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March 30, 2005

Client Upgrade

I just completed a client upgrade from Microsoft Great Plains 5.5 on Pervasive to 8.0 on SQL Server.

I went to the client site last Friday to install SQL Server and copy the Great Plains CD’s to the server. I also installed GoToMyPc to their new server so I can access it remotely. Then, after they closed Friday night, I started the upgrade.

First I copied their data to the new server, but still in version 5.5. I ran the file maintenance to make the data as clean as possible. Then I started the 5.5 to 7.5 upgrade.

Saturday morning, I reviewed the progress and both companies (they have two) had upgraded successfully. I install and set up the two companies in the SQL server and started the Pervasive to SQL Server migration running.

Later in the day I reviewed the Pervasive to SQL migration and found complete and successful. That’s when I install version 8.0 and started that upgrade running.

Sunday morning I reviewed the 8.0 upgrade and it too looked good. I ran check links on the smaller company and the started check links running on the larger company.

Sunday night all the data maintenance was done. I was unable to upgrade the reports dictionary and left that for Monday morning.

Monday morning I upgraded the reports dictionary from 5.5 to 7.5 to 8.0. A few forms need to be tweaked, but it went smoother than expected. Then did a CD installation on a station. From there I created an installation template and rolled out the client side installation to all the other station.

The rest of the day was spent tweaking the system were necessary and training users on the new interface. The 5.5 to 8.0 jump is a very big one and I’m afraid most users where going through some culture shock.

But, they didn’t beat me up too badly. Besides, I expect that and I have a pretty thick hide. I showed them some of the new whiz-band features and some users were impressed.

This is a relatively new client for me. They previously used a different Great Plains reseller. I don’t like to speak evil of the dead, but I would have set them up quite a bit differently.

Unfortunately this is not the first time I’ve come into a situation where I took over from someone else and I’m just surprised many people don’t think through all the implications of setup and offer the user some of the various options.

I feel I can do quite a bit to help this client reduce some of their workload while giving them better and quicker access to key data. But clients sometimes choose not to pursue potential benefits for multiple reasons. Sometimes it’s the money. At $140+ per hour for my time, it can be expensive to do. Also, many clients are so absorbed by the day-to-day operations that they can’t see the benefit from what Great Plains can do.

I fight those same constraints in my own professional life. I’m guilty of the same sins as my clients, so I understand.

All I can do it so plant seeds and water them from time-to-time.

Still, from what I see, I think I can do some very nice work for this client and I think they’ll be pleased with the results. But that is ultimately their decision.

Posted by Ted at 12:02 PM

March 29, 2005

A Little More about Project Green

I recently came across something by Satya Nadella, one Corporate Vice Presidents at Microsoft Business Solutions (Great Plains). He spoke about “Project Green”. Project Green is Microsoft’s project to consolidate Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, and Axapta all into one code base.

He said they have interviewed over 2,000 business people in one-on-one interviews to see what they want in their business software. Satya uses the term “Affordable Adaptability”.

He went on to say, that Project Green will ship in two waves. The first wave will go out between 2005 and 2007. This will include a common user experience, portal, business intelligence integration and a web services layer.

If that description doesn’t confuse you, you obviously weren’t paying attention.

He says the second wave will start shipping in 2008. I’d use his descriptions, but even I can’t figure out what he’s talking about.

In attempting to translate what he says, it looks like the Business Portal will become the primary method users will access their software. He also says that the reporting is going to be through the SQL Reporting Services.

I don’t consider the last part bad. Although I’m very partial to Crystal Reports, you can’t expect Microsoft to not tout their own solutions. Also, I won’t be sorry to see Great Plains Report Writer evaporate. It works, but it’s not the best tool in the drawer.

The next generation of Great Plains or whatever they wind up calling it is going to be oriented towards user roles. That is, the order entry person will get certain screens and functions, while the Payables person will get a different set.

It appears the Microsoft is very aggressive about putting their business software where businesses want it. Although it may be difficult to figure out what Satya is saying, he is obviously enthusiastic.

It looks like the future with Microsoft will at least be interesting.

