IM - Troubleshooting RPC errors when running Integration Manager

Lately, I have seen a number of forum discussions where users have reported receiving a number of RPC (Remote Procedure Call) errors when running Integration Manager and thought I would offer a number of troubleshooting tips for this issue. But first, here are some of the common error messages you may see:

"The destination could not be initialized due to the folowing problem:  The RPC server is unavailable."

or

"DOC 1 ERROR: The server threw an exception. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80010105 (RPC_E_SERVERFAULT)) - The server threw an exception. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80010105 (RPC_E_SERVERFAULT))"


To begin troubleshooting this issue try the following options:

1. Close all running instances of Microsoft Dynamics GP and open Windows Task Manager. Under the Processes tab, verify that there is not more than one instance of the Dynamics.exe process running.



Windows Task Manager

If you find an additional Dynamics.exe process running, select it and click the End Process button. At this point, restart Microsoft Dynamics GP and try running your Integration. This solution is also outlined in KB article 943948.

2. If you are on Terminal Server or Citrix, make sure you don't have more than one active session at a time. Since you probably will not have access to Terminal Server Administration or Citrix Console, you will need to address this with your Systems Administrator. In any case, if you find more than one active session, decide with your administrator the best procedure to close down the unwated session.

You will  typically experience this error message because you have not been following the correct procedures to close down your Terminal Server or Citrix session.

3. If on Terminal Server or Citrix, you may receive this error if running Integration Manager as a published application. You will receive RPC errors if you attempt to integrate a document to Microsoft Dynamics GP when both Integration Manager and Microsoft Dynamics GP are ran as published applications.

In this case, you will want to log on to the Terminal Server console or Citrix console and execute your integration. Since this may not be acceptable to your System Administrator, as an alternative you can setup a dedicated Microsoft Dynamics GP and Integration Manager client.

4. Repair or reinstall Integration Manager and make sure to be using the latest service pack. Yes, when all else fails, some times this is the only recourse left. To download the latest Integration Manager service packs, use the following links:

Service Packs and Hotfixes for Integration Manager for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010
(PartnerSource/CustomerSource access required)

Service Packs and Hotfixes for Integration Manager for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0
(PartnerSource/CustomerSource access required)

Until next post!

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

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Start the year with new ways to access The Dynamics GP Blogster... from your SmartPhone!

Don't want to type the site's URL anymore on your phone? Now you have choice to point your phone's camera and/or barcode reader at the QR code on the right of the navigation bar and get the site loaded before you depart your home or your office. Watch how your browser loads up the website!

http://dynamicsgpblogster.blogspot.com/

The following are QR codes to The Dynamics GP Blogster's Twitter and Facebook social networking sites:

http://twitter.com/dgpblogster

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Dynamics-GP-Blogster/233314529438

Now you have no excuses to not take this site along with you and read up on the latest posts while you are stock in traffic this year, again!

Until next post!

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

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Happy New Year!

So last year -- yes, last year! Get used to saying it! -- I told you that a popular New Year's eve tradition is to set forth a bunch of resolutions for the incoming year. The number one goal I had set for last year was to increase readership to this site and all other outlets where you can find The Dynamics GP Blogster. Thanks to all of you, the site readership and visits increased 2.5-fold. This is a snapshot of traffic taken on December 22, a week before 2010 was over:

*Click to enlarge

So now that I have your attention, what do I want for this year? Nothing more than your commitment to continue visiting this site and spreading the word. Now you have many ways to reach me: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even the Community 2.0 website - all links on the right frame. You also have one more tool: my QR code (more on this later). The more I know what you read and like, the better content I can produce (focused topics, workshops, series, technical articles, conference materials, etc). So I ask you, please don't keep this site a secret, just put in a word for this site, become a fan on Facebook, post your comments.

I know you follow me, I know you like what you read on this site (and sometimes not), I know you stay tuned, but think of the benefits others in your professional community could receive from the same information you get here. So, the next time you speak to your peers, colleagues, clients, partners just mention this site. It takes two seconds and it goes one step more to maintain my Internet presence.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.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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Season Greetings to all the Microsoft Dynamics GP community!

Our Christmas Tree here at home

As many of you prepare to celebrate these festivities in company of family and friends, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you the best throughout these Holidays on behalf of my wife Marina and children.

Thanks for all the great comments posted throughout the year and the support you have shown to The Dynamics GP Blogster and all the different outlets provided. It keeps me going and working to bring you the some of the best content you will find about all things Dynamics GP: the events, the technical articles, the series, and much more.

You can always count on 2011 bringing new and exciting articles with innovative approaches for using Microsoft Dynamics GP and getting the best out of your investment.

Until next post!

