Just a quick update to apologise for the lack of updates.

I’m currently stressing out about a house purchase I’m trying to get through as soon as possible (with concerns I may actually lose the house if it doesn’t exchange soon). For the regular readers out there (I assume there are some) I moved back to the NE in September last year to start a new job as consultant with Perfect Image, specialising in Microsoft Dynamics GP and sidelining in Dynamics CRM, and this is the final step for me to complete the move.

Once the purchase completes and I can stop stressing I’ll get back to posting; I have a backlog of posts not just related to the recently started series of posts on PSTL but also other areas of the system and related products.

Of course, once it does complete I’ll be project managing a renovation which will probably also cause me to stress out but I doubt as much as the purchase is (Bloody Hell I hope not anyway).

Hopefully back soon with some useful posts.

It’s very likely that you’ve never heard of Microsoft Connect; Connect is used by the Dynamics teams to decide what to put in future releases and users have the opportunity to add suggestions and vote on existing items.

Mark has a post on DynamicAccounting.net where he proposes doing a weekly post to promote an existing suggestion for improvement of Microsoft Dynamics GP on Connect for people to vote for, or against, inclusion in a future version of Microsoft Dynamics GP. His posts on this subject will be a weekly feature where he highlights a different suggestion each week for the community to review and decide if it would be a worthwhile addition.

This weeks post relates to a change to allow Unit Accounts to be zeroed during the year end process in the GL. Please take the time to review this suggestion and vote for, or against, and help to improve and guide the future development Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Microsoft Connect has been around for a while but it woefully unused, I’m as guilty as anyone atnot using it much, but it is a way for both partners and customers to have a hand in guiding the development of Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Please join in and follow Mark’s posts on this subject, every Tuesday, on DynamicAccounting.net.

After installing the Professional Services Tools Library earlier this week, I’m doing a series of posts on the different functions available, for free, within.

This post covers the Copy Shortcuts options. This function allows shortcuts to be copied from on user to another.

I’m using the sa and iang users in the example below. The first screenshot shows the shortcuts in the Navigation Pane of the sa user;

And this one shows the shortcuts of iang;

What we want to do is make copy all the shortcuts of the sa user to iang. To do this open PSTL (while logged in as sa) and select Shortcuts Copy;

Select the user to copy from and the user to copy to and click Copy;

You’ll be prompted to make a backup of your company data; I would also suggest backing up the system (DYNAMICS) database as well. Once you have a backup, click Continue;

Once the copy is finished, it only takes a moment, you’ll be given confirmation;

You can choose to print or view the TA Shortcuts Copy report;

If you fdo view it, it’s a very short report;

If we now log in as iang, all of the shortcuts from the sa user are now available;

If you do copy shortcuts make sure the user’s Security Roles have the relevant permissions for windows the shortcuts reference.

Now that the Professional Service Tools Library (PSTL) has been installed it’s time to take a look at some of the functionality available.

The first one I’ll look at is how to disable a database so users cannot log in. Without using PSTL, to deactivate a database requires you to use the User Access window (Microsoft Dynamics GP menu >> Tools >> Setup >> Administration >> User Access) and select each user in turn and uncheck the company to be disabled. If you have more than a handful of users, this can take a long time to do but with PSTL all users can be disabled very quickly.

I am using a demo system to do this which only has a handful of users in it. I’ll be using the iang user who currently has access to four companies;

When I log into Microsoft Dynamics GP with this user I see all four companies listed in the Company selection field;

If we open PSTL the first option in the Active/Enable section is the Database Disabler;

If we select this option and hit Next we are shown the Database Disabler window. Select the check box next to the company to be disabled, I’ve selected the check box next to Fabrikam, UK, and click OK;

If we close PSTL and go to User Access you’ll notice that the Fabrikam, UK company is no longer available to iang (and any other users except sa who had access);

If I try to enable the company again via this window I get the following error;

And when I log in as iang, the company is no longer available for selection;

To re-enable the company, load PSTL, access the Database Disabler, remove the check and click OK;

In User Access, all users who previously had access to the company will automatically have it regranted;

The thing to remember is that the Database Disabler disabled the company for all users other than sa; so if you have some database maintenance to do you can switch access off and perform the maintenance using the sa user while keeping all other users out of that company.

