ERP Consultant Blog

3 Ways Custom Development for Dynamics GP Saves Time and Money

Written by Ken Jacobsen | Fri, Jan 18, 2013

The TM Group is dedicated to finding innovative ways to save time and money for our clients and invests considerable resources to accomplish this goal.  Here are three examples how our Microsoft Dynamics GP custom development team helps our clients with cost-saving, innovative ideas to  get more out of Microsoft Dynamics GP:

1)     Take Advantage of Real-time Integrations with Microsoft Dynamics GP and Web Services

If you have a Web Store, point of sale or legacy application you can use Web Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP which is a collection of business objects to enable real-time integration to with Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Web Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP enables us to create real-time integrations (transaction level and batch) to read, write, update, and delete data in Microsoft Dynamics GP applications.  You can be confident the data integrated into Microsoft Dynamics GP is accurate.  The business logic stored in the underlying data connection layer of eConnect checks data against business rules before the data flows into Microsoft Dynamics GP.  One great example of where our custom integration helped a client is we worked closely with a team of client developers to create and update, customers, sales orders, receive payments against orders, and invoice orders once payments were received in full.  The solution utilized Microsoft Dynamics Web Services for a bidirectional real-time interface between the clients internally developed Practice Management System and Microsoft Dynamics GP.

2)     Visual Studio Tools  Streamlines Item Maintenance in Microsoft Dynamics GP

In another case, our client needed to streamline their item maintenance process.  The client wanted to open the Item maintenance card, set default values, and then easily edit the Item, Item Vendor, Quantities/Sites and Item Planning cards without having to return to the GP menus to access the other windows.  The defaults would automatically flow to each Item related window.

The system would essentially collapse four Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 cards within a custom interface into a single form that would appear when the user selected the Item Maintenance card.  This system also requires the implementation of the dotNet FormFactory as well as a custom add-in component.

3)     Microsoft Dynamics GP Provides many Development Tools for Customizing the Look/Feel and Functionality of Microsoft Dynamics GP 10

These enhancements include adding additional interface controls and functionality to each Dexterity Task Form.  Additionally, more functionality can be added to Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 with the implementation of custom add-in modules. With the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 Service Pack 1, a new option for advanced form modification has been implemented, the dotNet FormFactory.

In Microsoft Dynamics GP 10, the Dexterity Task Forms, GP’s core display element, are displayed on a dotNET form.  The dotNet FormFactory allows a dotNet developer to replace the dotNET form that the Dexterity Task Form resides on.  The form can be augmented with additional text, data elements, status reports, or other Dexterity Task Forms.  The additional functions wrap “around” the existing GP dexterity task form, allowing the modifications made within GP to be accessible to the new wrapped forms.

By The TM Group, Michigan Microsoft Dynamics GP, Dynamics SL, Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner