Dynamics F/SCM Customer Experience (CRM) Dynamics GP Dynamics Business Central (NAV) Dynamics SL Power Platform Fabric Copilot

[Don McCready]

Hi Gang,

I believe I’ve seen a discussion on this in the past, but several searches didn’t render it.

We have 15 GP 2013 licenses.  Most users run it locally, but there are a few remote users accessing it thru the terminal server.  I’m considering having all users run it thru the terminal server to lessen admin tasks during upgrades, YE updates, RW mods, etc.

If you’re running it thru a terminal server, I’d appreciate hearing any thoughts on whether it’s a viable option.

Thanks!

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Don McCready
Controller and IT Director
The Schaefer Group, Inc.
Dayton OH
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[Terry Horn]

We have three terminal servers supporting 60 concurrent users.  They are in a “farm” so that if one goes down, the other two provide the service. 
With 15 users, one server can easily support all 15, but you will have to be aware if the Terminal Server goes down (scheduled or unscheduled), all the users are offline.
I believe even with 15 users it makes sense to use a Terminal Server.  Makes updates easier and you can always be assured that everyone has the same version installed.
Let us know if we can help in any way.

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Terry Horn
IT Manager
Owensboro Municipal Utilities
Owensboro KY
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[Maria Frandzeskakis]

Hi Don,

We’re also running GP via Terminal Server, for all users (average about 25 concurrent connections).

When we upgraded to GP2015 R2, we moved from local client installs (with a TS for remote users) to TS environment for everyone.
I would highly recommend it as it greatly simplifies the maintenance.

The transition for users was much easier than we had expected.
The experience is the same whether users are in the office or remote.
We saved enormous time during the upgrade, not having to install the client for every potential user.
Performance improved significantly but I think that had more to do with hardware upgrades, as well as SQL upgrades.

We can support all our users on a single TS, but as Terry noted there is a risk involved so we’re looking at options.

Best Regards,

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Maria Frandzeskakis
IT Manager
MIP Inc.
Anjou QC
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[Ken Allgood]

We have 20-25 concurrent users, and we switched from local installs to term server environment about 3 years ago with our last upgrade.  I prefer the Remote App environment vs a Remote desktop environment if that’s what you’re going for.  Remote
app just makes it nicer for the user as it’s like running it local.  We use a load-balanced/farm environment with 2 term servers.  While 1 can support 15, I would highly recommend going two servers for keeping the downtime at a minimum.  We have about a dozen add-ons at this point, and the average install takes me 1.5-2 hour now.  Doing that about 25 times, I think I’d have to cry 🙂  One thing to consider, if you do anything that requires Adobe Distiller (create PDFs) or whatever they call it now, either you’ll have to fork out money for a license for everyone that access that term server, even if they don’t use it, or let whomever needs Adobe to have a local install of GP.  We have 2 users with local GP for that reason.

Also, if using Remote App (or RDP), I would do some training.  Users will save to desktop, expecting it on their desktop, not on the TS.  GP Power Tools would also be helpful.  Use it to set the default window location and size (users moving it on to their 2nd screen will mess up the next user, etc.), clear out last user, and maybe some other options.  We also email through exchange instead of MAPI so don’t need Outlook configured on TS for each user that would be emailing.

Overall, our transition was fairly smooth, and most of our users were not use to doing remote desktop/apps.

One last thing, make sure Win 10 clients are on update 1511 or 1607.  There’s a bug in explorer.exe that makes the Remote App freeze, then flash and repeat, frustrating for users.

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Ken Allgood
Saratoga Technologies, Inc.
Johnson City TN
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[Beat Bucher]

Hi Don,
Nothing more to add to all that has been brought up.. Excellent points from Ken regarding GP Power Tools, it will help you save tons of hours for troubleshooting.
Just adding my own experience:

Our own setup has only 1 TS server as we only have 16 concurrent licenses, but serve around 120 users all over the globe.. works perfectly . We used to run Citrix XenApp until a couple of years ago, but switched to MS RDP/TS for cost-saving reasons. Very easy to manage now in Win2012 & up.

I keep only about 3-4 local GP clients in critical departments (production, purchasing, finance), just in case the TS goes down for some unexpected reasons (which happened only 1 or 2 times as the entire server had almost frozen and went unresponsive, but that was fixed with some patches and/or TS settings).
Before I joined the company, there were far more local clients deployed for no good reasons, and every SP or update took several hours to perform, whereas now the TS takes about 15 min and another 10-15 min per local client.. In a matter of less than 2 hours everyone is up-to-date and can work again after an SP update or in case of a major upgrade. it’s usually done within 3-4 hours (just talking about the client deployement).