As I mentioned in the last post, Microsoft Dynamics GP Support Blog announced that the Professional Services Tools Library had been made free of charge and can be downloaded from here (PartnerSoruce login required; Customers will need to contact their partner). The free PSTL is only available for supported versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP so if you are not using 10 or 2010 you will need to upgrade.

I thought it might be useful to do a short series of posts highlighting some of the PSTL tools and what you can do with them, so to start with I thought a post on how to install the module.

First off download the PSTL from the link above and unzip the contents after which you will see the following items;

Copy the taUtil.cnk file into the installation folder of Microsoft Dynamics GP (%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Dynamics\GP2010\), run up the application and agree to include new code;

Because PSTL is not intended for all users it does not automatically appear within Microsoft Dynamics GP’s menu structure. To access the tool, you need to create a shortcut for it in the Navigation Pane.

To do this, right click somewhere on the Navigation Pane and select Add >> Add Window…;

Locate and expand the Technical Service Tools Node, expand Project and select Professional Service Tools Library, which will automatically populate the Name and Window fields at the top of the window;

You will need to add a shortcut for all users who will be using PSTL, but if you want it available to anyone who is not a POWERUSER you will need to create a task and assign it to a role via Security Tasks and Security Roles;

When you open PSTL for the first time it will go through a process of adding the required elements and granting security (this needs to be done in each company in which you intend to use PSTL);

The final setp, before PSTL is ready to use, is to input the licence key which will, in the downloaded version, default in for you;

Once the licence key has been entered you’ll have access to all of the tools in the Professional Service Tools Library.

Earlier this month the Microsoft Dynamics GP Support Blog announced that the Professional Services Tools Library had been made free of charge and can be downloaded from here (PartnerSoruce login required; Customers will need to contact their partner).

It’s a while since I did much with PSTL so I decided to download it and take a look. I got it installed correctly but when I tried to open it I got this error;

When I clicked OK, I got this follow on error;

I did a little digging around and found this Microsoft KB Article:
You may receive a “Could not find stored procedure” error message when you install the Microsoft Great Plains Professional Services Tools Library which is for an old version of Microsoft Great Plains but is still applicable.

The problem was the ODBC connection, on the test client, was setup with the incorrect settings;

Use ANSI quoted identifiers and Use ANSI nulls, padding and warnings should both be unchecked but for some reason on the test clients ODBC they were enabled;

Once I removed the checks against these two settings PSTL worked correctly.

The Google-fu is weak with this one (this one being me). I read a post ages ago on the subject of SmartList wildcards which looked like it would be really useful, but then, after I’d forgotton the details, couldn’t find it again no matter what searches I tried.

On the Developing for Dynamics GP blog David Musgrave gives a reminder for those using SmartList Builder that there is in fact a way to modify standard SmartLists by downloading them from here (Customer Source login required) without having to manually recreate them.

When you download them, remember to think kind thoughts of the Microsoft Dynamics GP Support Team who created these SmartLists.

At the start of this year I did a post on how to install a domain controller in Windows Server 2008 R2 (and I think the method would work back to 2003 as well). However, with the release, albeit of the Consumer Preview, of Windows 8 Server (Windows Server 2013 on release?) that post is out of date.

I say it is out of date because when I tried to run it I got the following message;

So for those of you who, like myself, are preparing a test environment using Windows 8 Server Consumer Preview, SQL Server 2012, Management Reporter 2012 for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 (when it arrives) here is a walk through of creating a domain controller on Windows 8 Server Consumer Preview. Please note this is not a guide that should be used on a production environment; it is solely intended for creating a demo or test environment; I am a Microsoft Dynamics GP specialist, not a Windows Active Directory one.

After configuring your IP address as a static one (this hasn’t changed over the last version), the first step is to run the Server Manager and select option 2 – Add roles and features;

In the Before you begin step you’ll be reminded about having a strong password on your Administrator account, a static IP address and current security updates from Windows Update;

The installation type I am doing is a single server so I chose the Role-based or feature-based installation option;

Next the destination server for the installation needs to be selected, but as this is a test system I only have one server (called SERVER) to select from;

Next we need to pick the server roles to be installed. The whole point of this is to have a test system capable of running Management Reporter so I need to select Active Directory Domain Services;

Next we’ll be confirm that the features required for Active Directory Domain Services should be added;

And because this will be a stand alone test system we also need to select the DNS Server role;

And confirm that the features required for DNS Server should be installed;

You can select any additional features that you wish to install;

Next up is a summary screen of Active Directory Domain Services, what it does and some recommendations;

Followed by a similar summary for DNS Server;

Next confirm the installation selections, where you can choose to restart the destination server automatically if required (I left this unchecked so I could make sure I could do any needed screenshots);

In this case, the server did not need to be rebooted and showed that installation had completed successfully but configuration of AD DS (Active Directory Domain Services) was required;

Click the Promote this server to a domain controller to launch the Active Directory Domain Services Configuration Wizard.

