Welcome aboard Dynamics GP MVP Sivakumar Venkataraman!

It's with great pleasure that I introduce you to MVP Sivakumar Venkataraman, known by many of you simply as Siva. Siva joins the Microsoft Dynamics GP MVPs roaster as part of the MVP Award Program's October cycle.

Siva is the author of the Interting Findings & Knowledge Sharing blog and also a tireless moderator of the Dynamics GP Google Group, one of the longest running, independent groups dedicated to all things Microsoft Dynamics GP. Siva is currently a Practice Lead - Microsoft Dynamics at Interdyn AKA.

The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award is an annual award given to outstanding members of Microsoft's technical communities based on contributions made during the previous 12 months to offline and online Microsoft-related technical communities. The Microsoft MVP Award recognizes exceptional technical community leaders worldwide who actively share their knowledge with other technical community members.

Of 100 million technical community participants worldwide, about 4,000 are MVPs. Outstanding technical community members are nominated by their peers, Microsoft employees, and MVPs. Each year a panel of Microsoft employees reviews the contributions of each nominee for quality, quantity, and level of impact on the technical community. Today's MVPs reflect Microsoft's global customer base and breadth of technologies.

Interesting fact: Siva will be saying his vows pretty soon in a traditional ceremony in his native country of India. Congrats buddy!

Until next post!

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

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How to resize logo in Microsoft Dynamics GP Word Templates

Getting used to the new Word Templates functionality can be a bit challenging at times. One of those challenges came in the form or a simple question: "How to resize the logo on the template?". One thing to keep in mind is that most objects on a Microsoft Dynamics GP Word Template document live inside of content controls. With that said, here are the steps to achieve this, taking the SOP Blank Invoice Form Template* as an example:

1. Under Report Template Maintenance, select the SOP Blank Invoice Form template from the More Reports list.

2. Click the New button to create a new template. For this example, we will create the template based on the existing template and we will call it SOP Blank Invoice Form Icon. Click Ok to continue.

3. Highlight the newly created template, then click the Modify button to open Microsoft Word.

4. Click on the Picture content control to add a logo image.

Note: This image must also exist in the Image library under Template Configuration.

5. Select the logo, right-click, and chose Remove Content Control.

6. Highlight the image and resize accordingly. The following is a sample of the resized image with some extra text to go along:

NOTE: The logo is part of the Header section of the document.

7. Save the modified template to a different directory where it can be imported from later on, for example, My Documents. Close Microsoft Word.

8. Back to Report Template Maintenance, click the Add Template button and select the newly modified template from the My Documents folder. Replace the existing one when prompted.

9. Click the Assign button, then mark the company you want to assign the template to. Then, click on Set as Default to make the new template the default template for the company. Click Save to continue. Click Save to continue.

10. Back to the Report Template Maintenance window, highlight the original template and click the Assign button and choose Company. Unmark the company and choose Save.

NOTE: This will ensure that the copied version of the original template prints always.

11. To test, select a SOP invoice and print.

Hope you found these steps simple to follow and that you are enjoying the new Word Templates feature in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010.

Until next post!

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

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My first post over at Dynamics Latam

My first post on COM interop and Dexterity is out over at Dynamics Latam! This will be an excellent venue for me to give back to Spanish speaking community Microsoft Dynamics GP in North, Central, and South America and will sure up other venues to spread the GP gospel.

Until next post!

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

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Debugging Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Word Templates

In my previous article I outlined a few steps to add a page of terms and conditions to an invoice form. However, these changes did not come without their challenges. When I initially started out working on this customized template, my "natural instinct" was to add a new section to the Word template and unlink the header and footer from the previous section, then add the text. To complicate matters a bit more, I had added this new template as a modified version of a modified report - SOP Blank Invoice Form Template (Modified). Typically this is what would be encountered in a GP environment anyways as most standard GP invoice forms were customized even before the Word Templates functionality even existed in GP.

Somehow, these changes managed to crash and display a message in the Template Processing Exceptions(TPE) window and I ended up with this error:

One or more templates could not be processed. View the exception log for more details.

Well, that was a good start... but, where was the exception log?

Of course, being the well connected individual that I am - Ehem! - I sent this one off to my good friend Rob Wagner over at Microsoft Business Division, who is also known as "The Word Templates God" in some circles. Rob pointed me to a new DEX.INI setting available for Word Templates:

TPELogging=TRUE

In Rob's own words, "FYI, dex.ini TPELogging=TRUE is used to gather where an exception has occurred. It points the combine process where I will go in and debug the TPE.".

The log is created in the %temp% directory where the actual Word document is rendered and its content looks something like this:

10 hours. 57 minutes.13 seconds. 901 milliseconds. :20050: Combine.Unhandled

TPE was indicating that there was an issue with an exception not being handled when the XML data from Report Writer was being combined with the actual Word template.

This allowed Rob and his team to start tracking down the issue with my template from the source code and provide me with an alternate route to solve my problem.

