#DynamicsCon Vote for Session: Microsoft Dynamics GP Development – Choosing the Right Tool

The next installment of DynamicsCon conference is scheduled for 20^th to 23^rd September 2021. The session submission period is over and now we enter the session voting period until 28^th July.

During this voting period all registered attendees have 12 votes to apply to sessions as they wish, then the votes will be tallied and the final session lists published. See this explanation for more details of the process.

#GPPT Best Practices for Programmatically Updating Fields on Windows

Here is another simple customization I thought it would be worth publishing because it allows us to discuss some best practices and also show some cool techniques.

I received an email from a user who wanted to use GP Power Tools to replace some VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) code using GP Power Tools. They wanted to update a SOP (Sales Order Processing) Sales Transaction Entry User Defined Field based automatically but the code they had developed was not working.

#GPPT Forcing Exclusive Use of Microsoft Dynamics GP Windows

I was recently informed of an issue that a Microsoft Dynamics GP customer site was facing where having more than one user in a particular window at the same time was causing issues.

While the issue has been logged with Microsoft Support, the fix will not be available for a while, so I was asked how easy would it be to force the window to only work exclusively for a single user at a time using GP Power Tools.

The answer…. very easy …. initially.

#GPPT Purchase Order Processing Lock Cost Part 3

This article completes the creation of a GP Power Tools customization to prevent POP Receivings from updating the Originating Invoice Cost field on the Item Vendors Maintenance window.

Please make sure you have read the previous articles before continuing:

• #GPPT Purchase Order Processing Lock Cost Part 1
• #GPPT Purchase Order Processing Lock Cost Part 2

In the previous articles we used GP Power Tools to identify the table and field we want to work with as well as the script responsible for making the change to the field during the receivings posting process and then used triggers to restore the previous value of the field when posting receivings transactions.

#GPPT Purchase Order Processing Lock Cost Part 2

This article continues the creation of a GP Power Tools customization to prevent POP Receivings from updating the Originating Invoice Cost field on the Item Vendors Maintenance window.

Please make sure you have read the previous article before continuing:

• #GPPT Purchase Order Processing Lock Cost Part 1

In the previous article we used GP Power Tools to identify the table and field we want to work with as well as the script responsible for making the change to the field during the receivings posting process.

#GPPT Purchase Order Processing Lock Cost Part 1

I was recently working with a GP Power Tools customer who wanted to solve an issue with how the Purchase Order Processing (POP) module on their Microsoft Dynamics GP system functions.

They have international suppliers who specify the cost for their inventory items on a regular basis by sending through a price list document. Due to long lead times and shipping delays caused by the pandemic, cost pricing might change while the items are still in transit.

The issue is that when receiving a purchase order, the Originating Invoice Cost field on the Item Vendors Maintenance window is updated from the last received transaction, overwriting the current cost price provided by the supplier. The result is that subsequent purchase orders created have the incorrect cost value from the receivings transaction instead of from the supplier’s price list.

#GPPT Setting Default Sorts for Inquiry Windows

Today, I was asked by a partner how simple it would be to default the Sort by fields on the Payables Transaction Inquiry – Vendor window to Document Date in Descending order. This is previously the type of quick tweak that you might have used VBA (Visual Basic for Application) for.

However, now that VBA is “End of Life” and is not supported on the Web Client and some windows platforms, this is a perfect customization to use the GP Power Tools – Developer Tools module for. The entire customization took me about two minutes to complete. In fact, it took much longer to write this article.

#Dexterity Remember Multicurrency when Customizing Transaction windows

I was asked recently to assist with some custom code that had been added to a transaction window in Microsoft Dynamics GP. The customization would work for one user, but not for a different user.

The customization was created using GP Power Tools‘ Developer Tools module, but similar code could have been created using Dexterity, Visual Studio Tools or even VBA (Visual Basic for Applications).

#Dexterity command Activity_GetBackgroundStatus() kills background Timed Processes

You might have seen yesterday’s article: #GPPT Processes are currently being run Dialog when logging into Microsoft Dynamics GP, which discusses a problem caused by a clash of a GP Power Tools build 28 feature and FastPath SSO (Single Sign On).

[Edit] FastPath have already released an update which fixes the issue. Thanks for the quick turn around.

The root cause of this issue is the undocumented side effect of using the Dexterity Activity_GetBackgroundStatus() command. Read on for the full explanation.

#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.

#Dexterity Fixing the Properties Window width

A recent post on the GPUG Forums by my friend David Morinello asked how to fix the issue when the Dexterity Properties window resizes to smaller than its default width.

See the thread here: Dexterity Property Window too narrow

#Dexterity Automating or Customizing the Report Destination Window

Back in 2009, I posted about Automating or Customizing the Report Destination Window. In that article I discussed that there is more than one version of the Report Destination dialog and that additional methods would be required to control the version that is in the Dexterity Runtime Engine.

This article gets into more detail showing how the control the different dialogs with Dexterity.

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….

#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.

Run Batch Files and Powershell Scripts with Administrator Permissions easily

Here is something a little different for you. I have two external drives connected to my Microsoft Surface Book 2 15″ computer. One is a 256GB micro SD card hidden in a BaseQi Ninja Stealth Drive loaded into the SD Card slot and the other is a USB 3.0 connected Western Digital 2TB WD Elements Portable. Both of these drives have BitLocker enabled and have the password remembered on this machine.

Every now and then, the drives fail to initialize correctly and in turn fail to unlock with BitLocker. Even though I can see the drives and their total and used capacity, I cannot access them.

#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.

Dynamics.Application Object not available on Web Client

This article comes about because we have identified a feature of GP Power Tools that does not work as expected on the Web Client. GP Power Tools has the ability to run scripts and register triggers against Modifier added fields and Modal Dialogs. These features uses the Dynamics.Application object and in particular a suite of functionality historically known as “Continuum”.

We can now confirm that the Dynamics.Application object is not available at all when running Microsoft Dynamics GP in the Web Client and so any functionality reliant on this object will fail to work.

#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.