News from GP Tech Conference: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 is the Next Version

Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to attend the GP tech Confernece this week and am having to watch it vicariously on Twitter using the #GPTechConf hashtag. There’s been some interesting updates on Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 (yep, 2018 R2 and not 2019). The first bit of news is confirmation of the rumour that it would be released on 1st October instead of December. This is apparently to bring it more in line with other Dynamics applications.

MVP Jen Kuntz has been tweeting about some of the new features coming in Dynamics GP 2018 R2:

• Monthly recurring batches get a new “use last day of the month” option (tickbox on Batch window in PM, RM, IV). To be clarified: is that is intended to be “last day of fiscal period” or literally just “calendar month” – if this is last day of the financial period, it will be a very useful addition, but if it is month end, then much less so. I have a few clients who do not use calendar months for the financial periods.
• Enhancements to Inventory HITB to help with performance by excluding items with no quantity or no value.
• New option in Posting Setup on “Allow Transaction Posting” to then mark “Post Thru GL”. This won’t be available on all options, but most of them. Transaction level posting will be a relaly nice addition as so many people ask about this in demos and training.
• Purchasing All-in-One view will display vendor document number – again a useful addition as this is a field most clients want to see on this window.
• Visual cues will be available for vendor hold status, kind of like customer credit limit cues were added a little while ago – this is a nice little addition as more and more clients are using navigation lists.
• A new option will be added to hide inactive chequebooks in lookups (or checkbooks!).
• Email support is being added for Purchase Order “Other” form.
• SOP Navigation list option to print documents in Originating currency now not just Functional – Jen gave me a shout out on this one, as it is a feature I asked for way back in 2014.
• Email customer statements right from the customer card – another I think, in part, derives from me as I complained about the print feature which was added not doing email. Without the ability to use the Word Template version of the report and email it, this function was not useful; the new version which allows printing will be a great addition.
• New option in System Preferences to hide Business Analyzer for all users – very, very few people use Busines Analyzer, so nice to see a quick way to hide it.
• Password length will be increasing to 21 characters! – it is well overdue time this happened. I have a few clients whose security policy mandates passwords onger than 15 characters. It would have been nice to see longer than 21, but I’ll take the extra length.

MVP Steve Endow also tweeted bout another new feature: Sales Transaction Approval workflow. I do like to see new workflows introduced, and this is one I’ve been asked about a few times.

The way Jen presented the series of posts I covered above, these are not the only new features, but ones she picked out as being the good ones. As everyone uses Dynamics GP somewhat differently, due to the needs of their business, it will be interesting to see the full list when released.

Jen also did a round-up blog post on day one of the conference where she points out that the above features are not confirmed for inclusion in 2018 R2 as they are still in QA. This is the same message given other years and the vast majority of the features shown have been included when the software was released.