http://www.extensibles.com Performance and Optimization of SQL Server, .NET and Visual Studio Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:11:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://www.extensibles.com/87/sql-server/microsoft-dynamics-gp-ecommerce-custom-solutions-and-coding/ http://www.extensibles.com/87/sql-server/microsoft-dynamics-gp-ecommerce-custom-solutions-and-coding/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:28:46 +0000 Kevin http://www.extensibles.com/87/sql-server/microsoft-dynamics-gp-ecommerce-custom-solutions-and-coding/ If your organization has functioning ecommerce website with shopping cart, price list and credit card processing and your Corporate ERP application is Microsoft Dynamics GP – you are probably favoring the idea of ecommerce integration on the level of connectors and custom scripts, versus implementing ecommerce website from scratch on new ecommerce off-the-shelf product.  If this  is the case – our small publication should give you orientation session, that should be applicable to both ecommerce B2B and B2C scenarios: 1. Dynamics GP eCommerce integration tools and methods.  The most simple tool is GP Integration Manager, where you setup integration to push ecommerce shopping cart to GP Sales Order Processing Invoice or Sales Order.  IM is very simple if you do not need real time integration and ready to launch integration by IM operator.  Second tool to consider is GP eConnect SDK, where you program ecommerce integration in C#, or VB.Net.  The third possible way is to do direct SQL scripting, more likely Stored Procedures, this method may seem to be natural and simple, however in our opinion eConnect would save you more time at the end of the way, as in SQL custom stored procedures you will have to come through very long learning curve and data repair.  The fourth method is to deploy proven integration scripts and code fragments from specializing Dynamics GP ecommerce ISV partner, where all you need to do is to tune the scripts to your specific requirements.  Let’s describe each method is additional details 2. Dynamics GP Integration Manager as ecommerce integration tool.  Integration itself could be setup by end user, if you are small organization without dedicated IT.  If you are OK to just lunch integration manually one time per day – then IM is definitely the way to consider.  Plus, in IM you can have good field for custom events handling in VBA scripts and even more – you can base IM Queries on Advanced ODBC, where you can look into SQL Cross Platform Views, joining data from your MS SQL or non Microsoft databases: Oracle, MySQL/PHP, Lotus Notes, and others.  And if you have IT department with programming enthusiasts – you can even schedule IM integration to run every, say 20 minutes, by Windows Macro (or better consider shareware Macro application to launch IM integration) 3. eConnect programming.  If you are Microsoft Visual Studio programmer with C# or VB experience and reasonably knowledge of SQL and XML – eConnect should be very friendly for you.  Plus in web project you can do bidirectional integration, as eConnect allows you not only to push or update objects in Dynamics GP, but also retrieve and synchronize them in eCommerce front end, if required.  eConnect was initially dedicated to eCommerce developers, who plan to deploy Dynamics GP as accounting back end for ecommerce application, so feel free to review and practice eConnect programming in ecommerce 4. SQL Direct Scripting.  If you believe that your ecommerce integration is really primitive, then try to create targeted object, such as SOP Invoice via GP user interface and review how records are distributed in the company SQL database tables.  If distribution looks simple, try to imitate it in SQL Stored Procedure, be ready to multiple iterations, do your experiment in the test database (you can create test company via GP Utilities) 5. eCommerce proven integration scripts.  We recommend you to consider our scripts, deployed in ecommerce production integration environments for multiple Dynamics GP customers.  We have these scripts and code fragments ready for tuning.  They should allow you to save time on unnecessary learning curve and avoid complex debugging and potential data repair and recovery exercises 6. eCommerce eConnect Automatic Batch Posting add-on.  eConnect doesn’t have batch posting methods, but there is no need to reinvent the bicycle.  We have Posting Server, which does just that – give us a call 7. eCommerce and older Dynamics GP Great Plains versions.  Integration Manager should work with all the versions of Great Plains Dynamics GP: 10.0, 9.0, 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, including Great Plains on Pervasive SQL Server 2000/Btrieve or Ctree.  eConnect in our opinion achieved its maturity for Dynamics GP version 9.0, so if you plan to program eConnect and your version is earlier than 9.0, consider GP version update to 9.0 or better to 10.0.  