Posted by Ted at 02:33 PM

March 25, 2005

More about Spyware

I recieved an email from someone that does computer hardware and he says...

I just finished working on a customer’s computer that was littered with adware and spyware. I updated AdAware and SpyBot then ran scans with both. They both found many problems and fixed them. I then installed Microsoft’s version of Anti-Spyware. Microsoft’s version found more than the other two put together.

If you'd like to download Microsoft's Anti-Spwyare product, just click here.

Posted by Ted at 05:06 PM

New Payroll Tax Updates Released

Payroll Tax updates have been released for Great Plains versions 7.0, 7.5 and 8.0. If you're running payroll, you can download the updates from CustomerSource.

Of course, you must be current on your enhancement plan to access them.

Posted by Ted at 09:30 AM

March 24, 2005

Crystal Reports - Are you legal?

Are you running Crystal Reports legally? As you know Crystal Reports comes on a CD. But the software license with that CD is for installation on only one computer. If you’re installing the software on multiple computers, Crystal wants to you purchase a multi-user license.

I only became aware of this a couple of years ago myself.

If you click on the Price Lists links on the left you can see how much a multi-user license costs you. They go in five packs. Don’t forget to add the 16% enhancement fee to the price.

The thing to remember with Crystal is, its number of installed licenses, not the number of concurrent users.

There is nothing to physically stopping you from installing it on multiple computers, it’s up to you and your sense of honesty.

Posted by Ted at 10:20 AM

Paying your bills early can pay

Information Week highlights one company (The Williams Cos.) that has discovered, surprise, surprise, that paying your bills early and getting a discount for doing it, can save a ton of money.

This company used to take 45 days to pay their bills. Now they have an online payment system in which vendors can log in, decide how much discount to give their customer and then get paid in time period related to that discount.

The first year in operation, they expect to save $1 million.

I don’t call the "chicken feed".

Posted by Ted at 08:12 AM

March 23, 2005

Two Great Plains 8.0 Extensions: SmartList Builder & Extender

Microsoft Business Solutions has purchased the rights to two third party add-on from eOne. The two products are for Great Plains and they are calling them Version 8 extensions.

SmartList Builder
One is called SmartList Builder. It allows you to create even more SmartLists than currently come with Great Plains. You can create virtually any query in the SmartList and even link in tables from Third-Party Applications. I suspect, some knowledge of SQL is required to use this product.

Here’s the official list of bells and whistles

Extender
The other extension is called Extender. This allows you to add new windows to any Great Plains window, add new fields to windows, create new lookup windows and more without writing any code.

Here’s the official feature list

I discussed Extender with someone who is a Dexterity programmer and has used Extender. Microsoft Great Plains is written in Dexterity. He praised the Extender developer team. Extender is, of course, written in Dexterity. He was amazed they could do so much with Dexterity to create the Extender product.

That said, he stated it has limitations. He went on to relate a tale of woe, I won’t repeat here. Suffice it to say, Extender works very well for relatively simple projects. But if you get too involved, Dexterity is the solution of choice.

The Other Shoe
I just have two reservations for these enhancements.

1) They could complicate the upgrade process. When version 9.0 is released, not only will we be upgrading Great Plains, but we will also be upgrading these add-ons.

2) Microsoft has an OEM agreement for these, they have not purchased them. My worry there is, OEM agreements can evaporate. Then clients could be stuck with an orphan. I’d feel a little more comfortable if Microsoft had purchased them outright.

Maybe the Aussies are better negotiators and felt they could make more money selling them piecemeal as opposed to a lump sum.

Although I have some reservations, I don't see them as show stoppers. I think you should take a serious look at these enhancements to see if they would improve your productivity.

Look at the prices lists links to see what it'll cost you.

Posted by Ted at 10:21 AM

March 22, 2005

New Microsoft Great Plains Pricing

New price lists for Microsoft Great Plains have been released. You can find them on the left panel. Just click on Great Plains Professional Pricing for Great Plains Standard Pricing.

The ony changes I know of have to do with the recently released Version 8 extensions.

More on those later.

Posted by Ted at 03:59 PM

I'm not sure this is good news

Information Week reports that Dell Computer is opening its third call center in India. The new call center will be in Mohali.

