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FRx – Such A Small Typo, Such A Big Effect

Wednesday 28th Aug 2013 Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

Sometimes it is difficult to see the cause of a problem. We’re in the process of upgrading a heavily customised installation of Microsoft Dynamics GP for a client and are installing the new version on a new environment.

When it came to installing FRx I had a bit of a problem. I had installed and configured it on the SQL Server without any problem, but when I installed it on a Terminal Server I ran into the following error;

FRx Professional – FRx32.OSFIMain.CheckOFSIConnection – 8900: Frx is unable to open a connection to the general ledger database because the specified ODBC data source is not value. Veryify that the data source exists on the computer

Continue reading “FRx – Such A Small Typo, Such A Big Effect”

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Management Reporter Legacy Connector Company Logon Works Only For sa

Monday 19th Aug 2013Monday 2nd Dec 2013 Ian Grieve4 minute read5 Comments

I’ve been having a bit of a Management Reporter time recently; not that I especially mind as I like Management Reporter. In this instance I did some configuration of Management Reporter for a client (see my recent post on the Data Mart) and checked everything out as A-OK.

I then asked one of the clients to try, but she got an error stating “Unable to connect to the LIVE company. The connection to the Microsoft Dynamics GP database failed. Contact your system administrator”.

Well, I logged back in and tried again and was again able to log in without a problem. A little more exploring and I was able to establish that only when I logged in as the sa user was I able to run Management Reporter without a problem.

This is not an error I have seen before so a little investigation determined the problem is because I configured the Management Reporter Data Mart Connector I had used the machine name as the connection to the server, but the client machines are configured to use the CNAME alias in the ODBC connection instead of the machine name.

KB Article 2737852 outlines two methods of correcting the problem. The first is to change the client machines ODBC entry to match that used to configure the Data Mart and which I did not want to do as it was set up so passwords would not need to be reset if GP was moved to a different server.

The second method is to edit some data in the Management Reporter database to change the GLEntityConnectionInformation column so that it matches the ODBC on the client machines. This is the method I opted for and, after making the change, the client confirmed she was able to access Management Reporter.

Updated following comment from Peter Bailey

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Outlook.com: Send Without Attachments?

Thursday 15th Aug 2013 Ian Grieve2 minute read3 Comments

I’ve been a bit quiet on the posting front recently because my second book is in the later stages of the publishing process and I need to review and respond to feedback from the editors at Packt Publishing.

To do this we’ve been emailing drafts of the chapters to and fro. And (again) this morning a feature of Outlook.com saved me from looking slightly silly when I replied to an email intending to send back an updated draft, but clicked Send without actually attaching the file;

Send without attachments? Just checking. It looks like you’ve mentioned attachments but haven’t added any.

I was presented with the above message. Clicked Go back, added the file and sent the message.

I’ve talked to various people who dislike this type of message, but I really don’t see the problem with it. I’ve only ever been presented the message when I have meant to attach a file and forgotten; I’ve never received it for a false positive so I quite like it. I wish Outlook 2010 had it (or perhaps it does and I just don’t know where the setting is.

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Management Reporter 2012 Rollup 6 Available

Wednesday 7th Aug 2013 Ian Grieve2 minute read4 Comments

A couple of days ago , the Dynamics PTS blog announced the release of Management Reporter 2012 Rollup 6.

This rollup has a range of new features including:

The ability to generate a single report link for a report group and open all reports from a single page in the web viewer
14 new default reports for new Dynamics GP customers (existing customers can easily import these reports)
Transaction descriptions greater than 100 characters are now supported
Support for bi-directional text in Management Reporter Report Designer and Web Viewer

Partners can get more information here and download RU6 here.

Full details are available on the Dynamics PTS blog.

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Management Reporter 2012 Incorrect Figures Using Data Mart Connector

Monday 5th Aug 2013Saturday 27th May 2017 Ian Grieve3 minute read3 Comments

A client reported an issue the other day with figures being incorrect in Management Reporter when compared to the equivalent report in FRx and also to the figures in Microsoft Dynamics GP (which matched FRx).

