Dynamics GP Data Level Security

 

I am getting requests about this subject almost from all my customers, therefore we at Dynamics Innovations have decided to develop an add-on for Dynamics GP to fulfill this request a month ago and my development team is currently in the process of developing the final touches on the utility.

The add-on is basically works on creating new Dynamic lookup that replaces traditional Dynamics GP lookups, the same lookup is used for all kind of data inside Dynamics GP and the rows are filter dynamically at runtime based on user privileges which to be setup by creating a specific view for each user/role per each business entity and the system will display only data from the linked view:

By achieving this, the system administrator will be able to customize columns names and columns to be displayed by using SQL views or direct SQL queries and rows to be displayed, and the lookup will automatically filter rows using "like/contains" operator based on the user selection and based on the clicked column:

The data load were enhanced to load data into .Net data grid that pulls rows from database directly into the user interface, 250,000 records were pulled within less than 7 seconds:

In addition to the lookup functionality we have developed a routine that validates user inputs inside GP texts and will make sure that the user selected data is a part of the user query:

 

The development team is currently working to enhance the navigation buttons as it might violates our security setup.

We been able to automate all the above processes and hanged with a couple of issues, the first is reports and the other is the smart list, and been able to handle smart list security by linking users view with smart list views using smart list builder, so each user will have his smart list configured, not an easy task but doable.

The last part is our challenge for the time being, we cannot figure out a solution for filtering report writer reports using available algorithms, we tried to pass restrictions fields to the reports using VBA but this wasn't a sustainable solution, we still didn't give up but we might not be able have this done.

 

UPDATE: The tool has been released and published over the company website without affecting the Reports, we left this for the IT people to manage, download your copy now from the link below:

http://www.di.jo/GPDLS.aspx

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Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
MCP, MCBMSP, MCTS, MCBMSS
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com

What is ERP?

Guys,

For those who attended my session last week at Applied Science University, as promised kindly find below materials I presented during the session:

http://di.jo/presentations/What is ERP.pdf

http://di.jo/presentations/Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Modules.pdf

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Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
MCP, MCBMSP, MCTS, MCBMSS
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com

Microsoft Open Door 2011

 

Kindly note that Microsoft Jordan Open Door 2011 this year is on the 1st and 2nd of November 2011.

 

Venue: Sheraton Hotel, Amman.

 

Time: 8:30 AM- 5:00 PM.

 

For registration and further information kindly follow the link below:

Open Door 2011

Event Overview

Learn about the latest IT administration and management, software development and see how to solve actual business tasks. The event is your chance to increase your knowledge, advance your skills and network with your local IT community as well as regional Microsoft and industry experts.

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Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
MCP, MCBMSP, MCTS, MCBMSS
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com

Microsoft Open Door Event

Guys,

For those who would like to meet and exchange business cards, I will be available at Microsoft Open Door event in Sheraton Amman - Jordan at Tuesday and Wednesday in the MVPs section to answer any inquiries you might have about Dynamics GP related issues.

Meet you there!

Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Exam Preparation Engine

 

I got an invitation from uCertify team to test their exams engine, I honestly enjoyed going through the engine they built and the way they do help exams attendees to pass the exams, not by the meaning of having actual exam questions which is exist! But instead by providing all the needed information about the exam subject from materials, study notes, question and answers and so on.

Unfortunately they still do not have exams for Dynamics GP nor Dynamics ERP’s, they have exams for CRM only.

I saw the below sections and liked it:

Study Notes Section:

A section with questions and answers for terms about the material you are working on:

How Tos Section:

Information about “How To”:

Learn and Practice Section:

This section contains practice exam questions and best answers, to help exam attendees pass their exam easily:

Enjoy studding guys and do not cheat the exams!

Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
MCP, MCBMSP, MCTS, MCBMSS
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com

Dynamics GP Workflow – Workflow is incorrectly activated

 

Looks like it is the Workflows week! I been in a situation with one of my clients who also had an issue with the workflow, their “Vendors” been suddenly start requesting for approvals once they creates a new vendor and the below message shown on the left panel:

“Unable to Connect to Remote Server”

During the investigation I noticed that the vendor workflow was not activated in the workflow system! Which was very wired situation.

While digging into this I found that the setup they had for the Workflow is incorrect, they had the Microsoft Dynamics Workflow Location is different that the Office Server Location which made this error:

Fixing this miss resolved our issue!

Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
MCP, MCBMSP, MCTS, MCBMSS
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com

Another Visit to Jeddah – KSA

 

Guys,

I am travelling to Jeddah after a couple of hours for long 5 days, if you would like to meet and exchange business cards, I will be normally in Break-time Café most of the time and my phone number below will be available all the time.

Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
MCP, MCBMSP, MCTS, MCBMSS
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com

Dynamics GP Workflow Backup

 

It has been a very tough month, me and all my team which now are 12 consultants in Dynamics Innovations are overloaded with tasks and projects assignments, I am travelling to Jeddah - KSA the upcoming couple of hours and wanted to post some articles before it leave my remaining rooms of my mind!

I been in a situation the last couple of days were one of my customers had a failure in their portals server that holds the Workflow and the Business Portal, after performing the reinstallation and making sure that all systems are up and running, I realized that the workflow I have created for this clients is a tree with 7 levels in depth and 900 lines of conditions that checks the cost center for each purchase order line and redirect the purchase order for the concerned department manager for first line approval! In addition, imagine the documents that will be lost during the maintenance procedure and the documents that will be stuck between the workflow and Dynamics GP!

I been lucky having a planned backup performed on daily basis, where I been able to restore the backup and proceed with the production environment smoothly.

Worth to mention that when I used the backup set I had for the Workflow database it failed to launch the applications! I had to restore the entire web application from the SharePoint Central Administration portal to get this done.

I wanted to share the script I used to schedule the daily backup, it is basically a batch file that will be called by Windows Scheduler daily and will command the STSADM to perform a backup to specific folder, that will be automatically created based on the backup date, replace “<servername>” with your actual server name and “<port>” with your actual port:

@ECHO OFF
@SET STSADM="c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin\stsadm.exe"
for /F "tokens=1-4 delims=/- " %%A in ('date/T') do set DATE=%%B%%C%%D
for /F "tokens=1-4 delims=:., " %%a in ('time/T') do set TIME=%%a%%b%%c

echo Workflow Backup Operation Started....

%STSADM% -o backup -url http://<servername>:<port>/sites/DynamicsGPworkflow -filename "C:\WSS Backups\Daily Backups\Workflow\Workflow_%DATE%_%TIME%.dat"

echo Business Portal Backup Operation Started....

%STSADM% -o backup -url http://<servername>:<port> -filename "C:\WSS Backups\Daily Backups\Business Portal\BP_%DATE%_%TIME%.dat"

echo Farm Backup Operation Started....

MD "C:\WSS Backups\Daily Backups\Farm\FARM_%DATE%_%TIME%"
%STSADM% -o backup -directory "C:\WSS Backups\Daily Backups\Farm\FARM_%DATE%_%TIME%" -backupmethod full

:End

Paste this into NOTEPAD and save it with “.CMD” extension to be an executable package and schedule the run periodically.

Enjoy!

Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
MCP, MCBMSP, MCTS, MCBMSS
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com

Dynamics GP Workflow Installation - The selected website is not a SharePoint site

 

I been in a situation yesterday with one of my clients, they had a problem in their portals server and been getting the above message during the uninstallation of the Workflow of Dynamics GP.

The exact message was: "The selected website is not a SharePoint site", but if you open the SharePoint Central Administration you finds the web application that holds the Workflow and it is indeed your Workflow web application.

While digging deeply into this, I noticed that the web applications for Workflows are being identified by unique identifier instead of using the web application name, so the mentioned case might became due to an operation that you have deleted the SharePoint web application from SharePoint Central Administration which workflow installed, and re-added the web application with the same name and same configuration, even with the same data as I have restored the web application from a SharePoint backup I had earlier.

The only way to resolve this is by forcing the workflows to be uninstalled without validating the SharePoint, to do this you will need to download Windows Installer Cleanup Utility which could be downloaded from here, and uninstall the workflow application by clicking on uninstall, this will remove the information of the workflow from your system but will not delete workflow files, normally workflow files will be replaced after doing the reinstallation, but the only thing that will have to be removed manually is the registered workflows and features that was deployed over SharePoint, this will need to be done by running following commands in CMD:

cd C:\Program Files\Common files\Microsoft shared\Web server extensions\12\Bin\         
stsadm -o deactivatefeature -name DynamicsApproval -url <DynamicsGPWorkflow URL> –force
stsadm -o deactivatefeature -name DynamicsWorkflowForms -url <DynamicsGPWorkflow URL> -force
stsadm -o deactivatefeature -name DynamicsWorkflow -url <DynamicsGPWorkflow URL> -force
stsadm -o uninstallfeature -name DynamicsApproval -force
stsadm -o uninstallfeature -name DynamicsWorkflowForms -force
stsadm -o uninstallfeature -name DynamicsWorkflow -force

Replace the <DynamicsGPWorkflow URL> placeholder with the path of the DynamicsGPWorkflow site collection. For example, replace the placeholder with the following path:

http:// Server_name /Sites/DynamicsGPWorkflow

Finally you’ll be able to reinstall the workflow with no issues.

Enjoy!

Regards,
--
Mohammad R. Daoud MVP - MCT
MCP, MCBMSP, MCTS, MCBMSS
+962 - 79 - 999 65 85
me@mohdaoud.com
www.mohdaoud.com