eEnterprise - Old Great Plains Software ERP Application Reactivation

If you remember the XXI century story about Microsoft purchase of Great Plains Software - this is where eEnterprise, that was the last GPS ERP name invention ceased to exist in its MRP name consistency. Great Plains eEnterprise was renamed into Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains Professional, later on in September 2005, Great Plains was renamed into Microsoft Dynamics GP. But anyway, if you or your company had hard time back in earlier 2000, then you might be on Great Plains eEnterprise or Great Plains Dynamics for Microsoft SQL Server versions 6.0 or 7.0. Let's review eEnterprise upgrade and walk away paths:

1. DB Platform. eEnterprise was available on Microsoft SQL Server only, so more likely you are on Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 or even MS SQL Server 2000. So, considering the fact that high-end version of Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 or 9.0 is available on MS SQL Server 2005 and 2000 only - from DB perspective there are no challenges

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2. GP Licenses and MBS Great Plains annual enhancement program status. Well, considering the fact that you are supposedly still on GPS eEnterprise ERP version, chances are high that you lapsed in Microsoft Business Solutions GP annual enhancement program. If our assumption is correct, then you will have to contact you Microsoft VAR to understand your annual enhancement reactivation options. If you have no idea on what we are talking about - call us

3. eEnterprise upgrade scenarios. If you are on Great Plains Software eEnterprise, more likely you have more than 10 Great Plains system manager users and so, you are valuable customer (meaning that you are large or mid-size business from the ERP perspective). If you didn't downsize in 2001-2004, then your upgrade path is to Microsoft Dynamics GP Professional

4. Microsoft Dynamics C/S+. This is the predecessor of eEnterprise, C/S+ versions were 5.5, 5.0, 4.0 and 3.2. Those days Microsoft SQL platform was in the formation stage, so your version might be MS SQL Server 6.0 or alternative DB platforms: Btrieve or Ctree/Faircom. Your migration path is likely to be to Microsoft Dynamics GP Professional as well. If you are on non Microsoft SQL Server DB platform - you will need to migrate to MS SQL Server. The migration tool is available fro Microsoft Business Solutions, however it is not trivial and we recommend you to deploy GP technical consulting firm to do migration and version upgrade job.

5. Great Plains Dexterity customizations for eEnterprise. Dex programming was very popular in late 1990th, and this is not a surprise if you have Dex altered Dynamics business logic. Please review you Dynamics.set file to figure out if you have Dexterity custom logic and if so, try to find Dynamics.dic with your Sanscript scripts in not stripped out

6. eEnterprise custom reporting. The most likely you have GP ReportWriter modified reports: SOP Long Invoice or Blank Form, POP Purchase Order. RW is in fact Dexterity module and reports migration and upgrade require Dex architecture expertise and software development experience.

7. Dinosaur versions of Great Plains. GPA for DOS, MS Windows or Macintosh were discontinued to support in earlier XXI Century. If you are still on one of those, you got to consider walk away migration option: to Microsoft Dynamics GP would be the natural way, however you may theoretically migrate to Oracle, Sage, PeopleSoft, JDEdwards, Scala, or other ERP application

8. GP Licenses. You are probably familiar with ERP industry rules - besides initial MRP application purchase you have to be current and pay annual fee for ERP enhancement program. You are lapsed in enhancement program, you should expect re-enrollment fee. The GP re-enrollment fee depends on the number of lapsing years, and in some cases it is more beneficial to do new GP software licenses purchase, please contact your Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains reseller for details.

9. Dex Customization upgrade. If you have custom Dex logic in your eEnterprise installation version, you should not assume that modified logic update will be automatic. Typically Dexterity developers and programmers need to be involved to estimate upgrade efforts

10. Crystal Reports and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services SRS vs. Great Plains ReportWriter. RW is Microsoft Dexterity module, so you should not expect miracle from Report Writer interface. RW has access to GP Dex reports, stored in Reports.dic file, plus these mentioned reports have Dexterity parameters entry screens in regular GP logic. CR is Dex-independent tool and you should try to base Crystal Reports on SQL Stored Procedures and Views logic. The same should be said about SRS

11. Dexterity sanscript advise. Dex historically deploys cursor base logic in its Sanscript scripting language. This logic might not be optimal for MS SQL Server 2005 and 2000 platforms. Please consider calling MS SQL Server stored procedures from Dex sanscripts directly

