[Bill Jones]

?We have way to many users that will sign into GP and never close out.  We have tried education.  We use Citrix so we do delete inactive Citrix sessions but that will leave the active GP session and take up one of the increasingly sparse licenses. 

We have implemented Rockton Toolbox.  They have a feature that will remove inactive GP sessions but they are way to nice for what we need.  If the user has a window such as Purchase Order Entry open, Rockton will not log the user out of GP as therr may be unsaved data.

We want the lead pipe way of removing a user.  If they are inactive in GP for over four hours, we want to cleanly log them out of GP removing the user from the active sessions even if there was unsaved work.  Does anyone know of another 3rd party tool other than Rockton Toolbox that has such an inactive user logout capability?

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Bill Jones
Systems Engineer, Financial Systems
Universal Service Administrative Company
Washington, DC
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[Mark LeRette]

Fastpath Config AD has an Auto Logout Feature that you can set to automatically log user out after set time of inactivity, with a minimum of 30 minutes as the setting.

We haven’t utilized that option here, but I’m sure someone has…

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Mark LeRette
Application System Analyst II
Muscatine Power & Water
Muscatine IA
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[Jen Kuntz]

I would second this… FastPath’s Config AD does this and has some additional features around it which are quite nice. I have no experience with Rockton’s feature.

The Auto-Logout feature needs to be enabled if you want it turned on, so you do have the option. You specify minimum inactivity level starting with 30 minutes. Additionally, the feature I like here is you can identify exclusions – users who should not be auto-logged-out no matter the amount of time. That allows you to be careful with users who might legitimately have a process running overnight for instance (long postings, big depreciation calcs etc. come to mind).

Jen

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Jen Kuntz, CPA, CGA, Microsoft MVP (Business Solutions)
Manager, Business Solutions
Energy+ Inc.
Cambridge, ON, Canada
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[Jo deRuiter]

?Hi

I have had a number of clients over the years struggle with this.

The Rockton Toolbox, though, has it right.  If a user has a window open and you kick them out, there is no telling if you may cause data corruption.  There are, of course several ways of removing users from the system, including System>Utilities>User Activity where you can see the user and when they logged in and then boot them out from within GP.

?These are the queries to look at GP logged in and possibly orphaned user records:

SELECT * FROM DYNAMICS..ACTIVITY
SELECT * FROM DYNAMICS..SY00800
SELECT * FROM DYNAMICS..SY00801
SELECT * FROM TEMPDB..DEX_LOCK
SELECT * FROM TEMPDB..DEX_SESSION

I understand the frustrations – especially since you are deployed in a Citrix environment. 

However, you do run the risk of data corruption if you kick out a user that has a window open – you can see that in the tables above.  This can cause batches to be stuck, etc.

I would continue to educate users and I’ve even had some companies implement disciplinary action for not logging out – a security concern, by the way. 

If you have Rockton, I would set that up for use and combine that with some strong language.

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Kindest Regards,

Jo deRuiter
“That GP Red Head”
Advanced Credentialed Professional-Dynamics GP
Member, GPUG GP Credentialing Exam Committee
Chairman, GPUG Partner Advisory Board
“……what isn’t she up to?”
Heartland Business Systems, LLC
Senior Financial Systems Consultant
Milwaukee, WI
770-906-4504 (Cell)
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[Aleiha Hanson]

I second with using SQL to find the sessions. We utilize two different scripts; one for when there is no one actively in the system to clear all stuck records and another for when you want to be specific in the user or batch that is stuck and do not want to affect everyone else in the system. ?

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Aleiha Hanson
IT Manager
Royal Basket Trucks, Inc
Darien WI
GPUG Milwaukee Chapter Leader
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[David Musgrave]

I was the original developer of the Rockton Toolbox functionality. It was in Omni Tools which was sold to Rockton.

I would not recommend any method that forcefully terminates the Microsoft Dynamics GP application as it could very likely cause data damage or orphaned records.

David

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David Musgrave MVP, GPUG All-Star

Managing Director
Winthrop Development Consultants

Perth, Western Australia

http://www.winthropdc.com
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[Jim Gibbs]

I agree about not forcing a session termination as you don’t know what is running on that workstation. However, if a user get their session terminated by removing them from the DYNAMICS.. Activity table, that session can continue to finish whatever it is running and when the user tries to do something else then he/she is then notified that his login has been removed and GP closes properly. This way there are minimum to none chances for data corruption and the user seat is freed up to be used elsewhere.

A solution within SQL that runs every 30 minutes and monitors the users can be implemented, however, you would have to determine what will constitute user inactivity for you. I implemented it once to run at midnight to kick everybody that was still logon as users often do not close their session properly and just turn off their workstations. 

A combined solution in Dexterity can be developed to truly monitor user inactivity and set a flag for a SQL task to remove the inactive user(s).

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James Gibbs
Jpower USA
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[David Musgrave]

Why develop again.  It is part of Rockton Toolbox.

David

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David Musgrave MVP, GPUG All-Star

Managing Director
Winthrop Development Consultants

Perth, Western Australia

http://www.winthropdc.com
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[Tim Andaya]

Hi 

We have customers asking about this all the time especially in situations where they are short a license or 2.

I have found scripts that help over the years; attached is a user activity report developed by Mahmoud M. AlSaadi.

I attached another script for cleaning up orphaned sessions that you could run with other users logged in.

It won’t fix your problem but, the first will give you some visibility on it and the 2nd is just nice to have.

Regards,

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Tim Andaya
Strategic Systems Group
“There are no stupid questions.”
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