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Dynamics GP Integration Methodologies for eCommerce, EDI, Data Conversions
Microsoft Dynamics GP Corporate ERP platform (formerly known as Great Plains Software Dynamics and eEnterprise, please note that Great Plains Accounting or GPA for DOS, Windows and Mac was its predecessor, but has a way different user interface and functionality, but it was probably put into foundation architecture as first prototype) has several integration technologies, methods and tools. In this small publication we would like to review them in free discussion form and FAQ style. Great Plains has huge number of installations across USA, Canada, and internationally (especially in English speaking countries or in Spanish Speaking Latin America and Caribbean). This article is intended as orientation only, for additional information we encourage you to review our publications on Great Plains integrations for specific industry or region. We are trying to keep balance between technical level and something that is readable for non IT managers: company Sales Executive, Controller, VP Finance, etc.
1. Real Time versus Batch Level or Scheduled Integrations. These are rather academic terms (if you take college courses on Corporate ERP, Managerial Accounting, or eCommerce). Dynamics GP allows you to program both types of integrations, and we will be explaining in the following paragraphs which tool is preferred for specific integration type. For you it is important to understand that scheduled batch level integration is naturally easier and less expensive to implement, but as the downsize it has disadvantage of having time delay to be seen in your Corporate ERP system, in our article Microsoft Dynamics GP
2. Batch Level Integration Tools. As the first preference please review functionality of Dynamics GP Integration Manager module. It is user friendly tools plus if you are VBA programmer you could contribute to its integration logic alteration by handling such events as Before Integration, Before Document Commit, etc. Plus, we would like to make couple of comments, especially if you heard opinions from your current Dynamics GP Partner, VAR, or Reseller, that IM is only for Text files integrations. We have developed technology, which allows you to integrate EDI, ecommerce and other transactions from SQL Views as Advanced ODBC Queries in IM. This opens the door for Batch level or scheduled integrations from ODBC compliant sources, such as Microsoft Access, Oracle, DBII, Sybase, Progress (this Database is popular among the banks), MySQL/Linux/PHP/Unix.
3. Breaking through Batch level integration. Great Plains Integration Manager integration could be scheduled to automatically fired every, let's say twenty minutes. We actually had this scenario implemented for one of the IT Services and Computer Hardware Outlet. IM does wonderful job and your can deploy one of the free or really cheap Windows macro automation add-ons to schedule integrations, or purchase scheduler directly from Microsoft Business Solutions
4. Real Time Integrations. If you are ecommerce retailer or B2B (B2C) shop with huge number of ecommerce transactions (1000 and plus per hour, or maybe 100 plus per hour, where each invoice has multiple lines), and you think that Dynamics GP Integration Manager is not the way to go, please review eConnect SDK programming. eConnect is not a miracle, it is simply set of encrypted SQL Stored Procedures codes in Object Oriented programming manner to expose Great Plains objects to Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB.Net developer (you can also use eConnect as libraries in you other .Net exposed programming language, such as Fortran, Cobol, but to our opinion you will not be able to find code samples, especially for such competition programming languages as Delphi or which is its predecessor Pascal). Well to make life more rose, if you call to Microsoft Dynamics GP technical support (formerly known as Microsoft Business Solutions) - they might be better positioned to help you with eConnect programming in Fortran or Cobol.Net. From our practical point of view you should be versed in either C# (which is sort of derivative from SUN Java end EJB Enterprise Java beans) or Visual Basic.Net (which is natural transitional programming language for programmers who are in the process of being retrained to program in VB for Microsoft.Net platform)
5. EDI integration to Dynamics GP Great Plains. Electronic Document Interchange or EDI is typically associated with Text file with fixed field formatting or in newer and advances scenarios with XML anatomy. In our opinion you have two options with Great Plains EDI: third party Dynamics GP ISV EDI add-on or simple formatted SQL Select Statement (heterogeneous connections are expected if you would like to source your EDI request from non Microsoft platforms, such as Oracle custom DB, PHP/Linux/MySQL)
6. Dynamics GP Data Conversion. Data migration and even data massage from your legacy accounting platform (MYOB, Peachtree, QuickBooks, sometimes you are willing to downgrade your Corporate ERP application from Oracle Financials to Dynamics GP). GP Data Conversion is normally via Great Plains Integration Manager, simple cases could be migrated via Great Plains Import Utility (this option doesn't validate business logic)
7. Dynamics GP integration with Microsoft CRM (often referred as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, version 4.0 and previously 3.0). Microsoft CRM 4,0 is web based HTML applications (from the perspective of the Microsoft Dynamics client). This product could potentially expose your ecommerce website to your B2B customers, for additional information, please call us, MS CRM is outside of the scope for this article
8. EConnect historical or legacy versions. To our knowledge Great Plains eConnect was introduced for GP Select and Professional 7.5 as the SDK dedicated to ecommerce programmers. International Corporate ERP selection process is in our opinion the most delicate, so we would like to avoid comments here. eConnect turned to become reliable in our opinion in GP version 9.0 and especially current version Dynamics GP 10.0
9. Excurse to Legacy versions of Great Plains Dynamics integration options. For legacy versions, including Great Plains on Pervasive SQL 2000/Btrieve and Ctree/Faircom you have Great Plains Integration Manager (OLE Server Application, where "Server" itself is GP user workstation), which was known as to be a bit slow, especially for large volume of transactions. For simple integrations, such as moving legacy Chart of Accounts to Great Plains, you can use GP Table Import Utility - this tool doesn't validate business logic, so you have to follow exact instructions (typically various method of Check Links and Data Repair via ODBC connection from Microsoft Access linked tables) and look for known issues. Also, common was deploying custom Great Plains Dexterity modules for GP logic altering and extension and Dex is in this case a way to integrate data into new entities
10. EDI Transactions Export from GP. If Dynamics GP is playing master role in EDI communication - where you send EDI formatted files to your Supplier, we recommend you to consider simple option of formatted SQL Select statement. This method doesn't require Dynamics GP EDI Add-On product purchasing as you save formatted Query results directly into EDI compliant text file
11. Exotic Great Plains integration examples. We cannot recommend this method to everybody, we just saw it in one of GP installations. Microsoft Excel VBA programmer created pretty advanced VBA scripts in Excel templates. These scripts import text file into Excel, format Excel worksheet and then via pup up dialogue call GP Integration Manager Integration. This method looks pretty elegant, however be sure that you have somebody in your organization or programmer at your Dynamics GP Partner staff to support and modify such routine, especially if you face Great Plains version upgrade, redeployment this application on newly purchased computer, etc.
12. How to get help? Please, feel free to call us: 1-866-528-0577, outside of USA: 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum.com We are very technical and real Dynamics GP Dexterity, SAP Business One SDK and Microsoft CRM programming gurus. We have Great Plains Software Development Factory and could support unlimited Dynamics GP Customization and Programming needs. Plus we speak English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and not only as native speaking sales folks, but as real technical consultants. If you prefer skype: albaspectrum
About the Author
Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum , help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577 http://www.albaspectrum.com Serving ERP and MRP community since 1994, local service in Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Atlanta, Los Angeles. Information portal: http://www.pegasplanet.com We serve you USA and Canada nationwide from our Dynamics GP and SAP Business One call center: California, Illinois, New York, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Ontario, Quebec, Washington, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Montana, Oregon, New York, New England. International clients welcome from Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South Africa, UK, Brazil, Caribbean, Russia, Central America: Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, San Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala , South America: Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia