Using Group Policy to deploy Microsoft Dynamics GP

Now that Microsoft Dynamics GP has switched over to using a standard Microsoft .msp file for the installer, you can use tools such as Group Policy to deploy the application to your workstations. You can also send out links to the installation package via email.

Microsoft has put together a white paper on this subject. Click here to download it.

One thing to keep in mind is that this method will only deploy the basic Dynamics GP application - you'll still need to do some seperate manual installations for additional products like FRx Report Writer, Integration Manager and other third-party products you may have in your solution.

Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) pricing

You've probably been looking all over the Microsoft Dynamics website for a price list on Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) but you won't find it. They like to keep this information under wraps and its only available from authorized Microsoft Dynamics partners.

Speaking of which - now is a great time for a shameless plug of my company - Triton Business Solutions. :)

We'd be glad to help you out with your Microsoft Dynamics GP pricing needs. Let us know what we can do to help!

Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) version comparision

In August 2006, Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) moved to a new pricing method. In the past, you paid a la carte for the various modules that you wanted (GL, AP, AR, etc.) and then you paid for the number of user licenses.

Under the new structure, you choose the particular "suite" that you are looking for and then the pricing is purely based on the number of user licenses. These two suites are called "Business Essentials" and "Advancement Management".

The "Business Essentials" edition covers the basics like General Ledger, Payables Management, Receivables Management, Inventory, Purchase Order Processing, Sales Order Processing, etc. The "Advanced Management" edition ups the ante with Electronic Bank Reconciliation, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), Manufacturing, Project Accounting, Business Portal, etc.

You can find the breakdown of the functionality in each package on this page.

Some items are still sold separately - Payroll, Human Resources, and Field Service among others.

Blog posting from Word 2007

I'm sending this post using Microsoft Word 2007. It supports several different blogging providers – Windows Live Space, Windows Sharepoint Services, Community Server, WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and others. Here is a little information on the subject.

Test post - new Blogger

Just upgraded my account to the "new" Blogger.

Microsoft CRM - Error 5892 and 5897

I'm running Microsoft CRM 1.2. One server is handling the SQL and web service duties and another machine is my AD and Exchange server.

On my AD/Exchange server, i started getting tons of errors in my Event Viewer, even though i wasn't really noticing any problems with the system.

Event ID 5892 in the Application Log was from the CrmExchangeQueueService and said "The message <message subject> failed to deliver to all servers" , where <message subject> looked like real subjects of actual emails that would be in my system.

Event ID 5897 in the Application Log was also from CrmExchangeQueueService and said "An HTTP status of '401 - Access Denied' occurred while attempting to deliver a message. Please check the URL in the registry. Message subject: <message subject> URL: 'http://myservername//MSCRMServices/CRMEmail.srf'' "

For me, it turns out it was an easy fix. The password had expired on the account that was running the "Microsoft CRM Exchange Queue Service" on my Active Directory / Exchange server. Once i put in the new password here and restarted the service, i was good to go.

Remote online backup service

I've been looking for an affordable, simple online backup solution for my Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) clients. Something that can backup SQL databases as well as your typical Office docs - Word, Excel, PDF, etc. I've experienced too many situations where people have lost critical accounting data. My moto is "You can never have too many backups!"

So in my search, i've started using an online backup service called Dr. Backup . I really hate using tape drives so this is part of my 2-stage backup plan. I use an external USB hard drive for my typical daily full backups and then i'm using the online backup program to grab just the critical, frequently changing data and store it offsite via the Internet. So if my office burns to the ground, i'll have my critical data safely stored offsite. Best part is this is all automatic - i don't have to swap tapes or remember to burn DVD's anymore. Nice.

The interface is much like your typical backup software - you select a schedule, full/incremental/differential backup type, etc. It'll send you an email notification at the end of each job so you know if it was successful or not.

When using this in conjunction with a backup tool like NTBackup (part of Windows Server or Small Business Server), make sure you set the "backup type" of your NTBackup job to a "copy" type, rather than "normal" backup type. This way the NTBackup will not reset the archive flag. The online backup software will need to see the archive flag. There is a command-line parameter for NTbackup - "/m" where you can specify this. Check the help on ntbackup.exe for details.

You can buy the service in different sizes, from 1 GB to 50 GB. That is the compressed size. It compresses the data prior to uploading it. The compression was good on my SQL backups (Great Plains, Sharepoint and Microsoft CRM). I got about 80% compression on the SQL BAK files.

You can get a free trial for 30 days. That's really the best way to check it out and see if it will meet your needs. So head on over to the Dr.Backup Remote Online Backup website and get started. You can use my "Referred by" code of "Triton" to get a bonus 300 MB in your account.