Yesterday GP Power Tools build 26 was released. This build has numerous enhancements to existing functionality as well as some awesome new features. Automatic Logout has been enhanced further in builds 27 through to build 29.
One of the features that has been requested by the community for a while and is now included in the GP Power Tools – Administrator Tools module is Automatic Logout.
The best thing is that all existing GP Power Tools sites get all the new features for free just by updating their system to the current build. Download from here.
The Automatic Logout feature can be enabled from the bottom half of the fourth “License” tab of the Administrator Settings window. (Notice the Company Color Themes and Window Title changes applied by GP Power Tools.)
The Automatic Logout feature can be enabled with a single click on the Enable Automatic Logout of inactive users checkbox. Once enabled you can set the time limit in minutes. You also have the option to control exactly which users and/or companies you want the feature enabled for by clicking the Users Button. For example below shows the feature is enabled for everyone except the ‘sa’ user:
For Build 29 onwards, you have two optional levels of timeout that can be enabled and the users selected. This allows for a shorter and/or longer timeout value to be used rather than the default timeout value.
Next, you have the option to Enabled an additional user license sensitive level which allows you to impose a more aggressive automatic logout when your available user licenses falls below a specified percentage. You can then set the threshold percentage and the shorter time limit.
Also for Build 29 onwards, you can apply business hours to disable automatic logout for specified users during business hours. As soon as it becomes “out of hours” the Automatic Logout functionality will become enabled.
There is an option to Check for SQL activity before logging out inactive users but this is not recommended. The reason is that Microsoft Dynamics GP has background timed processes which run every minute and update the last activity timestamp for the current user’s SQL session, thus preventing GP from logging out. This is an issue that has been discussed on the forums. It is best to leave this option off and rely on Dexterity monitoring for activity. You will get a warning to this effect when you try to enable the option.
Once enabled Automatic Logout uses a timed background process (which does not effect the SQL last activity) to check every minute whether there has been any activity. This process displays when it will next run as well as when the last activity was tracked and the current number of minutes allowed.
By default, once there has been no activity for the number of minutes specified, an Automatic Logout dialog will open and count down the final minute. You can decide to Exit Now or Cancel the dialog, or if left for 60 seconds it will close and start the process of logging out.
If you would prefer, this dialog can be disabled with the Disable Automatic Logout warning dialog when logging out option. Then users get no advanced warning that they are about to be logged out. You also have the ability to control the use of the warning dialog on a user and/or company basis. For example the dialog is only disabled for the user David because he keeps cancelling but not actually doing anything in GP:
We can tell that David is pressing Cancel as everything that happens with the Automatic Logout feature is tracked in the new User Activity Tracking feature and the Security Activity tracking feature can also show me when David last used a window in GP.
Now we come to the last feature of the Automatic Logout functionality in GP Power Tools. This feature is something really special. One of the big issues when attempting to logout is how to handle open windows. Enabling the Attempt to save changes on open windows when logging out option will get GP Power Tools to attempt to click Save or OK buttons on any windows that need to be saved and have data in all their required fields (in the reverse order to which they were opened). This smart feature increases the chance of the automatic logout being able to complete successfully. Note that we can also monitor how many attempts have been made to automatically logout versus how many were successful as this data is also tracked by the User Activity Tracking feature.
From Build 28 onwards, the ability to control the behavior of the date change dialog, that would normally open at midnight, was added. This setting can override any Dex.ini settings to hide the dialog and either leave the date or automatically advance the date.
Also added in Build 28, on the Usability tab are option to close the Login and Switch Company windows if left open, this option is on and set at 5 minutes by default. Build 29 added the option the automatically close the Report Writer Screen Output window if it is left open and is also on and set to 5 minutes by default. Closing the Screen Output window stops it holding up the background processing queue.
A final note about how GP Power Tools logs out. Once the system has made the decision to exit Microsoft Dynamics GP it uses the same method to exit as the Exit after Processes option that GP Power Tools adds to the application menus. This method performs a graceful exit after any background processes that might be running have completed. This ensures that any work that the system was doing is completed and that there is no risk of orphaned records or data damage.
We are proud to bring you the most powerful and flexible method of logging out inactive users available for Microsoft Dynamics GP.
For more information on managing your user licenses see:
- #GPPT Automatic Logout for Microsoft Dynamics GP
- #GPPT Why does Automatic Logout fail to work?
- #GPPT Why Does The Report Writer Screen Close Automatically?
- #GPPT Automatic Logout Not Identifying Activity and Logging Out
- #GPPT Closing External Applications with Automatic Logout
- #GPPT Remotely requesting immediate Automatic Logout
For more information see:
- GP Power Tools Portal: http://winthropdc.com/GPPT
- GP Power Tools webpage: https://www.winthropdc.com/products_GPPT.htm
Enjoy
David
15-Feb-2019: Added link to article on managing user licenses with GP Power Tools.
16-Apr-2021: Added link to Automatic Logout troubleshooting article.
16-Sep-2022: Updated Article for Build 29 features.
20-Jan-2023: Added link to article about Report Writer Screen Output window.
23-Jan-2023: Added article explaining how to handle when Automatic Logout does not detect activity.
12-Jan-2024: Added article with Immediate Automatic Logout sample.
This article was originally posted on http://www.winthropdc.com/blog.
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