Error e-mailing PDF reports with GP 2010 and Office 2010

I was recently trying to setup and test e-mailing vendor remittance documents for a client that is setting up Electronic Funds Transfer for Payables.

When I tested the process on one of my servers, I received the following error:

You must have the Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS Add-in for 2007 Microsoft Office installed to send documents

I tried e-mailing other documents as PDF, such as a sales invoice, but received the same error throughout GP.

Since I have Office 2010 installed, clearly the message about Office 2007 is erroneous, but it obviously indicates that GP is unable to e-mail the reports as PDFs.  And I confirmed that I did have the 32-bit versions of Office 2010 installed, as the 64-bit version is not compatible with GP 2010 R2 for e-mailing reports.

I read a forum post indicating that at least a handful of other people have experienced this error, but there didn't appear to be any consensus on a cause or resolution.

I was able to e-mail the reports as DOCX files, so the e-mail process worked, but the conversion to PDF wasn't working.

So I installed 32-bit Office 2010 with default settings on a second server with GP 2010 R2 and tested e-mailing reports as PDFs.  It worked fine on the second server, no errors.  Hmmm.  So my issue was clearly server-specific.

I began to think that my Office 2010 installation was probably the issue.  I have a habit of trying to remove as much junk as possible from the Office installation--it installs hundreds of "features" that I never use and consider useless.  But perhaps I was a bit too aggressive and excluded a component that GP requires to do it's magic converting Word Templates to PDF for e-mailing.

After two tries adding back components to my Office 2010 installation, I found the item that was causing the problem.

In the Office 2010 Installation Options window, under Microsoft Word, there is an item called ".NET Programmability Support".

 
I almost never use .NET to program Word or interact with Word, so I had excluded that item from my Office installation.

I set the feature to be installed, completed the Office setup, and then launched GP 2010 R2.  Sure enough, I was able to e-mail PDF attachments from within GP.  Worked like a charm.

Presumably there are relatively few people that are as picky as me when it comes to installing useless Office features, so this is probably a rare cause of this particular error.  But just a note that the Word 2010 .NET Programmability Support feature is required in order for GP 2010 to do it's PDF e-mailing magic.

There are other causes for this error,  such as the obscure case that Dave Dusek explains in this blog post, so the one I experienced is just one possible explanation.


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

Decisions Spring 2012 Virtual Conference: Dynamics GP Day June 19th

Make sure to register for the Decisions Spring 2012 virtual conference!

Dynamics GP day is on Tuesday, June 19th.  Registration is free!

The virtual conference is a great way to learn more about Dynamics GP from top speakers and luminaries, learn about ISV solutions that integrate with Dynamics GP, and have a chance to chat with other Dynamics GP customers, consultants, and community members.

Here are just a few of the presentations:

Erroll Schoenfish, Director of Product Management from Microsoft, will be speaking about the upcoming Dynamics GP 2013 product release. 

Jivtesh Singh will be sharing some insight about the new Dynamics GP Web Client. 

Mariano Gomez will be explaining how you can get to know your MVPs better. 

Mark Polino will be offering an introduction to the topic of Corporate Performance Management, having already published "The Stakeout", a guide to virtual events.

Amber Bell will enlighten you on how to work smarter with SmartLists and SmartList Builder.

Chetna Bawa will be covering how to import data into Dynamics GP (a topic near and dear to me!).

My blog-mate Christina Phillips will be sharing her extensive knowledge on how to use Word Templates and e-mailing in Dynamics GP.

Last, I will humbly present how to unleash Dynamics GP by taking advantage of additional features, modules, ISV solutions, development tools, and integration options to get more value out of your Dynamics GP solution.

The list of speakers is long, and distinguished, so make sure to block out a few hours on June 19th to invest in some education to learn more about your absolutely most favorite ERP application in the whole wide world.

Register now!

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

GP 2010 Web Services error: There was no endpoint listening at at http://server:48620/Dynamics/GPService

A partner recently asked me to help them troubleshoot a Dynamics GP 2010 Web Services error that they were receiving:

There was no endpoint listening at http://server:48620/Dynamics/GPService that could accept the message.