If you are on older version of GP on Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and you have reasons to stay on your current version – we have SQL Stored Procedures based product – Order Connector, which should do good work of eCommerce shopping cart to Sales Order Processing transaction integration ]]> http://www.extensibles.com/87/sql-server/microsoft-dynamics-gp-ecommerce-custom-solutions-and-coding/feed/ 0 http://www.extensibles.com/79/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-developing-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp-notes/ http://www.extensibles.com/79/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-developing-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp-notes/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:11:17 +0000 Kevin http://www.extensibles.com/79/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-developing-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp-notes/ When you have legacy in-house programmed ecommerce web application in production with shopping cart, credit card payment interface, B2B or B2C items catalogs and promotional pricing – which does the job – likely that you will favor the idea to leave it there and try the way of ecommerce integration connectors to your Microsoft Dynamics GP Corporate ERP application.  Another option would be to try existing ecommerce module (available from various Dynamics GP ecommerce ISV partners, you can make your research or call Microsoft Business Solutions).  Respecting your approach to program ecommerce integration, we would like to offer this small publication, where we are considering several options and ecommerce programming instruments: 1. Batch Mode ecommerce to Dynamics GP Great Plains Integration approach.  Here we assume that you have reasonable low volume of daily ecommerce invoices or sales orders (in B2B ecommerce you may work on Sales Order execution level and then transferring completed order to Sales invoice).  Batch mode assumes that you export your daily ecommerce documents into text files and then run integration manually.  For Batch mode integration we recommend you to deploy Dynamics GP Integration Manager.  If your source files for integration are text files exports from ecommerce web application, then IM is end user friendly and you may decide to do self discovery or call our office for short Integration Manager introduction in eCommerce integration design.  With IM, however, you can try more sophisticated approach, where you pull data directly from SQL Server (MySQL/PHP, Oracle, MS Access) ecommerce database.  IM has Advanced ODBC Data Source, where you can deploy such advanced SQL techniques as Union 2. Real Time eCommerce integration to Dynamics GP.  Real time means instantly, so IM is not an option, you can deploy, however Dynamics GP eConnect SDK.  eConnect allows you to include libraries into your Microsoft Visual Studio C#, VB.Net project, and then call eConnect methods directly from your ecommerce web application.  eConnect in our opinion came to its maturity with Dynamics GP version 9.0 and especially current version 10.0 (January 2010).  We assume that new version of Microsoft Dynamics GP 11.0 will be relying on eConnect technology as well or even with greater emphasis.  EConnect is Microsoft Visual Studio programmer friendly and if you are such a developer, we recommend you to invest your time in eConnect research and self discovery.  eConnect, however doesn’t allow you to post Dynamics GP batches directly from its methods, if you need batch posting from ecommerce application, consider Alba Spectrum Posting Server.  And we would like to make this comment for small and mid-size ecommerce retailers – real time ecommerce integration is often not required and is in essence luxury for the majority of ecommerce community.  Only large volume ecommerce chains need real time integration, so if eConnect training approach seems too unrealistic to you, please continue reading the next paragraph 3. Quasi Real Time eCommerce integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP.  Quasi means almost, and we agree with you, when you say that new customer account setup confirmation with login instructions should be emailed in a second.  You may also decide that charging customer credit card should be instant (technically you are just reserving your amount via credit card processing service, real transfer to your account will happen later).  However, there is no need to integrate ecommerce transaction to your Dynamics GP application immediately, you can do it every hour or every twenty minutes without visible delay for the new or existing ecommerce customer.  If Quasi real time approach seems to be reasonable for you, please review the methods to schedule Dynamics GP Integration Manager to run automatically every half an hour or more (or less) frequently 4. eCommerce Integration Strategies.  Here we recommend you to speculate on which system is master and which is slave.  You may decide to define all your new items, price lists, customers directly in Dynamics GP (master) and then propagate them to your ecommerce application or do it just the opposite, where your ecommerce is master and Great Plains Dynamics is slave.  There are pluses and minuses – obviously GP has matured user interface, where you can create or update your cards and transactions, that are subject to be pushed down to your ecommerce slave application.  