#FabrikamDay is today or is it?

Today is the 12^th of April 2017 (at least it is already in Perth) and is now known in the Microsoft Dynamics GP community as “Fabrikam Day” thanks to the Training Dynamo herself, Amber Bell.

While most customers set up a test company based on their live company’s data, partners including ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) and sales & support consultants have usually used the Sample or Lesson company that comes with Dynamics GP to demo and test.

When you log into the Sample or Lesson company by default the system will change the User Date so that it is aligned with the sample data. You will also be shown a dialog to notify you that this change of date has occurred.

As the sample company has been known as Fabrikam, Inc. or Fabrikam, Ltd. since Microsoft acquired Great Plains, that makes today Fabrikam Day, the day when the sample company date is actually correct.

I must admit that I have not seen that dialog is a number of years, not because I don’t use the sample company, but because I found a way to prevent the dialog showing and so I could save an extra mouse click.

I definitely do use the sample company and over the years have become best friends with customer/debtor AARONFIT0001 (Aaron Fitz Electrical), vendor/creditor ACETRAVE0001 (Ace Travel Company) and items 100XLG (Green Phone) & 128 SDRAM (128 meg SDRAM).

Note: Ace Travel Company was changed to A Travel Company after a real Ace Travel Company complained to Microsoft.

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So why do I question that today is Fabrikam Day? Well, it goes back to a history lesson.

Firstly, the sample company used to be called The World Online, Inc. or The World Online, Ltd. This is why the sample company database is usually called TWO and not something like FAB.

But also the automatic changing of the date for the sample company was not always part of Dynamics GP. I did some digging through older versions and have gathered the following information :

Version 8.0

According to the comments in the source code, Brian Roney made the change on 27-Jan-2004 to make the date change when logging into the lesson or sample company. The date that was used was 12^th of April 2007.

27Jan04  BRONEY  PR41770 : Lesson Company date change.

Version 10.0

When version 10.0 was released, 2007 had arrived and a decision to move the sample data forward ten years was made. To match the data on 02-Mar-2007 Rob Wagner adjusted the code to the date we have today 12^th of April 2017.

02Mar07  RJWAGNER Move sample date data ahead by 10 years.

Also at the same time the Dex.ini setting was added which allowed the Sample Company Date dialog to be suppressed. Just add the following setting to your Dex.ini file (or use GP Power Tools Dex.ini Settings window to make the change for you):

SAMPLEDATEMSG=FALSE

Version 11.0

It seems that changing the date caused some problems with the testing macros and so a method to override the date and return it to 2007 (or any other date) was added by Rob Wagner on 26-Jun-2007.

26Jun07  RJWAGNER BUG# 40081 – VPC – Need to override the date set to 04/12/2017 for the TWO company

The following Dex.ini setting can be used to set the sample company date to any valid value, if the date is not valid it will fall back to the default.

SAMPLEDATEMMDDYYYY=04122007

So… is today Fabrikam Day or did that happen ten years ago? Should it be The World Online Day?

Should we all set the date forward another ten years and run a script to add ten years to the demo data?

[Ed] I created the script… because I could. check out the article below:

• #FabrikamDay How to quickly update the sample data to 2027

Here is a screenshot of the PowerPoint slide I created for the occasion with all the logos (click on it to expand).

Anyhow.. Enjoy Fabrikam Day 2017 and join the Skype Meeting celebration organised by Pam Misialek (Yes, this is the meeting link):

It’s Fabrikam Day! Join me to celebrate live and have some fun. Work can wait for a little bit. We will start at 4:00 and the big count down will be 4:12 EST. (Ed: That’s 4am Perth time.)

Trivia, old stories, of course, but new stories too. It’s time to relax and just be with friends.

Be prepared to do a Skype video with your team. Group together as much as possible. GP unites. I understand for some of you it’s not a convenient time, so feel free to organize your own event at 4:12 on 4/12/2017.

Please forward to our community who know how weird but important this day is. 😊

Also I will be doing trivia throughout the day with the #FabrikamDay tag. So, so watch twitter too.

Pam

Join Skype Meeting (this is the link too)

Watch for updates on Twitter using the #FabrikamDay hash tag.

David

13-Apr-2017: Added link to article with scripts to update sample company data.

This article was originally posted on http://www.winthropdc.com/blog.