I've previously written about an eConnect 2010 error message that looks very similar.  In the case of eConnect 2010, you simply make sure the eConnect windows service is started.

But in this case, we checked the Windows services, and both eConnect 2010 Integration Service and the Microsoft Dynamics GP Service Host were both running.  There were no errors in the Event Viewer or the Dynamics GP Web Services Exceptions Console.

The partner had contacted GP support, and was asked to open the Dynamics Security Console to perform a test.  They recommended trying to add a Customer Entity ID Assignment, to see if customer IDs were listed in the window.  But when the partner tried to add the Entity ID assignment, the Company drop down list was empty.  This was the first clue.

This is what the Entity ID Assignment window should look like:

Once you select a Windows user, Entity Type, and Company, a list of IDs should appear.  But they couldn't even select a Company.

To try and diagnose the issue further, I installed GP 2010 Web Services on one of my servers and whipped up a test application that would use GP Web Services to retrieve customers, vendors, items, and accounts.  We could then use this app on different machines to see if it was a network issue or a problem with Web Services.

The partner tried my test application, and it didn't even work on the GP server where Web Services was installed, so that ruled out a network issue.

I then tried the Entity ID Assignment test on my server, and it worked fine.  The Fabrikam company was listed and I was able to see a list of customers. (as shown above)

So this told us that the problem was likely with the installation or configuration of Web Services.

I then asked the partner to try launching the GP Web Services Configuration Wizard to see if web services had been configured for the Fabrikam company.  When they launched the Configuration Wizard, no companies were listed.  They were unable to even proceed with the configuration or repair.

The window should list a company like this:

That pretty much told us that there was something wrong with the Web Services installation, and I recommended that they try completely uninstalling and reinstalling, making sure to follow the install guide step by step.

Once Web Services was reinstalled, things worked properly and their Web Services integration started working.

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

Why don't you own Rockton SmartFill?

One of the most useful, most valuable, and most obvious ISV solutions for Dynamics GP that I have used is Rockton SmartFill.  If you aren't familiar with SmartFill, you should be.  If  you aren't using SmartFill with your Dynamics GP system, you should be.  There are probably some companies with only 3 users, a handful of customers, vendors, inventory items, and GL accounts where the accounting staff have memorized all of the IDs and account numbers and never use lookups--but for the rest of you, who are constantly using the horrible Dynamics GP lookup windows, you, yes you, should "invest" in Rockton SmartFill.

For example, instead of guessing a customer ID or resorting to the Customer lookup window, just type part of the customer's name and tab off of the Customer ID field.  A search result dialog appears listing your options.  This functionality is applied to nearly all of the Dynamics GP 'lookup' fields, and can be adjusted to suit your needs.

Despite my belief that SmartFill is a no-brainer purchase for nearly every GP customer, I have only had ONE client that purchased it.  Since I first used it, I have pitched SmartFill to nearly every Dynamics GP customer that I have worked with, and not a single customer purchased it.  This baffles me.  I'm obviously not an award winning salesman, but I would have thought that customers would see how it works and instantly want to purchase it.  But it just hasn't happened.  And I don't understand why.

At $150 per concurrent user, SmartFill seems like a bargain to me.  If a company pays $25,000 for 10 Dynamics GP Business Essentials users, or $40,000 for 10 Advanced Management users, I'm thinking that $1,500 for SmartFill is not a huge additional investment, especially considering the efficiency it provides.  $150 per user to increase data entry speed and accuracy?  To make the entire Dynamics GP system much more usable?  To avoid those crude Dynamics GP lookup windows???  It seems like an obvious choice to me.

So why don't you use SmartFill?  What's stopping you?


(I have no affiliation with Rockton and don't get a penny for recommending their products.  I just think it's a great product, and am puzzled why more people don't use 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

Why consultants shouldn't post Dynamics GP batches on a client's system

I just finished preparing a batch of payables credit memos for a client to adjust some imported transactions that had incorrect freight and misc charge amounts.  After reconciling the data and confirming everything looked good, I let the client know that the batch was ready for them to post.

