SmartConnect Scheduled Integration Regularly Failed

eOne SolutionsA client reported that a SmartConnect integration they’d been using for a couple of years had started failing regularly. It was scheduled to run in the early hours on every week day, but was failing most of the time; oddly, it was working sometimes.

If the integration was run manually it ran successfully every single time. When running on the schedule it failed more often than not.

There was an error writing to the pipe: Unrecognized error 232 (0xe8)

We made two changes to the setup after which the issue was resolved and the integration ran successfully.

We gave the service account permissions on SmartConnect database and we changed format of the service account from user@domain to domain\user.

The puzzling aspect of this error was that neither the service account nor the assigned permissions had been changed. Or at least no-one with the ability to make changes admitted to having done so.

eOne Support Lifecycle Policy for SmartConnect

eOne SolutionsI only recently became aware of the lifecycle policy which eOne Solutions use for SmartConnect on-premise.

For SmartConnect 2018 and before the product is supported for three years on standard support and a further two years for extended support.

This means that SmartConnect 2018 is only under support until 15th December 2022; this means if you are using SmartConnect 2018 then you only have support on the product for another five months.

Versions of SmartConnect after 2018 use the “Modern Lifecycle Policy” which requires that customers stay current by always being on a supported release of SmartConnect which means applying at least one of the SmartConnect all-inclusive updates released within the last year from the current date. Basically, under the Modern Lifecycle you need to be applying one update per year for SmartConnect to remain on a supported version.

This ties in with the Microsoft Dynamics GP Modern Lifecycle which also requires an annual upgrade to be on a supported version.

SmartConnect Crashes When Trying to Run Integration into Microsoft Dynamics GP

eOne SolutionsI dealt with a support issue for a client recently where they were reporting that one user could integrate into all but two companies in Microsoft Dynamics GP, but other users couldn’t integrate into any.

The problem is that when they tried an integration which failed, SmartConnect simply crashed with nothing in any error logs in either SmartConnect or Windows.

As it was working in some databases and not others for one user and not at all for other users, it had to be permissions. The user who could use SmartConnect was the one involved in the implementation and the companies he could use it in were the oldest; the two companies which failed were the newest.

We did some checking and found that the user who could run some integrations had his domain account created as a SQL login and had been granted the DYNGRP security role on the company databases; he had not been added to the companies which failed. When we added the security for these databases the integration ran successfully.

We recommended to the client that instead of adding individual users to SQL Server and giving them access to databases they consider creating some AD security groups which had access assigned and they could then grant those roles to users as required.

Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP: Review

eOne SolutionsThis post is part of the Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP series were I am taking a look at the SmartView product from eOne Solutions which provides another way of using SmartLists.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve used SmartView myself; I tend to either use SmartList or directly query the database. I’ve done a lot with SmartList Builder, creating many SmartLists over the years.

I’ve had a few clients use SmartView but many decided the extra cost of the module wasn’t worth the functionality. With the change to the licensing where SmartView comes packaged with SmartList Builder and Popdock under the new subscription licensing, I’ve had a couple of clients take a look at it and decide to implement the module.

In one case, simply because it is now included they’ll have a look and see how they get on with it. In the other case, they’d only had Dynamics GP implemented last year and were using SmartList Builder. When I told them they now had access to SmartView as well and explained the functionality, they were very keen; especially the SmartView external component as it allows them to use one SmartList object for users who both are and aren’t Dynamics GP users. This means they can avoid creating two separate reports and potentially two versions of the truth.

By having the same SmartList object accessible to both types of user they can be sure that they are all seeing the same data.

I think it is worth having a discussion with other users too as I think that many people will have more of an interest in this module with the changes to the licencing. And even without that change, I think it is worth taking a look at for the additional flexibility that SmartView brings over standard SmartLists.