12. eConnect programming. Again, eConnect was not available in 1999, eConnect was introduced for eCommerce developers in earlier 2000. eConnect is the set of encrypted stored procedures, assuming that you have already upgraded to GP 7.5, 8.0, 9.0 or 10.0

13. eEnterprise and Great Plains Software Dexterity traces. You should know that Dynamics.dic for eEnterprise is similar to the one for Dynamics for MS SQL Server. Dexterity places the following rules on MS SQL Server DB design: DEX_ROW_ID - this column is use in Dex internal logic, Dex.ini - here you place the instructions to Dexterity to log certain events

14. If Upgrade stalls. Typically this is due to inconsistent Company DB records. First consider check links rescue, however it doesn't work in 100% of the cases. If you don't have a luck with check links, then you will have to do manual data repair SQL scripting

15. Most Typical Pitfalls. GP Upgrade process is not easy and this is not because Microsoft Business Solutions has inefficient upgrade path, in the opposite - GP upgrade fails, due to the data inconsistency in your GP tables, typically in Purchase Order Processing: POP10110, POP30110 and IV10200

16. Manufacturing, Project Accounting, Fixed Assets special considerations. These mentioned modules were integrated with Great Plains Dynamics in late 1990th. PA was the result of MatchData purchase, Philippines base Dexterity development partner, GP Manufacturing was Icontrol Purchase, Fixed Assets module is the successor of Forestar FA application for GPS Dynamics.

17. Intellisol Advanced Purchase Order Processing and Project Accounting upgrade to GP PO Processing. To have you informed, Intellisol International, Australian based company tried to relocate to Fargo, ND in 1998. Then GPS negotiated with MatchData and Icontrol to purchase and incorporate their respective modules over Intellisol PA and Advanced POP. Intellisol APOP upgrade path is still available to GP 7.5, please contact us for further details

18. Mekorma Modules, This Los Angeles based software vendor was famous in GP secured check printing. Please contact Mekorma if your new intended for upgrade version of Mekorma GP is available

19. Local and State Tax calculation and filing partners, such as Avalara. Alba Spectrum initially helped Alalara to develop Avatax GP 7.0 and 7.5, later on Avalara decided to outsource Avatax development to India Great Plains Dexterity developers, where Alba Spectrum provided Avalara with Dex source code

20. French Canadian and European Dynamics GP ERP market. While French Canadian GP version 10.0 as well as Latin American Spanish version, German GP 10.0 version is scheduled to be phased out - in Germany and many of European countries Microsoft Axapta and Navision will be supported instead

If you like us to help you with GP upgrade, integration, software licenses, reporting, please give us a call

eEnterprise - Old Great Plains Software ERP Application Reactivation

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group, http://www.albaspectrum.com - help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving customers USA/Canada nationwide: Illinois, California, New York, Quebec, Ontario, Colorado, Utah, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas. Local service is available in Houston & Dallas: Richmond, Sugar Land, Katy, Rosenberg, Missouri City, Pearland, Friendswood, Meadows, Mission Bend, Jersey Village, Fort Worth; serving GP customers in Chicago, IL: Naperville, Aurora, Joliet, Wheaton, Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Lyons, Niles, Downers Grove, Lisle, West Chicago, Barrington, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Lombard, Morris, Ottawa, Marseilles, Seneca, Oswego, Plainfield, Darien, Winchester, Hinsdale.

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Great Plains eEnterprise Upgrade Notes

If your company implemented Great Plains Software Dynamics in late 1990th, eEnterprise was the brand name for high-end Dynamics: versions 5.5 and 6.0. Formerly the high-end version name was Great Plains Dynamics C/S+: versions 3.2, 4.0, 5.0. When Microsoft acquired Great Plains Software, eEnterprise was transformed into Microsoft Great Plains Professional: versions 7.0 and 7.5, later on renamed into Dynamics GP Professional: versions 7.5 (Dynamics family was introduced in September 2005), 8.0, 9.0 and current version 10.0. This historical excurse should define the upgrade path for eEnterprise. Let's briefly review the options and scenarios:

1. eEnterprise was MS SQL Server application. You are more likely on Microsoft SQL Server 7, if you still use eEnterprise. Please note that earlier versions of Dynamics C/S+ were available on Btrieve and Ctree/Faircom, however eEnterprise was targeted to mid-size and large businesses and so MS SQL Server only option was reasonable: SQL Server 6.5 and 7.0. Considering SQL Server DB platform, the upgrade process doesn't require migration from legacy DB platforms

