[Tyler Miller]

We are looking for a way to send documents out of GP 2015 using an SMTP server and not Outlook. Our GP Vendor told us that the built in SMTP tools never seem to work, so they are recommending we using Liason Messenger. Does anyone have experience with this and would recommend it as well, or are there other tools out there that can help us eliminate the need for Outlook to be used with GP?

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Tyler Miller
New French Bakery
Minneapolis MN
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[Steve Erbach]

Tyler,

While we haven’t purchased it (still considering for after we upgrade to GP 2016), I can tell you that Tom Nielsen from Liaison is one of the most knowledgeable and responsive reps I’ve dealt with. We keep hearing good things about Messenger, too.

Sincerely,

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“Sparkly” Steve Erbach – Business Analyst & MS Dynamics Platform Administrator
WOW Logistics – Appleton, WI
+-VP for Communication, GPUG WI (Milwaukee) Chapter
| Co-Chair, GPUG WI (Green Bay) Chapter
| GP 2013 R2 (12.00.1801)…go-live on GP 2016: 23-Jan-2017!
+-MR 2012 CU15 (found — and reported — my very own bug!)
Blog: https://www.gpug.com/blogs/steve-erbach
Twitter: @serbach
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[Steve Endow]

I second Steve Erbach’s comment.  

Tom Nielsen is a great person to work with and the Liaison Messenger product has incredible functionality.

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Steve Endow, Microsoft MVP
Precipio Services
Los Angeles, CA
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[Rob Klaproth]

Liaison is a powerful product, but there is one core flaw that I need to point out, which can be a show stopper for some clients.    Liaison does not have its own direct hooks into smtp or email services, it interacts directly with Outlook.  It does not run as a “service”, so you have to have it constantly running on a workstation that also has outlook running.   In the days of “virtual machines”, this probably isn’t a big deal but if anything happens to the workstation, i.e. gets restarted due to windows updates, liaison stops working until someone logs in and launches it. 

Also, the Liaison database is a “Flat file” design.  In this day and age of SQL I’m not really sure why they can’t create a database on the GP server and run from a SQL DB rather then a flat file shared out on the server.

——Original Message——

I second Steve Erbach’s comment.  

Tom Nielsen is a great person to work with and the Liaison Messenger product has incredible functionality.

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Steve Endow, Microsoft MVP
Precipio Services
Los Angeles, CA
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[Jeff Evenson]

Hi Rob, It has been awhile. You are referring to Liaison Messenger FORM. And you are correct FORM doesn’t have those mechanisms. I remember we had conversations ages ago at a Convergence (maybe?) regarding smtp and running as a service and in FORM. Since we only worked with Outlook it then prevented us from running as a service. In 2011, we released Liaison Messenger EDD to expanded from just GP/SL and added AX and NAV to our integrations. Messenger EDD does in-deed have native built-in SMTP, eSMTP, Gmail, Office365 and supporting TTL, SSL and of course unecrypted. No mail client is required. However, all versions of Outlook is still supported and also GroupWise and several Internet faxing protocols if desired by enduser. We also allow you to run Messenger EDD as a Service. Which is invaluable for virtual environments, unexpected restarts etc  Even though you can use Windows service manager. We met a company called FireDaemon and recommend/endorse their Service Manager. Its amazing and extremelet inexpensive, if you need to run as a service. But you can use window’s built-in if needed.

 

There are no flat files; Messenger EDD uses the (native) database respective of the ERP system. Depending on the Accounting system we interact with, Therefore we utilize many different databases; Pervasive, ProvideX, Oracle etc. but of course MSSQL is the most common.

 

Also there is no Messenger client required. All printing etc is done within the normal screens/Windows of Dynamics using their Print and Post routines. And unlike FORM, EDD can call and run stored procedures and schedule and distributes reports also, not just business forms.

 

Another BIG change is no built-in report writer as was in FORM. We/var/EU use the existing templates Dexterity, Word, Crystal, SSRS, X++ report designer whatever end-user prefers. If you’d like give us a call and we can show you all whats new and stuff.

Anyway, hope things are well.

Best Regards,

Jeff

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Jeff Evenson
Liaison Software Corporation
Santa Ana CA
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[Tyler Miller]

Thank you for all your advice. We are looking at Liasion, but were curious if there are other options out there. I have used Dynamics NAV in the past and it has a built in SMTP server that can send email without the need for Outlook, was hoping GP had the same functionality.

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Tyler Miller
New French Bakery
Minneapolis MN
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[Christine Boisvert]

I have spent a lot of hours researching this. If you purchase Sales Pad, it includes SMTP document delivery and works very well. I evaluated a number of 3rd party solutions and Liaison Messenger does seem to be the leader in this area. We just purchased it this week and will start implementation soon. 

If you are interested in knowing which products I evaluated feel free to email me directly. (cboisvert@floform.com)

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Christine Boisvert
IT Manager
Floform Countertops
Winnipeg MB
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[Tyler Miller]

If anyone wanted to know, we looked at DocuFire and it seems to do exactly what we want. We have not made a final decision yet, but it was an impressive piece of software.

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Tyler Miller
New French Bakery
Minneapolis MN
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