Small Business Financial's gone

Just saw MBS announced on Aug 7th that SBF is being discontinued. Nice product for smaller companies but never really caught on. It's hard to get companies to buy a product knowing the consulting dollars to implement and train employees will far outweigh the software price.

MBS is offering a 90% discount on GP for those who already own SBF. Nice way to get into GP although a year's enhancement fee is similiar to what someone would have paid originally for SBF.

Snipit from email I received.

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SBF Partners notified of upcoming Roadmap release, product discontinuation
On August 7th, Microsoft presented the updated Roadmap to Microsoft Dynamics partners who added one or more Small Business Financials 9.0 (SBF) customers in FY07 or FY08. The call was to notify these partners that the SBF product would be officially discontinued on January 11th, 2011, with no plans to make a SBF replacement available, and to help them understand what their options are moving forward.

The final SBF Roadmap and Statement of Direction document will be posted to PartnerSource in late August, at which time the broader Microsoft Dynamics partner community will have access to this information. In the interim, you may receive questions from existing SBF or Microsoft Dynamics® GP partners about this change and the potential impact on the existing SBF customer base.

Moving SQL to a new server

Just moved MSDE 2000 to a new server with MSDE 2005. Well worth the update as MSDE 2005 is a free download as well and is way better than the admin consol. Other than not having a backup agent MSDE 2005 looks and feels very much like good old SQL 2005.

Here is the link to get to MSDE 2005 express: http://www.microsoft.com/express/2005/sql/default.aspx

Here's an article to set up a backup routine for MSDE:
http://www.sqldbatips.com/showarticle.asp?ID=27

Process I did to move to a new server:

1. Make backup of DYNAMICS and company databases
2. Run capture login scripts found at: https://mbs.microsoft.com/fileexchange/?fileID=879594a6-60ee-421f-b6ab-4d77da3aba22
3. Install MSDE on new server (Mixed mode)
4. Install GP on new server
5. Copy output from #2 and run on new server (will automatically run against master database)
6. Restore DYNAMICS database and company database to new server (All tasks>>restore>>type in database name exactly as it was on previous server)
7. Change ODBC connections on workstations to point to new server
8. Update Dynamics.set file on all workstations to point to new shared directory with new reports.dic file location

Process could also be used for regular SQL installs.

In-Transit Inventory Transfer

Have you used the In-Transit Inventory Transfer functionality in Dynamics GP 10? Have you found any documentation on it? Probably not. This functionality was adopted from the Field Service series and provides the ability to specify an in-transit inventory location when transferring inventory between locations. Probably the greatest benefit of this is that it allows the receiving location to manage the incoming transfer; to account for overages and shortages, etc.

So how does it work? It’s basically a two-step process:

1.) Create an In-Transit Transfer entry: Transactions >> Inventory >> In-Transit Transfer Entry
2.) Create a Receiving entry: Transactions >> Purchasing >> Receivings Transaction Entry

Two things to keep in mind:

1.) Be sure to specify a “Via Site ID” in the In-Transit Transfer Entry; otherwise the transaction works similar to the Transfer Entry, and the in-transit site is not used. This begs the question, “Why does one specify a “Via Site ID” in Inventory Control?”

2.) Be sure to click the “Ship” button when you want to process the transaction.

Notice that the transactions reside in two different modules; which perhaps explains the lack of comprehensive documentation.

When and Why to Customize

Howard Baldwin writes a short piece on when it makes sense to customize a standard ERP system. Three basic prescriptions:

• Let employees first get a feel for the software before making changes.
• Only customize in areas where you derive a strong competitive advantage.
• Adhere to the software’s guidelines for customization to ensure smooth upgrades.

Full article: http://www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness/businessvalue/when-and-why-you-should-customize-ERP-software.mspx