#GPPT Setting up GP Power Tools

So you have GP Power Tools installed on your system, how do you make sure that you are getting the most out of your subscription?

Firstly, make sure that GP Power Tools (GPPT) is installed on all workstations and servers. Everywhere the Microsoft Dynamics GP application is installed should have GP Power Tools installed.

Secondly, make sure you are running the latest build of GP Power Tools. Each build is released for the last five versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP and adds lots of new features, enhancements and fixes. Stay current to ensure you get what your subscription entitles you to. See this article for rolling out or updating GP Power Tools.

Thirdly, make sure that you leverage all the features. Many sites initially purchase GP Power Tools for a particular feature, but don’t limit your use of the product to just one feature.

NOTE: To be able to change Advanced Mode (Administrator Level) settings you will need to log into GP with a user that has access to the windows (POWERUSER or GP POWER TOOLS ADMIN Security Roles), knows the system password (if used) AND has elevated SQL Privileges (‘sa’, ‘DYNSA’ or you can add the SQL sysadmin server role to a user). Adding the sysadmin role to a standard GP user is not a security risk as the elevated rights can only be used within the GP Application due to the encrypted password.

The following information explains how to setup the System Features and Administrator Tools modules and provides a quick summary of the other features of the modules.

Administrator Password Setup

If you want GP Power Tools to use a different password (from the GP System Password) to access Administrator (Advanced Mode) windows, or want to challenge the ‘sa’ user when they log into GP with an additional password, enable the GP Power Tools Administrator Password:

Logging Settings

During the install, GP Power Tools prompts for the initial Logging Folder path, but you can complete the full setup in this window. You want to make sure you are using a UNC path to shared folder than has full control access for everyone. Enable the Rename log each day option so that you don’t have a single log file that just grows forever.

You also want to enable Macro Logging and setup SQL Profile Tracing so it can also be enabled.

To enable SQL Profile Tracing, you will need a shared folder on the SQL Server to temporarily store the trace files. You will also need a local administrator login account on the SQL Server to use when creating the trace files. Step by Step instructions are provided in Chapter 2 of the GP Power Tools User Guide (GPPTools.pdf), just press F1 or use the Help menu from any GP Power Tools window.

Email Settings

Configure the email settings by entering the system administrator or support team email address and selecting the desired Email mode. If all your workstations have Outlook installed, you can use Microsoft Outlook Client mode, otherwise you should look at SMTP Server mode. Using SMTP works on both desktop and web client without needing a password entered by the user. You can also use Exchange Web Services if SMTP is not available.

Build 29 adds Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for GP v18.3 onwards and SMTP with TLS support for Office 365 using a .Net addin DLL.

You can also set up a default template for users to log issues by editing the Subject and Body Text for the default email. For example:

Administrator Settings

Assuming that you have registered the Administrator Tools module, the next step is to configure Administrator Settings. Many settings default, but you will need to manually set up and activate some features.

Administrator Settings – Company Color Schemes

Activate Company based Color Schemes and select color themes for each company. You can use any of the over 100 built-in themes or create your own from scratch or based on an existing theme. We would recommend using the bright themes for Test companies to make it obvious when you are in a test company.

If you are using Binary Stream’s Multi-Entity Management, you can set up colors schemes based on the default entity selected within a single GP company.

You can also override color schemes for vision impaired and color blind users, if required. There is even a high contrast theme for vision impaired users.

Administrator Settings – Usability Settings

For the usability settings, we recommend the settings shown in the screenshot below as a starting point. The User Guide Manual can explain more on what each option does.

If you use Fastpath SSO, please ensure you have their latest code installed to avoid the issue discussed in this article.

Administrator Settings – Feature Settings

For the feature settings, we recommend the settings shown in the screenshot below as a starting point. The User Guide Manual can explain more on what each option does.

If enabling Automatic Open Mode for the Security Profiler, ensure your users have been instructed to export to email any security errors captured, so they can be investigated by the system administrator or support team.

Administrator Settings – License Settings

For the license settings, we recommend the settings shown in the screenshot below as a starting point. The User Guide Manual can explain more on what each option does.

Change the Automatic Logout minute values if you desire a more aggressive logout regime.

Build 29 adds to optional levels which and set either shorter or longer times on a per user and/or company, User Class, Security Task, Security Role or ModAlt ID basis. It also adds business hours so you can stop Automatic Logout being active until it is outside of business hours.

If using Automatic Logout on a Terminal Server, please ensure that any automatic termination of processes is configured for at least 30 minutes after the Automatic Logout’s setting. Or better still disable the Terminal Server setting entirely as it can cause data damage if it terminates a Microsoft Dynamics GP process when it is editing a record. For details of what can cause Automatic Logout not to work as expected, see this article.

For more information on Automatic Logout and managing User Licenses see:

Additional Settings

If you need to roll out Dex.ini settings to multiple workstations or servers, use Dex.ini Configuration. Here are a couple of examples: To remove winspool entries, add a Line Contains setting looking for “winspool=” with no value. To remove the system print dialog, add a setting for “NoPrintDialog” with a value of “TRUE”.

To troubleshoot issues by temporarily disabling Dexterity product dictionaries without needing to edit launch files or change security settings, use Dictionary Control. This window can also disable VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and VST (Visual Studio Tools) customizations.

