January 6, 2011 at 9:21 am
Has anyone here worked with direct (database-to-database) integration with MS Dynamics (Great Plains)?
I've been digging around in their documentation and in search engines, and it keeps mentioning that you can (a) use the built in stored procedures, or (b) directly access the tables, but I can't find any good documentation on which stored procedures or which tables.
If anyone can point me in the right direction, or, alternately, let me know that it's something that requires extensive training/experience to deal with, either answer will help greatly.
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February 3, 2011 at 1:26 am
GSquared (1/6/2011)
Has anyone here worked with direct (database-to-database) integration with MS Dynamics (Great Plains)?I've been digging around in their documentation and in search engines, and it keeps mentioning that you can (a) use the built in stored procedures, or (b) directly access the tables, but I can't find any good documentation on which stored procedures or which tables.
If anyone can point me in the right direction, or, alternately, let me know that it's something that requires extensive training/experience to deal with, either answer will help greatly.
With every version, they add new procs and views that actually have names that mean something. A few version ago all procs started with zDB_ or something like that. GP's biggest help with that are the Resource Descriptions for their tables listed under the Main Menu - Tools. Browse through there and you will get an idea of Table Group naming (SOP - Sales Order Processing) It is the most useful place to get a description for their 8.3 table names. Great Plains grew up from a BTrieve base.
Extensive experience would be your best asset, but time is probably not on your side. Even the most basic Great Plains installation can be pretty massive in it's depth.
I wish you well!
February 4, 2011 at 5:26 am
You need to do everything via the E-Connect Stored Procedures or you risk breaking GP. It is quite a beast. I looked at this a couple of years back and did find some online resources for E-Connect.
In the end the Microsoft GP partners did the integration into GP via a shared interface database which talked to my software. They were based in Ireland so perhaps not much help to you but, having seen the type of things that can go wrong, I'd recommend buying in expertise rather than having a go yourself. And I do realise you're good!
February 4, 2011 at 7:16 am
When I last tried this admittedly not on the latest version... all the names were useless, which made it near impossible to find the correct tables. We received a quote from a Consultancy, but they could not guarantee that it would still work after the next upgrade and it would cost a fortune to write (and then re-write).
So ended up creating custom EXCEL imports... NOT fun!!
February 4, 2011 at 7:34 am
grahamc (2/4/2011)
When I last tried this admittedly not on the latest version... all the names were useless, which made it near impossible to find the correct tables. We received a quote from a Consultancy, but they could not guarantee that it would still work after the next upgrade and it would cost a fortune to write (and then re-write).So ended up creating custom EXCEL imports... NOT fun!!
I work for a Microsoft VAR and I've been doing custom integrations for it for more than 20 years.
Great Plains can be safely integrated with directly if you know what you're doing, but that is a lot to know. eConnect is one of the safe methods available to integrate with GP as is Integration Manager, but neither of those will do everything that you may need.
The company that wouldn't guarantee upgrade compatibility was probably proposing a Dexterity solution. That is the language GP was written with, and it is the worst for upgrading.
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