Developing for Dynamics GP

Xbox One is revealed

David Musgrave — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Last night at 1 am (Perth Time), Microsoft revealed details of the next generation Xbox. The successor to the Xbox 360 will be named the Xbox One. The Xbox One, so called because it is the all-in-one entertainment system. Each Xbox One will come with the second generation of the Kinect sensor and will bring all of your entertainment experiences together to one place.

To learn more, visit the Introducing Xbox One site on Xbox.com or click on the banner below:

For a quick look at the Xbox One and what it will offer, watch the videos below:

Xbox One Unveil Video

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Xbox Anthem

(Please visit the site to view this video)

For more Xbox One videos watch the full Xbox One Playlist on The Official Xbox Channel.

More information about the Xbox One and the games for it will be announced at the upcoming E3 conference on the 10^th June 2013.

Follow the conversation on twitter with the hashtag: #xboxone.

Enjoy

David

Surface Pro due in Australia on 30th May

David Musgrave — Thu, 16 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Since the Surface Pro has been released in the USA in February this year, we have been waiting for it to arrive in Australia.

Well today, the Microsoft Australia Blog has announced that the Surface Pro will be available in Australia on the 30^th May 2013.

For details have a look at the post:

Surface Pro hits Australian shores on May 30

If you are not sure which model suits your needs, then download the Specifications Sheet (which has a comparison) and check out the link below:

Which Surface is right for you

For more information on the Surface, follow the Surface Blog, go to www.surface.com or click on the image below.

Check out the videos for the Surface Pro below:

Surface Pro Commercial "The Vibe"

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Surface Windows 8 Pro Overview

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Looking forward to the end of the month.

David

PS: If you enjoyed The Vibe video, have a look at how they made it with the Behind the Scenes video.

Using Named Printers with Terminal Server revisited

David Musgrave — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

This is an update to the original Using Named Printers with Terminal Server post from August 2008.

The original post takes you through the process of using Template Users on Terminal Server so that you only need to setup one user per physical location with user mode printers and then users from that physical location can inherit the Named Printers settings from the Template User. It also mentions the unsupported method of sharing a single Machine ID between servers in a Terminal Server farm ONLY if you are sure that the machines are exactly the same.

I am currently working on a support case which raises new issues which need to be discussed as well as bringing back some previous points to which need to be clarified.

The Scenario

The customer has 6 physical locations or sites. At head office, they have a Terminal Server (with Citrix) farm containing 2 load balanced servers. They are using a third party application which stores some settings in the Dex.ini that need to be different based on the site where the current user is located.

To facilitate the Dex.ini settings for the third party application, the customer is using individual Dex.ini files for each user stored in the Home directory.

So far so good. The configuration makes sense and works fine... until you introduce Named Printers.

Note: The customer is running Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 so they don't have the user level Dex.ini functionality that was introduced in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013. This GP 2013 feature might help with the settings needed by the third party application.

The Boring Stuff

Named Printers bases all of its data and settings off one primary value... the Machine ID. The Machine ID is stored as the ST_MachineID setting in the Dex.ini file, it defaults to the Network name of the machine and is tied to the Server itself.

The Machine ID is required because the Dexterity functionality which allows us to capture and use Printer settings stores its data as a binary dump from the printer driver. This is then stored in SQL as a Binary Large Object (BLOB). This BLOB contains the Printer Name and all the selected settings such as printer tray and orientation. Dexterity does not understand or care about the actual content of the BLOB. When Dexterity wants to change default printer or print a report to a specified printer, it just passes the binary data back to the operating system which then handles the printer changes as required.

The problem is that the binary data is stored by the operating system differently for every printer and printer driver. Even updated versions of the same printer driver for the same printer could store that data differently. The length of the name and/or the address of the printer could shift the settings within the binary data.

If you try to use stored binary data from Named Printers with a different version of the driver for that printer, or if the printer has a different name or address, it will probably fail to work. In some cases we have seen Named Printers cause the application itself to crash as described in KB 909739.

This means that if you ever update or change printer drivers, you should recreate the Named Printer's Printer IDs based on those drivers so that they stay binary compatible with the drivers.