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

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From the newsgroups: Tracking COBRA in Microsoft Dynamics GP Payroll (US only)

This week's answer comes courtesy of Microsoft's Aaron Richards over at the Partner Online Technical Community, but first the question -- no names given to protect the innocent :-)

We are using Dynamics GP2010. How do we track COBRA in Payroll. We are not using HR.

Specifically, we are trying to track what the government reimbureses us. For example, we're trying to track 70% that we pay to the insurer on the 941 that we send to the government which eventually reimburses back from the government that we had paid.

Please advise or point me to a reference for utilizing this.

As stated by the partner, the customer is not using the HR module which has full COBRA tracking capabilities. Here is what Aaron had to say:

Thank you for using Microsoft Online Communities. My name is Aaron and I will be assisting you with your questions today. This information was released when we started tracking COBRA in the hotfix pdf.

It stated the following:

Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA) changes

The recently-passed economic stimulus legislation (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) establishes an employer-provided 65% COBRA premium subsidy for certain workers who lost their jobs between Sept. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009. The employer is reimbursed for the subsidy by claiming a credit on quarterly federal tax returns (Form 941). For details of the Act’s provisions relating to COBRA, see http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=204505,00.html at the IRS site, and http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/COBRA.html at the Department of Labor site. The March 2009 Round 4 U.S. Payroll Tax Update contains the following Payroll and Human Resources changes to support the COBRA premium subsidy.

The Payroll Setup window contains new fields that allow you to select and display a COBRA subsidy benefit code.

The Cobra Premiums and Payments window in Human Resources contains a new field that allows you to indicate whether a payment is an employer-paid COBRA Premium Subsidy. If it is, you can enter or select a Batch ID for the payment (the batch lookup will display only manual check batches). These fields will be accessible only if you have assigned a COBRA subsidy benefit code in the Payroll Setup window.

The Quarterly 941 Preparation report and the Form 941 report have been changed to display COBRA subsidy information. Line 12a shows the total of the posted COBRA subsidy benefits for all employees during the associated quarter. Line 12b shows the number of employees receiving COBRA subsidy benefits during the associated quarter. The changes are included on both single-company and cross-company quarterly 941 reports.

Additionally, lines Line 7d through 7g are removed from Form 941, and Line 7h (Total Adjustments) becomes Line 7d. The form layout is changed to reflect the new field positions.

The Act specifies that employers must notify certain current and former participants and beneficiaries about the premium reduction. The U.S. Department of Labor has posted links to four model notices at http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/COBRAmodelnotice.html. You will need to decide which notification to use. A link to the Department of Labor Web site has been added to the Human Resources COBRA Recipients Lists window. There are no changes to the COBRA notifications generated by Human Resources.

March 2009 Round 4 U.S. Payroll Tax Update – 4

Setting up the COBRA subsidy
1. In the Benefit Setup window, create a new benefit code to track the employer COBRA subsidy.

2. In the Payroll Posting Accounts Setup window, assign General Ledger account codes for the employer subsidy payment (Benefit Expense and Benefit Payable).

If you do not want to post the amount to General Ledger, you can use the same account for both codes.

3. In the Payroll Setup window, assign the new benefit code as the COBRA subsidy benefit.

4. For any employees electing to receive COBRA benefits and eligible for the 65% subsidy, assign the new benefit code to the employee, using the Employee Benefit Maintenance window. Mark the Transaction Required option.

5. Inactivate the employee pay records, as well as all other deduction, benefit, and tax records for the employee.

6. Keep the employee record as well as the new COBRA benefit active.

Processing a COBRA subsidy if you are using only Payroll

1. In the Payroll Manual Check-Adjustment Entry window, enter an adjustment transaction for the employee.

2. In the Payroll Manual Check Transaction Entry window, specify the COBRA benefit code and the amount of the subsidy.

3. Post the adjustment transaction, which updates the benefit code.
4. At quarter end, print the Quarter End 941 report, which includes the COBRA subsidy amount.

I hope this in-depth review helps with your COBRA strikes.

Until next post!

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

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Add-In Initialization Error when launching Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 - Follow up

If you read my previous article on some table open operation issues I was faced with at a client, you know by now that it's important to have the proper writer permissions on the local %temp% folder. What I did not mention in that article was an issue we were also facing with the new Dynamics Online Services application.

Upon launching Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 we were also receiving an add-in initialization error as shown below:

Add-In Initalization Error

Since last month I wrote an article about this same issue, I wanted to make sure I kept this topic separated from the table open operation issues, even though they are directly related by the solution. As it turned out, writing permissions (or the lack thereof) on the %temp% folder caused the Dynamics Online Services application to fail as well with an add-in initialization error message. This error popped up a large window (shown above) detailing the nature of the problem. However, after re-enabling access to the %temp% folder the error no longer presented itself -- Another one bites the dust!

Until next post!

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

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