Microsoft eCommerce web-development: Great Plains eConnect .Net approach –
highlights for programmer
By Andrew Karasev
Alba Spectrum Technologies
USA
1-866-528-0577,
1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com
In our small article
we’ll consider Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains Sales Order Processing
module as eCommerce backend. Plus we’ll cover what is possible and impossible
in eConnect and why.
Microsoft Great Plains
is one of the most popular ERP in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Middle
East, Latin America, UK and South Africa. Due to the MBS strategy – Great
Plains Dynamics was pulled from other markets, such as continental Europe
(Germany, France, Russia) – where Navision and Axapta are the promoted and
recommended solutions. If you have Navision or Axapta – please read our
publications on these products on Alba Spectrum Technologies publication site.
- Great Plains
Platform – Great Plains Software
Dynamics is written on GPS proprietary platform in Dexterity program
language. Dexterity is based on very shrewd application development
philosophy – ERP application will stay decades if it is independent from the
graphical computer environment and database platform. Back in 1992 C
programming language was believed to be the rescuer and be cross-platform.
- Great Plains
Architecture. Here we need to
give you highlights on Great Plains Dynamics initial design. General Ledger
(GL) was intended as core module, then you see modules, posting directly to
GL: Receivables Management (RM), Payables Management (PM), Payroll, Inventory
Control. The next level – modules, posting to GL through other modules: Sales
Order Processing (through Accounts Receivable), Purchase Order Processing
(through Accounts Payables), etc. The second principle – Great Plains would
never allow you to post the batch of transactions behind the scene – only via
the user interface – checked and approved by the user.
- eOrder
– this IIS ASP application was initially
available for all the platforms: MS SQL Server, Ctree and Btrieve (later on
Pervasive SQL 2000), in 1998 Great Plains Software made it available for MS
SQL server only. eOrder was predecessor of modern eCommerce sites and all the
attempts to customize eOrder were dubious in the version upgrade.
- .Net paradigm.
Instead of inventing and making you use standard eCommerce solution - .Net
gives you the choice to select from variety of products available on the
market. This means that no more eOrders – you just need the connector which
will allow you to address Great Plains objects from your eCommerce
application. As usual you are free to use your language of choice: VB or C#
- eConnect.
Yes – exactly – it was initially developed for eCommerce programmers. Later
on eConnect was extended on the majority of Great Plains modules, including
distributions
- Restrictions.
As you see above – Great Plains allows you to address work tables only – this
means that you can not post transactions using eConnect. Other reported
issues were related to Sales Order transfer to Invoice/Backorder
- Custom Stored
Procedures. Right – you have to
use these custom SQL scripts to post transactions, created with eConnect.
If you
want us to do the job - give us a call 1-630-961-5918 or 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 Chicago, California, Arizona,
Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe,
Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (
http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports
and Microsoft CRM SDK