Keeping it simple

Alert: Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) big changes

Some of you may be running the Business Essential Business servers. I ran across a press release about this product being discontinued mid 2010. The good news is that Microsoft is offering customers who want to transition off the EBS system to EBS 2008 software. Learn more by clicking here

Check with your IT team to see if this affect you.

 

Regards,

 

Jeff Cozens

 

Cleaver way to save some money by gaming the new price list for GP

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Is Coming – Get Ready Now!

Most likely you already have gotten emails regarding the new releases for Microsoft GP. This product is being renamed GP 2010. What I want to update my readers is that there is a new bundling of software which is being released with the May 2010 price list. If you are contemplating adding any new capabilities or modules to your GP product, I would like to talk to you before 4/15. There is potential to do some: "gaming on the planned new price list" For instance, you might be able to buy a single ad hoc module, and see that after the May 2010 price list comes out that you now get "multiple modules for the same price". This potential opportunity is all based on the simple idea that owners of modules which are being incorporated in the new suite of pricing options may qualify for registration keys for the entire suite of modules. Let's talk more about your specific needs, and see if we can save you some money……

The new release of Dynamics GP 2010 will be available in May, 2010.  With it, Microsoft furthers its reputation for delivering consistent and significant value to existing customers by helping to enhance business insight, make business easier, and extend connections inside and outside our customer's businesses. Check out this upcoming webinar by clicking here

 

Please join us for this webcast where you will learn not only about new functionality in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, but you will also learn about the exciting new licensing that may allow existing customers to purchase functionality now and get significantly more at no cost when new price lists become official on May 1, 2010.

Presenters: Rich Miller, Senior Marketing Manager - GREAT PLAINS, Microsoft Corporation and Ben Corwin, Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation

View other sessions from Enterprise Resource Planning: Accelerate Your Business Toward Profit

 

Regards

Jeff Cozens

Continued…. Saved by a great backup system

Wow, this client who had the upgrade issues, was well prepared. They had invested in a BDR (Backup Disaster Recovery) system earlier this year. This BDR, which was sold to them by Claire Computer Systems, was amazing. This hardware/ software BDR system will "… store short term backups, send long term backups to a remote secure site, and act as a server should any of your servers go down. In less than 4 hours, the entire volume (ie server C drive) for the problem server was restored and everything was exactly as it was at 7 am the morning our problem upgrade started. The controller was amazed, and so was I. Having a backup system work so well is always a big relief. Here is a link to the web info about this system: http://www.clarecomputer.com/NetCentralBDR/index.html. This is such a great story I recommend you call Claire Computer and ask for Doug to learn more. His phone number is: 800-339-0690

Once again a big thanks to this IT team and their successful restoring a complete server operating system in 4 hours.

Regards,

Jeff Cozens

Something to add to the upgrade checklist

Ouch, I got stung today. I was doing an upgrade to a new version of SL for one of our clients. The server was partitioned into a small "C-Drive", for their server operating software, and a larger "D-Drive" for their Erp data. The moral of today's painful learning experience, is that you always need to be aware about where new software is going to be installed. The I gotta is that most software installers typically default to the local "C-drive". In our case, I blew it…. I installed using the defaults and completely filled up the free space on the servers C drive…..

Servers can choke when they run out of unused hard drive space. In our case, the uninstall option for the newly installed software wouldn't run without completing that it was out of hard drive space and completely stopped its process. Fortunately we had a very robust backup system which had imaged our entire server just 2hours before the upgrade started….

So, add one more step to any upgrade option for your ERP system. Make sure you stop and review the install location before pushing that final install now button, or you may find yourself "up a creek".

 

A word to the wise, from a very embarrassed implementer.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jeff C

Ps. Remember the adage about making assumptions…..

 

What’s coming: FRX usage with GP vs SL

In summer 2010, we expect to start seeing the new releases for both Dynamics SL and Dynamics GP. On the GP side, the Frx, with is the financial reporting tool for generating Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss statements, is going away. The new product is called Microsoft Management Reporter. This product will support both 32bit and 64 bit operating systems, and will use Sql as its database, instead of a access database. I myself then to play it conservative whenever there is a release 1.0, which I believe is what we will have come summertime. The good news is that if you have an existing copy of GP with Frx registration keys, you can upgrade and choose whether you want to use FRx OR Management Reporter module.

