Workflow Email Action Request Error After Approval

Microsoft Dynamics GPA client who had recently upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 reported an error when approving a purchase order via Workflow 2.0 Email Actions. The user would click Approve on the email, enter their comment and click Approve and then received the following message:

Workflow Email Action Request Error

Request Error

The server encountered an error processing the request. See server logs for more details.

The purchase order was showing as approved, so Workflow itself was working correctly from this point of view and I couldn’t find any logs which might explain the issue.

However, while I was having a look at the workflow setup, I noticed that the Purchase Order Approval workflow type, did not have a manager set. There had been a workflow manager defined or the workflow process could not have been activated, but at some point it disappeared.

Adding a manager for the workflow type, saw the error message stop appearing.

The manager’s disappearance could be related to the upgrade, but I’ve upgraded some other clients who were using workflow and not had his same problem.

MS Connect Suggestion: Allow Workflow Steps to Have Multiple Parents

Microsoft Dynamics GPI have another Workflow related MS Connect Suggestion I’d like you to vote for.

I have worked on a number of projects for clients implementing Workflow 2.0 where being able to set one step with multiple parents would greatly reduce the work involved in creating the workflow.

For example I have recently worked with a client who has a Function segment in the chart of accounts, which requires approval by the Function Approver, which is a different person for each Function, and then a second level of approval by a Finance Panel, which is always the same five people.

When we create the workflow for POs we need to create forty Steps, one for each Function with it’s set of approvers, and then forty Finance Panel Approval Steps after each of the Function approval steps.

For example:

Step for Function = "IT"
	followed by a Finance Panel approval step.
Step for Function = "HR"
	followed by a Finance Panel approval step.
Step for Function = "TRAINING"
	followed by a Finance Panel approval step.
Step for Function = "SALES"
	followed by a Finance Panel approval step.
Step for Function = "ADMIN"
	followed by a Finance Panel approval step.
Step for Function = "OPERATIONS"
	followed by a Finance Panel approval step.

If we could define the Finance Panel step and assign it to follow multiple steps instead of only the one parent which can be assigned at the moment, it would save so much time and effort when creating and maintaining the workflow.

You can vote on the suggestion here.

Management Reporter Fact Check

Microsoft Dynamics GPFollowing the announcement by Microsoft back in June last year of a partnership with Jet Reports, the future of Management Reporter has been a topic of conversation amongst the community with rumours constantly swirling that Management Reporter would disappear from the Microsoft Dynamics GP space.

On the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP team blog, Pam Misialek has posted a Management Reporter Fact Check:

  • Management Reporter is available and fully supported by Microsoft. It is still included in the Starter Pack and will continue to be.
  • Management Reporter will ship with GP Next later this calendar year and will ship in future releases as well.
  • Microsoft are looking for any feature enhancements ideas which can be added to the product.
  • HTTP support was added for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 R2
  • Management Reporter will not go fully to the cloud in a multi-tenant environment. It can be used in the cloud, with a RDP connection.

Management Reporter is technically a separate product because it works across all Dynamics products. So what? Who cares? It works great at creating financial statements.

MS Connect Suggestion: Allow Parenthesis in Workflow Step Conditions

MS Connect Suggestion: Allow Parenthesis in Workflow Step Conditions

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralI have a Workflow related MS Connect Suggestion I’d like you to vote for.

I would like to request the facility to use parenthesis in Workflow Step Conditions in order to simplfy the creation of the conditions.

For example, currently a condition may need to be entered as:
VendorClass = “EU” and ItemClass = “IT” and CostCentre = “NEWCASTLE”
or
VendorClass = “EU” and ItemClass = “IT” and CostCentre = “LONDON”
or
VendorClass = “EU” and ItemClass = “IT” and CostCentre = “EDINBURGH”

And that is with only an or clause on one of the parameters. I might have 6 VendorClasses and 20 ItemClasses; it gets real big, real quick.

If parenthesis could be used, as in a mathematical equation, I could enter the condition as:
VendorClass = “EU” and ItemClass = “IT” and (CostCentre = “NEWCASTLE” or CostCentre = “LONDON” or CostCentre = “EDINBURGH”)

This would shrink the amount of work required to create anything but the simplest of workflow processes enormously.

