Great Plains Dexterity Development: FAQ

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is Dexterity-written application and currently we see increased interest for Great Plains customers to do in-house Dexterity development and customization. Dexterity itself is written on C programming language and its initial architecture was based on the Graphical and Database platform independence, which C programming language was believed to provide. Initially back in 1994 Great Plains Software Dynamics and Dynamics C/S+ were realized for Macintosh and Windows and pretty similar Dexterity DYNAMICS.DIC dictionary worked for Ctree/Faircomm and Microsoft SQL Server 6.5. In our days Microsoft Great Plains is available for Windows and MS SQL Server only (since version 8.0). In this small article we would like to give you highlights on the most typical entry level Dexterity development questions

? How do I install Dexterity. If you have Microsoft Great Plains Standard or Professional license, you Great Plains CD #2 has Dexterity installation files. However you need license from Microsoft Business Solutions if you plan to do in-house software development. If you have Small Business Manager / Small Business Financials ? your distributive doesn't have Dexterity ? you need to call your MBS partner and have them to do the job.

? DYNAMICS.DIC. This is your core dictionary which should be used for your customization.

? New Custom forms vs. Alternate Forms. If you are beginner, please try to stick to new Great Plains Forms. Do not customize existing forms. If you open existing form in Dexterity ? you should be aware that field scripts are stripped off and if you place your own script over the original one ? you will destroy the field logic

? Dexterity Triggers. You register them in Startup script ? look Dexterity manual. If you have to deal with existing fields logic alteration you register before or after original script trigger. Please see the examples.

? SQL Stored Procs. Latest version of Microsoft Great Plains is available for MS SQL Sevrer/MSDE only and you should consider combination of Dexterity and Stored procs. Try to avoid using old Dexterity cursors, statements, like: start range. Hint ? ranges were the instrument of database platform independence and it seems to be not the case anymore.

? Dexterity Chunk. You should be aware that Dexterity reserves certain range of the resources for MBS internal developers, you can not modify and use these resources, all the custom resources you create in your customization will use the numbers outside of the proprietary range. Your new resources will be packed into so called chunk. Please refer to the manual on how to create the chunk.

? Customization Upgrade. The most challenging portion of upgrade is Alternate Great Plains forms. If you place custom fields and logic on the existing forms then, you should know that Great Plains can change the form for the new version and you will have to review and redo the custom logic.

? Localization. Dexterity has string resources ? this is where you can translate the strings and have Great Plains work with your native language. However your native language code should be single byte, not Unicode. If you need Dex to work with Chinese, Japanese or Korean ? there is special utility to enable this feature.

Happy customizing! You can always appeal to us to help you with your system. Give as a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Microsoft CRM, Navision, Microsoft RMS, Microsoft Business Portal customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Boston, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Toronto, Montreal, Brazil, Mexico, UK, Australia, Canada, UK, Europe, Russia an having small offices in multiple states and internationally.

---

Microsoft CRM Implementation for Large Corporation ? overview

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM is now approaching the phase of... Read More

OEComplete ? A Personal Information Manager

OEComplete is a utility for managing the personal information of... Read More

Will Adobe Manage to Replace Industry Work Horse Quark Express by Giving Adobe InDesign for Free?

And kill the best layout software in the process of... Read More

Adware and Spyware Blockers

The most important things you can do for your computer... Read More

Blind CC (Bcc): Master Its Use When E-Mailing

If you use Microsoft Outlook (or similar applications) for e-mailing,... Read More

Editing Your Photos Using Microsoft Picture It Publishing Platinum 2002 - A Great Dinosaur

I started using PIP (Picture It Publishing) Platinum 2002 right... Read More

C++ Tutorial 2, Input and Variables

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

Microsoft CRM: Data Conversion ? Import from Act!

Best Software Act! is very popular CRM for small and... Read More

Did You Ever Want to Completely Erase Everything on Your Computer?

Did you ever want to erase everything on your computer?... Read More

Outlook... Not Just for Email! Using Your Outlook Calendar

Microsoft Outlook is one of the most widely used software... Read More

Hear It in Digits

Music downloads are off the charts! We're listening to digital... Read More

Anti-Virus Software

Anti-virus software is used to find, remove or fix files... Read More

Open Source Concepts: Dual Licensing Explained

We were recently faced with a decision: either to let... Read More

Accessing XML Using Java Technologies

The most important benefit of XML is its simplicity. Though... Read More

ERP for Large Corporation ? New Selling Strategy

Our opinion is based on our Microsoft Business Solutions Great... Read More

Spyware, Adware, etc. -- Terms and Common Sense

When reading an article where some term is used often,... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Middle East - Arabic Language Support

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is marketed for mid-size companies... Read More

How to Make Attractive and Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Microsoft PowerPoint has dramatically changed the way in which academic... Read More

Benefits of Integrating Online Chat Software with CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy and processes used... Read More

Instant Messaging is a Sweet Way to Communicate

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

Run Your Own Search Engine

Our hosted solution allow you to run your own search... Read More

COSMIC: A Small Improvement on the Symons Method

The COSMIC FP (function point) software quality metric, is no... Read More

Adware and Spyware

What is 'adware'?Adware is basically software or scripts that are... Read More

Great Plains Dexterity: Customizations & Source Code Programming

Great Plains Software Dynamics, Dynamics C/S+, eEnterprise were written on... Read More

Lotus Domino Implementation and Development: Infrastructure ? Present and Future

Domino server is a buffer between the operation system and... Read More

Configure Windows Indexing Service for Performance

The Windows Indexing Service provides you with the ability to... Read More

Microsoft CRM Customization Secrets ? Second Edition

This article is for advanced Microsoft CRM SDK C# developers.... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Inventory Control ? Overview For Consultant

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is marketed for mid-size companies... Read More

Crystal Reports For Microsoft RMS ? Overview For Developer/Report Designer

If you are software developer or database administrator - we... Read More

Groupware Finds Home in American Business: Collaboration Tool Analysis

What is Groupware?Have you ever had to manage document collaboration... Read More

Databases ? How We Love to Hate Them!

You've finally created databases that you can actually use to... Read More

Internet Faxing Service Review

The Internet is reshaping every form of communications medium, and... Read More

Google Brings the Earth to Your Desktop

Google Inc. has launched a new software package that allows... Read More