This interview is with Dick Lee of High Yield Methods- a firm which, like Boyer & Associates is also located here in Minnesota. Dick has been a process consultant for 30 years. Dick’s firm is about helping businesses become more “customer-centric” and less “self-centric”.  Even Dick’s blogs stay on this theme-how to become more customer-centric. Dick’s firm created the chart below around comparing Professional Services process with Manufacturing process. As an organization that focuses on Service Industries, this is of great interest to our clients and readers.

You can get to the High Yield Methods website by clicking on that link here.

Dick Lee has consulted with Microsoft and other leading software firms. Dick attended our “Microsoft ERP Shootout” event on March 28th of this year. The event was about Services Industry clients and prospects. We demoed Dynamics SL, a project-centric product, Dynamics GP, a horizontal product with many Services Industry clients, and we also showed Dynamics AX off of an image and script that Microsoft created for us that shows the software catering to a number of Service Industry client needs. CRM is a good example. Most clients we work with do not want to leave the Microsoft environment to get a CRM capability – in fact, not integrating CRM functionality with accounting, project management and other applications undercuts CRM utility. Microsoft AX comes with CRM capabilities out of the box (as does Dynamics NAV), including seamlessly converting service quotes to billable projects and then scheduling and staffing these projects with the best available people.

During the “Shootout,” Dick asked Ted Kempf from Microsoft if Dynamics AX could be brought down into the higher end of the middle market in order to meet some of the needs that his clients have. This is where this interview begins with Dick-having heard the answer from Microsoft’s Services Industry Director and of course never knowingly being short on opinions…Dick gives us his thoughts:

Jack Boyer: What did Ted tell you when you asked your question at our event in Minneapolis about essentially moving Dynamics AX downstream to smaller businesses?

Dick Lee: Ted correctly noted implementing software with high degrees of configurability and extensibility – as opposed to implementing more structured systems – requires additional development time, which can require enterprise level budgets most readily available in larger organizations.

Jack Boyer: Dick when I asked you to be interviewed for our blog, your first idea was rethinking (and expanding) the market range of AX. You mentioned that many smaller customers could really use the performance and configurability but would not need to install as much of the application. You mentioned that this could bring down implementation costs. Could you expand on this line of thinking for our readers?

Dick Lee: Sure. High Yield Methods, HYM, my firm works with many Small to Medium-Sized (SME) clients with restricted software investment budgets. However, many of these clients work in niche industries with a small number of very specific process support requirements, which often require considerable custom configuration and even custom development work. The trick to making technology affordable to these clients is isolating out what’s uncommon about their support requirements to first focus on covering conventional needs multiple systems meet out of the box – but then selecting a system such as AX with high adaptability and applying it only where needed. Too often companies with special requirements acquire highly adaptable systems and then proceed to adapt every bit of functionality to fit every whim or wish, even where out-of-the-box functionality provides more than adequate support. This gets very expensive very quickly, not to mention messy. This puts a system like AX out of their price range, which would not be the case if they met as many support needs as possible with standard functionality.

Jack Boyer: You’ve done many software selections and implemented lots of systems in production environments over the years. However, you clearly treat service sector technology very differently, including putting a powerful focus on customer-centricity. How do you connect customers and technology?

Dick Lee: It all starts with process. Production process is typically “outside-in,” looking at company needs first (although that often shouldn’t be the case). Service process should be “outside-in,” looking first at improving utility for customers and creating new utility, which together will generate profitable new business. Whereas“inside-out” process focuses on efficiency, with software’s role being automating everything possible, outside-in” process focuses squarely on customers and creating new customer benefits, with software’s role to support value delivery. Ironically, “outside-in“ process accomplishes much more streamlining than “inside-out” by eliminating work not adding value to customers.

Jack Boyer: You’ve implemented larger manufacturing systems and larger service industry implementations. Microsoft invests more than a billion dollars a year in their Dynamics products’ improvements. How important is this to a customer that wants to become and remain customer-centric?

Dick Lee: Continued, high-level R&D investments are critical to software system operators. We live and work in high states of flux. Everything from regulations to market environments keep changing – with nothing changing more and more quickly that customer demands. Delivery changing outcomes for customers keeps process in a state of flux, which continuously creates new demands on process-supporting software systems. R&D investment is required to keep systems current.

Jack Boyer: Microsoft has a history of making its products both better and less costly over the years in an obvious strategy to gain market share both in the middle market ERP space and now in the enterprise space with Dynamics AX. How effective do you think this has been so far for Microsoft over the past say 3 years?