We still use Business Portal on a separate web server to serve as input for Timesheets and Employee Expenses.. Sometime in the future this will have to be replaced by something helse, as BP is no longer supported past GP 2013R2.

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Beat Bucher
Business Analyst, Dynamics GP MVP
Ultra-Electronics Forensic Technology Inc.
Montreal QC/Canada
+1-514-489-4267
@GP_Beat http://dyngpbeat.wordpress.com/
Montreal QC GPUG Chapter Leader
GP2013R2 / MR2012 CU14
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[Beth Burrell]

TS or search for RDP(remote desktop)  is a great solution.   A few things you will need to know.

1. Number of users per TS depends on how much memory, CPU you have on the virtual server.   There is no exact science depending on ISV’s etc.. But things like MR are memory hogs, so better to have more than less.

2. Depending if printers are networked or local, you might need a short delay to bring up GP when starting to give the system time to map the printers if they are network printers. (it is redirected from whatever you have on your local machine as printers)

3.  If you need to save things locally, it is a bit slower but if your files are not large, then it isn’t that big of a deal.

4.  Make sure TS is set to reconnect your session and only have 1 session per user for GP otherwise if a user gets disconnected for any reason, they may launch another instance of GP or several in some cases.

5.  On the TS have the disconnect time and logoff if idle set according to the habits of your users.   If you have disconnect after 30 minutes and users like to leave it up during lunch, you will end up with user frustration.  

6.  If you are using older printers, you might have some minor issues.  Newer printers usually don’t have issues, but older printers sometimes need the driver loaded on the TS.

7.  If you don’t setup all the above right, you will have user complaints as people hate change it the smoother the transition the easier it is for the whole team to stay positive

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Beth Burrell
CRM Customer Success Coach
Tribridge
Tampa FL
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[Joni Finnell]

Don:

We are setup much like Beat. We have 10 concurrent licenses with 18 possible users. Everyone accesses remotely through Citrix XenApp. However, Purchasing, Payroll, Financials and myself have one local install for each as backup to eliminate downtime. In the past, we have also had numerous problems with Citrix freezing/crashing. We are in the process of looking for another option to Citrix. With all that being said, I would highly recommend to anyone who uses a remote or terminal server to have at least one local install to take care of the unforeseen server problems. 😎

Ken and Beth – awesome information on TS! I plan to forward it onto our IT Manager to assist in his decision of a new option.

Thanks!

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Joni Finnell
Project Accountant/GP Troubleshooter
Consumer Support Services, Inc.
Newark OH
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[Stuart Gallion]

We have 20 GP licenses shared among 40 or 50 users scattered from the east coast of US to Hawaii. GP clients for everyone are hosted on three WinServer 2012 Remote App and Desktop connection servers. They, along with our GP DB server are hosted remotely. The only thing I can add to the other postings is sometimes our application servers lose contact with the GP server after Windows updates are applied. It happens a couple of times a year and a reboot solves the problem. Don’t know if it is generic to hosted servers or specific to our hosting company.

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Stuart Gallion
Project Accountant/GP System Administrator GP2016/FRx6.7
Stanford Hotels Corporation
San Francisco CA
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[Joni Finnell]

We have run into the same problem with Windows Updates as Stuart has mentioned. As long as there is an update reminder (to restart) that sits on any of our servers it slows the programs down. Once we reboot it is fine. 😎

We have even had the situation where the server reboots itself without being prompted to do so. We have looked at the settings and they are correct. Anyone run into this or have a solution?

Thanks

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Joni Finnell
Project Accountant/GP Troubleshooter
Consumer Support Services, Inc.
Newark OH
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[Christine Boisvert]

One more thing I would add to help with any printing issues is to purchase TS Print. This is a very simple tool that eliminates all printing issues. You only need to setup it once on your terminal server and install a small client on all the workstations. It’s not very expensive. (Remote Desktop Printing and Scanning Solutions – Terminal Works

Terminalworks		remove preview
Remote Desktop Printing and Scanning Solutions – Terminal Works Terminal Works offers tools for remote desktop printing and scanning at an affordable price with lifetime updates and customer support. Get a free trial! View this on Terminalworks >

). Thj

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Christine Boisvert
IT Manager
Floform Countertops
Winnipeg MB
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