But, in some scenarios, you would prefer custom objects with advanced interface in ecommerce to be pushed back to Dynamics GP 5. eCommerce and Dynamics GP, Great Plains Dynamics versions.  As general advise, we believe that being on current version of your Corporate ERP application is a way better, comparing to being on really outdated version.  If you are deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP 11.0, 10.0, 9.0 (where you can deploy eConnect SDK for ecommerce programming), or no longer supported versions of Dynamics GP 8.0 and 7.5, or Microsoft Great Plains 7.0, Great Plains Dynamics 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, 3.2 or earlier (including versions on Pervasive SQL Server 2000/Btrieve or Ctree) – we recommend you to update to GP 11 (10) and deploy eConnect or IM on currently supported version.  We also respect the situation, when MBS annual enhancement reenrollment cost might be too high and you have to stick to your legacy Great Plains version.  In our opinion, if you are on legacy version, investment to ecommerce should be very modest.  For legacy GP versions we recommend you to consider Alba Spectrum Order Connector 6. eCommerce to Dynamics GP in International Environment.  We are sitting in USA, but if you are multinational corporation with facilities overseas or in South America, please note that international business rules require compliance to local country tax code and additional regulations.  Microsoft Dynamics GP is available (often used term – localized) in English speaking countries (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Oceania), plus in French speaking Quebec Canadian province.  If you plan to deploy ecommerce link to your international facility in such countries as Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Brazil, China, India, Continental Europe – we recommend you to make integration to localized Accounting Application (SAP Business One would be good candidate to consider) 7. Please, give us a call 1-866-528-0577 help@albaspectrum.com ]]> http://www.extensibles.com/79/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-developing-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp-notes/feed/ 0 http://www.extensibles.com/58/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-add-ons-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp-2/ http://www.extensibles.com/58/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-add-ons-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp-2/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:14:33 +0000 Kevin http://www.extensibles.com/58/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-add-ons-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp-2/ If you are on the way to evaluate Microsoft Dynamics GP ecommerce integration options, and in your case you already have custom programmed (often in-house) ecommerce web application in production and you do not like the idea to redeploy ecommerce on new platform (and write off investment in legacy ecommerce program) – we respect your approach and would like to recommend you this small publication.  Instead of promising so-called “turn-key” ecommerce to Corporate ERP tandem, we recommend you so-called “solutions” approach, where your ecommerce programmers deploy and tune connectors, libraries or code samples, proven and tested in multiple ecommerce integration to Dynamics GP environments: 1. Ecommerce master-slave concept.  Before you jump into the technology details, let’s speculate about strategy.  If your current ecommerce website application has rich functionality (inventory item adding, counting, pricing, including sales promotion campaigns, potentially logistic automation by initiating product allocation to Sales Order and delivery, new and existing customers maintenance, etc) then you may decide to make your current ecommerce application to be a master and push its records to Dynamics GP (which should be in this case Slave application).  Often we see opposite situation, where ecommerce application is pretty simple and all the logic is done in Microsoft Dynamics GP and records should be pushed to ecommerce (here we have GP as master and ecommerce as slave) 2. Ecommerce integration target in Dynamics GP.  In most of the scenarios you are targeting Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing  (ecommerce invoices or sales orders), Inventory Control (new and existing items, price lists, items availability in warehouses), Receivable Management (new and existing ecommerce customers), Purchase Order (Purchase Receipts – typically when you are receiving merchandise in GP and pushing new items into ecommerce database) 3. Ecommerce integration programming tools.  Microsoft Dynamics GP is available on Microsoft SQL Server DB platform (2008, 2005, 2000 and earlier) and Microsoft Windows Servers (2008, 2003, 2000 and earlier), and these facts make Microsoft Visual Studio and Dynamics GP eConnect SDK.  