First of all we have to admit that modification is something that you should avoid if it is not absolutely required.
At the same time software development might be a good way to avoid unnecessary expense in software licenses. Imagine that you need the functionality which is available in expensive add-on but you only need let’s say five percent. Instead of acquiring this ISV product you order tiny custom programming project and save. We favor so-called ‘balanced approach’ to ERP system implementation and let us share its principles:
1. Find the application which covers at least 80% of the requirements. If somebody tells you that he likes let’s say QuickBooks – this doesn’t automatically mean that you should go to the software store and purchase the same product. Each business is unique and has its secrets or otherwise it is not competitive on the marketplace. Uniqueness often translates into custom procedures which should be recorded specially in your accounting database
2. Brand name software vendor versus startup. This is another factor to consider. Software products have their life cycle and they do not have a value without reasonable customer support and implementation consulting. Such brands as Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle or Sage are established on the market and you should expect quality service behind them. On the other hand there are numerous startups and young software development companies who are making their first steps in gaining market share. There is certain risk but at the same time there is an advantage of being in ‘pilot project’. We have to mention that this paper is not for programmers – it is rather for managers who are collecting initial information for their homework in decision making. Let’s now move to technical details
3. Custom Development Tools. Former Great Plains Dynamics was designed in integrated development environment known as Dexterity with its proprietary scripting language Sanscript. Dexterity is virtually almighty and you do not have limitations. However you should not expect IT department VB programmers to begin Dexterity coding overnight (over weekend and even over month). Dex programming requires professional which could be found in ISV consulting firms. The good news is the fact that there are alternatives to Dexterity: eConnect, Modifier with VBA scripting, MS Visual Studio Tools, Web Services to name some of the popular ones
4. Excurse to eConnect. Well, Dex is proprietary and it is in fact a shell coded in C programming language. On the other hand eConnect architecture is based on encrypted SQL Stored Procedures where GP functionality is rewritten in SQL. Before you open Visual Studio we recommend you to think about strategy. The best approach is to restrict customization to integration. Let’s say that you need to move ecommerce shopping carts from web portal to Sales Order Processing module invoices. Begin with producing workflow or diagram. Then go ahead and research code samples in eConnect SDK – snippets are available in C#, VB and C++
5. Test Environment. Good taste in software developing is sample data, debugging and quality assurance. It is difficult to do QA on abstract data set. Instead consider installing GP with Dynamics and company databases on separate test server
6. Cross Platform Integrations. It is common scenario when you have to send data from non-Microsoft computer platform to GP. Good idea here is to envelope your code into SOAP XML web service and call it from Linux, PHP or MySQL
7. For additional information, please feel free to call us 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918 (this number works for international customers) or email us help@albaspectrum.com We serve you USA/Canada nationwide via remote support (web sessions and phone/Skype conferences). Local service is available in Western Michigan, Chicagoland, Southern California (LA, Orange County and San Diego), Houston area of the state of Texas
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