Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill: Registration

Rockton SoftwareThis post is part of a series of posts on Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill.

While SmartFill will work without a licence in the Fabrikam sample company, to use it in any other company, you need to register the module. Your partner can purchase the keys for you; once the order is compelte, the registration can be updated in Microsoft Dynamics GP.

To do this, open the Rockton Software Registration Issues (Microsoft Dynamics GP menu » Tools » Setup » SmartFill » Registration) window. Ensure SmartFill is marked in the Product Name column and click the Get Keys button:

Rockton Software Registration Issues

Once the keys have been retrived, the Message column will show Registered. Click to see details. SmartFill is now available to use in all companies.

Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill: Client Installation

Rockton SoftwareThis post is part of a series of posts on Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill.

The second step in implementing SmartFill is to install the remaining clients.

Using the previously downloaded installer, extract the downloaded file and run the SmartFillSetup.exe as Administrator by right-clicking:

SmartFillSetup.exe

Continue reading “Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill: Client Installation”

Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill: First Client Installation

Rockton SoftwareThis post is part of a series of posts on Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill.

The first step in implementing SmartFill is to install the first client; it’s in this installation where we will deploy the database objects.

To install the first client, the first step is to download SmartFill; navigate to the Rockton Software downloads page. In the Product field, select SmartFill and in the Versions field select Microsoft Dynamics GP Version 2018.

Mark the checkbox next to the Product and hit the Download Selected button:

Rockton Software downloads page

Continue reading “Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill: First Client Installation”

Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill: What Is SmartFill

Rockton SoftwareThis post is part of a series of posts on Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill.

Before starting the installation, I thought it might be useful to do a post, covering what functionality SmartFill contains.

Simply put, SmartFill allows you to perform a more flexible lookup than the standard ones in Microsoft Dynamics GP. For example, you can type only a few characters of an Item Number or Item Description and a list of data matching will be returned; the search performed is a begins with or contains (depending on configuration) which makes it easy to find the required data.

By default SmartFill ships with a large number of default searches, but can be customised to add more or change the default ones; and can also be configured to to be available to 3rd party modules.

Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill: Series Index

Rockton SoftwareI periodically take a look at different offering from ISVs, of which there are many. One that I’ve looked at recently is SmartFill from Rockton Software.

I figured a small series on implementing it might be useful as I step through the process myself. Over the new few posts, I’ll be installing and configuring SmartFill.

Implementing Rockton’s SmartFill
Implementing Rockton's SmartFill: What Is SmartFill
Implementing Rockton's SmartFill: First Client Installation
Implementing Rockton's SmartFill: Client Installation
Implementing Rockton's SmartFill: Registration
Implementing Rockton's SmartFill: Search Using SmartFill
Implementing Rockton's SmartFill: Configuring Security
Implementing Rockton's SmartFill: Customising Search Options
Implementing Rockton's SmartFill: Review

PowerShell to Stop Server Manager Loading

WindowsOne of the things that annoys me about Windows Server 2012 and later, is that the Server Manager launches automatically whenever you log in. This wouldn’t be a problem, if it didn’t take so long to fully launch.

Well, I did some exploring and investigation, and it turns out that the Server Manager is being launched at user log on by a Scheduled Task:

Scheduled Task to Auto Launch of Server Manager

Continue reading “PowerShell to Stop Server Manager Loading”

Stopping Auto-Play HTML5 Videos In Vivaldi (and Other Chromium Based Browsers)

Microsoft Dynamics GPI have a very low tolerance threshold for adverts; I largely stopped watching TV becasue of them (atually I no longer have a TV so I guess it would be more accurate to say I stopped watching TV because of them); not only are the adverts irritating in content, but the volumne was usually a lot higher than the TV show wrapped around them.

Adverts on the Internet have gone through various stages and varying annoyances with the current set not being too bad. Of sites I use regularly, arstehnica is by far the worst with adverts taking over the entire front page.

That said, it’s not actually adverts which are bothering me so much at the momernt, but sites with automatically playing videos. This “feature” has grown in popularity in recent times with many news sites having one, or more, autplay videos on almost every page.

Well, with the death of Opera 12 a few years ago, I made the transition to Vivaldi a while ago. This is a Chromium based browser which gives you access to Extensions in the chrome web store.