And...

It also means that settings created on one machine or server are unlikely to be binary compatible with another machine or server. In other words, the Machine ID should not be shared between servers as it is very unlikely to work and could cause crashing (and did I mentioned it is not supported). I have seen it work but that was with two virtual servers based off the same image so that were as close to identical as you could get.

The Problem

So coming back to our support case. The users each had their own Dex.ini file, which contained a Machine ID setting for that user. This meant that each user had to be set up individually within Named Printers. This could be simplified by all users from a specific location sharing the same Machine ID, thus reducing the amount of Named Printers configuration needed. All this works fine until more than one server is added to the farm.

Now the same user level Dex.ini file would get used regardless of which of the servers in the farm the user connected to. So the same Machine ID would be shared between all servers in the farm and, as we now know, that is a problem. For our customer it meant that Named Printers settings created for one server, failed to work on the other server.

In summary, User level Dex.ini files stored in the home folders are not compatible with Named Printers once there is more than one server involved.

Note: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 with its user level Dex.ini files, it still has a system level Dex.ini file which would be where the Machine ID is stored, so that works fine.

The Solution

The path towards the solution starts with no longer using separate User level Dex.ini files and using a single Dex.ini file on each server. This ensures that each server has its own unique Machine ID and allows Named Printers to work. It is now possible to create 6 Template Users on each machine (so 12 configurations) to have Named Printers working per site.

Note: It does introduce a side effect that users see the User ID of the previous user when they attempt to login. This can be easily resolved using the Dex.ini Configuration window in the Support Debugging Tool to clear the SQLLastUser setting (see Why making the Dex.ini file read only is evil).

But if you remember, our customer has a third party application which needs its Dex.ini settings per site and this is not handled with the above configuration with just 2 Dex.ini files.

To handle this situation we need to have 6 Dex.ini files on each server, one for each of the 6 sites. All 6 on each server use the same Machine ID, so Named Printers still only has 2 Machine IDs, but we can now have settings for the third party application per site. To easily use this configuration this we can create a Published Application for each site and pass the path of that site's Dex.ini file as an additional parameter in the shortcut. Then only provide users access to the Published Application for their location.

While discussing this approach with the customer, we came up with a variant that would be easier to implement from the Named Printers point of view. As we now had 12 Dex.ini files (6 sites by 2 servers) instead of having two Machine IDs and using 6 Template Users and User Mode printers, we could create 12 Machine IDs based on Site and Server (eg. Location1A, Location1B, and so on). This would avoid the need for Template Users and User Mode printers. Each site could have its printers defined as System Mode printers on each server.

So now, each site has its own settings for the third party application, each site has its own Named Printers settings and Named Printer settings are not shared between multiple servers.

The problem is solved.

Hope you find this information useful.

David

Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7 and 8 is available for free until 15th May

David Musgrave — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Unless you have been hiding away from technology entirely, you would have heard of Rovio's Angry Birds game. One of the most popular mobile games across multiple platforms.

Angry Birds has been available for Windows phone for a while now, but Rovio have just released a new version with additional levels. Now you will have over 400 levels of bird vs pig madness.

The best thing is that this new version is available for download for free until the 15^th May 2013.

So before time is up, I wanted to remind all my readers with Windows Phones to install the game (even if you don't play it.... yet) so that you get it for free.

Please see the following posts for more information:

Rovio Blog: New version of Angry Birds on Windows Phone - free until May 15th!
Windows Phone Blog: Angry Birds relaunches on Windows Phone with 100 new levels—and it’s free until May 15

To download Angry Birds either click the links below from your phone, or search Marketplace/ Windows Store for Angry Birds and download the free version from Rovio:

Download it now before the free time runs out.

Enjoy

David

Microsoft Dynamics Top 100 Most Influential People for 2013 published

David Musgrave — Mon, 13 May 2013 03:30:00 GMT

If you have been watching the blogsphere last week you would have noticed that DynamicsWorld UK have published their Microsoft Dynamics Most Influential People Top 100 List for 2013. This list started in 2009 and archives of the previous years can be found at the bottom right corner of their page.