If fact, you can review Dynamics GP table structure in GP SDK (could be installed from GP 10 CD #2), or directly in Dynamics GP user interface (Dynamics GP -> Tools -> Resource Description -> Tables), however you should be cautious and we recommend you to use direct SQL Select statements only to pull data from Great Plains and avoid feeding data via SQL Insert statements (as you could violate business logic and compromise data integrity, instead consider pushing data to Dynamics GP via eConnect methods) 4. ECommerce Order Connector.  This product is the set of SQL Stored Procedures, dedicated to ecommerce developer to move ecommerce orders to Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing module.  It is “Solution” in the sense of being tunable and customizable, it is also compatible with historical versions of Microsoft Great Plains and Great Plains Dynamics  (on Microsoft SQL Server, not available for Pervasive SQL Server 2000 or Ctree).  Currently we are in progress to extend Order Connector to cover major ecommerce generic platforms integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP with intuitive user interface setup 5. Alba Spectrum Posting Server.  Often in ecommerce you require complete automation, where you expect ecommerce walk-in or on account customer to pick the products into ecommerce shopping cart, go to check out, pay with credit card or on account and then your ecommerce application automatically creates Microsoft Dynamics GP Invoice (including posting it – or in ERP terminology transfer it from work to open phase).  If you already reviewed eConnect libraries and methods – you should of realize, that eConnect doesn’t have Dynamics GP Batch Posting logic.  If you want to do automatic batch posting directly from your ecommerce application, please review Alba Spectrum Posting Server 6. Cross Platform eCommerce integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP.  Web hosting is very popular on Linux and Sun/Solaris platform.  eCommerce DB could be high end Oracle, DBII, Sybase, Progress.  If this is your case, you can still use eConnect, Order Connector or Posting Server, assuming that you are familiar with such technologies as JDBC-ODBC Bridge, ODBC connection from Oracle development environment 7. ECommerce for legacy Great Plains Dynamics versions.  As general recommendation (we are ready to do the job, if you decide that you would like it anyway), we recommend you to update to current Dynamics GP version 10.0 (or if you are reading this lines in second half of 2010 – then to Microsoft Dynamics GP 11.0).  Current version has the following advantages: it is supportable by Microsoft Business Solutions directly in case when you are disappointed in your Dynamics GOP Partner; it si compatible with current MS SQL Server and Windows Server versions to name a few 8. Dynamics GP Software Development Factory.  If you would like to outsource Great Plains Ecommerce development project, we are happy to offer you our Great Plains Dexterity and eConnect Software Development Factory services.  We serve you USA, Canada nationwide, plus in Spanish speaking Central and South America (in Brazil we offer you SAP Business One to Dynamics GP integration services) 9. Local Dynamics GP eCommerce Integration Programming Service in USA.  We serve you from our offices in Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta (in GA we only support SAP Business One customers locally) 10. Service in Europe and Central Asia.  As Microsoft Dynamics GP is no longer supported in continental Europe (including eastern Europe: Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland) – Alba Spectrum is supporting old versions of Dynamics GP and Great Plains Dynamics in Russian, German, Polish, French: 9.0, 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0 and earlier 11. Please, call us in USA or Canada: 1-866-528-0577, or internationally 1-630-961-5918, or email us help@albaspectrum.com  Our Dynamics GP, SAP Business One and Microsoft CRM consultants and programmers speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Filipino ]]> http://www.extensibles.com/58/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-add-ons-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp-2/feed/ 0 http://www.extensibles.com/57/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-add-ons-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp/ http://www.extensibles.com/57/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-add-ons-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp/#comments Sat, 12 Jun 2010 10:49:07 +0000 Kevin http://www.extensibles.com/57/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-add-ons-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp/ If you are on the way to evaluate Microsoft Dynamics GP ecommerce integration options, and in your case you already have custom programmed (often in-house) ecommerce web application in production and you do not like the idea to redeploy ecommerce on new platform (and write off investment in legacy ecommerce program) – we respect your approach and would like to recommend you this small publication.  Instead of promising so-called “turn-key” ecommerce to Corporate ERP tandem, we recommend you so-called “solutions” approach, where your ecommerce programmers deploy and tune connectors, libraries or code samples, proven and tested in multiple ecommerce integration to Dynamics GP environments: 1. Ecommerce master-slave concept.  