So the next time you’re online with Dell Tech Support, ask them how the weather is in Mohali.

I rather hope Microsoft Great Plains doesn't go this route.

Posted by Ted at 02:46 PM

Best Buy for Business?

I just received a catalog from Best Buy. They call it Best Buy Business. It looks like Best Buy has a site specifically for businesses.

The catalog highlights HP hardware, but the web site seems to have a wider selection. I don’t know if I’m going to buy anything from them, but I did find it interesting that they’re trying to go after the small business market.

Posted by Ted at 12:17 PM

March 21, 2005

Under Promise, Over Deliver

I almost hit the jackpot today. I ordered one of these little 200GB USB external hard drives the other day. Dell had one of the best prices, so ordered it from Dell. It coasts me a little over $200.

It arrived today.

I thought the box was large and heavy for the size. I looked at the attached packing slip to make sure it was what I had ordered. The packing slip confirmed what I expected to received.

When I opened the box I found four drives instead of one. For a little over $200 I had received over $800 in hard drives.

Tempting as it was to keep them, we got on the phone to Dell and they are sending a call tag to pick up the drives I didn’t order.

I can see how the error was made. The warehouse person picked one case instead of one drive. There would have been no way Dell could ever have accounted for the missing three drives.

Posted by Ted at 04:19 PM

Project Green gets pushed into the Future

Microsoft’s next generation of Great Plains is getting pushed more into the future. It seems that even Microsoft, with all it billions of dollars, has limitations.

One of the things I read is that Microsoft Business Solutions, the division that has Great Plains, lost $29 million on sales of $211 million. That’s not good.

Microsoft is pursuing two projects: Longhorn and Green. Where do they get these project names?

Longhorn is the project to replace Windows XP and Windows 2003. Project Green is to combines Great Plains, Axapta, Solomon and Navision into one common code base.

Microsoft has pledged to support your Great Plains through 2013. For more details, click this link.

Posted by Ted at 09:39 AM

March 18, 2005

Spyware/Adware

Information Week had an interview with one company’s struggle to stay ahead of Spyware or Adware.

They conclude – there is no magic bullet. As he says,

“It's piecemeal. We're using several different tools, including Microsoft's Spyware tool, Ad-Aware, Trend Micro's OfficeScan, and manual removal methods.”

Here are some reviews of various anti-Spyware packages.

Review 1     Review 2     Review 3     Review 4

Posted by Ted at 04:48 PM

Great Plains Reports Released

Microsoft Great Plains will release eight free reports for use with the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services...

These reports are...

The Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services is included with your SQL Server 2000. To get the Reporting Services up and running you will need the following components.

Report Server – A web service that handles report management and Processing. It connects to a SQL Server database.
Report Server Database – Your Great Plains Data
Report Manager – A web-based tool for managing Report Server.
Report Designer – They recommend using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

Users do NOT need the Visual Studio .NET to view the report.

I sat through a half-hour online demo of how you put a report together. As you may know, I’m a large fan of Crystal Reports.

In watching the video and comparing it to Crystal, I can only conclude it is a different tool. In the demo they can only show you so much. The sample they gave was not very complicated.

I guess I conclude I’m not ready to abandon Crystal at this time. If someone wants some reports from the Reporting Services, then I’m pretty sure I can come up to speed pretty quickly on it.

If you’d like to view some of the video yourself, click on this link. When you have page up, click on the link that say “RSDemoAuthoring Download”.

Posted by Ted at 11:47 AM

March 16, 2005

Great Plains and Adobe Acrobat

A little bit ago one of our clients upgraded to Microsoft Great Plains 8.0. Last week I was back for some follow-up.

One of the things the client wanted to make sure was working was emailing documents out of Great Plains as PDF files.

In Great Plains you can print a PO, customer invoice or anything to the screen. After printing to the screen, you can just click on Send To >> Mail Recipient (PDF). Click here to see the screen.

When you do that, Great Plains will launch Microsoft Outlook and then insert the document you have on the screen as a PDF attachment to your email. You have only to enter the email address and appropriate text and send to your recipient.