I think the original cause of this problem is that when the calendar for the current year was created, there was a gap accidentally left between the end of last year and the start of the current one. This was fixed and a reconciliation run in GP, but this did not allow the data to be trickled out into the Management Reporter Data Mart.

In an attempt to resolve the issue, I removed and re-added the Data Mart (deleting the DDM database between removing and re-adding) using the Management Reporter Configuration Console, waited for the initial extract and ended up with figures that were even more different to FRx; a slightly worrying moment I have to admit.

I checked the version and discovered the client was running Management Reporter 2012 RU4 which is known to have an issue populating the DDM database during the initial data extract. Fortunately, Microsoft Support KB 2831693 details how transactions posted from the open years in Dynamics GP are not included during the initial data load and links to the hotfix for RU4 which resolves this problem.

I again removed the Data Mart, deleted the database, installed the hotfix and added the Data Mart back and, after the initial data load completed, all of the data needed to make the report match both GP and FRx was present.

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Unknown Dictionary Error

Friday 2nd Aug 2013 Ian Grieve1 minute read2 Comments

A client logged a problem which I needed to look at through the GP 2010 client, so I logged onto their server and ran up GP.

Or at least I attempted to. After double clicking the Desktop shortcut I received the following error message;

Dexterity Runtime – Unknown dictionary error

Continue reading “Unknown Dictionary Error”

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VBA Compile Error – Expected: expression

Tuesday 30th Jul 2013Tuesday 30th Jul 2013 Ian Grieve2 minute read2 Comments

I realise that the use of VBA in modifications and customisations is something that needs to be carefully considered with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 including a Silverlight based Web Client which cannot use VBA. I had a requirement from a client for a modification to the Debtor Enquiry (Customer Inquiry to the Americans reading) to include the sum of the displayed transactions on the window and as this was a small client with GP installed locally on each PC there is no requirement for the web client, I felt able to perform this change using Modifier using some VBA.

I added the required fields to the VBA project but encountered an error message when writing the VBA code to concatenate the fields into the SQL statement I was going to use to get the data;

Microsoft Visual Basic: Compile error: Expected: expression

Continue reading “VBA Compile Error – Expected: expression”

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Management Reporter – An Unknown Error Has Occurred

Friday 26th Jul 2013Friday 26th Jul 2013 Ian Grieve1 minute read2 Comments

After dealing with an obscure and unhelpful Integration Manager error recently, I’ve also had a Management Reporter one; when trying to generate a report the following error was consistently produced;

An unknown error has occurred while processing report

Continue reading “Management Reporter – An Unknown Error Has Occurred”

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Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2 Announced for Q4

Tuesday 23rd Jul 2013Friday 30th Dec 2016 Ian Grieve3 minute read1 Comment

A few days ago, Errol Schoenfish on the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog announced the forthcoming Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2 (or H2 as he named it) for Q4 of the 2013 calendar year.

The part of the announcement which surprised me was the announcement that there would be a “Feature of the Day” starting in September; I thought that, usually, “Feature of the Day” only occurred for major releases and not service packs. Let me say though: this is not a complaint!

In SP2 the Web Client will see the see releases for the Project, Manufacturing and Field Service series as well as the expansion of ISV Extensibility to allow Visual Studio forms to be presented in the Web Client in the same way as Dexterity forms.

Document Attach will be extended to allow attachments to be included in emails and to allow documents attached to cards to be rolled down to the transactions. So a terms and conditions file attached to a customer record could be rolled down to the sales invoices and attached to the email.

One really nice feature is the ability in SmartList to hide the navigation tree; here’s hoping this is a button on the toolbar to quickly expand and shrink the nav pane.

There are additional features so far announced in the blog post including an update to the Windows 8 Business Analyzer app to rewrite it in HTML5 and JavaScriptto allow, amongst other new features, the inclusion of reports from Management Reporter.

For full details of the announcment check the original blog post.

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Integration Manager Error – Object Reference Not Set To An Instance Of An Object

Wednesday 17th Jul 2013 Ian Grieve1 minute read4 Comments

Sometimes I find Integration Manager to be very trying. It can be a very useful tool but it can also be incredibly frustrating.

A client we have taken over support for logged a call about an integration they couldn’t run and hadn’t been able to run for a couple of months after their upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. The error message they were receiving was this;