Before you jump into the technology details, let’s speculate about strategy.  If your current ecommerce website application has rich functionality (inventory item adding, counting, pricing, including sales promotion campaigns, potentially logistic automation by initiating product allocation to Sales Order and delivery, new and existing customers maintenance, etc) then you may decide to make your current ecommerce application to be a master and push its records to Dynamics GP (which should be in this case Slave application).  Often we see opposite situation, where ecommerce application is pretty simple and all the logic is done in Microsoft Dynamics GP and records should be pushed to ecommerce (here we have GP as master and ecommerce as slave) 2. Ecommerce integration target in Dynamics GP.  In most of the scenarios you are targeting Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing  (ecommerce invoices or sales orders), Inventory Control (new and existing items, price lists, items availability in warehouses), Receivable Management (new and existing ecommerce customers), Purchase Order (Purchase Receipts – typically when you are receiving merchandise in GP and pushing new items into ecommerce database) 3. Ecommerce integration programming tools.  Microsoft Dynamics GP is available on Microsoft SQL Server DB platform (2008, 2005, 2000 and earlier) and Microsoft Windows Servers (2008, 2003, 2000 and earlier), and these facts make Microsoft Visual Studio and Dynamics GP eConnect SDK.  If fact, you can review Dynamics GP table structure in GP SDK (could be installed from GP 10 CD #2), or directly in Dynamics GP user interface (Dynamics GP -> Tools -> Resource Description -> Tables), however you should be cautious and we recommend you to use direct SQL Select statements only to pull data from Great Plains and avoid feeding data via SQL Insert statements (as you could violate business logic and compromise data integrity, instead consider pushing data to Dynamics GP via eConnect methods) 4. ECommerce Order Connector.  This product is the set of SQL Stored Procedures, dedicated to ecommerce developer to move ecommerce orders to Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing module.  It is “Solution” in the sense of being tunable and customizable, it is also compatible with historical versions of Microsoft Great Plains and Great Plains Dynamics  (on Microsoft SQL Server, not available for Pervasive SQL Server 2000 or Ctree).  Currently we are in progress to extend Order Connector to cover major ecommerce generic platforms integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP with intuitive user interface setup 5. Alba Spectrum Posting Server.  Often in ecommerce you require complete automation, where you expect ecommerce walk-in or on account customer to pick the products into ecommerce shopping cart, go to check out, pay with credit card or on account and then your ecommerce application automatically creates Microsoft Dynamics GP Invoice (including posting it – or in ERP terminology transfer it from work to open phase).  If you already reviewed eConnect libraries and methods – you should of realize, that eConnect doesn’t have Dynamics GP Batch Posting logic.  If you want to do automatic batch posting directly from your ecommerce application, please review Alba Spectrum Posting Server 6. Cross Platform eCommerce integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP.  Web hosting is very popular on Linux and Sun/Solaris platform.  eCommerce DB could be high end Oracle, DBII, Sybase, Progress.  If this is your case, you can still use eConnect, Order Connector or Posting Server, assuming that you are familiar with such technologies as JDBC-ODBC Bridge, ODBC connection from Oracle development environment 7. ECommerce for legacy Great Plains Dynamics versions.  As general recommendation (we are ready to do the job, if you decide that you would like it anyway), we recommend you to update to current Dynamics GP version 10.0 (or if you are reading this lines in second half of 2010 – then to Microsoft Dynamics GP 11.0).  Current version has the following advantages: it is supportable by Microsoft Business Solutions directly in case when you are disappointed in your Dynamics GOP Partner; it si compatible with current MS SQL Server and Windows Server versions to name a few 8. Dynamics GP Software Development Factory.  If you would like to outsource Great Plains Ecommerce development project, we are happy to offer you our Great Plains Dexterity and eConnect Software Development Factory services.  We serve you USA, Canada nationwide, plus in Spanish speaking Central and South America (in Brazil we offer you SAP Business One to Dynamics GP integration services) 9. Local Dynamics GP eCommerce Integration Programming Service in USA.  We serve you from our offices in Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta (in GA we only support SAP Business One customers locally) 10. Service in Europe and Central Asia.  