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[Sue Whitney]

Hello GPUG Community,

I’m looking for responses to be part of the upcoming On-Topic article in the Q1 2017 issue of GPUG Magazine. Please include an answer to the question below to be included in the upcoming issue:

What do you feel is your greatest opportunity or challenge in 2017 as it relates to your organization and Microsoft Dynamics GP? 

You can post your answer here or email me directly at Sue@gpug.com.

Thank you! 
-Sue Whitney, GPUG Magazine

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Sue Whitney
Dynamic Communities
Alexandria VA
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[Blair Christensen]

For my company, our biggest challenge is trying to upgrade and stay within a couple of versions of the current release.  I was very pleased that Microsoft backed off its (quite frankly insane) update schedule and is now going with one update per year.  Our system includes 11 companies with widely varying business processes and we use integrations and third-party products extensively, so the testing, preparation, and coordination that go into an upgrade are anything but trivial.  We’ve been using Dynamics GP since even before Microsoft acquired it, so legacy does not even begin to describe our environment: every upgrade exposes something new we have to handle.  Even a once-a-year upgrade is really tough with all the other projects I have going on – the twice a year releases just made me throw up my hands in frustration.  When one considers that aside from Dynamics GP itself are the necessary SQL Server upgrades, I could very easily spend more than half my entire working year planning for and performing upgrades.

What I’d really like to see is an announcement by Microsoft that they were working on a replacement engine for GP to replace Dexterity for release in say 2022 with a production development release in 2020 so that the third-party community could get their hands on it and re-write their own products to work on it prior to the 2022 launch.  That would also give Microsoft time to rewrite Report Writer and Integration Manager to support the new engine.

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Blair Christensen
Database Administrator
Oppenheimer Companies, Inc.
Boise ID
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[Lou Spevack]

Don’t hold your breath on the Dexterity replacement.  The Dynamics 365 train has left the station and that product will take the lead for marketing and development resources.  Dynamics GP will continue as a mature product with development focused on user requested features and technology updates to keep up with new features like OData.  I can’t see that a major rewrite is in the works.

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Lou Spevack
Systems Accountant | Dynamics Credentialed Professional
American Council on Education
Washington DC
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[Blair Christensen]

Dynamics 365 is a non-starter for anyone who uses integrations (like us) or extensively uses third-party products (like us) or who has customized reports (us again).  It’s also a complete joke for all but the simplest operations.  Don’t know if you’ve ever actually played with it, but it was built as a competitor to Quick Books; those advocating for it to replace GP anytime in the near future are nuts.  It’s nowhere close to where it would need to be to do that.

The other problem is that we’ve already had serious problems with Dynamics CRM online and Skype for Business – all hosted Microsoft solutions.  We’re not jumping on that bandwagon anytime soon for our financial software.

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Blair Christensen
Database Administrator
Oppenheimer Companies, Inc.
Boise ID
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[David Joosten]

Our biggest challenge for 2017 is probably also upgrading. We have over 800 users on 52 different companies. There is definitely no opportunity to just simply hit the upgrade button. Luckily we have our licences split across three servers, so we can upgrade each server on it’s own, but for 2017, we need to look at our biggest server.

Another big challenge for us is keeping up with the rate of change and need for new functionality from the business. They will always feel that they are being ignored if we do not respond to the requirement in days maybe weeks.

I woould like to say that we would take our first steps into D365, but the pricing difference to our GP costs is just too big to do without a whole lot of corporate governance, including the full evaluation of the competing offerings.

Our opportunities though are to grow our hybrid cloud presence and improve the use of cloud functionality. An example of this is using the PowerApp capability for asset verification and for suplimentry information that we can use in our BI processes.

Larger levels of process automation are a big drive to allow our people to spend more time improving our business and taking opportunities rather than being a slave to data capture.

Could probably go on for hours, but let’s leave it there.

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David Joosten
Enterprise Architect
Premier FMCG (Pty) Ltd
Waterfall City
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[David Morinello]

The next upgrade itself, to GP 2016 R2. With 36 companies and all of the 3rd party products, it is always a high bar to upgrade. Not in the training, which really needs our focus, but in the upgrade itself.

Process Improvements?

I have seen folks wish for a replacement to the Dexterity engine, and I have often wished for a complete repeal and replace of Report Writer. We need a better report engine! But maybe a more attainable enhancement might be to improve some of the GP to SQL internals. With SQL 2016, we have some real power available. How about really tuning some of the worst performing GP processes to take advantage of the power of SQL 2016? Everyone has their “favorite” worst performing process, right?

While you are at it, can we cut down the upgrade times themselves? Do you really need to go table by table, database by database, taking 15 minutes to 2 hours per company to do an upgrade? I know all of the tricks and piecemeal upgrade options, but surely there is a better, more efficient way after all these years? Anyone with large companies, or double (and in some cases, triple) digit company counts know what I mean.

Merry Christmas, and Happy 2017 everyone!

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David Morinello
Senior Dynamics GP Systems Architect
Ascend Learning, LLC
Leawood KS
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[Bill Marshall]

Dexterity will never be replaced.  Microsoft and ISVs have decades of business logic built in Dexterity and re-writing that would not only be hugely expensive but also not practical. With the new SBA and .NET Interop, Dexterity actually provides most of what you need to develop apps and customizations for GP. I’ve recently ported C# code that had been in an external DLL right into Dexterity.  Although .NET Interop is missing a couple of needed features, such as detailed exception reporting, it’s pretty cool.  If you can do it in .NET, you can now do it in Dex. And SBA allows ISVs to leverage their code for a cloud-based implementation. 

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Bill Marshall
President
mc²
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[Bill Marshall]

I had to cut that message short due to a meeting.  The biggest challenge is convincing people that the GP platform is viable and growing, and that the new technologies (SBA and .NET Interop) open a wealth of opportunities for both cloud-based computing and integration with other .NET apps. 

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Bill Marshall
President
mc²
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[Tiffany Ziegler]

Our greatest challenge in 2017 is needing to upgrade GP from our current 2013 R2 version, so that we stay within Microsoft’s maintenance service window. Unfortunately, upgrading to the newest version will also require an upgrade to our SQL Server in order to be compatible. Our main ERP system is an internally developed SQL software so upgrading SQL versions means additional testing to ensure that our main ERP system will work properly. And of course, we’ll also need to upgrade our Microsoft Office suite on the GP workstations as well. The logistics and cost involved seem to be a bit overwhelming at this point. 

I’m looking forward to Microsoft’s plan to slow down the new releases to annually!

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Tiffany Ziegler
Vice President & Controller
Velcor Leasing Corporation
Madison WI
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