This is a new environment which is being created so I need to Add a new forest, using the Root domain server of DOMAIN.AZURECURVE.CO.UK;

You can still select the Forest functional level as you could in Windows 2008 R2 but the selection only allows functional levels of Windows 2003, 2008, 2008 R2 and 8 Beta;

For a new forest I have chosen to go with the Server 8 Beta functional level and entered the Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) password;

Next up is the DNS Options where an error was detected. I don’t know what the error was (I couldn’t find the cause of the problem) and as I progressed through the install to completion and testing everything seemed to work fine. This is one of the main reasons for the disclaimer at the top; if this was being installed at a client site one of the Infrastructure Engineers would have done the AD DS install for me and I would have stepped in for the Dynamics installs, but for a test system this does meet my requirements and work as I would expect;

Next confirm, or change if required, the NETBIOS domain name, in this case DOMAIN;

Confirm, or change, the paths to be used for the AD DS database, log files and SYSVOL;

Review your selected configuration options and click back to make any changes, or click Next to proceed;

Next prerequisites will be checked for you. I received two warnings, one of which related to DNS again but in this case as I am not integrating with an existing DNS infrastructure I don’t need to do anything and instead can just click Install;

I watched the install run through, which was still displaying the warnings until the install completed;

Once installation was finished the server automatically rebooted itself before I could screenshot the completion message. The speed of the reboot and the fact I had no control over it does concern me slightly I have to admit.

Once the server had rebooted I tested it to make sure everything worked as expected and created some CNAME aliases in preparation for installing SQL Server, MR and GP.

I was doing some work with a custom table yesterday and at one point needed to make a change to the table layout via SQL Server Management Studio. However, when I tried, I got the below error message;

I’d renamed a column which is why the table needed to be dropped and re-created but this should have been possible (I’ve definitely done this before); I also hadn’t changed any options is SQL Server Management Studio.

The option Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation (Tools >> Options >> Designers >> Table and Database Designers) is in the Options dialog;

It was indeed enabled but I hadn’t been into the Options since loading SQL so being prevented from saving changes which require tables to be dropped and re-created is actually the default option. I unchecked the option and tried resaving the changes to the table; this time successfully.

Last week I posted the start of a series of posts on how to install Management Reporter 2012; how to install Management Reporter 2012 – Server Prerequisites, how to install Management Reporter 2012 – Server Installation and how to configure Management Reporter 2012.

Todays post is the final post in the series on how to install Management Reporter and covers the client installation.

The client installer is part of the same installation package as the server installation (download available here (PartnerSource or CustomerSource login required).

The server configuration I am using is four separate servers, all running Windows Server 2008 R2, but could easily be installed on one machine, or virtual machine, for use as a test system;
Domain Controller (DC1) running the ideal domain (a slight departure from my usual azurecurve) on
SQL Server (SQL1)
Reporting Server (RPT1)
Terminal Server (TS1)

The client installation is being done on the Terminal Server (TS1).

Run the extracted Setup.exe andselect the Install Management Reporter Client option;

Accept the License Agreement;

Accept, or change and accept, the destination folder;

Enter the Server connection details including the port (in this example Management Reporter was installed on the Reporting Server (RPT1) using the default port so the server connection is http://rpt:4712);

Confirm the installation;

Then after installation is complete this will be confirmed to you.

With the reworking done for Management Reporter 2012, the company setup was done in the last step using the Configuration Console on the Reporting Server so you can get logged into Management Reporter and start working straight away.

If you’re building a demo system the following posts, on importing and correcting the sample reports, are still relevant for Management Reporter 2012;

• How To Install Management Reporter Sample Reports
• Fixing The Management Reporter Sample Reports
• Fixing The Management Reporter Sample Reports Part 2