As Microsoft Dynamics GP is no longer supported in continental Europe (including eastern Europe: Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland) – Alba Spectrum is supporting old versions of Dynamics GP and Great Plains Dynamics in Russian, German, Polish, French: 9.0, 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0 and earlier 11. Please, call us in USA or Canada: 1-866-528-0577, or internationally 1-630-961-5918, or email us help@albaspectrum.com  Our Dynamics GP, SAP Business One and Microsoft CRM consultants and programmers speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Filipino ]]> http://www.extensibles.com/57/visual-studio-database/ecommerce-integration-add-ons-for-microsoft-dynamics-gp/feed/ 0 http://www.extensibles.com/28/visual-studio-sql-server/ecommerce-connectors-for-dynamics-gp-and-sb1-notes/ http://www.extensibles.com/28/visual-studio-sql-server/ecommerce-connectors-for-dynamics-gp-and-sb1-notes/#comments Sun, 18 Apr 2010 04:01:30 +0000 Kevin http://www.extensibles.com/28/visual-studio-sql-server/ecommerce-connectors-for-dynamics-gp-and-sb1-notes/ Both Corporate ERP applications: Microsoft Dynamics GP and SAP Business One should be a good fit for mid-size or even small ecommerce oriented store.  Both platforms have ecommerce products with shopping cart, checkout, item catalogue and other standard estore features.  In this small publication we assume that you already reviewed existing electronic commerce add-ons (including SAP Business One eCommerce module and Dynamics GP Business Portal Order Management) and you decided or inclined to consider approach of simple integration from GP or SBO from your ecommerce web site, which is in production and does the job.  This approach is good for both models: B2B and B2C.  In B2B model you should decide if you would like your special pricing model for each of your customer or for specific customer group to be set in your Accounting (in this case, pricing should be reprogrammed in ecommerce application to reflect changes made in GP/SB1) or it should be originated in ecommerce business logic and then simply pushed to GP on each of the ecommerce invoice line (in this scenario you simply do not use GP/SBO Item Pricing functionality and have your ERP application to accept passively what is coming from ecommerce): 1. Philosophy.  Instead of aggressive ecommerce out-of-the-shelve product selling, we prefer to have as ready for deployment ecommerce product and in addition to this we offer them as customizable “solutions” and connectors.  Plus, we are in good position to help you with integration programming, where your internal software developers need help with eConnect, GP and SAP B1 tables structures, Great Plains batch posting directly from ecommerce application code, helping your with barcode warehouse management custom automation logic and ecommerce logistics.  Plus, we are helping you in cross platform ecommerce connections, when you may have ecommerce on Linux, PHP/MySQL, Oracle, Java EJB platforms and you need help with heterogeneous ecommerce data feeding query to Microsoft SQL Server based GP and SAP Business One databases. 2. Batch mode integration.  This scenario is perfect for small ecommerce retailers.  Great Plains and SAP BO have Integration modules: GP Integration Manager and SB1 Data Transfer Workbench.  Dynamics GP IM is more advanced, comparing to Workbench, however you have to purchase it as separate module to GP, and WB is included into your SB1 purchase (free stuff is important for small businesses, especially when they are in startup mode).  Let’s first review in brief GP Integration Manager.  IM is user friendly application, where you can setup integration of your new customers, new ecommerce invoices and then have IM operator to call this integration once per day or every hour.  You can also schedule IM – special tool is available from Microsoft Business Solutions or, if you are technology savvy you can deploy Windows macro third party applications to do similar scheduling.  You can consider exporting ecommerce documents in tab or comma delimited text files or simply work with SQL Views – in this case you use Advanced ODBC Queries in Integration Manager.  Now SAP Business One Data Transfer Workbench – you can export your ecommerce data flies in CSV format, which fits exactly to DTW CSV templates – this will allow you even to schedule DTW jobs via Windows scheduled tasks.  Second more advanced approach allows DTW job to work with ODBC connection  to Microsoft SQL Server Views.  MS SQL Server view may call data from Microsoft and non Microsoft DB sources, such as MySQL, Oracle, MS Access, FoxPro, etc.  At this time, SAP Business One version 2007 you cannot schedule DTW ODBC based job – it should be called by DTW operator 3. Real time integration.  In this scenario you extend your ecommerce application code with SDK libraries.  Dynamics GP ecommerce SDK( it is eConnect) and SB1 SDK – both of them are open for Microsoft Visual Studio C#, or VB.Net developer (SAP B1 SDK also has reasonable openness to Delphi programmers).  