Emailing Multiple Documents in a Single Email in GP- OOPS!

I had a client ask a fairly simple question, "Is it possible to have GP combine multiple invoices to the same customer in a single email."  "Of course!", I said.  And, then, as these things go, it didn't work.

We looked at all of the setup, we debated over this and that, but it kept sending 2 separate emails even though we had marked "Multiple Attachments per E-mail" in Cards-Sales-Customer-Email:

We checked to make sure the invoices (Transactions-Sales-Sales Transaction Entry) had the same subject, message body, address to send replies to, To, Cc, and Bcc email addresses.  And still, we were stumped.  Sadly. Stumped.

It worked fine on my install, and it worked fine in Fabrikam.  So I experimented by setting up a new email template ID, Administration Page-Setup-Company-E-Mail Message Setup.  This time, instead of using the Sales series like the client had previously, I used All for the series:

And, guess what?  It worked!  The multiple invoices were combined in to a single email on their system.  So, I knew it most likely had to do with their email template.  So I decided to set up their email template in my system piece by piece.  So I started with changing the template to be the Sales series, and it still worked on my system.  And then I added Fields like they had...

So, which field do you think was causing it to break?  Well, of course, the SOP NUMBER!  When adding the SOP Number field to the email, the multiple invoices WILL NOT combine in to a single email.  So simple.  Forehead meet palm of hand.  So simple.  And yet it took a while to get there.  Thought I would share so others can avoid the embarrassing pain of this.  It does make sense in a way, since it has no mechanism to note multiple SOP numbers in a single email.  So we removed the SOP Number field from the email template, and it worked in their environment.

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.

Attachment Reminder feature in Outlook 2013

I recently setup a new desktop machine and decided to try Office 2013.

In general, I find Office 2013 to be a disappointment.  I'm not a fan of the new user interface, the applications seem slightly slower all around than Office 2010 on my prior desktop machine, and the small changes they made in the Office applications make it consistently less usable and less efficient for me.  I tend to use a lot of features in the Office applications, so perhaps I am an exception to their use cases.

I spend a lot of time in Outlook, and Outlook 2013 is particularly annoying.  The new limited contact window that pops up when you right click on an e-mail to add a new contact is horribly crippled, and the "Search People" field that used to open a contact when you typed a name and pressed enter, now requires you to type a name, press enter, then click a contact, even though there is only one contact in the search results!  It all seems like a half-baked design.

While I would not recommend upgrading from Office 2010 to Office 2013, I stumbled upon ONE very small new feature in Outlook 2013 that actually provides some real value.

Today I tried to send an e-mail to a customer, and the following dialog box appeared.






Sure enough, I had forgotten to attach a Word document.

Apparently Outlook 2013 scans the message contents and tries to determine if you intended to attach a file.

Based on a few tests, I haven't been able to determine the specific words or phrases that trigger this feature.  It worked for some test e-mails, but not others, so I don't know that it will catch my absentmindedness all of the time, but if it reminds me a few times, it will be a handy feature.

Steve Endow is a Dynamics GP Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified IT Professional in Los Angeles.  He is also the owner of Precipio Services, which provides Dynamics GP integrations, customizations, and automation solutions.

http://www.precipioservices.com

Dynamics GP 2013 appears to still have bug in Payables EFT CTX File Format

In May 2012, I wrote about an apparent bug in the Dynamics GP 2010 Payables EFT CCT+ file format that prevented my customer from using the CTX file format (CCD+ with the Detail Line Addenda option).  At the time, the bug affected GP 2010 SP 2, as the CTX format option had been added with SP 2.

I received an inquiry today from a GP customer asking if the bug has been fixed.  The customer is hoping to be able to use the CTX format to send detail remittance to their vendors electronically as part of their EFT transmission.

I have tested GP 2010 SP3, and it appears the bug is still present.  The "Addenda Count" calculation only outputs a "0" instead of indicating the number of addenda lines.

6221231231231234567890  00000500151EFT  0000TEST EFT VENDOR

Just in case, I checked the SP3 and post-SP2 hotfix documentation, and see no mention of a fix to EFT.

I also just tested GP 2013 RTM (version 12.00.1295), and the CTX Addenda Count bug also exists in that version.  Despite a few additions to the Generate EFT Files window, they apparently didn't get around to fixing the Addenda Count calculation.

So for now, the Dynamics GP Payables EFT CTX file format is still not compliant with the NACHA standard. 

If you are looking to implement the CTX format, submit a support case with Microsoft.  They should be able to confirm that it is a bug and not charge for the case, and you should theoretically be notified in case there is an update to the issue.

Steve Endow is a Dynamics GP Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified IT Professional in Los Angeles.  He is also the owner of Precipio Services, which provides Dynamics GP integrations, customizations, and automation solutions.

http://www.precipioservices.com

MR 2012 UR 4- Quirky Excel Linking Behavior with RPO

We had a client bring up an interesting issue last week, after updating MR 2012 to UR4.  They use GL and Worksheet links in their row formats like this...

(B=B3, C=C3, D=D3, J=B3, K=C3, L=D3) /RPO

RPO (Row Period Offset), allows you to just specify the cell before period 1...and then it automatically counts (down the rows for RPO, across the colunbs for CPO) to determine balances for period 1, 2, etc.

Columns B, C, D are set to pull PERIODIC (Current Period) balances in the column definition, and J, K, and L are set to YTD.

The spreadsheet look something like this...

Prior to updating, this worked great.  Pulling the PERIODIC and YTD balances based on the RPO.  But since applying UR4, both sets of columns pull the PERIODIC amount instead of YTD.  The only way we can get the YTD columns to work (so far) is to change the Period to 1:BASE (instead of just BASE) and leave it set to YTD. 