You can vote on the suggestion here

MS Connect Suggestion: Make User Preferences Shortcut Bar Entry Available to All users

Microsoft Dynamics GPThis MS Connect suggestion has come from Belinda Allen.

Microsoft Dynamics GP users who use either the traditional desktop client or the web client when logged in as SQL user see the User Preferences shortcut on the Dynamics GP home page.

However users logged in using an Azure AD account, do not see the shortcut for User Preferences.

Belinda is asking Microsoft to make this shortcut available to all users.

You can read and vote on the suggestion here.

Changing The Cisco AnyConnect Default Host Name

Microsoft Dynamics GPWe use Cisco AnyConnect at internally at work and for a number of clients. I use the internal VPN a lot more often than connecting to the clients who also use AnyConnect.

Unfortunately, the work VPN is the one which AnyConnect does not remember. There may be a way to have AnyConnect remember more than one, but for now I’d settle for being able to change the Default Host Name.

Well, fortunately, there is a preferences.xml file which can be amended. The file can be found in the following location (replace the highlighted section with your username):

C:\Users\{username}\appdata\local\cisco\Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client

Find the following line and you can replace thie highlighted section with the address you want to have as the default:

<DefaultHostName>{hostname}</DefaultHostName>

Management Reporter 2012 CU16 Now Available

Microsoft Dynamics GPThe Dynamics CPM Team has recently announced the release of Cumulative Update 16 for Management Reporter 2012.

The big new feature in this CU, is HTTPS support which was announced as a new feature alongside Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 R2.

Vaidy Mohan has posted an article on the functionality for Microsoft Dynamics GP.

MS Connect Suggestion: Include Multicurrency Vouchers in Select Checks Window

Microsoft Dynamics GPThis suggestion is one from MVP Mariano Gomez to improve the payment run process by allowing multicurrency invoices to be included.

Currently, the payment selection process only allows vouchers issued in the batch currency to be selected and added to the check run. If the user wants to add foreign currency vouchers, he/she needs to use the Edit Checks window to add such vouchers. It would be nice to be able to have an option to include functional currency vouchers in the case of a foreign currency batch, or foreign currency vouchers in the case of a functional currency batch.

This is the use case:

Vendor A Invoice 1 CA$10.00
Vendor A Invoice 2 US$20.00
Vendor A Invoice 3 US$30.00

If a payment selection is performed and the batch currency is CA$, only the first voucher will be selected. To add Invoice 2 and 3, you would have to use the Edit Checks window to include both vouchers.

Conversely, if the batch currency is US$ and the payment selection for vendor A is performed, only invoices 2 and 3 would be selected and you would have to use the Edit Checks window to include Invoice 1.

What Mariano would like to see is all invoices selected (based on selection rules) and let the user deal with the exceptions, as it should be.

As mentioned, all the logic is already there via the Edit Checks window and it would be nice to incorporate as part of the payment selection process. As others have mentioned, having multicurrency vouchers included could be a payables configuration item or simply an additional option in the Select Payments (Select Checks) window.

Mark Polino has also suggested that this functionality be optioned with Rod O’Connor further suggesting the option be on the Select Checks window itself to allow maximum flexibility. Both of these seem like a good addition to Mariano’s idea.

The suggestion can be voted on here.

How To Find Out What SQL Features Are Installed

Microsoft SQL ServerNo day when you learn something new is a wasted day. I was onsite with a client recently to do some work with them on Microsoft Dynamics GP and got chatting to Den in their IT department.

It turns out that SQL Server has a report you can run which will show which features are installed.

The report is run from the SQL Server Installation Center which is available from the Windows Start menu. Click on Tools and then on Installed SQL Server features discovery report:

SQL Server Installation Center

Continue reading “How To Find Out What SQL Features Are Installed”

Fixing Reports Not Implemented Error After Upgrade

Microsoft Dynamics GPWe’ve been doing a number of upgrades recently and I encountered an old error when trying to deploy the SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and Excel Reports through the Reporting Tools Setup window (Administration >> Setup >> System >> Reporting Tools).

This particular client is being upgraded from Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2 to 2016 R2.

The problem is that some of the companies are showing as Not implemented. The companies showing this way are the oldest; TEST2016… is actually the main company renamed for testing.

Reporting Tools Setup

Continue reading “Fixing Reports Not Implemented Error After Upgrade”