Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains was designed back in the early 1990s as the first graphical ERP/accounting system for mid-size businesses.
The architects of Great Plains Dexterity – this is the internal mid-shell, all Great Plains was written on, designed it to be easily transferable between graphical operating systems (MAC, Windows, Solaris – potentially) and database platforms – initially Great Plains was available on Ctree (both Mac and PC) and Btrieve, a bit later high end version Dynamics C/S+ was available on Microsoft SQL Server 6.5. But the idea was to catch or switch winning/losing database platform – nobody could predict if MS SQL Server, Oracle or DB 2 become a dominant DB platform, like Windows among OS. All these trade-ins for being potentially cross-platform application make the life of nowadays eCommerce developer difficult.
eCommerce developers were using Microsoft IIS and ASP-based Great Plains eCommerce around 4 years ago. Today, with the move to .Net and ASPX platform, server based scripts are replaced with .Net code behind approach and Great Plains eCommerce should be rewritten.
Microsoft Great Plains subdivision released SDK – eConnect which was targeted to eCommerce developers to manipulate Great Plains objects, such as Customer, SOP Order, Invoice, Quote, etc. What is a bit unpleasant – eConnect requires license key and is quite expensive for small internet eCommerce sites.
Custom Stored Procedures. Companies, like Alba Spectrum Technologies have implemented multiple diversified eCommerce projects with Great Plains at the back end. So, these custom stored procedures are available on the market, but they are not packaged as eConnect and could be purchased on the individual agreement base with Microsoft Great Plains partner.
Some Great Plains tables structure logic is required. You usually need consultant help, however you could try to make maximum work done at home. Tool->Resource Desciption->Tables, re-sort by Table Group technical name, then make test transactions in Great Plains (SOP module) and see where records go. This is how you design and test your queries.
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, New York, Georgia and Florida and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.
