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[John Ellis]

Hello:

Is “Blank” the only type of Sales Order Processing invoice that can print to Word template format?  I noticed that, if you choose “Other”, GP does not seem to let you print an aesthetically pleasing looking document in either Template or Standard format.

Secondly, with being tied down to that one Blank format, is there any way of modifying the invoice for multiple lines of business?

Let me see if can explain.  One set of customers needs to have the sales invoice displaying one way, while the other sets of customers need to have the sales invoice displaying differently.  

Thanks!

John

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John Ellis
The Dynamics Bulldog
S2 Technology
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[John Arnold]

Hi John,

Blank is not the only choice, SOP Other…, SOP Short… & SOP Long…  are all available.  I used to use the other formats to do the kind of stuff you are talking about, but I got tired of it quickly.  While some people think GP Report Writer is the best thing in the world (David Musgrave), I personally am not a fan of Report.   I was once trying to output a paragraph of text to a report and I was restricted to lines of 80 characters.  It drove me nuts!  I felt like I should get out my punch cards to make the report 🙂

Because of this, like many others, I transitioned away from Report Writer to a third party report solution (Crystal Reports Viewer by Flexiable Solutions or Forms Printer by Accountable Softer to name two) and my life is SO much easier.  I now have almost all of my reports as SSRS reports and things are SO much easier.  Plus you can save the RDL files from SSRS report in a source code control system to keep track of changes.

With SSRS or Crystal Reports, you can dynamically change the way the report looks based on the Customer ID quite easily.  Plus, your users won’t have to remember to change the Report’s Format EVERY time they print.  They won’t have to think…  “For this customer, do I want the Blank Paper, Short Form, Long Form, or Other Form ?”  The report can auto-magically format itself as needed.   I’d drive the report with a SQL Stored Procedure and create a new table that stores the Customer # and a format code.  Return the format code to your report and use it to turn on/off fields on your report as needed.  You could have multiple format codes for each report format type.  Only add the customer’s # along with the format code they need.  If the customer isn’t in the table, use the default formatting.

I hope this make sense.  Give me a yell if you have any questions!

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John Arnold
Senior Software Engineer
US Digital
Vancouver WA
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[John Ellis]

Hi John:

Thank you, for the quick response! 

Yes, of course, there are three other formats available in SOP.  But, if you look in GP’s Report Template Configuration window, “Blank” appears to be the only format available for Word Templates.  That’s not good, for several reasons, not the least of which being that I cannot modify “Blank”.  That format is already being used for other lines of business.  Not only that, when any of the other three formats are chosen, the printing (in layman’s terms) does not look good.

Sure, there are other products out there.  But, they’re not feasible to review for this project at this time.

John

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John Ellis
The Dynamics Bulldog
S2 Technology
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[Mark Wiley]

Hi John,

You can have multiple Word templates for Blank, and assign them by Customer ID. Also the other formats are available to be customized so if you only need 3-4 formats for your lines of business, you can modify the Word templates to accommodate. I can’t argue with John that SSRS and Crystal are more flexible, and would recommend an ISV add-on to make the reports more “integrated” to the GP windows. But I have been able to customize the RW to Word features for a lot of clients. In fact, I have a light manufacturing VAR that has over 30 different Word templates, specific to each customer.

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Mark Wiley
Dynamics Credentialed Professional
Senior Solutions Architect
GraVoc
Ohio Office
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[John Ellis]

Hi Mark:

Thank you, Mark!  This is exactly what I’m looking for!

Years ago, I worked quite a bit with GP’s Word Templates.  But, I never used multiple templates for the one Blank format.  Since the Blank format was already modified in Report Writer by the client elsewhere, in what window would I go to to fashion a Word template to work with “another” Blank format?

For that matter, if I want to “tie” Word Templates to any of the other three formats, what window would I use to do so?

Thanks, Mark!

John

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John Ellis
The Dynamics Bulldog
S2 Technology
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[Valerie Sikora]

Hi John,

You can copy the Blank Word Template format to the Short, Long or Other format.  Then you need to make an xml file for the format you are going to use, like the Short form, for example.  Then you have to delete the source that has Blank, and add the source for the Short form.  From there you can make changes as needed to the new Word Template.  

Keep in mind that the “Email” button at the top of the SOP Entry window is only available on the Blank form (for some stupid reason), but you can click on Print (or go to Sales Batches and print from there) and choose to email from there if you are using one of the other formats.

Be sure to make lots of copies so you can revert to a previous version if you need to!

Val Sikora

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Valerie Sikora
Senior Developer
LBMC Technology Solutions
Brentwood TN
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[John Ellis]

Hi Valerie:

I just reviewed the possibility of e-mailing from the batch entry window by clicking the Print button and choosing one of the other formats besides Blank.

Although the “Help” file for this window says that the e-mailing by printing from the Print Sales Documents window for batch entry only works for the Blank format, a colleague of mine did some testing and found that it is not just for the Blank format.  So, she confirmed what you stated. 

Thank you, so much!!!

John

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John Ellis
The Dynamics Bulldog
S2 Technology
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[Tiffany Ziegler]

I”m not sure if this answers your question but we use a modified sales invoice (through RM not SOP). We have one customer who gets one version and all other customers get another version. Both are modified. We then assign the template that we want to go to each customer. When we print the invoice out of GP, it prints the corresponding invoice (we don’t have to tell it which template to use).

Again, I’m a very beginning user of templates, but I do know we use this funcationality.

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Tiffany Ziegler
Vice President & Controller
Velcor Leasing Corporation
Madison WI
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[John Ellis]

Hi Tiffany:

When you mention how both are modified, do you mean modified in Report Writer prior to modifying them in Word?

In Report Writer, you can modify only one format.  You can’t have two modified reports for the same format.  At least, that’s correct if you have one shared reports dictionary.

John

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John Ellis
The Dynamics Bulldog
S2 Technology
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[Tiffany Ziegler]

John – Sorry, two modified templates – as in modified in Word. I believe that our default invoice is a Report Writer modified invoice. We then pull that into the Word Templates configurator to create multiple word versions of this report writer invoice – i.e. different wording on the invoice. One customer has their invoice auto paid via ACH so their invoice has a notation at the bottom not to send a check, etc.

Both version appear in the Word Template ?Maintenance window and can be assigned accordingly. See screen shot below…Once you highlight one, you can click the Assign button to assign to certain customer classes, or customers. Hope this helps!

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Tiffany Ziegler
Vice President & Controller
Velcor Leasing Corporation
Madison WI
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[John Ellis]

Thank you, Tiffany!

Yes, this sounds like it will work perfectly!

John

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John Ellis
The Dynamics Bulldog
S2 Technology
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