Microsoft Great Plains Project Accounting ? Overview For IT Director/Controller
May 23, 2007
Microsoft Business Solutions is now in process of creating so called Microsoft Suites: Microsoft Financials, Microsoft Logistics, Microsoft Manufacturing, Microsoft Professional Services - this last one will be based on Solomon Project module. The long story of Great Plains Software Project Accounting - it was originally created by MatchData, which was bought by Great Plains in late 1990-th and renamed into Great Plains Project Accounting. Great Plains Project accounting future is uncertain - it will not ( according to rumors in Microsoft) become the base for one of the Microsoft suites. However right now it is used by variety of businesses and has good functionality to fit general project accounting needs.
Great Plains Customization Upgrade? Overview For CIO/IT Director
May 22, 2007
Around the same time Microsoft made its move with .Net introduction and tried to gain portion of cheaper databases market: Pervasive SQL/Btrieve, Ctree/Faircom - and launched free MSDE database program. General direction for all its accounting systems was chosen - Microsoft announced future releases of so called Microsoft suites: Microsoft Financial, Microsoft HR, Microsoft Logistics, Microsoft Manufacturing to name a few. However Microsoft did not announce which product (Great Plains, Solomon or Navision) will become the base or will be transformed into each specific suite. Al these suites will be integrated into web-based Microsoft Business Portal
This move, probably wise in the long run, exposed businesses with heavily customized MBS products to serious customization upgrade problems. We’ll give you our recommendation, based on our practice. In this article we’ll talk about Microsoft Great Plains.
Crystal Reports For Microsoft RMS ? Overview For Developer/Report Designer
May 21, 2007
If you are software developer or database administrator - we would like to give you the clues on Crystal Report creation for Microsoft RMS
Microsoft CRM Implementation & Remote Support
May 20, 2007
We would like to give you pluses and minuses of Microsoft CRM.
Also if you are considering some customization scenarios, we would suggest you to review the options below:
Microsoft Navision Database Selection: C/SIDE or MS SQL Server - Overview For IT Specialist
May 20, 2007
There are certain pluses and minuses in both cases and you should make your decision, based on your company needs. We’ll give you some hints in this subject and you should know then where to look further.
Legendary Strength of C/SIDE database - the history of Navision design reveals the primary goals to have its own proprietary database with the built-in features of database transaction integrity. As far as database is proprietary - Navision can manipulate its and tune it to serve its application. You can have users use the system heavily and suddenly shut down the power - when power is back on - Navision will be in the same good shap. The second goal was to provide robust graphical interface.
What is the volume of your data? - Navision was originally targeting mid-size and large corporations. Now, however, Microsoft is trying to target it to large corporations with sophisticated manufacturing. In this case you could expect huge volume of data - Microsoft SQL Server is better positioned to deal with that.
How to Backup Windows XP Home Edition
May 19, 2007
Your computer cost you from hundreds to thousands of dollars, but the computer itself is not the most valuable part. The data on the hard disk is the most valuable part. How many hours of work did you put into creating that data? One little event, like a power line spike from a lightning strike, and all that work could be lost. Unfortunately, backing up with Windows XP Home Edition is not as simple as it should be.
The first step is to choose a backup device. You might choose a tape drive or a DVD drive, but those devices might require drivers to be installed before you could restore from them. The simplest option is to install a second hard drive in your computer.
The second hard drive doesn’t have to be equal to your main hard drive. You can use an older, smaller hard drive as the backup device, as long as the backup drive has more “Free Space” than the main hard drive has “Used Space”.
Install a Second Hard Drive
Crystal Reports For Microsoft Navision - Overview For Programmer/IT Specialist
May 18, 2007
Let us give you - developer some hints in the report creation.
- C/SIDE database - use C/ODBC to create the connection for your Crystal Report. You have to make all the links inside the report. The drawback of this approach - report becomes inflexible if you would like to change database mapping (re-link from work to historical tables for example) - it is probably easier to redo report from scratch. You can use something like Crystal Query - which is still very restricted in its functionality.
- Microsoft SQL Server - you are better positioned to create Crystal Reports. You can deploy MS SQL Server views. View will allow you to unionize work and historical info, pull the data from several databases to name a few nice features. Also the option to use stored procedures (or stored procs) enables you to create temp tables for data manipulation before sending the final result set. You can also have parameters (name of the company/database, dates restrictions) - this gives you additional advantage versus SQL View
Microsoft Navision Customization and Reporting ? Tips For Programmer/IT Specialist
May 17, 2007
- C/SIDE (Client/Server Integrated Development Environment) - The core of Navision is the C/SIDE. C/SIDE is the foundation for all the business management functionality of Navision. It is made up of five building blocks, called object types, which are used to create the application. These five object types are shared throughout Navision to create every application area, and give it a unified, consistent interface. This powerful language allows for the internal construction of new business logic and sophisticated reporting. Because of the internal nature of modifications it’s highly recommended that you develop all your code in "processing only" report objects and called from the native code base. By grouping all your code in logical units, upgrades and additional modifications are easier to manage.
- C/ODBC and C/FRONT - Both C/ODBC and C/FRONT enable you to easily use information from Navision in familiar programs such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. The Open Database Connectivity driver for Navision (C/ODBC) is an application program interface (API) that provides a way for other applications, such as the entire Microsoft Office Suite, to send and retrieve data to and from the Navision database through the ODBC interface.
Is Your Family Protected?
May 16, 2007
When you think about Security, what do you think of? We all have one device or another to assist in keeping us safe. We have pad locks and security systems to safe guard our home, alarm systems to protect the equipment in our cars, parental controls on our cable TV and satellite accesses. We even have ways to protect our loved ones from computer invasions.
But are we protected enough, are we using the best devices to combat the unwanted and dangerous intrusions, not to mention keeping our family from stumbling across those out on the internet?
Let’s face it, without the proper soft ware to protect your computer, you are at risk every time you connect to the internet. There are the viruses, the Trojans and unwanted spam, not to mention the chat rooms where millions fall victim of on-line predators, and let’s not forget the #1 problem on the internet, pornography.
Microsoft Navision Customization Upgrade ? Tips For Programmer/IT Specialist
May 15, 2007
Currently Microsoft Business Solutions is on the way of creating so-called suites: Microsoft Financials, Microsoft Distributions, Microsoft HR, Microsoft Manufacturing. It is very difficult to say which product will be the core of which suite, but the best guess is this: Microsoft Great Plains - Microsoft Financials and probably Distribution/Supply Chain Management and HR, Solomon - Microsoft Project or Professional Services, Navision - Microsoft Manufacturing. If you have Microsoft Business Solutions Navision and support it for your company then you need to know some technical details about Navision version upgrade and what is going on behind the scenes, which options do you have in case of C/SIDE customization or Jet Reports.
The challenge of Navision Upgrade This should be understood by both: software developer and company executive.
- One Dictionary - in contract to such product as Microsoft Great Plains, where customization goes into separate dictionary - Navision customization sits in the same dictionary. This means that when new version is out there - the customization should be re-analyzed and moved from the old dictionary to the new. If you remember the history - Navision actually merged several dictionaries couple of versions back - this was very tough time for customization upgrade
