Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is Dexterity-written application and currently we see increased interest for Great Plains customers to do in-house Dexterity development and customization. Dexterity itself is written on C programming language and its initial architecture was based on the Graphical and Database platform independence, which C programming language was believed to provide. Initially back in 1994 Great Plains Software Dynamics and Dynamics C/S+ were realized for Macintosh and Windows and pretty similar Dexterity DYNAMICS.DIC dictionary worked for Ctree/Faircomm and Microsoft SQL Server 6.5. In our days Microsoft Great Plains is available for Windows and MS SQL Server only (since version 8.0). In this small article we would like to give you highlights on the most typical entry level Dexterity development questions
? How do I install Dexterity. If you have Microsoft Great Plains Standard or Professional license, you Great Plains CD #2 has Dexterity installation files. However you need license from Microsoft Business Solutions if you plan to do in-house software development. If you have Small Business Manager / Small Business Financials ? your distributive doesn't have Dexterity ? you need to call your MBS partner and have them to do the job.
? DYNAMICS.DIC. This is your core dictionary which should be used for your customization.
? New Custom forms vs. Alternate Forms. If you are beginner, please try to stick to new Great Plains Forms. Do not customize existing forms. If you open existing form in Dexterity ? you should be aware that field scripts are stripped off and if you place your own script over the original one ? you will destroy the field logic
? Dexterity Triggers. You register them in Startup script ? look Dexterity manual. If you have to deal with existing fields logic alteration you register before or after original script trigger. Please see the examples.
? SQL Stored Procs. Latest version of Microsoft Great Plains is available for MS SQL Sevrer/MSDE only and you should consider combination of Dexterity and Stored procs. Try to avoid using old Dexterity cursors, statements, like: start range. Hint ? ranges were the instrument of database platform independence and it seems to be not the case anymore.
? Dexterity Chunk. You should be aware that Dexterity reserves certain range of the resources for MBS internal developers, you can not modify and use these resources, all the custom resources you create in your customization will use the numbers outside of the proprietary range. Your new resources will be packed into so called chunk. Please refer to the manual on how to create the chunk.
? Customization Upgrade. The most challenging portion of upgrade is Alternate Great Plains forms. If you place custom fields and logic on the existing forms then, you should know that Great Plains can change the form for the new version and you will have to review and redo the custom logic.
? Localization. Dexterity has string resources ? this is where you can translate the strings and have Great Plains work with your native language. However your native language code should be single byte, not Unicode. If you need Dex to work with Chinese, Japanese or Korean ? there is special utility to enable this feature.
Happy customizing! You can always appeal to us to help you with your system. Give as a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Microsoft CRM, Navision, Microsoft RMS, Microsoft Business Portal customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Boston, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Toronto, Montreal, Brazil, Mexico, UK, Australia, Canada, UK, Europe, Russia an having small offices in multiple states and internationally.
Microsoft released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the Windows XP... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains fits to majority of horizontals and retail... Read More
The destruction of the Soviet Union about 15 years ago,... Read More
Microsoft CRM and IBM Lotus Notes Domino seem to be... Read More
Logistics automation is often considered as barcoding extension to Sales... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains is becoming more and more popular and... Read More
I love new technology. I am still ready to wait... Read More
Configuring PPP PAP AuthenticationNow we know how the ISDN link... Read More
Although we don't know whether Microsoft ever envisioned such a... Read More
Microsoft CRM was designed to be easily customizable. Microsoft CRM... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is very popular ERP/MRP applications... Read More
Do you remember that frustrating feeling when you find an... Read More
Most computer users use spreadsheets software such as Microsoft Excel... Read More
Microsoft bought Navision, Denmark based software development company, along with... Read More
MS CRM is very close to document workflow automation, including... Read More
Best Software Act! is very popular CRM for small and... Read More
This article is for advanced Microsoft CRM SDK C# developers.... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains is now standard mid-market ERP application, serving... Read More
CD and DVD replication is a process that works by... Read More
As we could imagine, if you are reading this article... Read More
Spyware and Adware infest over 90 percent of computers in... Read More
Task Manager is a Windows system utility that displays thetasks... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has substantial market share and... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is mid and even corporate... Read More
How do you run a program on a remote server... Read More
So let's begin crunching down these 300 images using Adobe... Read More
Executive SummaryAn effective plan for entering, cleaning and updating the... Read More
The major reason I recommend getting your hands on real... Read More
With this small article we are continuing Microsoft Business Solutions... Read More
To all web designers out there, this article is for... Read More
Ok... Where to start?Well, I guess I will start at... Read More
During the years of our consulting practice, which comes back... Read More
Microsoft CRM is CRM application, maintained and supported by Microsoft... Read More
Is your PC is slow and wimpy? Then you need... Read More
New post-recession era has new features, which didn't exist in... Read More
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy and processes used... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions offers several ERP applications: Great Plains, Navision,... Read More
XML Server can be a Web Server that stores the... Read More
GroupwareEfforts are continually made to manage the unavoidable ad hoc... Read More
Find out why Spyware Removal from computers is important and... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains serves majority of US based horizontal and... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions ? Navision is an integrated solution for... Read More
Introduction: The creating of a computer program involves a number... Read More
This is intermediate level SQL scripting article for DB Administrator,... Read More
Most computer users use spreadsheets software such as Microsoft Excel... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains was historically designed to serve... Read More
Adware is a type of Spyware program that displays some... Read More
Internet worms. Is your PC infected?If your computer has become... Read More
What is installation in the language of technology? Installation... Read More
Bill of Lading is required report for Logistics and Freight... Read More
Software |