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2. eEnterprise to GP Professional upgrade path. If you own eEnterprise and are current with Microsoft Business Solutions annual enhancement program (which is not necessary the case, as the question is why you didn't upgrade since 2001?), then with some exotic exceptions, you should be owning GP Professional licenses for current version 10.0, and from business relations with Microsoft standpoint, there are not objections and you are good for the upgrade. If you are not current with Enhancement program, then you need to be reenrolled - this will give you access to new version, contact your MBS VAR of records or if you are not sure who they are, you can call Albaspectrum

3. Upgrade Scenarios. Assuming that you are on eEnterprise version 6.0. You will need to upgrade to GP Professional 7.5 first, then to GP 9.0 and apply 9.0 Service Pack 2, and at this point you can go to the finish - GP 10.0

4. Third Party modules. GPS and Microsoft Business Solutions as its successors, opened Great Plains platform to ISV partners for beefing up GP business logic and creating industry verticals. In the time of eEnterprise the programming language of choice was Great Plains Dexterity. If you have GP ISV modules: Intellisol, Mekorma, Dynamics.Zip, Avalara, and others or if you have Dexterity modules developed specially for your company - you will need to contact ISV or theirs successors, plus hire Dexterity experts to help you with in-house modification upgrade

5. Walking away from eEnterprise. If you are migrating to JDEdwards, PeopleSoft, Oracle, or other ERP application, you need help with exporting eEnterprise master records and transactions (work, open and historical) to DB format, convenient for new MRP programmers - typically tab delimited text files, Microsoft Access DB, or MS SQL Server custom database.

Great Plains eEnterprise Upgrade Notes

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group: http://www.albaspectrum.com - help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains customers in USA/Canada nationwide. Local service is available in Houston, TX: Richmond, Sugar Land, Katy, Rosenberg, Missouri City, Pearland, Friendswood, Meadows, Mission Bend, Jersey Village; Chicago, IL: Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Joliet, Wheaton, Lisle, Downers Grove, Schaumburg, Elk Grove, Lombard, Woodridge, Darien, Westmont, Batavia, St. Charles, Elgin, Crystal Lake. Service is also available in Houston and Dallas metros, plus internationally in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Oceania and UK

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Great Plains eEnterprise Upgrade FAQ

High end version of Great Plains Software Dynamics was known under the name of Great Plains eEnterprise. In turn eEnterprise is successor of Great Plains Dynamics C/S+. eEnterprise licensing concept allowed you as eEnterprise customer to purchase such advanced modules as Manufacturing, Intercompany Processing, Customer Vendor Consolidation, Unlimited level of System manager users, Unlimited number of Payroll employees, and other nice options. When Microsoft acquired Great Plains Software and the rules making prerogative came to Microsoft Business Solutions, Microsoft proclaimed so-called Project Green, later on renamed into Microsoft Dynamics project, where Great Plains was included into Dynamics family as Microsoft Dynamics GP. At the same time the coined term of eEnterprise was played down and deemphasized, in fact turned to Microsoft Dynamics GP Professional

Last version of eEnterprise was 7.0 and for now it is no longer supported by Microsoft Business Solutions. For you as eEnterprise user it may mean that you have to consider upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 or 10.0. Let's review eEnterprise upgrade topics and move on:

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1. SQL Server Platform. eEnterprise was available on MS SQL Server 6.5, 7.0 and 2000 only since the time, when Dynamics CS+ 5.0 was discontinued on Ctree and Btrieve. If you migrate to SQL 2000 GP 10.0 or 9.0 you can upgrade your SQL to 2005.

2. Downgrading licensing. If you feel that your company actually did downsizing process since its better financial years, when you did implement Great Plains eEnterprise. If this is the case - it should be considered as normal business development, and you should e4xcersize the option to downgrade your GP licenses level with Microsoft Business Solutions Dynamics GP

3. Getting Licenses. Here you have to follow general procedure, meaning that if you are not current with Microsoft Business Solutions annual enhancement program, you have to go through reenrollment process, and the longer you were out of status, the higher is the penalty to allow you to be reenrolled and get current ERP software licenses

4. Upgrading procedure. It should be very straight forward and your GP VAR should advice you on the version update path. Assuming that you are eEnterprise 7.0, you should upgrade to GP Professional 7.5 (matter of several minutes or seconds, as code base and table structure is almost the same for these two versions). Then you should move to GP Pro 9.0 and from there, assuming that you have applied GP 10.0 SP 1 or higher you can move to version 10.0

