eConnect: eCommerce Development for Microsoft Great Plains

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has several options to enable web ordering. Traditionally Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise had eOrder ? this is ASP pages based ordering application, enabling you to place or retrieve your Sales Order Processing (SOP) Sales Orders over the web. There were several drawbacks however with eOrder. You should be the customer in Great Plains company database to be able placing the orders. Also if you were planning to customize eOrder ? you could only do cosmetic style changes only ? if you wanted to alter scripts on the ASP pages ? then you would have very serious eOrder upgrade issues. Upgrade simply wipes out your custom scripts and you had to reapply your customization to new version enriched ASP pages. Instead of following the way to move eOrder to ASPX or .Net platform ? MBS introduced eConnect, enabling web designer to "connect" eCommerce site to Great Plains backend. This is very elegant module and solution, however we are hearing a lot of complaints from developers on eConnect restrictions.

? SOP Invoice posting. It is not enabled in eConnect. However you should probably first understand the architecture of Microsoft Great Plains. Order takers supposed to enter Sales Order and submit it (place in the batch and save) to the manager for approval (taking off transfer/print/post holds). eConnect enables you to create or update Great Plains objects, but it doesn't allow you to process them (post) ? this would open a gap in the security/approval cycle.

? Order Transfer. Again ? this is similar problem to the invoice posting. Both Order and Invoice could be subject to holds and approvals. eCommerce logic might need partial or full order transfer to invoice or even backorder, based on the item availability status. Why would you then need to purchase eConnect? Maybe just go ahead and program the connection in SQL stored procedures? The answer is ? eConnect allows you to allocate items in Great Plains Inventory Control module. It would take you a lot of time (if you are new to Great Plains tables structure and never coded in Great Plains Dexterity). Plus eConnect allows you to create and update customer record in Great Plains ? this is however relatively simple to imitate in the stored procedure.

Then what is the solution?

? Do not allow order transfer and posting through eCommerce. This is probably the best advise we could give you ? just create orders, or invoices, leave them to the Great Plains user to approve and post. However in some cases it is absolutely critical and required

? Look for Invoice posting stored proc on the market. You are not the first and not the last one to face this dilemma ? somebody already has it implemented (SOP10200, SOP10100, SOP30200, SOP30300 tables)

? Microsoft Small Business Financials or former Microsoft Small Business Manager. In your case ? you need the whole set of stored procedures to enable eCommerce

Great Plains version: more likely you are using eConnect for Great Plains Standard or Great Plains Professional 7.5, 8.0 and in the future 8.5 or 9.0

Good luck in e-Commerce developing and if you have issues or concerns ? we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies ? USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: andrewk@albaspectrum.com

---

MicroWorld Releases New Version of MailScan Ver. 4.5 - Antivirus and Content Security Software

MicroWorld Technologies, Inc. the leading solutions provider in the area... Read More

Ukraine IT Myths Dispersed

While Ukraine is becoming a new popular IT outsourcing destination,... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains in Metal Distribution: Implementation & Customization ? Consultant Overview

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains serves to the wide spectrum... Read More

The Dirt on Screensavers

Remember back in the days where screensavers were the coolest... Read More

Software Companies: Generate New Revenue Streams and Decrease Costs with Custom e-Learning Content

It's no secret that software companies operate in a very... Read More

Why do Manufacturers Invest in Business Management Software?

With many manufacturing shops heading over seas in favor of... Read More

Unwanted Files

A LOT OF UNWANTED FILES.When you uninstall an item of... Read More

Cisco Certification: Five Things To Do DURING Your CCNA Exam

There are plenty of articles out there about how to... Read More

Secure File Transfer Using SSH Plus Additional Audit & Automation - FSA Reporting

In order to meet regulatory and corporate compliance requirements reporting... Read More

Assertion in Java

Assertion facility is added in J2SE 1.4. In order to... Read More

C++ Tutorial 2, Input and Variables

This is the tutorial where we really get into programming.... Read More

Explore the Internet in a Whole New Way

For a long time now Microsoft's Internet Explorer has ruled... Read More

Cisco CCNA Certification: Becoming A Truly Valuable CCNA.

I've been active in the Cisco Certification track for four... Read More

Adware, What Is It?

Adware is a type of Spyware program that displays some... Read More

Lotus Domino: Application Integration ? A Programmer View

There are two approaches for application integration:? Programmer's approach ?... Read More

Cisco Certification: Introduction To ISDN, Part V

The major reason I recommend getting your hands on real... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Implementation for Large Corporation ? Overview for VP IT

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains was historically designed to serve... Read More

Causes of ERP Failures

ERP is the acronym of Enterprise Resource Planning. Multi-module ERP... Read More

Think Of This

Think of this, first we had the HAM Radio, then... Read More

Cisco Certification: Introduction To ISDN, Part III

Configuring PPP PAP AuthenticationNow we know how the ISDN link... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Nationwide Remote Support

ERP Consulting industry is on the way to serve clients... Read More

MSN Messenger Is A Sweet Way To Communicate

MSN messenger is a pretty cool invention. I mean I'm... Read More

Best Spyware Removers

Finding the best spyware removers to detect and remove spyware... Read More

Cross-Platform Custom Software Development & Integration ? IT Strategy for Large Corporation

Microsoft Business Solutions products: Great Plains, MS CRM, Navision, Axapta,... Read More

Great Plains Dexterity ? Microsoft Great Plains Customization Overview

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics... Read More

Understanding XML Server

XML Server can be a Web Server that stores the... Read More

Does your Company have Documentum?

Are you lost in the mess of documents that get... Read More

Navision Attain Database access via C/ODBC in ASP.NET Application

Navision Software was purchased by Microsoft and now it is... Read More

Implementing ERP for Large Publicly Traded Corporation ? Microsoft Great Plains

We would like first emphasize the change in the paradigm.... Read More

Review on QuarkXpress 6.0

After almost two decades of existence, Quark has become the... Read More

Groupware as a Document Manager: Collaboration Series #3

This article is the third of a series of articles... Read More

When is a Software Engineer Not a Software Engineer?

The title of "software engineer" has got to be among... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Logistics & Warehouse Management ? Implementation & Customization Highlights

Logistics automation is often considered as barcoding extension to Sales... Read More