Will keep you posted as we learn more, but it appears to potentially be a quality report....but let me know if you see any fault in my logic :)

UPDATE 5/31/2013- This is being written up as a quality report :)

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.

And the winner is....Doug Pitcher!

I haven't met many famous people.  Well, okay, depending on what you mean by famous, I haven't met any famous people.

I saw Sylvester Stallone once at a country club--well, okay, someone told me that the guy I just walked past was Sylvester Stallone--I took their word for it.  And I swear I walked right past Christian Slater at the San Diego zoo (no joke!  He looked at me funny and stared at my giant Canon camera lens that I was dragging around).  And I'm pretty sure that I sat behind Assistant Director Walter Skinner at a Glendale movie theater.  (come to think of it, he kept looking at me funny too--maybe it's me?)

And living in Los Angeles, I see Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley, and Rolls Royce cars pretty regularly--which I assume makes those people famous, or at least rich enough to maybe know famous people.  Or know someone who might know Kevin Bacon, which is even better.

Unfortunately, I don't think I've met the famous Doug Pitcher. (If I have met you Mr. Pitcher, or even been in the same city as you without paying homage, my apologies, as two kids and almost a decade of Dynamics GP have taken its toll.)  

 Doug Pitcher:  The Power Broker Behind The Official Awesome List

But anyway, I have just learned that I may have snuck onto "The List".  Not just any list, like some random and arbitrary list of 100 people that a bunch of random people voted on over and over and over by clicking a button.  I'm talking about "The Awesome List".  It is basically a list of really famous people.

Now to be on "The Awesome List", or anything awesome, or any list, for that matter, would pretty much have to be a crowning achievement in my Dynamics GP career.  It would mean that I am associated with people who are famous!

You see, I don't drive a Lamborghini--I drive a minivan (I mentioned the two kids, right? I didn't get a minivan for its sleek lines.)  And not only do I drive a minivan, but I had the honor of driving a rented minivan in the greatest city on earth, yes, Fargo North Dakota.  And who were my passengers as I drove in circles in that sprawling urban cultural epicenter...in a rented minivan?   A virtual Charlie's Angels ensemble of three female Dynamics GP luminaries.  There was Tanya Henderson of S2 Technologies, Linda Brock of The Knaster Technology Group, and one of the most famous Dynamics GP MVPs, Leslie Vail (she even had her cape in the back...of the minivan).  Hmm, I guess that means I have met someone famous!

So the last highlight of my career was being able to drive the inebriated Dynamics GP Charlie's Angels around Fargo in a minivan.  I think you'll agree, that while that is an unrivaled career experience, being mentioned on Doug Pitcher's OFFICIAL "Awesome List" kind of makes that exciting night in Fargo seem trivial by comparison.

It's like finally getting past the velvet rope and being let into the club.  The OFFICIAL Awesome club.

Congrats to Doug Pitcher on making it to number 1 on the OFFICIAL Awesome Dynamics People List of 2013.  He deserves it!

Steve Endow is a Dynamics GP Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified IT Professional in Los Angeles.  He is also the owner of Precipio Services, which provides Dynamics GP integrations, customizations, and automation solutions.

http://www.precipioservices.com

Relating GL Data to Project Accounting

In any discussion regarding reporting and project accounting, we always end up talking about the GL.  And the inevitable question comes up about reporting the GL by project.  Which, of course, there aren't a lot of standard options...

Within Dynamics GP, there is a standard Project Detailed Trial Balance report (Reports-Project-Detailed Trial Balance).  The report relies on temporary tables to correlate project information with the general ledger debit/credit detail.  So I sometimes hit roadblocks when modifying the report, and there is also the issue of distributing the report if you want to send it to non-GP users.

But there is also a Project Detailed Trial Balance report in SQL Reporting Services, it is a standard report with Microsoft Dynamics GP.  It works great, but relies on a stored procedure (which is very very very long and involved) to return the data.  So again, modifying the report can be a bit tricky.

So, in looking for a way to relate the information in a simpler way when looking for basic debit/expense side detail, I created the following SQL statement which can serve as a basis for a view.  This would allow you to use the existing Account Transactions view, and create a relationship based on...

• Originating Document Number = DocNumber
• Originating Transaction Source = AuditTrail
• Account Index = PACOGS_Idx

Now, keep in mind, this is a very basic approach when using Project Accounting in a basic way.  If you are using Cost Plus/Fixed Price projects, or have more involved accounting methods or posting, you may find that it needs further tweaking.

Also, this version only compiles project information for purchases and miscellaneous logs...but you could follow the same syntax to add the timesheet, equipment log, and employee expense transaction types as well.
select POP30300.POPRCTNM DocNumber, POP30300.TRXSORCE AuditTrail,
PA31102.PAPROJNUMBER ProjectNumber, PA31102.PACogs_Idx COGSAccount, PA31102.PAContra_Account_IDX ContraAccount,
PA31102.PACOSTCATID CostCategory, PA31102.ITEMNMBR ItemNumber
from POP30300 inner join PA31102 on POP30300.POPRCTNM=PA31102.PAVIDN
union
select PA30300.PAMISCLDOCNO DocNumber, PA30300.TRXSORCE AuditTrail,
PA30301.PAPROJNUMBER ProjectNumber, PA30301.PACogs_Idx COGSAccount, PA30301.PAContra_Account_IDX ContraAccount,
PA30301.PACOSTCATID CostCategory, PA30300.PSMISCID ItemNumber
from PA30300 inner join PA30301 on PA30300.PAMISCLDOCNO=PA30301.PAMISCLDOCNO

Of course, let me know if you find any issues with it.  I just was trying to distill down to a more basic approach.

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.