The best extension I’ve found for stopping autoplay videos is HTML5 Video Autoplay Blocker. Part of the reason for this post, is because I work on a variety of machines at work and home and keep having problems finding the extension, so I figured doing a step by step post to find and install the extension would help me remember.

Continue reading “Stopping Auto-Play HTML5 Videos In Vivaldi (and Other Chromium Based Browsers)”

SQL Script to Disable Business Analyzer Fact Pane

Microsoft Dynamics GPWhen the Reporting Tools are deployed for Microsoft Dynamics GP a fact pane is enabled in the navigation lists, which gives access to the reports. However, this also causes the navigation lists to be much slower. In some cases, pretty much unusable.

While users can switch off the fact pane on navigation lists, they need to be disabled by each user on each list. This means people don’t actually use them.

It is possible, however, to disable the lists using some SQL against the system database (by default called DYNAMICS.

When a user opens a navigation list for the first time, an entry is made to the List View Options (SY07225) table. The first script inserts a trigger after update to switch off the fact pane:

/*
Created by Ian Grieve of azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant (https://www.azurecurve.co.uk)
This code is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Int).
*/
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.triggers WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID(N'utr_AZRCRV_UpdateSY07225SetFactBoxVisibleOff'))
	DROP TRIGGER utr_AZRCRV_UpdateSY07225SetFactBoxVisibleOff
GO

CREATE TRIGGER
	utr_AZRCRV_UpdateSY07225SetFactBoxVisibleOff ON SY07225
AFTER INSERT AS
	UPDATE
		['List View Options']
	SET
		FactBoxVisible = 0
	FROM
		SY07225 AS ['List View Options']
	INNER JOIN
		inserted
			ON
				inserted.ListDictID = ['List View Options'].ListDictID
			AND
				inserted.ListID = ['List View Options'].ListID
			AND
				inserted.ViewID = ['List View Options'].ViewID
			AND
				inserted.USERID = ['List View Options'].USERID
GO

The second script, is a run once script after the trigger is created; it sets all existing entries in the table to off so that existing users don’t see the fact pane:

/*
Created by Ian Grieve of azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant (https://www.azurecurve.co.uk)
This code is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Int).
*/
UPDATE SY07225 SET FactBoxVisible = 0
GO

SQL Script to Notify When Upgrade Complete

Microsoft Dynamics GPThis SQL script was written for a client with a large number of databases and which took a long time to update and they needed to upgrade through several versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP. The script checks for start and end times in the DB_UPGRADE table; when they match for all rows, an error is raised.

The script was scheduled using SQL Server Agent which was configured to send an email when the error was raised; this allowed him to know when part of the upgrade had completed and the next stage needed to be started.

/*
Created by Ian Grieve of azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant (https://www.azurecurve.co.uk)
This code is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Int).
*/
DECLARE @UpgradeComplete AS INT

SELECT
	@UpgradeComplete = CASE WHEN COUNT(PRODID) = 0 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
FROM
	DB_UPGRADE
WHERE
	start_time = stop_time

IF (@UpgradeComplete = 1)
	/*
	throw error because all companies upgraded
	if <> 0, that means upgrade still running and nothing needs to occur
	*/
	RAISERROR ('GP 2016 upgrade complete; next stage needs to be started',11,1)

SQL Script to Change Compatibility of All Databases

Microsoft Dynamics GPWhen moving databases between servers for an upgrade of Microsoft Dynamics GP, you will, when also upgrading SQL Server, need to change the compatibility level of the databases. Rather than dong this individually, the below script can be run against the system database to generate a script you can then run to update the compatibility level of all databases.

The highlighted variable should be changed to the relevant version.

/*
Created by Ian Grieve of azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant (https://www.azurecurve.co.uk)
This code is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Int).
*/
DECLARE @CompatibilityLevel VARCHAR(140) = 140


SELECT 'USE master
	GO
	ALTER DATABASE [' + DB_NAME() + '] SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL = ' + @CompatibilityLevel + '
	GO'
UNION ALL
	SELECT '
		ALTER DATABASE [' + ['Company Master'].INTERID + '] SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL = ' + @CompatibilityLevel + '
		GO'
	FROM
		SY01500 AS ['Company Master']
GO

This script doesn’t get the logical file name, but I’ve hooked it into the series I did on Logical File Name SQL Scripts as it will often be needed at the same time.