If you want to re-order the list of companies on the Company Login window, add the Database name, hide the “Remember this company” option, or limit access to companies depending on the launch file used to start Microsoft Dynamics GP, use the Company Login Filter. This feature’s primary purpose is to prevent access to companies when the correct products or customizations are not installed. Great for multinationals or when different custom reports are used for different companies.

GP Power Tools will remember the position, size and state of windows on a per user basis. Most of the common Transaction, Inquiry and Cards windows have already been added. If you want to add more windows to the list of remembered windows, use Window Position Memory. You can also use this window to prevent an intentionally hidden window (opened off screen) from being displayed, by exempting it from the Window Position Check feature (in Administrator Settings).

To view user login and logout activity, automatic timeout activity and see the maximum daily user counts, use the User Activity Log window.

If you want to control how many sessions (concurrent user licenses) can be used by particular users and/or companies or reserve a user license for a user, use the Login Limits window. This feature can be used to stop users logging into multiple companies and hogging all the licenses.

If you want to roll out changes to the Launch file on workstations without needing to visit them, set up the desired rules in the Launch File Configuration window.

If you want to be able to dynamically select which version of a window or report to open (Original, Modified, Alternate, Modified Alternate) when you open the window, use the Dynamic Product Selection window. You no longer need two logins with different security settings. This feature can be really handy when developing and testing customizations as it can be limited to specific users (like many other settings in GPPT).

If you want to repurpose the Homepage Connect website or the Intelligent Cloud Insights website, use the Website Settings window. You can also hide the Intelligent Cloud Insights website entirely, if desired.

To check what dictionaries are installed on each workstation, or to manually change the version information that should be installed on a system, use the Product Version Validation window. This feature will warn if there is a dictionary version mismatch on login.

Resources and Security

GP Power Tools includes the Resource Information and Resource Finder windows to help understand dictionary resources and quickly find where data is stored.

There is also a suite of features for working with and extending the Microsoft Dynamics GP security model. To capture Security access events and solve security issues there are the Security Profiler and Security Information windows. To view Security Activity logs and analyze security settings to look for issues there are the Security Log and Security Analyzer windows.

To extend the Microsoft Dynamics GP security model with Deny Based Security, there are the Enhanced Security, Security Denied and Security Hidden windows. No need to duplicate Security Tasks and Security Roles to make minor changes, just deny individual resources as required.

High Resolution Monitors

If you are using a High Resolution Monitor with a DPI setting higher than 100% you will notice that the Microsoft Dynamics GP application does not scale correctly and font sizes vary on the windows vs menus vs home page. The application window also shrinks during the login process. To fix this use GP Power Tools, see the article below:

#GPPT Using Microsoft Dynamics GP with High DPI on High Resolution Monitors

Build 29 automatically applies the Bitmap Fonts and Bitmap Scaling fixes during the installation so these options should already be enabled for you. Build 30 applies these settings as part of the installer along with a fix for the Legacy Print Dialog. Using the installer should make it apply to all users on a terminal server.

Developer Tools

If you want to be able to troubleshoot non-reproducible issues, create self service scripts, or create customizations and replace VBA…. make sure you have GP Power Tools – Developer Tools registered. Load the free SQL Search Lookups and Automatic Lookups samples below:

Or these free samples that tracks changes made to customer, vendor and item records:

Here are some samples that extend Automatic Logout functionality:

Check out these articles on why you should use GP Power Tools to replace VBA and a step by step example (including a video) of how to add a custom field:

For more samples go to the GP Power Tools Samples page.

Database Tools

It would make sense to run Database Validation against all databases to ensure that the users and companies in the GP tables match the settings in SQL Server and that the tables all have the correct structures as defined in the dictionaries.

It would also be wise to run the Note Fix Utility against each company to ensure that the Record Note system has no issues and will not cause cross linked notes in the future.

If you want to be able to reset users’ passwords and send emails with their new generated password, fix user login, table structure or other issues which affect the stability of your system, copy user settings or other data, administer SQL table triggers, or recreate tables without losing data…. make sure you have GP Power Tools – Database Tools registered.

See this great article on how to format the Password Reset Emails:

#GPPT Using HMTL to format Password Reset Emails

More Information

For more information on the features and what is available in each module:

Finally, subscribe to the blog to keep informed and visit the GP Power Tools portal pages to see the latest information:

Portal: http://WinthropDC.com/GPPT
Videos: http://WinthropDC.com/GPPT/Videos
Samples: http://WinthropDC.com/GPPT/Samples

Hope this helps you get the best return on your investment.

David

05-Nov-2020: Added sections for Developer Tools and Database Tools.
11-Nov-2020: Added information on handle High Resolution Monitors.
21-Jan-2021: Added link to Updating GP Power Tools article.
29-Jan-2021: Added links to additional supporting information articles.
30-Aug-2021: Added link to Customer and Vendor Tracking sample customization project.
07-Dec-2021: Added paragraph about security access and permissions needed to change settings.
16-Aug-2022: Updated for Build 29 of GP Power Tools.
22-Aug-2023: Updated for Build 30 of GP Power Tools.
19-Jan-2024: Updated for newer samples.

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

Winthrop Development Consultants Blog

Winthrop Development Consultants Blog

This blog will keep you up to date with Winthrop Development Consultants and David’s experiences, tips and tricks as a developer and consultant in the Microsoft Dynamics GP community.