This was not working as advertised. You must have Adobe Acrobat Writer installed for this to work. We did have it installed, but some stations were Acrobat 5.0, some were Acrobat 6.0 and some were Acrobat 7.0.

We queried Microsoft Great Plains tech support and they said they had not fully tested Acrobat 7.0 compatibility. In our own testing we found conflicting results. We found that if the document was a big enough PDF, Adobe choked creating the PDF and we received an error message:

“When you create a PostScript file you have to send the host fonts. Please go to the printer properties, "Adobe PDF Settings" page and turn OFF the option "Do not send fonts to host Distiller."

It was a long hard struggle. In the end, we put everyone back on Adobe Acrobat 5.0. It was the only version that worked all the time. It was also a lot faster than Acrobat 6.0 or 7.0. The client was less than pleased that we had to use the older version, but reliability took precedence over latest and greatest.

Posted by Ted at 12:30 PM

March 15, 2005

Is Windows 2003 really more secure that Linux?

A recent study found that Windows 2003 Server had fewer security vulnerabilities than the fabled Linux. There are some, however, that argue the study was flawed. I think this is the most telling comment.

"A lot of people are under the impression that one platform has more advantages," said one of the critics, Max Clark, a network consultant with Intercore, a Los Angeles-based consulting firm that provides support for both Windows and Linux systems. "The expertise of the person deploying it is what matters. The default configurations are important, but once you start consolidating software on top of the system, the system is only as secure as what's running on it."

If you’re interested, click the link and read the article for yourself.

Posted by Ted at 04:49 PM

March 14, 2005

EAI moves to new location

One of our clients, Eric Armin Inc. (EAI) has moved to a new location. They are a heavy user of Great Plains on the Microsoft SQL Server database. The Sales Order Processing, Inventory Control and Purchase Order Processing modules are the tip-of-the-spear for EAI. They also make heavy use of Crystal Reports.

They out-grew their previous location and now have a warehouse that almost holds all their inventory.

Congratulations to EAI on their new location! May their success continue unabated.

Posted by Ted at 08:44 AM

March 11, 2005

Integrate your Great Plains to the web

I just went through the demo for eStore Advantage from Nodus Technologies.

It integrates Great Plains to the shopping cart on your web site. When a customer finishes his order on the web, it shows up almost instantly in Great Plains.

This is an expensive product - $12,000. But it also includes online credit card authorization for Great Plains as that is part of eStore Advantage. It is highly customizable. They don’t do the implementation, but they provide a lot of documentation on how to implement it.

In the demo, the customer email address was what distinguished them as a unique customer. But that was on the web site. The customer email address is NOT the customer number in Great Plains.

You can also push inventory information, (pricing, qty on hand) back up to the web site.

I will say this, it IS expensive, but it is very cool.

Posted by Ted at 12:45 PM

March 10, 2005

Sales Comparison Report

This is a Crystal Report I’ve done for several clients. It prompts the user for two ranges of dates and then compares the sales for those two date ranges.

This means the user can compare this month to the same month last year or two years ago. They can compare this month to last month. They can compare the current quarter to any other quarter or the whole year to another year.

If you click here and you can download a PDF for some sample data.

I wind up modifying this report to meet a client’s specific requirements. They may want to consolidate by salesperson, customer, state or almost anything.

I think it’s informative.

Posted by Ted at 07:47 PM

March 09, 2005

Crystal XI Released

Crystal Reports XI has been released.

I just received a brochure in the mail describing Crystal XI and it looks nice. Those who know me know I am a big fan of Crystal Reports. It really lets me extract the information stored in Great Plains in a readable useful format.

I have done over 150 reports for one client alone.

Some of the new features that look good are...

1) Dependency Checker - the brochure says, “Quickly find broken links, formula errors and dependency issues.” That looks handy.

2) Cascading Prompts – In this case, it allows me to design a report in which prompts to the user can depend on how the user responded to a previous prompt. For example, I could first prompt the user for state and then after the user picked a state, I could then prompt him for a city within THAT state. Very cool.

