Upgrading to Dynamics GP 2010 Practicing Consultant Notes

Version update for mid-market Corporate ERP system is often micro project. If you are large company with the number of ERP and Accounting users more than twenty five – we recommend you to consider it as mid-size project with several phases (first would be preparation, second test update and then production update and go live). Now we go into the technical area, as update is always related to such terminologies as Service Packs, Upgrade Path (one or more steps), customization code revision (in Dexterity, eConnect, VBA scripts in Integration Manager or Modifier), FRx, modified reports (in Report Writer), Extender. We recently brought customer all the way from 8.0 to 2010 via one intermediate step on version 10.0. Here are the discoveries:





1. 8.0 to 10.0 Service Pack 5. This process was smooth and we cannot complain about the quality of GP 10.0 DVD with integrated SP5. If you are Great Plains long term practicing consultant and you remember how update was happening back in late 1990th and earlier 2000th (to versions 7.6, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, plus migrations from Intellisol APOP, migration tool from Pervasive SQL 2000 or Ctree to SQL Server based version), we probably should admit that version 10.0 is more stable and it handles updates as it should



2. 10.0 Service Pack 5 to 2010 SP1. The same picture, no problems at all with DB side conversion



3. Test Phase. Client made a decision just to compare reports, such as FRx, Smart Lists, AP Checks, SOP Invoices (we have more than twenty companies and reports are loaded from the packages into production Reports.dic individually for each company). Surprisingly all the packages from version 8.0 (SOP Blank and Long Invoice forms) showed up to be compatible with 2010/11.0



4. 1099 forms and numbers for the year 2010. This was part of the testing. And surprisingly some of the vendors were not shown on the 1099 vendor list report (as compared to the same report from version 8.0). AP Utilities to Reconcile Vendor (1099 only) printed 1099 Update (Miscellaneous/7 Nonemployee Compensation), but it didn’t update 1099 inquiry for the same vendor (and table PM00204 was not updated, still showing zero for the month, where Vendor was paid in 1099 qualified transaction). At this point we believe that it is on the list of issues for the future service pack release



5. FRx on 64 bit Windows 2008 Server (both Sysdata and client application). Installation is a bit misleading, as it generates couple of error messages (please, not that Microsoft Business Solutions doesn’t support FRx on 64 bit OS platform). We were able to deploy FRx by exporting and importing Specification Set and importing it back into clean FRx Sysdata. In this scenario we had to recreate all the companies manually (good help is Cloning mechanism in FRx). Importing was performed to the Sysdata on FRx Service Pack 10 (be sure that you have to first apply SP9, and only then SP 10 or 11). At that point FRx was functional pulling data from SQL Server 2008 based GP, customer printed reasonable set of P&L, Balance Sheet reports and compared them to 8.0 based one – everything was matching



6. Integration Manager workstation, where eConnect was required. Customer wanted to control eConnect install via Domain Administrator account. By whatever reason we were not able to install eConnect on client 32 bit Windows XP computer with its credential (getting error message ‘Unable to Add user to SQL’). Numerous posts recommend create clean new account in active directory and give it Domain Admin rights. Such an account was created and we were able to load eConnect on user workstation and subsequently install IM. Please, note, that in our case we had to do IM.MDB conversion and then open each eConnect based integration and update target Server and Database in Destination Properties. This is understandable, as eConnect option in IM 8.0 required direct SQL login/password and DB name (in version 10.0 eConnect client was realized in the form of COM+ object component, in 2010 it is .Net assembly)



7. Microsoft Management Reporter. The plan was to try forced conversion from FRx to MMR and go live on the Reporter. Domain Administrator wanted to control MMR, having it run under domain administrator account. Installation on the server went OK (we marked the checkbox open 4712 port on Windows 2008 firewall and this option lets us to load MMR client on the user computers). With Management Reporter however we got several issues. First one was related to the problem with domain administrator account (it looks like you are in better chance when you are using another account, specially created for MMR in active directory and included into Domain Admin group). Second issue we got was Budgets – it looks like MMR (with FP1 applied) doesn’t like Budget columns in Column Layout. The third issue – in Row Format in FRx, the migration wizard reported no problem, however when opening Row Format in MMR it markes errors on specific rows, where you do summary on the numerated rows. If exact numerated row doesn’t exist, you have to adjust the Total (from row N to row M – be sure that both rows: N and M exists, and if not change the from and to numbers)



8. MMR Queue Reports deletion problem. It looks like we got this issue due to the fact that we tried to use Domain Administrator as MR Service credentials. However, trying to fix this problem we found numerous posts in the internet, where consultants are seeking for help, trying to clear the queue. We were able to do this in SSMS by issuing the following command:



use ManagementReporter

delete Repository where Type=10



It did the job by allowing us to send new reports to the queue, where they find themselves in the same limbo. So, the issue is likely to be in incorrect MMR Security setup



9. Have fun in your Dynamics GP version upgrade! We are available to help you out, especially in the case of really old version of Great Plains on Pervasive SQL 2000/Ctree: 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0; or even Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows or Mac: 9.5, 9.2, 9.1. We are also comfortable to do Dexterity customization re-haul and code revision



10. For further information, please call us 1-866-304-3265 or email help@efaru.com. We provide service in USA and internationally via web sessions. Local service is available in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, Western Michigan. We welcome international customers from China, Russia, Mexico, Latin America and Caribbean Basin, South East Asia, Oceania, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Poland, Arabic speaking countries



Andrew Karasev is Great Plains Certified Master, MVP, help@efaru.com 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904. He is also the initiator of eFaru project http://www.efaru.com and founder of Alba Spectrum information space