If you are Great Plains customer and deploy GP ERP in your organization as accounting backoffice, you probably remember that upgrade to version 7.5, later on to 8.0 was very smooth and painless.
Update to Great Plains version 9.0 was also relatively simple, however in its upgrade the role of Wizard was increased and if you are Great Plains Consultant, you kind of feel that you lost former control over upgrade process. Well, upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics GP version 10.0 is something more complex with multiple flaws. If you plan upgrade to version 10, we would like to share with you our experience:
1. 64 bit dilemma. eConnect workstation portion at this time, November 2007 is not supported on Windows 64 bit, including Vista 64. Also FRx Sysdata folder should reside on 32 bit version as well. This 64-bit computation boom seems to be rather a problem for software makers: so far new laptops and desktop computers are shipped with Vista 32 bit or even with Windows XP 32 bit. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 seems to be comfortable on Windows 2003 64 bit server, but when we come to workstation side MS .Net components and COM+ objects (WS part of eConnect and eConnect Runtime) – the problem manifests itself. Plus Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal is not supported (at this time) on 64 bits
2. New GP Security Architecture. GP security is redesigned and this is good sign for ERP Security administrators: now you can create or utilize existing Tasks (typically small) and Roles (sets of tasks). Roles exists on the Product level: Dynamics GP core DYNAMICS.DIC, Project Accounting, Fixed Assets, etc. When something is revised and redesigned from scratch, you should expect extra work to setup new components and utilize GP consultants time, however there was unexpected upgrade surprise, described in the next bullet
3. GP Security Upgrade failure. In the upgrade manual you are reassured that each existing user security will be translated into users roles and tasks (with user name in roles and tasks descriptions, which is not the best thing to have, probably). However even this security bridge fails in version update process. Microsoft indicated that in order to get security transferred you should remove spaces from Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 workstation installation folder (where spaces are suggested by default installation or upgrade wizard). Hopefully with GP 10.0 Service Pack 1 these annoying issues will be resolved, but for now, please be aware and try to expect and address the issues
4. Other known issues: SY02700 table, this one is located in Dynamics database, we heard issues when upgrade reports this table upgrade failure
5. Purchase Order Processing upgrade seems to be fixed: POP line work and historical tables were known to be the problem makers in upgrade to GP 9.0. With version 10.0 the problem seems to be rectified
6. Integration Manager IM.MDB upgrade issue. If you are upgrading from GP 7.5 to 10, then we are aware about upgrade failures, where Queries and Queries Relations are converted, but destinations and destinations mappings are not
7. Service Pack 1 waiting recommendation. We are optimists by our servicing nature, however we recommend you to decide on the level of acceptable risk. Plus, if you are on GP 9.0 with Service Pack 3 applied, you can not upgrade to 10.0, until GP 10 SP1 is released
If you want us to help with Dynamics GP update, please free to call or email us
Dexterity Customization for Dynamics GP Evaluation Level Paper
When you are developer it is always a good idea to read technical manuals. But if you was just assigned to the IT team to decide if Dexterity is the right tool to customize your ERP application then first you need something which is in style of ‘easy reading papers’ or FAQ
Planning Dynamics GP Customization in Large Corporation
If you are reading this page then chances are high that you were not able to find ISV add-on and need customization project. Let’s talk about planning, quality assurance and future event such as version updates.
Dynamics GP Invoice Logo Attributed to Specific Company or Crossing the Borders of Three SOP Forms
Initial Great Plains Dynamics architecture had three SOP Invoice forms: Long, Short and Blank. Modern GP is popular in scenarios where you have more than three companies under one business entity umbrella
