Released on = March 15, 2007, 3:34 pm

Press Release Author = Alba Spectrum Group

Industry = Computers

Press Release Summary = Microsoft Great Plains is currently under substantial
technology redesign. To remind you the history - Great Plains Dexterity was
architectured in earlier 1990th as IDE and shell, written in C programming language
to become in turn development tool and scripting - Sanscript language.

Press Release Body = Alba Spectrum Group, 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.enterlogix.com.br

Microsoft Great Plains is currently under substantial technology redesign. To
remind you the history - Great Plains Dexterity was architectured in earlier 1990th
as IDE and shell, written in C programming language to become in turn development
tool and scripting - Sanscript language. Later on Microsoft purchased Great Plains
Software on the edge of the 21st Century. At about this time we see two emerging
products: eXtender, written by Australian company eOne and eConnect - instrument,
initially designed for web eCommerce developers. The question of choosing the
appropriate tool for your specific GP software development typically requires
additional research, so in this small article we will try to orient you, assuming
that you are programmer and consultant, having some exposure to accounting and
corporate ERP system architecture
. Dexterity. The idea was bright back in earlier 1990th to provide Great Plains
Dynamics certain level of DB and computer platform independence and quick switch in
the case of emergency. C programming language was introduced for the majority of
old-good-days platforms: Unix, IBM PC/Microsoft Windows, Solaris, AIX, later on
Linux. As an expense of this flexibility, Dexterity had to use cursor-driven data
access/modification engine, to be compared with aggregated SQL SELEC and UPDATE
statements. Aggregated statements provide a way more advanced performance
. Extender. Sometimes you think about funny questions in software development.
Let's say we provide a shell over Dex itself and train end-user or developer to
prototype new custom logic in forms, tables, views and even provide the mechanism to
include dex sanscript scriptlets. Would it be advantage over using raw Dexterity to
build all this from scratch. The answer is more likely - yes, this is great and it
is much easier and reliable to deploy secondary shell (extender), however you should
understand the drawbacks. Extender, being dex construction should probably share
the future fate of dex technology. And secondly - if you produce custom add-ons for
Dynamics GP, you should probably use initial tool. However if you are end customer
and just need to have job done - Extender is a good option
. eConnect. This tool is resolving Dex limitation as proprietary scripting language
and opens GP objects pool to Microsoft Visual Studio developers. Plus eConnect has
object oriented approach, which means that it is much easier to program it being
"modern programmer" - it eliminates the necessity to do a lot of following QA
testing, assuming that you as software coder follow object oriented rules precisely.
You can use your language of choice or chosen philosophy: C# (former Java
developers) or VB.Net - former VB programmers as well as all the spectrum of X.Net
languages
. Combining Dexterity and eConnect. In our opinion this is the most recommended way
of GP modifications for the following 5-10 years. Dexterity forms integrate you
into Microsoft Dynamics GP "fat" client security realm and could be intuitively
opened from GP workstation. Then you transfer business logic to Visual Studio
developed custom logic, calling eConnect via XML web service interface
. Reporting. Here we see three tools: MS SQL Server Reporting Services, GP Report
Writer (legacy dex tool) and Crystal Reports. You should probably consider MS
trends here at the first place - SRS (virtually abandoning former Crystal Reports
orientation). The good news is that SRS is intuitively understood to former Crystal
Reports designer, so don't fear, install SRS and port your reports to new platform.
Regarding ReportWriter, if you have customized SOP Invoice Long Form, or Field
Services forms, you should probably keep upgrading these custom reports in
ReportWriter. Report Writer is integrated with GP workstation and doesn't require
additional modules to do report calling job
. Dexterity Source Code Programming. MBS has source code programming partners, who
in turn have Dexterity programmer, familiar with low level sanscript source code
(contained in DYNAMICS.DIC with code in, regular distribution strips sanscript code
from this dictionary)

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group, 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.enterlogix.com.br ,
servicing customers in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Rockford, Milwaukee; Illinois,
Texas. Via remote support we serve USA Nationwide: California, New York, Virginia,
Florida, Georgia, Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, Canada: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver,
Quebec-City. Please not that our local service is available in Chicago area:
Naperville, Downtown Chicago, Warrenville, Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Joliet, Aurora,
Lisle, Downers Grove, Schaumburg, Elk Grove, Lombard. In Houston Metro: Richmond,
Sugar land, Rosenberg, Stafford, Meadows, Katy, Mission Bend, Pasadena, Pearland.


Web Site = http://www.albaspectrum.com

Contact Details = Alba Spectrum Group, 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.enterlogix.com.br