Category: GP (Great Plains)

This feature of the day is for the US and Canada only; the ability to exclude inactive pay codes from lookups:

The main features of are:

• Option to exclude inactive pay codes from the pay codes lookup
• Works for Employee Pay Codes Lookup and the Pay Codes lookup window

Payroll in Dynamics GP is US and Canada only so I have no commentary to add to this feature.

This feature of the day puzzles me somewhat as I would swear this was a feature introduced within the last couple of versions. It is the export of numbers as numbers from a SmartList:

As I mentioned in the introductory paragraph, this is a feature I believe was already introduced, but upon further reflection this may be a slightly different new feature.

The previous feature I am thinking of (but can’t find a specific announcement) exported the numbers to five decimal places and without a currency symbol. The example given in the screenshot, above, has a currency symbol and is to two decimal places.

This feature of the day adds a third transaction type to the payment process to allow a payment run to be made by credit card instead of cheque or EFT:

The main features of are:

Option for a computer check batch to be paid by credit card
• The credit card payment will create an invoice for the credit card vendor
• A remittance form will print to show the invoices paid

I’ve just been doing an upgrade of a client to Microsoft Dynamics GP and had a discussion around the payment of invoices by credit card. When they upgrade again this feature will, I’m fairly sure, be quite popular with the payments team (unfortunately their next upgrade is probably a year or so away.

I already have my first upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 R1 booked in, so I will have to have a chat with them and see if they process many payments on credit card.

There are quite a few of the new features in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 R1 which are building on features introduced since GP 2013.

This feature adds the ability to use the Document Attachment feature, introduced in Dynamics GP 2013 R1 on the PTE Employee Expenses window and Employee Expense Entry windows:

The main features of are:

• Use the Document Attachment feature in PTE Employee Expenses and Employee Expense Entry
• Header and line attachments such as receipts can now be added to an employee expense
• Attachments will flow from PTE to Project Accounting to Payables

I love the Document Attachment feature as it makes it so easy to store documents in Dynamics GP without having to maintain a network share so it is nice to see it being rolled out to the action pane on more windows.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 R2 saw the introduction of the purchase requisitions and they are being enhanced further with integration with Project Accounting:

The main features of are:

• Project Number and Cost Category ID fields available in Purchase Requisition Entry window
• Requisitions with project and cost category can still go through workflow process
• Project and cost category will flow to Purchase Order

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 R2 saw the introduction of the Purchasing All-In-One Document View, and Dynamics GP 2016 R1 sees the introduction of an Inventory equivalent:

The main features of Inventory All-In-One Document View are:

• View quantity in and quantity out transactions for one item in one window
• Accessible from Item Maintenance, many item inquiry windows, navigation lists and the home page

As with the Sales All-In-One Document View I am prepared to be underwhelmed by this feature of the day based on the Purchasing one introduced in Dynamics GP 2015 R2.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 R2 saw the introduction of the Purchasing All-In-One Document View, and Dynamics GP 2016 R1 sees the introduction of a Sales equivalent:

The main features of Sales All-In-One Document View are:

• View all related sales documents for a single transaction in one window
• Accessible from Customer Maintenance, many sales inquiry windows, navigation lists and the home page

When I heard of the Purchasing version of this in 2015 R2 I was looking forward to it, but found the reality to be a little underwhelming as the window isn’ the friendliest around and is a little clunky. The screenshot above shows that the Sales All-In-One Document View is very similar to the purchasing one so fear I will find this equally clunky.

One of the major new features in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 R1 is the HTML5 web client; this replaces the Silverlight web client released in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 R2. One of the enhancements to the web client is the ability to search for a window or report:

The main features of web client search are:

• Ability to search for a window or report within the GP web client
• Shows a list of all open windows and reports based on search criteria
• Shows a list of all windows and reports and the navigation based on search criteria
• Ability to close all open windows at once.

This is going to be a little like the Where’s that window? function on Jivtesh Singh’s GPWindow site, but will also allow you to search for reports as well. This should prove especially useful to new users of Microsoft Dynamics GP, although with Microsoft’s record for problems with non-US English I will want to see it working with the UK English language packed version of GP before I give it a ringing endorsement.

One of the major new features in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 R1 is the HTML5 web client; this replaces the Silverlight web client released in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 R2.

The new features of the web client are:

• Support for Multi-browser (IE, Chrome, Safari, Edge)
• Support for Multi-device (Windows, iOS, Android)
• New controls created for HTML client
• UI changes
• Window Search
• Office “banner”
• Navigation, color, etc.

While the Silverlight web client was quite good, it was hobbled by dint of being Silverlight. There are quite a lot of iOS and Android devices out there which were unable to be used with the web client. Making the web client HTML5 not only makes it available cross browser, but it should also make it more flexible in terms of the size of device on which it can be used (Steve Endow at Dynamics GP Land posted his views on the “hamburger” menu used as a space saver back in September).

I’m fairly relaxed about this type of menu as I have seen them used on quite a few sites now and have largely adapted to their use. If that is the trade off for HTML5 then I’ll be happy.