#GPPT Where can I find GP Power Tools Documentation

GP Power Tools incorporates a feedback survey which it will prompt an administrator user 30 days after a new installation or 2 days after an updated installation.

The history behind the survey goes back to the Support Debugging Tool days. The SDT did not have any registration system and downloads were not being tracked, so it was an attempt to get usage data and product feedback to help justify the continued development of the tool.

Anyhow, one of the questions asks for a score between 1 and 9 for Documentation and a number of respondents have given a low score over the years.

#GPPT Automating or Customizing the Report Destination Window

As promised, following on from the previous article: #Dexterity Automating or Customizing the Report Destination Window, this article shows how you can achieve the automating of the Report Destination dialogs using GP Power Tools – Development Tools module, including the dialogs in the Dexterity Runtime Engine.

In case you missed it: Dynamics GP ISV Virtual Round Up!

Last month, nine well known Microsoft Dynamics GP ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) held the first Dynamics GP ISV Virtual Round Up.

The Round Up consisted of nine one hour presentations spread over two days and was offered free to the Microsoft Dynamics GP Community for both Partners and Customers.

#GPPT Why does Automatic Logout fail to work?

Build 26 of GP Power Tools introduced a new Automatic Logout feature for Microsoft Dynamics GP. This functionality was further enhanced in Build 27 and again in the upcoming Build 28 release.

While there are other solutions which can log out inactive users, the implementation in GP Power Tools has many enhancements and features not available in other offerings.

However, there are also times when Automatic Logout has been reported not to work. Read on to understand what is happening….

#GPPT GP Power Tools Build 28 Sneak Peek

In the last few blog articles I have mentioned that I am working hard on development of the next release of GP Power Tools Build 28.

Here is sneak peek at some of the features coming in the next build. There are already a number of sites using beta releases of Build 28 in their live environments making sure that everything is working perfectly.

Solved: Visual Studio Tools Addins fail after importing packages

I have been fairly quiet recently on the blog and forums as I have been concentrating on developing the next build of GP Power Tools. All I can say is that it is awesome and you will love it. I have a “Sneak Peak” article coming soon.

While working on the development and testing process, I had some unusual behaviour from my .Net Visual Studio Tools Addins and spent an entire day troubleshooting the issue so I could identify the cause and work out a solution. Read on for the gory details….

You are invited to the Dynamics GP ISV Virtual Round Up!

In May, nine well known Microsoft Dynamics GP ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) will helping the GP Community to keep learning during this time of pandemic and working from home.

We are hosting a free virtual conference with two half days of presentations called the Dynamics GP ISV Virtual Round Up.

#GPPT Converting .Net Execute Scripts from C# to VB.Net

Following on from the previous articles: #GPPT Speeding Up Referencing Modifier Added Fields and staying Web Client compatible and #GPPT Referencing Modifier Added Fields in the Web Client using .Net Execute, this article looks how we can use VB.Net rather than C# as the scripting language in the .Net Execute scripts.

Both VB.Net and C# use the .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR) and it is usually possible to write exactly the same code in either language. So we will duplicate our existing C# scripts and convert them to VB.Net, then we will duplicate the triggers to call the new scripts.

#GPPT Speeding Up Referencing Modifier Added Fields and staying Web Client compatible

Using the method discussed in the article #GPPT Referencing Modifier Added Fields in the Web Client using .Net Execute it was possible able to get past some of the limitations mentioned in the article Dynamics.Application Object not available on Web Client.

However, running the .Net (C# or VB.Net) code is slightly slower than running the Dexterity (sanScript) code. This article explains a method of how to improve Desktop Client performance while staying compatible with the Web Client.

#GPPT Referencing Modifier Added Fields in the Web Client using .Net Execute

You probably saw the recent article: Dynamics.Application Object not available on Web Client where I described an issue that was recently discovered and meant that the “Continuum” based triggers and scripts used to reference Modifier Added Fields in GP Power Tools – Developer Tools module were unable to work in the Web Client.

