Hubris - Definition: Microsofts Passport
August 23, 2007
Before September of 1995, Microsoft ignored the Internet because their 16-bit Windows 3.1 operating system couldn’t handle the 32-bit Internet world. With the introduction of Windows 95, Microsoft decided they owned the Internet.
Instead of having separate accounts at dozens of websites, Microsoft decided that you will have one master account that you will use to log in everywhere. That account will contain your credit card number, bank account numbers, all your personal information and financial records, and Microsoft will own that account.
Well, Microsoft IS the United State’s government condoned monopoly, so 200 million Internet users, and 100 major web companies dutifully signed up for Microsoft’s Passport wallet service.
In 1999, Internet authorities discovered Microsoft’s passport service had numerous security holes, and hackers could steal your personal information. In 2001, the Federal Trade Commission admonished Microsoft for not adhering to their own privacy policy. In 2003, Microsoft purged all the financial records from its Passport servers.
Millions of users continue to sign up for Passport because of the convenience it offers. Nearly 100 websites use Passport as their authentication method. Users don’t need to remember separate usernames and passwords for each website. They can log in to all of them using a single email address. Some of the websites let you register without a Passport accont, but others, especially Microsoft owned websites, require you to have a Passport account.
Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager ? Advanced Techniques
August 22, 2007
Great Plains Integration Manager scripting and translation - overview for programmer, software developer, database administrator, IT specialist
Microsoft Business Solutions main middle market ERP application - Microsoft Great Plains has multiple integration options: MS SQL Scripting (stored procedures and views), ADO.Net programming, Microsoft SQL Server DTS packages. You certainly can deploy such SDK tools as eConnect. However here we would like to show you how to program the simplest user friendly tool: Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager.
We assume that you are familiar with Microsoft scripting technologies: Visual Basic for Application (VBA). You should be aware, however, about poor performance of Integration Manager. We recommend it for low volume of complex transactions. It is good tool, if you are importing about 100 transactions per day from text file (when you need to come through empty lines or something not matching the template to filter integration lines). If you have thousand transactions and performance is critical - switch to SQL Stored procs or Dexterity custom process server.
1. VBA Scripting ? Launch Great Plains Integration Manager, open your integration, right click->Properties, switch tab to scripts, open Before Document script. Now place this code in it:
If Left(SourceFields(”F4″), 4)=”THRU” Then
Microsoft Great Plains Installation ? Overview for IT Director/Controller
August 21, 2007
Microsoft Great Plains is main mid-market application from Microsoft Business Solutions. This is short article, written in question/answer/FAQ style to give IT Director/Controller balanced top level information on Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains implementation. If you have decided on Microsoft Great Plains as main accounting and ERP system you need to know some technical details on Great Plains installation and implementation and what is going on behind the scenes. As of right now the current version is Microsoft Great Plains 8.0
What is installation in the language of technology? Installation has server and client sides.
- Server side - Installation creates security environment (logins) on MS SQL Server or MSDE, creates system database - DYNAMICS and then company databases. All these tasks are performed by Microsoft Great Plains Utilities
- Workstation side - workstation installation copies the client side application, installs current version of MDAC (we need SQL ODBC driver - please check documentation on ODBC DSN setup), registers the application. If you plan to run Great Plains Utilities from the workstation to create server side (see above) - you need to check Install Client and Server Components
What is following implementation? Implementation requires combination of technological and accounting skills
Microsoft Business Solutions Customization Options - Overview for Programmer
August 20, 2007
Several years ago Microsoft purchased Great Plains Software, then Navision (Denmark based software development company). At this time Great Plains Software already was active ERP applications consolidation player - it already acquired Solomon Software couple of years prior. Then in 2002 Microsoft released Microsoft CRM (Client Relation Management system). Also Microsoft decided to attack retail marked and acquired QuickSell (now Microsoft Retail Management System/ Microsoft RMS).
At this time Microsoft had robust package to automate business processes for small, midsize and large company and it formed so-called Microsoft Business Solutions (at the earlier stage the official name was Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions - later Great Plains words were dropped)
We would like to make brief review of customization options for such products as Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft CRM and Microsoft RMS
Technology overview. Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft CRM and Microsoft RMS have similar database platform - Microsoft SQL Server. There are differences in the tables design between three - due to the fact that they were originally developed by three different companies. Great Plains has Great Plains Dexterity core (this is Great Plains Software proprietary c-language based technology and development environment), and as it was primarily targeted to be platform independence - Great Plains has old-fashioned UNIX style of tables names: RM00101 stays for customer master file, GL00100 - account master file, etc. At the same time Microsoft RMS and Microsoft CRM have more natural language based names: Microsoft CRM: Account, Activity, Contact, Lead; Microsoft RMS: Customer, Transaction, Tender, Register - we believe that these structures are self explanatory.
Microsoft CRM Customization Secrets ? Second Edition
August 19, 2007
This article is for advanced Microsoft CRM SDK C# developers. It describes the technique of direct SQL programming, when SDK doesn’t have the functionality to do the job.
Introduction. Looks like Microsoft CRM becomes more and more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind it. Now it is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. It is tightly integrated with other Microsoft Business Solutions products such as Microsoft Great Plains, Solomon, Navision (the last two in progress).
Here we describe the technique of creating closed activity-email using MS CRM SDK and direct SQL programming.