Some comments here: eConnect is coded in SQL Server Stored Procedures and its methods are very fast in execution, where SB1 SDK methods are at this time (September 2009, SB1 2007, and former version 2005) slower, expect one invoice in 3-4 seconds, do not expect several thousand transactions to be integrated in ten minutes (however GP eConnect is that fast, we recommend eConnect only if you are Dynamics GP latest versions: 10.0 or 9.0).  You can also review SQL direct programming into Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing tables: SOP10100, SOP10200 and related, however we recommend you rather use eConnect objects to do the same job.  We do not recommend you to push data directly to SQL B1 Marketing Documents tables: INV1, etc. as SB1 Early Watch is designed to monitor all the changes to SB1 records done outside of the SB1 application, Work Bench and SDK methods realms 4. SAP Business One and Dynamics GP Tables Structure diagrams.  In the case of SB1, you can read SAP Business One SDK documentation – it has table references.  In the case of Great Plains, please consider installing Dynamics GP SDK from CD #2.  As quick reference in GP user interface: Tools->Resource Descriptions->Tables; in SB1 in view menu mark View System Information – when you open SB1 screen, such as AR Invoice, place cursor over the field and read its Table and Field name in left down corner, for example RDN1.ItemCode is the field for item number on return line.  Again, we would like to stress that Tables Structures are in ideal scenario for pulling data from GP or SB1 for ecommerce order status report, if you need certain level of ecommerce customer self service (and not for pushing data into your Corporate ERP tables with SQL insert statement, as this practice has very high business logic violation and data integrity compromise potential) 5. eCommerce with Custom Logic in GP or SB1.  In the case of SAP Business One you can create new so-called User Defined Tables and extend existing tables with User Defined Fields.  User Defined Tables have automatically created simply editing interface, where you can add records or modify existing ones.  If you would like to add user defined fields to such tables as Marketing Document Line (including customer invoice line) – these fields should become immediately available to be placed on Customer Invoice form, plus they will be available for Data Transfer Workbench integrations and in SB1 SDK.  In the case of Dynamics GP some of the objects have User defined fields included and ready for activation.  If your targeted object doesn’t have User Defined fields extension, you will need to program it likely in Great Plains Dexterity as table, linked with related original GP tables by the Primary Key with the same fields 6. eCommerce in International scenarios.  If you are multinational corporation and you are deploying Dynamics GP in US headquarters, please try first to understand if GP is localized in the country where you plan to deploy it as Accounting or in ecommerce.  Great Plains version 10.0 is available in English Speaking countries: USA, Canada (including French Canadian Quebec version), Australia, New Zealand, UK, South Africa, Oceania, plus in South East Asia for the countries, where English is the language of business.  With some exceptions it is also available in Spanish Speaking Latin America, Mexico and Caribbean.  By its architecture Great Plains doesn’t support UNICODE based alphabets, mostly hieroglyphs: Chinese, Japanese, Korean.  SAP Business One is more widespread, it is available localized in such countries as Brazil, Russia, Poland, China, Japan, Korea.  Even if you deploy Great Plains Dynamics in US headquarters, we recommend you SB1 internationally, where GP is not available – SB1 is very simple in data export and consolidation to Dynamics GP via Integration Manager or FRx consolidated Financial Reporting 7. Alba Spectrum eCommerce Products.  We offer Order Connector, sending transactions in realtime to Dynamics GP Sales Order Processing Tables; Posting Server (Autopost), allowing you to post GP batches directly from eConnect application.  We also offer Microsoft RMS integration to Great Plains, if your ecommerce is working from RMS tables 8. Dynamics GP eConnect and Dexterity programming training.  We offer USA and International phone or skype based training, supported with web sessions 9. SAP Business One eCommerce integration and programming training.  If you are comfortable to program ecommerce integration for SBO and you need some guru level help, we offer this service via phone or skype conferences, supported with web sessions if required 10. How to get help?  Please, feel free to call us: 1-866-528-0577, outside of USA: 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum.com  We are very technical and real Dynamics GP Dexterity, SAP Business One SDK programming gurus.  We have Great Plains Software Development Factory and could support unlimited Dynamics GP Customization and Programming needs.  Plus we speak English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and not only as native speaking sales folks, but as real technical consultants.  If you prefer skype: albaspectrum ]]> http://www.extensibles.com/28/visual-studio-sql-server/ecommerce-connectors-for-dynamics-gp-and-sb1-notes/feed/ 0