In our most recent webinar, we took a look at SmartList Tips And Tricks. In this webinar, we took a look at how you can get the most out of the Microsoft Dynamics GP SmartList reporting tool. If you want to catch up on this, or any other, webinar, you can do so here.
Introduction ^
The Microsoft Dynamics GP Fall 2021 Release was released in early October last year. In this webinar we selected some of the enhanced features we thought clients would find interesting and demonstrated how they worked; as we did in the webinar, in this post I’m going to give an overview of the enhanced functionality, linking back to the feature of the day blog posts; the full
For the people who will be installing the new version, I also have a .
Roadmap ^
With the rise of online ERP like 365 Business Central and the like I occasionally get questions from clients about the future of on premise ERP such as Dynamics GP. Well, there is a roadmap for Microsoft Dynamics GP which stretches several years into the future and is regularly updated, so there is still a lot of life in Dynamics GP with new and improved functionality being added every year in the Fall Release, which are typically released at the start of October.
Older versions of Dynamics GP were supported under the Fixed Lifecycle with only Dynamics GP 2018 still under mainstream support and 2016 and 2015 in extended support. Dynamics GP from the Fall 2019 Release come under the Modern Lifecycle where Microsoft want everyone to update annually. For many people this isn’t realistic and you do not have to do so; I do generally recommend to clients that they upgrade every other or every third year so as to keep reasonably up-to-date.
For clients in the UK who need to submit VAT to HMRC using Making Tax Digital, they will need to keep up-to-date on versions as required changes are only made to the latest version of Dynamics GP; however for those who cannot upgrade, ISC Software have a a href=’https://www.gpelementz.com/vat-submitter.html’>VAT Submitter module available which will work with many versions of Dynamics GP starting from Dynamics GP 2010.
Dynamics GP Ideas ^
As well as new functionality decided upon by Microsoft, there is an avenue for partners or end users to request enhancements to Microsoft Dynamics GP. This is via the Microsoft Dynamics GP Ideas:
Upgrade Process ^
Even if you are upgrading from the previous version of Dynamics GP, the upgrade process would always be the same as when upgrading from an older version. This ensures that all customisation, development, third party modules, integrations and so on continue to work correctly. The below diagram shows the typical upgrade process we would go through with a client, although it obviously varies by client as required:
New functionality ^
The new functionality will be presented broken down by series, split into four sections:
System Enhancements ^
In this version, we picked out three enhancements for the System series, all of which were workflow related:
- Remove Carbon Copy Email in Workflow Maintenance which adds a button to delete the Send carbon copy to email address which couldn’t previously be unset through the front-end.
- Add Autopost for Workflow Batches allows General Ledger, Payables Management and Receivables Management batches to be flagged in Workflow Maintenance so that batches final approved in the Microsoft Dynamics GP client will autopost; a future version will allow web services to do the same, but is unfortunately not in this version.
- Workflow Approvers Count in Workflow Maintenance adds a new option to the Completion Policy where you can now choose to set the number of users who need to approve.
The second of the above enhancements is actually a request which was logged on the Ideas website:
Financial Enhancements ^
We selected five new enhancements from the Financial series to demonstrate:
- Scroll Through Account Segments allows you to easily scroll through the segments in the Account Segment Maintenance window.
- Update Account Description in Mass Modify adds a new option to the Mass Modify window which allows a type of Update Account Description for doing a bulk update of account descriptions from the segment descriptions.
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Summary Post Cash Receipt at Batch
Receivables Batches window has new Post deposit option to toggle Summary/Transaction posting when autopost is enabled in Company Setup - Save Settings for All in One Viewer automatically saves the filter and preference settings on a per user basis.
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Save Inquiry Sort Options adds a save option which saves, on a per user basis, the sort options and transaction status selections. This save option is available in the following windows:
- Payables
- Transaction by Vendor
- Transaction by Document
- Receivables
- Transaction by Customer
- Transaction by Document
- Sales Item
- Bank Reconciliation
- Checkbook Register
- Checkbook Balance
- Payables
Distribution Enhancements ^
In Distribution we only selected a single enhancement which is the Sales Inquiry GoTo which allows the user to choose whether to drill down to the enquiry and entry windows. The Go To option has been added to the Sales Document Enquiry and Sales Document Range Enquiry windows.
Project Enhancements ^
In Project we again only selected a single enhancement which is the Project Code Modifier which allows for several types of project code to be changed.
Conclusion ^
There is a number of the new features which, while small, will prove to be very useful to clients. This is on top of the bug fixes included since the last version.
Our next webinar is on Dynamics GP – Year End Best Practice on the 22nd February (slightly later in the month that normal in order to avoid the half-term holiday):
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