Upgrade Dexterity Customization

Great Plains Dexterity is proprietary programming language/environment, which was created in early 1990-th to provide platform / database / graphical interface independence for Mac and Windows based Great Plains Dynamics. Today it is legacy and Microsoft Business Solutions is phasing Dexterity out.

However Great Plains 7.5 and even 8.0 is Dexterity based application, so you have to deal with it and it’s customization.

Good news. Prior to version 7.0 Great Plains had plans on expanding GP functionality and so was changing tables structure – forcing Dexterity customization to be analyzed and partially rewritten with each upgrade. Not any more – GP structure stays the same – Microsoft is doing new modules acquisition and unifying it’s graphical interface to move all it’s ERP packages: Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Axapta to web-based Microsoft Business Portal.

Still pain. Dexterity has possibility to customize existing Great Plains screens, so called Alternative Great Plains forms. This was upgrade problem in the past and it stays now – there is no way to do it in house (until you are willing to pay for full-time internal developer – who is usually in the learning curve). You got to bring in

Microsoft Great Plains Reporting

  • Great Plains Report Writer (ReportWriter) – this is built-in reporting tool. All the original report in Great Plains are written in ReportWriter. ReportWriter itself is Dexterity module. You should use this tool if you would like to modify existing Great Plains reports, such as Blank Invoice Form – here you can place your company logo, change the positioning, fonts, colors, etc. ReportWriter will allow you also do new reports – simple option if you want to export all the records from one Great Plains table – use it. New report, however doesn’t have interface where you would enter parameters – so it is not useful for real custom reports. Another limitation of ReportWriter – you can not do cross-modules report – when you need sales and purchasing info on the same report for example.
  • FRx. This is excellent tool when deal with financial reporting – it works on the General Ledger level (Balance sheet, P&L, Cash Flow Statement, etc.). It also allows you to do multiple companies consolidation – when you do consolidated Balance Sheet (with inter-companies transactions elimination).
  • Smart List – Export to Excel – this is nice feature in Great Plains – you could create a

Inherent Dangers Of File Sharing Via The Internet.

Spyware infiltrate computer systems along with file sharing downloads. Personal information about us circulates the globe via the World Wide Web, and a web it truly is! This information finds its way to different entities or companies that are keen on knowing our surfing habits and the sites we visit. They also want to know about our file sharing interests. These observations by spyware intrudes on our privacy and security.

We can benefit greatly from “File Sharing” but must constantly be aware of the risks and safeguard ourselves from its many dangers. We must do all we can to protect our surfing habits from the prying eyes of internet snoops.

We can have our password stolen, identity stolen, our personal information abused as well as the loss of privacy we hold so dear.

We must find and remove “Spyware” to protect us from the many dangers of internet spying. One of the ways is to eliminate file sharing that enable spyware to piggyback with the “File Sharing Files” and take up residence in our computer.

Spyware and adware infiltrate and infest computers in very subtle ways when we download our favorite music or movie

Troubleshoot Windows with Task Manager

The Processes tab displays a comprehensive list of all the processes currently running on your computer. This can be very useful for monitoring your system. The process tab displays information about the processor usage and memory usage of each process. The problem is, how to identify a process. Below is a list of some processes you may see in Task Managers Processes list.

“System Idle Process” “System” The Windows System Process “SMSS.EXE” Session Manager Subsystem “CSRSS.EXE” Client Server Runtime Subsystem “WinLOGON.EXE” The Windows Logon process “SERVICES.EXE” Services Control Manager “LSASS.EXE” Local Security Authentication Server Service “svchost.exe” Service Host “spoolsv.exe” The print spooler service “explorer.exe” Windows Explorer “TASKMGR.EXE” The Task Manager “regsvc.exe” Remote Registry Service

“System Idle Process” is basically another name for the time when Windows is doing nothing. There are hundreds of thousands of processes that run on a computer, so you will definitely find names of many other processess that are not listed above. For a list of well known processes, visit www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm You can also learn about almost any task by using it’s name as a search term in google.

Task Manager can also be used to tweak your system if it’s running slow.

Software Companies

Step 1: Lowering Training Costs Using Custom e-Learning Content

The first step to any well laid-out cost-reduction plan is to decrease the costs the organization currently incurs in order to get a better handle on profit potential from sheer cost savings. Previously we outlined what our target cost categories are…now we’re going to lower the costs associated with those categories by leveraging custom e-Learning content.

Take this scenario: A mid-sized software digital signature company that develops intranet portal systems currently employs 3 trainers that are onsite with clients for end-user training 3 days per engagement and they each average approximately 50 engagements per year for a grand total of 150 days on the road per trainer or 450 days on the road collectively.

For these trainers, the onsite training program for the end-user customer may look something like the following:

Day 1: Software Introduction and Primary Functions
Day 2: Functional Use and Administrative Actions
Day 3: Real-World Functions and Labs

Lowering the costs: By leveraging custom e-Learning digital signature online content, the company used in the above scenario can effectively reduce the onsite time required