Dick Lee: It’s been very effective. Every time I lead a selection we have to answer the question, “Why not Microsoft?” And more and more often the real selection is between Microsoft and Microsoft.

Jack Boyer: Dick are there questions you wish I had asked you today that we never got to that relate to Dynamics AX and bringing that product down lower into the middle market and away from the 200 million and up, 100+ user firms?

Dick Lee: One important issue we didn’t discuss, Microsoft is already addressing. When first released Dynamics AX felt like “silly putty” to some customers because you could do too much with it and there wasn’t lots of “fixed” functionality. But while Microsoft continues adding to the adaptability, today’s AX provides much more pre-built functionality companies can use if requirements are close to norms.

I hope this discussion has been useful to those of you considering Dynamics AX-especially those of you in the upper end of the middle market or those within high volume service organizations.

For us, even the consultants that are rarely in the office have additional monitors. Why would they want or need this? Often times they create reports. It’s much easier to see the report definition or a SQL Procedure in SQL Reporting Services on one monitor and the results of the report on the other monitor as you test and refine the report. You make a change to the report on Monitor 1 and can instantly run the report to see the results on Monitor 2. You don’t have to make the change, minimize, find the session that is showing the results of the report, and then go back the same way to get back to the screen where you are creating the report. You simply make a change, preview, another improvement, preview-it’s fast and effective. The same is true of FRx reports and simply “trying to interrupt yourself less”. In the Harvard Business Review’s Blog-HBR Blog Network there is a great article relating to The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time. It’s worth reading-especially if like me and many men, you tend to have attention deficit issues from time to time.

Here is another scenario within Dynamics GP.   Let’s pretend you are receiving orders via email and that you need to either rekey or copy and paste those orders into the GP sales entry screen.  It’s much easier to have Outlook up on one screen and the sales entry screen open on the other when it’s time for you to either key or copy/paste lines into your sales order.  You can drag sales order lines from your opened email over to the other screen where you can drop the lines.  It’s quite easy.  Compare this to having to minimize and maximize on one screen to do the same.

I don’t do a lot of consulting myself. I do a lot of talking on the phone to clients and prospective clients. Unfortunately, I also get a lot of email that I need to respond to. My setup looks like this: My refurbished 22 inch Samsung monitor sits right in front of my keyboard and mouse to help me stay focused on Microsoft CRM and making phone calls and appointments with clients and prospects. I have my smaller laptop monitor off to the left with my email. This further encourages me to make those more difficult but more valuable connections with people-rather than just emailing and not really “connecting” with people.

Below is what my setup looks like when I enter my Business Portal timecard each day.

Right now I am entering my timecard in the Dynamics Business Portal Time Entry Screen. You can see the TimeCard Entry screen on the monitor to the left (will show above other image on some browsers here) and my calendar on the monitor to the right. This setup is good for having my Dynamics SL timecard screen up and available for keying while I ensure my timecard is not a “great work of fiction” by viewing my calendar on the right monitor.

The two monitors are useful for finding a good screen shot or example for my blog content and then pasting it back into the post as well.  So please pay for an extra monitor for your accounting staff.  Help them be more productive, multi-task in a less disruptive way, and make a small investment that makes a big difference for them.  If you have trouble setting up the dual monitors, please check with your IT staff as they have done this for others in your firm already.

For us, even the consultants that are rarely in the office have additional monitors.  Why would they want or need this?  Often times they create reports.  It’s much easier to see the report definition in Crystal on one monitor and then the results of the report on the other.  You make a change to the report on Monitor 1 and can instantly run the report to see the results on Monitor 2.  You don’t have to make the change, minimize, find the session that is showing the results of the report, and then go back the same way to get back to the screen where you are creating the report.  You simply make a change, preview, another improvement, preview-it’s fast and effective.  The same is true of FRx reports and simply “trying to interrupt yourself less”.  In the Harvard Business Review’s Blog-HBR Blog Network there is a great article relating to The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time.  It’s worth reading-especially if like me and many men, you tend to have attention deficit issues from time to time.

Here is another scenario within Dynamics SL alone.    Let’s pretend you are in Company A entering a batch of AP Vouchers on Monitor one.  Your boss calls you in the middle of the batch and describes in painstaking detail what journal entries you need to make right away and why.  With Dynamics SL 2011, you can open up your other company for the JE on the other monitor so that when you complete the JE’s-then look right back at the first monitor rather than try to remember what you were doing.