Great Plains eEnterprise Upgrade FAQ

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum, http://www.albaspectrum.com , help@albaspectrum.com , 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving ERP customers since 1994. We provide local service in Chicago, Naperville, Plainfield, Downers Grove, Elk Grove Village, Schaumburg, Elgin, Aurora, Joliet, Hinsdale, Lisle, Wheaton, Warrenville, Lincolnwood, Niles, Melrose Park, Des Plaines, Rosemont. With reasonable travel we also serve northern, eastern and central Illinois: Morris, Ottawa, LaSalle, DeKalb, Bloomington, Normal, Springfield. Our methodology allows us to serve nationwide customers via remote support, if your Sb1 is already implemented. We have our own media portal Pegas Planet: http://www.pegasplanet.com , Taisia Karaseva is Pegas Planet CEO

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Great Plains Implementation for Large Corporation Overview

Microsoft Dynamics GP is definitely one of the winners and breaking through ERP packages. In this article we assume that you are not small or midsize business, where accounting options are well known and openly available. Here we are giving recommendations to large corporate businesses. First of all you should be already over your former homework on Oracle EBusiness Suite, JDEdwards and Microsoft Axapta. Comparing to mentioned above GP is very good competitor, coming from the budget-oriented approaches. Budgeted doesn't mean that you are not willing to pay, it rather means that you do not have to pay for rich ERP functionality, which you do not have plans to use in the foreseeable future. Let's take a look at GP strong points and potential weaknesses:

1. Microsoft SQL Server DB platform. Here you have scalability, which fits to variety of businesses, starting from one-person operations to large corporation. SQL Server 2005 and 2000 are very robust competitors to such established DB platforms as Oracle, Ingress, MySQL. The nicety about modern SQL platforms is the fact, that they are unlimited (by HD space addressing limitation, your Server RAM and things like these)

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2. Upscale GP modules. Former name of the Great Plains Dynamics suite for corporate businesses was eEnterprise and later on Great Plains Professional. Here we would like to briefly review such modules as Manufacturing, Collection Management, Service Management Suite or Field Service, Microsoft CRM

3. Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal. This is new platform, which coexists in the same information schema and is stored in GP traditional company database. BP is Sharepoint web based application, which allows you to automate such functions as eCommerce (BP Order Management), Purchasing (Purchasing management), HR (Employee Self Service), Electronic Document Delivery. BP will more likely be the Microsoft Dynamics e-commerce platform, as well as it will be substantially extending traditional Great Plains user licensing model, where thin users (your company employees, purchasers, extranet customers) will be incorporated

4. Various routines. Such important compliance routines as 1099 printing, W2 in payroll, accurate State Tax calculations, based on verified delivery address are available in GP with standard or third party logic

5. Employee Self Service. This is part of Great Plains Business Portal, module allowing you to avoid mailing cost to paper mail your payroll direct deposit stubs to your employees and W-2 contractors. If you implement GP Business Portal with Employee Self Service, your insiders could simply print out their stubs from BP web pages

6. Version Upgrades. Modern Software and MRP vendors try to keep you on the short notice in compliance to their new version updates as well as on their annual software enhancement programs. This is your internal decision - if you do care about modern technologies compliance, you should decide on where to upgrade and how many version updates to skip. We recommend you to skip one version, in the scenario when GP has version 8.0 out and you upgrade to this version, the version 9.0 you skip and wait until 10.0 is released and you upgrade from 8.0 to 10.0

Great Plains Implementation for Large Corporation Overview

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group http://www.albaspectrum.com - help@albaspectrum.com, serving Microsoft Dynamics GP customers in Chicago and Houston locally plus in USA and Canada nationwide via web sessions and remote support. We also invoite you to contribute to our Great Plains support knowledge base at Pegas planet, where Taisia Karaseva is happy to review and publish your Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics articles: http://www.pegasplanet.com. If you have questions, please call us: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918. We also have customers in Latin America, Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

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Microsoft Dynamics GP (Former Microsoft Great Plains) Support in Chicago Metro

