The Rapid Configuration Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP has been, I believe, somewhat misunderstood as a tool.  Most partners shy away from anything that is Rapid when it comes to their consulting time and billing revenues during the implementation of Dynamics GP.  While I can understand that, having worked in consulting for over a decade, I also understand the benefits of going after a few key industries or verticals and being very, very good at delivering on the implementation process.

Rapid Configuration offers a variety of impactful items that can really help your Dynamics GP implementations go more smoothly: 

• You can use one of the pre-configured industries in the tool as a way to get a jumpstart on typical settings for those industries.  For most partners, this will be the overall 60-80% of normal settings, but your more senior implementation consultants will still tweak settings to better fit individual and/or more vertical settings needed by those types of customers.  So, while we give you a great starting point, you’re still delivering on that last mile of deep knowledge that your team has.
• You can export an existing companies configuration settings.  With many partners going more and more vertical in their customer base, this is a huge benefit.  If you have either used one of our industries and “gone deep” with the rest of the settings, or if you’ve completed your own full implementation, you can export those settings and save them in a file that you can then take with you to your next customer.  That’s right, now instead of being 60-80% there, you’re likely 95-99% of the way to being configured at the next customer!  And the biggest benefit?  You know that those settings WORK!
• Instead of taking a lot of time with future customers on “tweaking” the configuration of Dynamics GP, you can now send in a more junior resource to install the 95-99% solution and have them fix up the little bit of changes that is needed for a new customer (customer name, shipping terms, etc.), freeing up your high-value assets for more impactful work – either helping close more business, or driving through deeper customer needs during the implementation.  Either way, you benefit. 

As you can tell, Rapid Configuration is an asset that you should be utilizing.  Some of the other features of Rapid Configuration are: 

• Settings and data such as the chart of accounts, fiscal years, payment terms, shipping methods, taxes, core financial and distribution module setup, and more can be quickly set up using this tool.
• You can also select individual Setup Areas allowing configurations to proceed in a phased approach rather than an all or none approach when importing configuration data from another Dynamics GP company.
• Select one of the standard industry configurations provided by Microsoft Dynamics GP, modify the configuration, and then import the data into Microsoft Dynamics GP.
• Import a configuration from a Microsoft Excel® workbook prepared by a Microsoft Dynamics GP partner or business consultant. When you import a configuration, you also can use the wizard to modify the configuration.
• Export an existing Microsoft Dynamics GP company’s setup information and use it as a template when setting up other companies. 

For more information about the Rapid Implementation Tools, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=4071

And there is a great video of the Rapid Implementation Tools here https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=579540

Jay Manley