Imaging something like this. You need to handle incoming email before it is committed to MS Exchange database. You need to analyze if incoming email doesn’t have GUID in its Subject (GUID will allow MS CRM Exchange Connector to move email to Microsoft CRM and attach it to the Contact, Account or Lead) - then you still need to lookup MS CRM in case if one of the accounts, contacts or leads has email address that matches with sender email address - then you need to create closed activity-email in MS CRM, attached to the object and placed into general queue.
Microsoft Great Plains: Interest Calculation Example ? Stored Procedure for Crystal Report
August 18, 2007
This is intermediate level SQL scripting article for DB Administrator, Programmer, IT Specialist
Our and Microsoft Business Solutions goal here is to educate database administrator, programmer, software developer to enable them support Microsoft Great Plains for their companies. In our opinion self support is the goal of Microsoft to facilitate implementation of its products: Great Plains, Navision, Solomon, Microsoft CRM. You can do it for your company, appealing to Microsoft Business Solutions Techknowledge database. This will allow you to avoid expensive consultant visits onsite. You only need the help from professional when you plan on complex customization, interface or integration, then you can appeal to somebody who specializes in these tasks and can do inexpensive nation-wide remote support for you.
Let’s look at interest calculation techniques.
Imagine that you are financing institution and have multiple customers in two companies, where you need to predict interest. The following procedure will do the job:
CREATE PROCEDURE AST_Interest_Calculation
@Company1 varchar(10), –Great Plains SQL database ID
@Company2 varchar(10),
@Accountfrom varchar(60),
@Accountto varchar(60),
@Datefrom datetime,
@Dateto datetime–,
as
declare @char39 char –for single quote mark
declare @SDatefrom as varchar(50)
declare @SDateto as varchar(50)
Configure Windows Indexing Service for Performance
August 18, 2007
The Windows Indexing Service provides you with the ability to perform advanced searches on directories located on your computer and on shared directories on the network. The Indexing Service was introduced with IIS (Internet Information Services) and is now installed with Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
The Indexing Service is not started by default on a Windows 2000 professional computer. If you want the Indexing service to start automatically, select “Start | Settings | Control Panel | Administrative Tools” and open the “Computer Management” application. In the left pane of the “Computer Management” window, select “Services”, then in the right pane, right-click on “Indexing Service”. The “Indexing Services Properties” dialog box will appear.
In the “Indexing Services Properties” dialog box, on the “General” tab select “Automatic” from the “Startup type:” drop-down list. Under “Service stautus:” click on the “Start” button. A flurry of hard disk activity may begin as the Indexing Service builds or updates the index. The Indexing service creates an index (also called a catalog) organized in a way that makes it quick and easy to search. The Indexing Service also records the documents properties, for example its date of creation and last modified date.
Microsoft Great Plains Remote Support - Overview
August 17, 2007
Microsoft Great Plains is now standard mid-market ERP application, serving the whole spectrum of businesses. In the case of mid-size business we usually see strong IT team with SQL querying skills plus accounting department is already trained to use Great Plains and needs minimal help in figuring out on how to use new Great Plains version and features. In this situation company may leverage it’s work force strength and minimize ERP application support cost. This is the goal of Microsoft Business Solutions and the philosophy of future computer systems. In this situation - in our opinion - there is no need to have expensive local support when consultants are coming to you on regular basis and spend at least four hours onsite, charging somewhat close to $200 per hour.
Also, please take into consideration the fact that consulting companies have to train new hires to do the job, and formal training should be supplemented with serving to real customer. Below we give you your options to support Great Plains with minimized support cost.
Microsoft Great Plains Integrations ? Retail Management Sample
August 16, 2007
Microsoft Business Solutions is emerging as very attractive vendor for mid-size companies. The strength of its products is in their cross integration potential. This integration strategy will be the software development direction for this Microsoft subdivision. Meanwhile, as of right now ? we have to recommend just to stake on it and deal with custom or in-house developed integration.
If you are developer who needs some sample code to start with ? we are placing Accounts Receivable level integration code ? it pulls info from Microsoft RMS and places it into work tables in Great Plains.
Be aware, that Microsoft Great Plains version 7.5 has out of the box integration with Microsoft RMS 1.2, but it is on GL and POP level only. You can’t do check book reconciliation, for example. Currently Microsoft is in decision on who will be coding the integration for Great Plains 8.0 and what the functionality should be. More likely ? it will be Nodus Technologies with the integration on SOP and GL level ? it will deploy Great Plains Dexterity and MS SQL Server stored procs.
And here is the code, you have to deal with RM10301 and distribution RM, also we recommend insert new customers into RM00101 and RM00102:
The End of Spyware?
August 15, 2007
The US House of Representatives has recently passed the “Spy Act” - or to give it its full title - the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act. This aims to prevent software companies from installing spyware on users PCs without their knowledge, and anyone found guilty of breaching the act faces a fine of up to $3 million.
Does this mean the end of spyware as we know it? Unfortunately the answer is no, not really. The problem is that most spyware can continue to operate in exactly the same way as it does now, by asking the computer user to agree to a licence before it installs itself. The majority of people who are faced with a lengthy legal-looking page of text when installing a new program, automatically click the “I Agree” option without reading the terms. Therefore spyware programs can quite legally continue to piggy-back their way onto PCs.
Add to this the fact that a large percentage of spyware originates from outside the US, and it quickly becomes clear that the Spy Act realistically has about as much chance of success as the Can-Spam act did in attempting to stop the deluge of junk email that arrives in our mailboxes every day.
