Happy Thanksgiving & Thank You!

During a quick run to the grocery store today, I found myself weaving in and out of carts piled high with the common commodities needed for a Thanksgiving feast. The store was chaotic, everyone gearing their efforts to accomplish one thing: make and eat a ton of food with friends and family. The site alone reminded me of the great abundance we enjoy and how important it is to be thankful.

With Thanksgiving feasts and festivities in mind, I want to express our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for all you do for us as partners, customers, and supporters of eOne. We truly value your continued promotion and support of our products and services. It is because of people like you that we have experienced an abundance of success this year.

May your Thanksgiving be filled with joy and abundance!

GP Developers Get Extender

This week 263 of the Dynamics GP partner communities finest developers gathered in Fargo.

During the main stage presentation on day one, we were able to give this audience a 10 minute sniff of eXtender. Errol Shoenfish challenged the 'boys from eOne' to develop a random eXtender application in 45 minutes while the session was being presented. The audience picked the topic of 'professor classroom/schedule management', and Chris and I left the room to get started.

When we returned to stage we were able to show a brand new mini application that had 5 new eXtender forms, 1 eXtender window, 4 new SmartLists, and one live Excel Report Builder report. (I will record a video and post this up here in the next few days of the what the solution looked like.) From all reports people were generally amazed at what we could achieve in that time period.

The conclusion is that Dynamics GP eXtender must be part of every GP demo ever presented.

Now - what we could not show is the three things that the developers really wanted to see:

1. That they can embed sanscript code behind any of those forms or windows they built with eXtender. (Requires eXtender Enterprise)

2. That they can trigger a SmartConnect (eConnect) map real time using the data form any of those windows or forms. (Requires SmartConnnect)

3. That they can trigger SanScript code to run anywhere in Dynamics GP, based on the field entry, field exit or field change events of any GP screen. (Requires eXtender Enterprise)

Over the next three days I am going to explore each of these three topics further and in depth here on this blog.

Poppy Cock

Below is a replication of an extract from a recent newsletter from Accolade Publications. I could not share the message better, so will let it stand as below.

Reports on Extender Data

It seems that the most mis-understood part of Extender is the availability of the data entered in Extender objects (windows and forms) for use in reports. Report designers typically head straight for the data tables to find business information, build relationships, and place data on reports. When they hit those "named pairs" structured Extender tables, only the strong are successful. Many toss in the towel and complain about how difficult the data structure is and how hard it is to write reports against Extender.

Poppy Cock!

Browse down to the Views section on the Extender desktop. Take a minute and create a view for each window or form. These views are true SQL views that re-organize the window table into a more familiar format. Each window or form is represented as a single line of data and each field on the window or form will be represented in the data structure, as if each form or window had it's own table in the database. These views can then be used like any other view, and exactly like a table in the database, to create reports using any SQL reporting tool.

Much easier!

Tips like these are found in books available from
www.AccoladePublications.com