3) Dynamic Prompts – one of my frustrations with Crystal in the past is giving the user a selection list to pick from. For example, if I wanted to give the user a choice of salesperson ID to pick from, I could do that. However, if the user later added more salespeople to Great Plains, those salespeople would not show up in my pick list until I refreshed it. Crystal XI seems to have answered that. This is a big one for me.

If you’re a Great Plains user and you have purchased Crystal Reports, you should automatically get Crystal XI, when you get the next release of Great Plains. Unfortunately, I don’t know when that is.

However, I am rather hot to get my hands on Crystal XI.

Posted by Ted at 08:50 PM

March 06, 2005

Setting Sales Order Processing Batch Numbers

A client recently migrated his data from the old GPA (DOS) to Great Plains on SQL server. He has the Sales Order Processing (SOP) module for entering customer orders.

The way they work is, each day they enter customer orders and invoices. The next morning, a girl downstairs reviews those orders and invoices and then posts them.

In the old DOS version, the guys doing the order entry had to stay out of the system until the girl downstairs had completed her work.

I felt their best bet would be to have a separate batch for each day of the week. That way they could still work upstairs, while the girl downstairs did her work. So, I created six SOP batches (MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, and SATURDAY). They are open half the day on Saturday.

After a couple of days, it became apparent the guys entering orders would not always pick the correct batch to put the order in. Normally, once you start entering invoices into a batch, the batch number doesn’t change. But if you pull up a SOP document from another batch, then the default batch number is changed to the batch number on the document you just viewed.

To resolve this situation I created a SQL script that runs every night about 8:00 pm. It goes through all the SOP documents and looks at the date on the document. If figures out what day of the week this is and then, if the document is not in the correct batch, it puts into the right batch.

Now when the girl downstairs reviews all the invoices from the prior day, she can be sure she’s getting all of them.

This is one of the things I like about SQL. I can create scripts that run as frequently as I need and they can clean up a lot of the data – and they are completely transparent to the user.

Posted by Ted at 03:14 PM

March 02, 2005

Scheduled Away Mission

I’m out of the office for the rest of the week. I’ll be working at a client site during that time period.

Posted by Ted at 12:48 PM

March 01, 2005

Client MSDE Upgrade

A client had upgraded from the old Great Plains Accounting (DOS) to the Microsoft Great Plains last year.

Well, actually, he purchased the upgrade and then hired me to do the installation and work about April of last year.

When purchasing Microsoft Great Plains there are two databases that can be used: Microsoft SQL Sever and MSDE (Microsoft Desktop Engine).

Both are really SQL, but while the runtime version of SQL costs $450 for the server and the $100 for each client, the MSDE is free.

The downside is, MSDE comes with NO SQL management tools and it limits the user to a 2GB database. The client had been sold Great Plains with the MSDE database.

Last week he received the message that he was very near to the 2GB limit.

He called, I ordered, and today I installed the Runtime version of SQL Server 2000. According to the TechKnowledge from the Microsoft Great Plains web site, SQL would see the MSDE and upgrade it.

I backed up the important stuff and then followed their recommendations.

Guess what? It worked. It didn’t take very long and with the addition of new registration keys, he was back in business. Actually, he was never out of business, but it would warn all users the size limit was close.

I don’t really know what would have happened had he reached the limit, but I suspect it would not have been good.

Now he is only limited by server disk space.

Posted by Ted at 08:46 PM

And Now for Something Completely Different

I know this may be a little different, but from this point forward, the site will have a Weblog or Blog on the home page. The Blog will chronicle various projects that Eastern Business Solutions does with client and point out new developments from Microsoft as well as the industry in general.

I hope you find this interesting and informative.

My thank you to Chad Everett at Everitz Consulting for his help installing the Blog software Movable Type. Chad is easy to work with and does nice work.

Thank you, Chad.

Postings to this Blog will be irregular.

I’m not completely satisfied with the look of the web site, but I will be the first to tell you, I have no eye for graphic design. I’m a database geek. To me a beautiful thing is a nicely formatted report that gives the client an insight into his business he didn’t have previously.

Ted Armstrong

Posted by Ted at 08:24 PM