtesy of my good friend Patrick Roth with the Escalation Engineering team at Microsoft.

All the above methods are generic in nature and can read more than just a specific key. It's good to know that there's more than one way to do things. If you are going all hybrid, there's a code for that! If you want to be self-contained, there's a code for that! If you want to deviate completely from sanScript because you hate it or don't know it, there's a code for that! Whatever route you choose it must work to your benefit.

As a good Australian friend of mine would say, "The right solution is the one that works!".

Until next post!

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

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How to reset Business Analyzer settings

Just recently, I ran into an interesting case where the consultant had installed and configured Business Analyzer for a user. However, during the configuration process, the consultant marked all available reports for all available companies, which put Business Analyzer into a tailspin as it attempted to load all this information. The consultant proceeded to shut down the application using the Task Manager program.

When he restarted Business Analyzer, the application went back into a tailspin, displaying only the loading screen with a "Connecting to Server" message for over an hour. Fearing this would be a permanent issue due to the number of reports and companies selected, the question was just obvious: how to reset Business Analyzer configuration settings.

The boring theory

If you have downloaded Business Analyzer from the Windows Store or are still running the Business Analyzer desktop client, chances are you had to go through a setup process. In Windows 8, this involves swiping the Edge UI to obtain the charms and clicking on Settings to obtain the Configuration pane.

Business Analyzer for Windows 8 configuration

Once in the Configuration pane you are asked to enter information about the Report Server from which reports will be loaded. Once the credentials have been validated, you will be directed to add reports accordingly.

Business Analyzer Reports Configuration

Selecting all reports from all companies under a specific instance (I'm running GP 2013) can have adverse performance effects if you are in an environment with multiple companies, as Business Analyzer attempts to obtain information for each report, for each company from Report Server. The important part though is, this information is stored locally, under the user profile folder, in the hidden AppData folder, where an XML configuration file is created (user.config). Since all reports were selected for all companies, building this file would normally take a considerable amount of time.

The Solution

To fix the problem all that's needed is to remove the Business Analyzer configuration folder, which can be found under:

"C:\Users\userid\AppData\Local\Microsoft\BusinessAnalyzer.exe_Url_..." 

After this, you can re-launch Business Analyzer and go back to the configuration options where you will be prompted to enter the server information and selected the reports to display once again. Easy enough!

Until next post!

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

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