I'm pretty careful not to post transactions or batches in clients' production environments because of a fun experience I had with a client many years ago.

The client was a $750MM company using Dynamics GP, and they had so much going on that they usually had 1 or 2 GP consultants on site on a regular basis.  We would work with them on everything from AP processing to GL reconciliations, financials, integrations, and audit support.

At one point, I worked with the accounting manager to perform some type of reconciliation that resulted in an adjustment, and I prepared an adjusting batch with the accounting manager.  While sitting together at a GP workstation, she reviewed the batch and agreed that it should be posted, and "we" posted it.

I don't remember who technically clicked the Post button, but that workstation was using my GP login at the time the batch was posted.

Fast forward several months, and the company is doing a financial audit.  Auditors have a surprising ability to find details in accounting data that constantly surprise me, and of course, they found that my GP login posted some GL transactions.

Unfortunately, I wasn't at the client site at the time, so alarms went off, the auditors apparently got a bit too excited, and they then made the client freak out.  I get a call from the client suspiciously asking me if I had been posting transactions in THEIR system.  Despite working with the client for years, spending days and late nights helping them, it apparently crossed their mind that I would tamper with their data.  As if I don't have better things to do...

Of course I had no recollection of the specific transactions or batch, so I had to first calm everyone down, and then had to review the data with 3 people looking over my shoulders (literally) to see why I would have posted transactions.

After reviewing the batch and finding some notes on the adjustment, I was finally able to remind the accounting manager what the batch was for, and remind her of the meeting that we had where she and I reviewed and posted the batch together.

"Oh, yeah, I remember that."

The auditors put away their attack dogs and everyone calmed down.

But I definitely learned my lesson.  No more posting batches--at least not with my login!

Batch or transaction level notes are probably also a good idea, especially for adjustments, to document who, what, and why for the transactions.


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

Promising Performance Bumps in MR 2012

I know that I have been pretty vocal in my overall love for Management Reporter.  Not that FRx was horrible, its just that Management Reporter is moving in such a great direction.  So it has always been a bit frustrating to me to get bogged down in the performance issues with MR-- just because it takes away from all the great aspects of it. 

So I was excited when we had an opportunity to put MR 2012 in to a test environment.  Now, in this case, we were testing with AX (which MR now has a completely different underlying data mart model), but the performance increase was nothing short of amazing.  I am talking about cutting report processing time by over 99%.  Wow.

Now, I don't expect that same level of improvement when it comes to GP (but, then again, GP did not seem to exhibit the same extreme performance issues as AX-- which may be not only due to the product but also due to the client base/size for each), but it does get me excited to get MR 2012 in to play (not to mention the missing account detection functionality that comes with it).

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.

Why Can't I Void a Payroll Check/Direct Deposit?

I had a client ask me a pretty basic question the other day, and it brought me back to one of my favorite KnowledgeBase articles of all time, support.microsoft.com/kb/864992 which is "Void Check Not Working in Payroll".  The article talks through some of the most common reasons that a check is not available for voiding in Transactions-Payroll-Void Checks.



In this particular case, Step 5 in the article was the exact cause...

5. View the CM20200 table in Query Analyzer

SELECT * FROM CM20200 WHERE SRCDOCNUM ='XXXX'
SRCDOCNUM is the check number used in payroll. For the check you are trying to void, the below columns need to have this type of status for the check to appear in the payroll void window. For example, if the RECONUM column is 1.00000, then it will not appear in the void window.
RECONUM = 0
Recond = 0
VOIDED =0 

The transaction was a direct deposit, and it had been reconciled (the client reconciles daily) when it was initially pulled from the bank but then it bounced and was later placed back in to their account.  A simple fix in the future, they plan to adjust the time at which they do the bank reconcilation on direct deposit days to catch the bounces after (not before) they happen.  And to correct this case, they can enter a negative manual check (Transactions-Payroll-Manual Checks) to adjust out the check before reprocessing the payroll for the employee with a live check.

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.