I don’t do a lot of consulting myself.  I do a lot of talking on the phone to clients and prospective clients.  Unfortunately, I also get a lot of email that I need to respond to.  My setup looks like this:  My refurbished 22 inch Samsung monitor sits right in front of my keyboard and mouse to help me stay focused on CRM and making phone calls and appointments with clients and prospects.  I have my smaller laptop monitor off to the left with my email.  This further encourages me to make those more difficult but more valuable connections with people-rather than just emailing and not really “connecting” with people.

Below is what my setup looks like when I enter my timecard each day.

Right now I am entering my timecard in Dynamics SL.  You can see the TimeCard Entry screen on the monitor to the left (will show above other image on some browsers here) and my calendar on the monitor to the right.    This setup is good for having my Dynamics SL timecard screen up and available for keying while I  ensure my timecard is not a “great work of fiction” by viewing my calendar on the right monitor.The two monitors are useful for finding a good screen shot or example for my blog content and then pasting it back into the post as well.

It is about an event we held comparing Dynamics SL, to Dynamics GP, to Dynamics AX but for Service Industry organizations only.  If my writing is slightly more polished-it’s because they have a very good editor.

http://msdynamicsworld.com/story/lessons-real-comparison-microsoft-dynamics-erp-solutions-services-industry

Warm Regards,

Jack

Jack Boyer, CPA (inactive), MCP | President

Boyer & Associates

3525 Plymouth Blvd, Suite 207

Plymouth, MN  55447

Direct: 763 412-4307 |Fax:763 412-4301 |Office: 763 412-4300

Website I Facebook I Twitter I LinkedIn |Blog

Recently, while working with one of our Dynamics SL clients we discovered that their SQL Server was not configured with maintenance plans (automated activities setup on a scheduled basis) to optimize and maintain the performance of their databases. They had their SQL Maintenance plan set up to backup their database, but no optimizations were configured. Much like a physical hard drive on your computer can become fragmented and inefficient, components of the database can experience similar situations. In SQL Server the indexes (used by the database engine to find data more quickly) actually store small amounts of data on the server and after time, the piece of data that makes up an index can be fragmented (scattered). After configuring their system with a maintenance plan to rebuild the indexes and running it for the first time, the payment reversal process in accounts receivable went from taking from 3 to 5 minutes to complete to about 15 seconds. To say that the A/R person was excited, would be an understatement.

About a year ago we discovered a similar issue with one of our larger Dynamics GP clients. Their database performance had been slowly decreasing, so they presumed the issue was with the growth of data. They had robust hardware for the size of the database and user count, so the slowness was not dramatic. What did happen though was that odd reporting issues began to occur with reports that had been working properly (and no recent changes) for some time. Reports that normally sorted by a particular field, began to show the data in a more random order. Once we reviewed the situation, we determined quickly that SQL optimizations were not configured. After adding a SQL Maintenance plan to re-build indexes, they never had this problem again.

For those of you wondering what an index is, it’s a lot like a table of contents to a book. It’s a small subset of data that tells the database engine where to find existing data more quickly.

Including a maintenance plan for rebuilding (drops and recreates indexes) or reorganizing (more similar to a hard disk de-fragmentation) is wise and recommended. Choosing to reorganize or rebuild is a somewhat subjective decision, as it depends on many factors. We tend to setup or at least recommend the rebuilding option. It takes longer but is more thorough. For this cash application client, they had a 30 GIG database. The rebuild took 6 hours for the entire database, but this process runs only once per week on Sundays. Reorganizing would typically process more quickly, perhaps 3 hours for our client’s database. This particular Dynamics SL client also had the “AUTOSHRINK” database option checked, which is not something that we recommend. The “AutoShrink” feature aggressively works to recapture physical disk space and in the process has a tendency to fragment the table indexes, thereby reducing performance of data retrievals. Maintaining your SQL Server databases is a critical component of maintaining your overall Dynamics SL, Dynamics GP or Dynamics AX accounting and ERP installation.  Performance for nothing you say? Almost-you need to invest time and set up the maintenance plans properly if you haven’t already. If your system has not been maintained, you may not need to buy new hardware or upgrade software to experience better performance in many areas.

Below is a picture in SQL Server 2008 of the screen where maintenance plans are listed. Please note that there is more than one record for backing up the database.

Our typical setup of maintenance plans includes one plan for daily backups (run once per day), one plan for transaction log backups (many times this is setup to run hourly) and one plan for performing the index maintenance (rebuild or reorganize). We usually set this plan to run on Sundays, once per week. We also add other tasks to this plan, like “Update Statistics”, but your needs may drive additional tasks. At a minimum, we recommend you have 2 plans-daily backup and weekly index maintenance.