Back in 2010, I was privileged/lucky enough to be included on the Top 100 list at position 78. Then for the years 2011 and 2012 I did not make it onto the list at all (much to the surprise and dismay of many of my colleagues and friends).

So in 2011, Doug Pitcher decided that enough was enough and he created his OFFICIAL 100 most famous, awesome and totally influential Dynamics people list (see links below). I was honoured with being in position 3 on this prestigious list for the years of 2011 and 2012. This more than made up for being dropped from the "other" top 100 list.

This year, as shown in my post: Top 100 Most Influential People in Microsoft Dynamics 2013, the Dynamics GP community led by the MVPs called for people to vote for me to get me back into the Top 100 list for 2013.

I am please to say that their efforts were rewarded and I am once again included in the Top 100 list, this time at position 89. While it is extremely nice to be included on this list and recognised for the work I do, it has had a sad side effect. Because I am now included on the "other" list, I have dropped to the bottom of Doug's awesome list for 2013 at position 58. However, I am still extremely happy to just scrape into Doug's list.

Congratulations to everyone who made it info both of these lists, your work within the greater Dynamics communities is greatly appreciated, especially those who work with Dynamics GP.

Below is a list of all the Dynamics GP people (highlighting the MVPs) in the top 100. Sorry if I missed anyone:

Andy Vabulus (12)
Andy Snook (14)
Andy Hafer (15)
Mark Polino (20) MVP
Jon Rivers (30)
Shane Hall (32)
Clinton Weldon (36)
Mariano Gomez (42) MVP
Frank Hamelly (46) MVP
Mark Rhodes (70)
Bob McAdam (72)
Anya Ciecierski (73)
Victoria Yudin (74) MVP
David Musgrave (89)
Leslie Vail (90) MVP
Kim Peterson (92)
Richard Whaley (94)
Joe Tews (100)

For information on previous years, have a look at these articles on this blog:

For Doug Pitcher's OFFICIAL Lists:

For other related posts from around the Blogsphere:

Mark Polino: The Most Influential People in Microsoft Dynamics for 2013 | DynamicsWorld
Mark Polino: Doug Pitcher’s OFFICIAL 100 most famous, awesome and totally influential Dynamics people for 2013
Mariano Gomez: DynamicsWorld UK Top 100 List
Leslie Vail: The "Other List" is out and I’m in trouble!
Vaidy Mohan: Most Influential People in Microsoft Dynamics for 2013
Vaidy Mohan: Doug Pitcher’s OFFICIAL 100 most famous, awesome and totally influential Dynamics people for 2013
Steve Chapman: And the winner is....Doug Pitcher!

Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

And a special thanks to Doug for keeping me on his awesome list even though I made it onto the "other" list this year.

David

SmartList not working properly, Search window does not display correctly

David Musgrave — Fri, 03 May 2013 01:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, I had a support case come in where the customer was complaining that SmartList was not working properly and that the Search window was not being displayed correctly.

The Problem

During a screen sharing session with the customer, they explained that when they first opened SmartList and then the Search window it would say "Search [Not Found]" in the title and that clicking on the Columns button would not show any fields. See the screenshot below:

Screenshot showing incorrect window title and missing field information

However, once they closed the Search window and re-opened it everything worked fine. They wanted to know why it kept failing the first time they opened SmartList, but worked fine the second time or later.

The site is currently using Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, but is performing User Acceptance Testing (UAT) on a test upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013. The user doing the testing claimed that they performed exactly the same actions on GP 2010 and it has always worked, but now on GP 2013 it did not work.

The Troubleshooting

I had tried testing the issue on my system was unable to replicate the issue, I tried everything I could think of and could not get SmartList to fail. So we organised a screen sharing session to see what was happening.

During the screen sharing session we got the customer to demonstrate the issue, but when we tried to replicate via remote control we were unable to get SmartList to misbehave. We got the customer to check if SmartList behaved correctly for another user and it did.