I mentioned a workaround that would function with the current GP Power Tools code when running on the Web Client (and Desktop Client). This article will show how you can use scripts in the .Net Execute Setup window to reference Modifier Added Fields.

#GPPT Disabling Manual Entry of SOP Number Field

Recently on the GPUG Open Forum, Jeff Roe asked if it was possible to disable manual entry by users into the SOP Number field on the Sales Transaction Entry (SOP_Entry) window.

I suggested using GP Power Tools – Developer Tools module to create a quick trigger to lock or disable the field. As Jeff is already a GP Power Tools user and has the Developer Tools module registered, I created the required code and posted it on the forum thread. Here is a slightly more detailed version of the forum response.

#GPPT Reporting for Minnesota’s Wage Theft Law

This article is comes about thanks to my friend, Melissa Brown, who approached me for a solution to a reporting requirement she had for a customer due to new legislation brought in by the US state of Minnesota.

The requirement was not possible to solve with the Dynamics Report Writer alone as it involved an array in a table which prevented a static relationship from working to retrieve the data needed.

#GPPT Dexterity Samples for Datatype Conversions

The previous article: #GPPT Parsing Returned SQL Data into Rows and Columns had some examples of how to convert string representations of various datatypes back to their native datatypes.

With GP Power Tools, it is a common technique to store additional data in the DUOS (Dynamic User Object Store) table (SY90000). However, the DUOS uses a 132 character string field to store the data and so datatype conversions in both directions will be needed.

#GPPT Parsing Returned SQL Data into Rows and Columns

When writing customizations using GP Power Tools as your development tool, there may be times where you need to return a SQL query as a data set to your Trigger Setup script or Runtime Execute Setup script.

It is possible to display a data set to the end user in a SQL Results window using the MBS_SQL_Results helper function. If you have “Goto” actions defined, the MBS_SQL_Results_Goto helper function will display the data and enable the SQL Goto functionality.

But what if we don’t want the data displayed to the user and just need to use the data in your code.

#GPPT Unknown Identifier Error when working against Modified windows

Dexterity is the native language of Microsoft Dynamics GP. It is an amazing development environment that is still the best and most powerful tool to integrate with the Dynamics GP User Interface. While Dexterity was originally developed in the late 1980’s, it has been continuously developed and extended with more and more features and functionality which allow it to handle everything needed for modern business applications AND still be completely backwards compatible to its original release.

However, Dexterity does have some limitations: It is a little bit more complex if you need to integrate with other third party dictionaries and it cannot work with modified windows. GP Power Tools extends Dexterity’s scripting capabilities to make it possible to easily work with multiple dictionaries and with modified windows.

#BPST Getting Service Based Architecture (SBA) working

Karsten Johnson from the Microsoft Dynamics GP support and services team has published a fantastic blog article all about Installing and Troubleshooting Microsoft Dynamics GP Service Based Architecture (SBA).

Winthrop Development Consultants’ product Batch Posting Service Toolkit (BPST) allows posting as well as retrieving, creating, editing and deleting of transaction batches with REST based web service calls using Service Base Architecture.

#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Video Demonstration

Welcome to the eighth and final article in the series of articles that explains in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.

The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:

• #GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Introduction

In this article we will put everything in the previous articles together in a video demonstration of the steps.

#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Publishing the project

Welcome to the seventh article in the series of articles that explain in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.

The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:

• #GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Introduction

In this article we will adjust security and GP Power Tools settings to publish the customization to all users.

#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Modifying the report

Welcome to the sixth article in the series of articles that explain in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.

The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:

• #GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Introduction

In this article we will use Report Writer to modify the Detailed Item List report to add a calculated field which in turn calls the custom RW Function created in the previous article.

#GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Creating the RW function

Welcome to the fifth article in the series of articles that explain in detail the steps to add a user defined custom field to a window using Modifier, Report Writer and GP Power Tools to add the business logic.

The series should be read in order starting with the introduction article:

• #GPPT Beginner’s Guide to Adding Custom Fields – Introduction

In this article we will use GP Power Tools to create a custom Report Writer (RW) function which will allow our custom URL field to be easily added to reports in the Report Writer.