Released on: June 12, 2008, 4:27 pm

Press Release Author: Alba Spectrum

Industry: Computers

Press Release Summary: When Microsoft acquired Great Plains Software and then
integrated Great Plains into so-called Microsoft Dynamics ERP products family as
Dynamics GP, modification tools became more Microsoft and .Net oriented, as you
could expect. However in the initial design in earlier 1990th Great Plains Dynamics
was intended as multi platform product and its fundament was built on new technology
named Great Plains Dexterity

Press Release Body: When Microsoft acquired Great Plains Software and then
integrated Great Plains into so-called Microsoft Dynamics ERP products family as
Dynamics GP, modification tools became more Microsoft and .Net oriented, as you
could expect. However in the initial design in earlier 1990th Great Plains Dynamics
was intended as multi platform product and its fundament was built on new technology
named Great Plains Dexterity. Considering complicated origin of GP, let's review
development tools:

1. Dexterity. Great Plains Dexterity, as we already mentioned is the heart of GP
design, and it is in turn written as the shell in C programming language to secure
certain flexibility, especially the option to switch from one operating system or
computer platform to another. Being very powerful and flexible, Dex doesn't
facilitate so-called rapid development scenario as it is not object oriented and it
requires you as programmer to have several years of extensive Dexterity programming
prior to participation in Dexterity programming project. Dexterity has its own
scripting language Sanscript. Latest versions of Dex support such cool Microsoft
technologies as COM objects and Web Services, plus you can call SQL Stored
procedures from Dex code. To get quick tour into Dexterity architecture, you may
install it from GP CD #2 and open Dynamics.dic file - this dictionary has core GP
logic and it is written in Dexterity

2. VBA and Modifier. We were watching closely the competition between various GP
customizing tools. And we still think that Modifier should be reviewed prior to
eConnect. Modifier is in essence the module, written in Dexterity, which allows you
to add buttons and fields to existing screens of GP as well as take them off. To
animate new fields you use VBA scripting language, often you use ADO technology to
access GP tables from modified forms

3. eConnect. This SDK opens for you GP objects: master records (customer, vendor,
GL Account, employee, prospect) and work transactions (SOP invoice, Purchase Order,
Payroll Entry). eConnect is based on encrypted SQL stored procedures, plus it has
several layers of technology wrappers - in fact it is friendly for Microsoft Visual
Studio C# or VB developer. If you are integrating eCommerce website with your GP
back office, we recommend you to consider eConnect as the main integration tool,
also consider Autoposting Server to post batches of SOP invoices in GP

4. SQL Stored Procedures Integrations. If you think eConnect is too heavy and
complex and you are comfortable to do light SQL insert statement to populate GP
tables, then SQL scripting is an option. However, we discourage newcomers from
trying SQL insertion prior to researching other integration tools first

5. GP Integration. Of course integration is not the same as customization, however
we would like to orient you here as well. GP traditionally has Integration
Management Module. With current version 10.0 IM has new connectors - from now on
you can use eConnect connectors to do integrating


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

Contact Details: Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum http://www.albaspectrum.com
help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving Great Plains USA and
Canada nationwide. Local service in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, San Diego. Please
visit our information portal Pegas Planet: http://www.pegasplanet.com . If you need
custom programming for GP, we are happy to help you with Dexterity, eConnect,
VBA/Modifier, SQL Stored Procedures, Crystal Reports. We also provide instant
support to new and existing clients via web sessions