We did notice that the customer was using a Quick Link on their homepage to open SmartList. So we tested opening SmartList using the icon on the Standard Toolbar. When using the Toolbar button, the user was unable to replicate the problem. They could only replicate when using the Quick Link.

So we removed and recreated the Quick Link, to make sure there was nothing wrong with it. However, the problem remained, but could still only be recreated when the customer was controlling the session.

It was then that I noticed that when the customer opened SmartList it was not displaying any data or headings and showed "Stopped" in the status. See the screenshot:

SmartList with Stopped Status and no data or headings showing

So I thought it could be related to background processing (because I know that SmartList uses background processing to populate the window). However, if I used Process Monitor (from the Microsoft Dynamics GP menu) and Suspended the background processing queue, the status was not updated at all. Once I resumed background processing, it would show a status of Stopped.

Then I noticed the final bit of the puzzle that lead to identifying the cause.

When the customer opened SmartList using the Quick Links, the Search [Not Found] window was opened immediately.... before the customer clicked on the Search button or double clicked on a SmartList Favourite to open the window.

I also noticed that while the Search window was open, any SmartList Favourite selected would return no data and show a status of Stopped. Once the window was closed, SmartList would function normally.

So why was the Search window opening along with the SmartList window?

The Cause

When you first open SmartList, before you select a Favourite, the Search Button is disabled, so there is no way to click on it. However the Search window was opening and it was showing [Not Found] as no SmartList favourite had been selected.

When the customer manually opened the Search Window, the already open window was just brought to the foreground, so it appeared that it was opening incorrectly.

So, why would it make a difference which button or link was used to open SmartList?

Below is a screenshot showing the SmartList Quick Link and the SmartList Toolbar button:

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 home page with SmartList button and SmartList Quick Link.

And below is a screenshot showing the SmartList window immediately after it was opened. Notice the position of the Search button:

SmartList window position immediately after being opened.

Have you worked it out yet?

What we could not "see" from the screen sharing session was that the customer was double-clicking on the SmartList Quick Link. The first click would open the window and the second click would click on the Search Button before the code had time to disable the button. The Search window would be opened and as no SmartList Favourite was selected it would say [Not Found] and not have any columns to show.

The issue was occurring because the following factors were all aligned (literally):

The customer was double-clicking on the Quick Link hyperlink.
The SmartList Quick Link was in the top left corner.
The SmartList window was opening in the top left corner.
The Search Button was appearing directly above the SmartList Quick Link.
The Search Button was enabled for a fraction of a second before the code disabled it.

Now that we had the cause we checked by on the GP 2010 system and found that the position of the SmartList window when it opens was different and the "second" click was on a blank area of the window where it would have no effect.

The Solution

We suggested that the customer stop double-clicking on the Quick Links hyperlinks. Like hyperlinks in an internet browser, only a single click is needed.

Hope you found this interesting.

David

PS: Once we knew what was happening, we saw similar issues with other windows when they were opened by double-clicking on Quick Links. For example: a "Not all Required Fields have been entered" dialog when the Save Button was "second" clicked.

SDT on GPUG SIG: Sys Admin

David Musgrave — Thu, 02 May 2013 01:00:00 GMT

Yes, that is correct.

The Support Debugging Tool (SDT) will be the topic of this month's webinar for the System Administration GPUG (Dynamics GP User Group) Special Interest Group (SIG).

Kim Peterson and John Lowther asked if I could present a session on the Support Debugging Tool and how it can be used to simplify and speed up the administration of Microsoft Dynamics GP systems.

As you probably know, I love presenting and talking about the Support Debugging Tool. My problem is trying to keep the time down to about an hour.

The session will be held at an earlier than normal time to make it easier for me on in Perth, Western Australia.

So make a note in your calendar for 28^th May 2013 from 10:00 AM (US ET) to 11:00 AM (US ET), then go to the GPUG Event page below and register:

GPUG SIG: Sys Admin (May 28 2013)

Looking forward to helping make your lives easier.

David

Currency Symbol not showing correctly for Users

David Musgrave — Wed, 01 May 2013 01:00:00 GMT

I resolved an interesting case the other day and thought I would write this one up on the blog.