Feature The SmartView advantage
Speed SmartView provides the solution for anyone that has ever waited impatiently for a SmartList to refresh. For example, if you run the Sales Line item list in SmartList, it would take 2.5 minutes to return 4259 rows. If you use SmartView you get the exact same data returned in 7 seconds!
Excel Cut and Paste selected records directly from SmartView to Excel, Word or an email.
Full Screen Use every bit of your screen to view our data. No more white spaces!
Unlimited Filters There is no limit at all on the number of filters you can have. You can mix and match AND’s and OR’s to get exactly what you are looking for.
Single Screen Eliminate up to 7 mouse clicks, by having everything on one screen.
Group Group your data by any field, by a simple drag and drop function. It’s like creating your own reports on the fly.
Sub Total When you group you will receive auto subtotaling of all you data. So group by customer to see totals by customer.
Sort Sort how you please, even by a number of columns simultaneously.
GoTo’s All the goto’s from SmartLists and SmartList Builder are available to make navigation into Microsoft Dynamics GP a breeze.
Export Export your lists to PDF, Excel or CSV. SV has been timed at being 10 times faster than a SmartList export.
Multiple Instances Open multiple instances of SmartView to let you multi task and look at multiple lists simultaneously.
Columns Add, remove and reorder columns by simply dragging and dropping where you’d like them to go.
Restrictions Only see the data you need, when you need it.
Favorites Create the view you go back to most and save it as a favorite. You can even share that with your team.
Searching Searching across all your data or by column.

Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP: Accessing SmartView External

eOne SolutionsThis post is part of the Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP series were I am taking a look at the SmartView product from eOne Solutions which provides another way of using SmartLists.

Once users have been configured for SmartView External, they can get logged in and start using SmartView from outside Dynamics GP.

SmartView External is available to users from the Windows Start menu; when launched they will be prompted to log on using their external user and password.

If a user is both a Dynamics GP and SmartView External user they will need to remember that these logins are different. To login enter your external user details:

Login

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Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP: Configure Users for SmartView External

eOne SolutionsThis post is part of the Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP series were I am taking a look at the SmartView product from eOne Solutions which provides another way of using SmartLists.

Before users can access SmartView External, they need a user created. These are maintained through (Microsoft Dynamics GP menu » Tools » SmartView » External Users):

Dynamics GP menu

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Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP: Installing SmartView External

eOne SolutionsThis post is part of the Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP series were I am taking a look at the SmartView product from eOne Solutions which provides another way of using SmartLists.

Once you have SmartView External downloaded, extract and run the installer. Click Next on the welcome step:

SmartView Setup: Welcome to the SmartView Setup Wizard

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Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP: Download SmartView External

eOne SolutionsThis post is part of the Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP series were I am taking a look at the SmartView product from eOne Solutions which provides another way of using SmartLists.

As mentioned earlier in the series, SmartView is available both inside and outside of Microsoft Dynamics GP. The steps so far were all about configuring SmartView inside of Dynamics GP. If you’re going to install SmartView for use outside of the Dynamics GP client, then there is a separate installation which is needed.

The file for this is available from the eOne downloads page, lower down than the main installer.

Expand the SmartView External toggle and download the installer:

Download SmartView External

Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP: Access SmartView

eOne SolutionsThis post is part of the Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP series were I am taking a look at the SmartView product from eOne Solutions which provides another way of using SmartLists.

Once SmartView has been configured and users granted access, SmartView is available for users to use.

It is launched from the Microsoft Dynamics GP menu directly under SmartList:

Microsoft Dynamics GP menu

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Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP: Configure SmartView

eOne SolutionsThis post is part of the Implementing SmartView for Microsoft Dynamics GP series were I am taking a look at the SmartView product from eOne Solutions which provides another way of using SmartLists.

With the first of the clients installed, we can now do the required configuration. There are only a small number of steps we need to take to prepare SmartView for use.

All of the configuration options are available within Dynamics GP off the Microsoft Dynamics GP menu:

SmartView setup menu

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