Microsoft Great Plains was and is very popular mid-market ERP application, originally designed by Great Plains Software on GPS Dexterity platform, later on purchased by Microsoft and transformed into Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions, later on (after Navision Software acquisition) renamed into Microsoft Business Solutions and in September 2005, again renamed into Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft Great Plains is part of Microsoft Dynamics family together with Navision, Axapta, Solomon and Microsoft CRM - each product was renamed as Microsoft Dynamics GP, NAV, SL, AX and CRM respectively. Currently Microsoft is advancing rapidly Microsoft Dynamics project, resulting in Microsoft Dynamics MRP family of products to be integrated with Microsoft Office, MS Sharepoint, Microsoft Business Portal (each Dynamics has its own blend of BP), plus each Dynamics product is targeted to be opened to Microsoft Visual Studio developers via SDK and other tools, such as eConnect, in the case of Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics GP. Below we would like to give you highlights on Microsoft Dynamics GP

o Version 10.0. It should be released as you read these lines. Former version is Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0. In 9.0 Microsoft Dexterity is deemphasized, while such tools as eConnect and MS Dynamics GP SDK allows C# or VB.Net software developer to program customizations for GP

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o Business Portal. We would like to concentrate here on Order management module - replacement for former eOrder for Microsoft Great Plains. Order Management is module, integrated into Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal, and so is Microsoft .Net application. It also allows you to call Microsoft terminal services client to open Microsoft Dynamics GP dex fat client to enter transactions, when corresponding BP portion needs additions in GP

o Chicago businesses. It is definitely diversified place, however we would like to concentrate on typical mid-size businesses. Distribution and logistics - Such GP modules as Inventory control and Sales Order Processing are subject to light (or heavy) customization to automate D&L business logic. Placement agencies - these companies typically deal with US Payroll module, where they need additional features, in some cases BP employee self service should give you customization platform. Light manufacturing and assembly - Great Plains has decent discrete manufacturing and bill of materials modules, so, please take a look at their functionality to see if it fits your company.

Microsoft Dynamics GP (Former Microsoft Great Plains) Support in Chicago Metro

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group, http://www.albaspectrum.com help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving GP customers USA and Canada nationwide, local service is available in Chicago: Naperville, Aurora, Warrenville, Batavia, Elgin, Wheaton, Plainfield, Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Lisle, Downers Grove, Elgin, St. Charles, Villa Park, Lombard, Joliet, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Crystal Lake, Morris, Marseilles, Ottawa, Seneca, Braidwood. We also travel with reasonable travel time to Sterling, Peoria, LaSalle, Rockford, Bloomington, Normal, Springfield, Milwaukee, Lake Forest, Waukegan, Galena.

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Great Plains eCommerce - Order Management and Business Portal Notes For Consultant

If you are consulting Great Plains Dynamics customers, you probably remember old good days when eCommerce solution could be built on eOrder module platform. eOrder was written in Interdev as ASP application, and as such could be modified deirectly in its ASP pages. This customization did the job until new version upgrade, when as part of the upgrade you had to reapply your custom changes to eOrder Asp pages as new version update simply was wiping out old version eOrder pages and placing new version pages on the top. Order Management module is in essence successor of eOrder, however it is now hosted in MS Sharepoint and it is part of Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal modules family. Let's quickly review what it means to you if you were supporting and implementing old eOrder and now you will have to move your customer to GP Business Portal platform:

1. Business Portal Setup. This is definitely an overhead, as you will have to read BP administrator guide to setup your existing GP users as well as thin Business Portal users (who do not have to be Great Plains users, which potentially saves you software licensing money). When that work is behind you and you are now expert in setting up Business Portal - then you are pretty much at the point of settings for Order Management, which as similar to old eOrder settings

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2. Order Management setup. Here cental part is Catalogue manegment, which has separate program needed to be installed separate from Business Portal. If you remember eOrder catalog management should be reasonably intuitive for you to set it up

3. eConnect stack. Business Portal and Order Management deploy eConnect in the back side. eConnect is the set of SQL stored procedures, allowing you to create various Great Plains master records and transactions. This excurse may seem not really informative, but you may expect eConnect and so, Business portal installation problems, if you do not have the idea about eConnect architecture

4. Legacy e-commerce phasing out step by step. If your website is written in legacy ASP pages, you should not switch to new e-commerce over night. Instead you should consider scenario when you register your business portal Url with your domain registrar, keeping the main web site at the same old ip address.

Great Plains eCommerce - Order Management and Business Portal Notes For Consultant

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group http://www.albaspectrum.com. help@albaspectrum.com, serving Mcrosoft Dynamics GP customers in Chicago and Houston locally plus in USA and Canada nationwide via web sessions and remote support. We also invoite you to contribute to our Great Plains support knowledge base at Pegas planet, where Taisia Karaseva is happy to review and publish your Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics articles: http://www.pegasplanet.com. If you have questions, please call us: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918. We also have customers in Latin America, Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

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