The Problem

The customer reported that for a couple of their users, the currency symbol on the GL Transaction Entry window where not matching the symbols as defined by the Currency ID setup. This issue occurred with multiple Currency IDs.

The screenshot below shows the window using the currency Moroccan Dirhams (MAD) which should be showing a Currency Symbol of "MAD". You will notice that the Currency Symbol in the scrolling window is showing the Pound (£) symbol and the Currency Symbol for the totals is showing the Dollar ($) symbol.

GL Transaction Entry window showing Currency Symbol issue

Also why would this only some users and not others.

The Cause

The clue that helped identify the cause was that the problem with the Currency Symbols displaying incorrect only occurred when the transaction was using the Functional Currency view. When in Originating Currency view, it did correctly show the Currency Symbols.

Now it everything started to make sense. The problem was with the Functional Currency. That's why it affected all Currency IDs. As many windows in Microsoft Dynamics GP remember the last multicurrency view used on a per user basis, it also explained why it affected specific users and not others. It only affected users who last displayed the Functional Currency view.

Now, the first thing I had to do was explain to the customer that the currency symbol being incorrect is a display only issue. The figures in the SQL database are stored without a currency symbol and would be correct even if they were displayed with the wrong Currency Symbol on the screen. This problem does not cause any data damage.

The Functional Currency for the company was US Dollars and that is why the Dollar ($) Symbol was displayed in the totals section, but now we had to find out why the Currency Symbol for the Functional Currency was incorrectly displayed in the scrolling window.

Here is a little bit of theory about how Currency Symbols work. The formatting of a Currency field is controlled by Currency Index value. In fact, it is really controlled by a "Phantom" Currency Index which is a combination of two values. The first is a value between 0 and 5 which controls the number of decimal places to display. The second value is the base Currency Index associated with the Currency ID. The base Currency Index starts at 1000 and is incremented each time a Currency ID is added to the Currency Setup (MC_Currency_SETP) MC40200 table in the System Database.

The Functional Currency for a company is defined in the Multicurrency Setup (MC_SETP) MC40000 table in the Company Database.

To make sure that the Currency Index value for the Functional Currency matches the Currency Index for that Currency ID we can use the following Transact-SQL query against the Company Database (assuming the System Database is called DYNAMICS):

select M.CURNCYID, S.FUNLCURR, M.CURRNIDX, S.FUNCRIDX
from DYNAMICS.dbo.MC40200 M
join MC40000 S on S.FUNLCURR = M.CURNCYID

The results should show the Currency ID for the Functional Currency in columns 1 & 2 and the Currency Index in each table in columns 3 & 4. If the values in columns 3 & 4 don't match.... you have a problem. A problem which will result in the Functional Currency being displayed with an incorrect Currency Symbol.

The Solution

The solution is fairly simple, all we need to do is correct the Currency Index in the Company's Multicurrency Setup table so that it matches the Currency Index for the Currency ID in the Currency Setup table.

The following Transact-SQL update statement will make the required change:

update S set FUNCRIDX = M.CURRNIDX
from DYNAMICS.dbo.MC40200 M
join MC40000 S on S.FUNLCURR = M.CURNCYID

After this change was made to the table, the system started behaving correctly.

David

Great new Windows Phone Advert

David Musgrave — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

After winning the Engadget Reader's Choice Smartphone of the Year, Nokia have released a hilarious new advert for the Nokia Lumia 920.

Have a read about it on the Windows Phone Blog:

And watch the video below:

Switch to the Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone -- Engadget's Readers Choice Smartphone of the Year

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Also watch the Making Of video below:

Making the Windows Phone commercial "The Wedding"

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Enjoy

David

01-May-2013: Added Making Of video.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Upgrade Blog Series

David Musgrave — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 01:00:00 GMT

Kelly Youells and her support team colleagues on the Dynamics GP Support and Services Blog has created a fantastic new series of posts to help you upgrade.

Have a look at the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Upgrade Blog Series. The articles are listed below:

Thanks to all the contributors to this great series.

Enjoy

David