There will be tools to convert the FRX rows, columns, trees and catalogs from FRx to Management Reporter, so we should be able to save all reports. I personally have not worked with Financial Reporter so I don't know how it compares to FRX. It looks like the GP customers are going to be the "Ginny pigs" for debugging this new software.

The Dynamics SL users for summer 2010 will only have FRX as their GL report writer. I have not seen a date when Frx will be phased out and replaced with Management Reporter. The product roadmap is clear, however, that Management reporter is the key tool we all will be using down the road.

I have seen some demos of this new tool and it looks impressive. We are starting to take advantage of new sql capabilities, which will give us stronger drill down capabilities in some reports. Look in the March 2010 time frame the customer road shows traveling around the country. This will be a great chance to see what's coming in these summer releases.

 

See you at the road shows…..

 

Jeff Cozens

Everyone Gets It--- Erp and Crm from Microsoft

Ok I admit this blog has an element of promotion in it. But this short video really displays what I have been saying in this blog for some time. Using the Microsoft stack of key software packages is a great way to improve your employee's productivity. Seeing is part of believing, so I invite you to watch this short video called: Everyone Gets It. Click here to continue.

 

Enjoy.

 

Jeff Cozens

Office 2010 is coming

With tighter integration of both SL and GP with the Microsoft Office Suite of products, we can expect more productivity with our ERP software. . These links will give us some insight as to what is coming with the Office 2010 product, which is expected to be released this summer. Learn about some of the exciting new integration/ design features of this coming new software.

Chick on the link below to see the short You Tube video.

Excel

Outlook

Powerpoint

One Note

 

All videos are talking about the Beta release of Office 2010.

 

Regards,

Jeff Cozens

 

Statement of Direction for SL

I ran across this You Tube presentation by Kirill Tatarinov, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions. Mr. Tatarinov is very instrumental in establishing all of the strategic plans for all of the key Microsoft ERP packages: SL, GP, Nav, and Ax. This short video discusses Microsoft Sl's direction as it continues to effectively compete in today's challenging economic climate. To continue viewing, chick here

This is about a 3 minute presentation.

 

Regards,

 

Jeff Cozens

Expanding the length of a field in Dynamics SL

Sometimes in SL the width of a field on the screen is shorter than the actual field length. For instance, I have seen the Void Check screen, (03.04.00) not fully display the full length of the check number. If your company owns the Customization Manager module, here are some steps to address this issue:

 

• Set the customization level for the screen changes. This is located in different areas of Solomon, depending on which version you are using. With version 6.this feature is located off the Main menu bar under the Customize, then select customization level sub menu.

 

If you are running SL version 7.x; then this same select customization level screen is accessed off the administrator's menu.

Select the desired customization level, e.g. All Users

 

• Next open the desired screen to be customized (i.e. AP> Void Checks Entry
• Then start the Customization manager module. Once again with version 6.x this is a menu choice under the main menu Customize. For Version 7.x SL users, this action is located at the top of the opened screen called Customize.
• Click on the field you want to expand (i.e. check number) so that it has focus.
• Next access the properties of this field by using the F4 function key, and locate in the list of properties the line which reads: Mask

  Here is a view of this screen:

  

   

  Navigate to the third column, the change the mask to the number of characters you want to display for this field. For example, if you enter UUUUUUU you will display 7 characters.

   

  • Close out of the customization manager mode, and save your changes as you exit.
  • Your revised screen changes will show up next this screen is loaded.

This is just another great example as to power of the Customization Manager Module. If you need more help or questions concerning this procedure, give us a shout.

 

Regards,

 

Jeff Cozens

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The Silicon Valley wins again

In the 1/7/10 Wall street journal, there was an article called: "Local Start-ups snagged a bigger slice of venture capital pie in 2009 " continue reading http://preview.tinyurl.com/y9cfnbj). Author of this article was: Pui-wing Tam.

 

The key point of this article, our area got about 45% or $2.2 Billion (approx) for the 3^rd quarter monies and most likely a similart number for the 4^th quarter, which are not yet released. Silicon valley start ups help fuel the local economy so we all benefit, as their money circulates. Hopefully this trend towards investing in startup companies will lead us into a decade of "re creating ourselves" as we build new businesses from new technologies.

 

Great news to start off the new year……

 

Regards,

 

Jeff Cozens