As a final note, it seems there is an issue as well with TPE not clearing some process after choosing to remove the exception from the Report Processing Status window. In turn, this prevents shutting down GP via the Exit option, having to use the Windows Task Manager to force the termination of the DYNAMICS.EXE process. Rob's team is on this too.

Until next post!

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

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How to add a "Terms and Conditions" page to a Microsoft Dynamics GP Word Template document

It's officially Microsoft Office Word Templates week here at The Dynamics GP Blogster!

With the integration of Microsoft Word Templates into Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, the possibilities of delivering professional looking business facing documents increased 1000-fold. Now, Microsoft Dynamics GP users want to take full advantage of Word's editing and document formating capabilities to introduce extra information in their business facing documents that was simply quite complex or impossible to achieve with Report Writer.

A common request among users is to add a Terms and Conditions page to a SOP invoice form. For this example, we will use the SOP Blank Invoice Form report. You can follow these steps to achieve just that:

1. If you haven't done so, enable the SOP Blank Invoice Form Template* report under the Template Configuration Manager window. Click Save to continue.

2.  Open the Report Template Maintenance window and choose the SOP Blank Invoice Form from the More Reports option.

[NOTE: If you are working with a modified version of the SOP Blank Invoice Form created in Report Writer and exposed to Word Templates, then choose Modified from the Status drop-down list.

3.  Click the New button  on the Report Template Maintenance window to create a new template based on the existing one. For this example, we will call this template SOP Blank Invoice Form with Conditions. Click the Create button when finished.

You should now see the new template version in the Available Templates pane in the Report Template Maintenance window.

4. Click on the Modify button to open the SOP Blank Invoice Form Template with Conditions template in Microsoft Word. Position the cursor beneat the Total field and insert a 1 row by 1 column table.

Add the Terms and Conditions text inside the table as shown below.

5. Highlight the newly added table and its text, then click on the Paragraph expansion button under the Home ribbon to open the options window. Click on the Line and Page Breaks tab and mark the Keep Lines Together and Page Breaks Before check marks. Click Ok to continue.

Note that the table has now moved to a second page.

6. Save the modified Word template in your My Documents folder to avoid loosing your changes when you close Word then reimport the template in the Report Template Maintenance window. Assign the template to the company and make it the Default template.

NOTE: You can also choose to assign the template to specific customers if needed, however, for demo purposes, we are choosing to default the template.

7. Print a SOP invoice choosing the Blank form to ensure the template prints as expected.

NOTE: At the end of this article I realized I had modified the SOP Blank History Invoice Form Template. Print a historical invoice instead as the results should be the same.

Until next post!

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

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The Dynamics GP Blogster changes its motto!

"Your Microsoft Dynamics GP World Without Barriers"

When I first created this site and posted my first article back in March of 2008, my original goal was to show you, the reader, a number of tips and tricks I had learned over the years from working with Microsoft Dynamics GP and developing international localizations and customizations, hence the initial site's motto "A comprehensive resource for technical and functional tips and tricks for the Microsoft Dynamics GP platform".

Since that very first article, this site has published over 475 articles that have ranged from SQL scripts, to VBA customizations, to conference sessions, to events, to topics covered by other bloggers, and heck, even some CRM stuff (as it relates to GP). Popular among readers are some of the specialized content like The Technology Corner, which outlines what going on outside of the Microsoft Dynamics GP world that will eventually impact how you work with Dynamics GP; and From the Newsgroups, which brings some of the most interesting questions asked by you in the Community forums. In addition, with the explosion  of Social Networks, The Dynamics GP Blogster now reaches you via Facebook, Twitter, the Microsoft Dynamics Community site, WordPress, and RSS. The site is visited by more than 1,000 of you a day from almost all corners of the world and features a new design with rotating backgrounds meant to summarize the mood of the week.

In short, you and I have moved way beyond the "tips and tricks" and are now exploring the Microsoft Dynamics GP world as a whole. Don't get me wrong! You will continue to receive your usual dose of tips and tricks as you always have, but in the spirit of building up the Community's knowledgebase, we will continue to explore those topics and point to those resources that have made Microsoft Dynamics GP the product it is today -- see, I believe Microsoft Dynamics GP to be more than just a software package. In fact, Microsoft Dynamics GP represents community.
 
As such, from today, the new motto at The Dynamics GP Blogster is "Your Microsoft Dynamics GP World Without Barriers". Thank you for your readership and please continue to help me tear down those barriers, and remember, you can always comment on those articles where you feel there is more to add, even if you don't agree with the views presented.

Until next post!

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

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Service Pack 1 now available!

Over at Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP, Andy Westby has news on the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Service Pack 1. Customers and Partners can now download the new service pack from these links:

CustomerSource: https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/downloads/servicepacks/mdgp2010_patchreleases.htm

PartnerSource:
https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/downloads/servicepack/mdgp2010_patchreleases.htm

NOTE: As of the time of this post, I could not download the new service pack as it seems the download site is already extremely busy.

With the release of Service Pack 1, Microsoft will be launching 2 new online services. However, these have yet to be disclosed.

Until next post!

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

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