This tip is useful for SQL 2000, SQL 2005, or SQL 2008. Please note that Microsoft added its most serious performance improvements between SQL 2000 and SQL 2005. So if you are experiencing poor performance and have not upgraded your SQL Server version in a while, it may be because database maintenance has not been performed, but it may also be because you have an old version of SQL Server running or that your hardware has become outdated. We typically recommend that on-premise servers be replaced at least every four years.

The bigger picture of what we are recommending is that you ensure that your firm is taking an active role in your performance management rather than assuming a vendor or your IT group is already doing this. Please link to the following MSDN article on Using SQL Server Management Studio for more information about de-fragmenting specific indexes or setting up your maintenance plan in SQL Server Management Studio.

April 1, 2012, Minneapolis, MN — Boyer & Associates, (Boyer) a leading provider of business management solutions for mid-sized businesses, announces the successful completion of an ERP financial management upgrade project for Meritas, a Minneapolis-based non-profit organization and global alliance of business law firms that delivers localized legal service.

To update the organization’s financial management system, Boyer & Associates implemented Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011, an industry leading financial accounting solution. Meritas was looking to upgrade from an older version of Dynamics SL to take advantage of all of the newest functionality Dynamics SL 2011.

“From increased productivity, business value and insight across the organization, everything in Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 is geared toward saving our customer’s time and making their experience with the solution easier, better and faster,” said Jack Boyer, President of Boyer & Associates. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to work with Meritas and help them take advantage of everything Dynamics SL 2011 has to offer,” he added. Overall, thanks to Boyer’s expertise, the entire upgrade to Dynamics SL 2011 was completed on-time and within budget and the transition to the new solution went very smoothly.

About Boyer & Associates

Boyer & Associates, a Minneapolis-based firm, resells and consults on accounting/ERP products including, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics AX, and Microsoft Dynamics GP. The firm provides implementation services, custom tailoring, integration, report writing and support services for each product. Boyer won three national awards recently; Bob Scott’s VAR Stars, Microsoft’s President’s Club and Accounting Today’s Pacesetters Award. Boyer delivers on their client’s vision by offering the best technology choices, configurable and tailored software, and team collaboration. Boyer also offers budgeting solutions with Microsoft Forecaster.

In the end the item that people have liked by far has been the availability of the Quick Query functionality that was added.  This tool has been tremendous in terms of raw data dumps that people have wanted for years.  Getting data out is no longer a problem due to the fact that this “module” (included with the System Manager for free) gives users access to the data using field names that users see in screens rather than difficult to use database table names with database field names-which tend to be less intuitive.

Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 further extends existing IT investments by supporting integration with Microsoft Project Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM via Web Services. Integration with Microsoft Project Server 2010 brings project management and project accounting together by adding functionality that reduces redundant data entry and provides synchronization of project and accounting information.  The creation and viewing of budgeting and net profit information, from Project Server 2010, now becomes practical. In addition, interoperability with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 offers users the versatility to access data from anywhere, and adapt to specific project needs.  This helps drive improved business insight and value across Dynamics SL using organizations.

R2 for Dynamics SL 2011 is scheduled to come out toward the end of this calendar year-2012.  Additional web services will be available such as Project Time Entry and Project Expense Entry.  This is significant, as one of the areas that Dynamics SL is often enhanced from an ISV perspective is in the area of resource scheduling.  Many resource scheduling products such as Dovico and Clarizen tend to have their  own time and expense entry tools.

According to Microsoft, here are additional enhancements we are looking forward to helping our clients take advantage of:

• Office 365 Support
• Hard Close by module
• Suppress batch control reports by module (This one I can remember since the Solomon III DOS days.)
• Project Flex Time support for multiple invoice comment entry
• Calculate and store actual versus provisional indirect costs
• Introduction of Business Analyzer (BA)
• Dashboard for business decision makers
• View Microsoft SQL Server Reports
• Report collaboration through Microsoft Lync
• Deploys independent of Dynamics SL
• Quick Query Enhancements
  • BA Report Generation Wizard
  • Report wizard used to create SSRS Reports from Quick Query

So as we have our event for our Dynamics SL clients this June at the new and nice Microsoft Technology Center in Edina, MN (suburb of Minneapolis), we look forward to these enhancements that should make a difference.  Dynamics SL did quite well in our “Shootout” last month for project-centric services organizations.  The multi-company capable of Dynamics SL 2011 that allows users to keep open multiple companies at the same time, was far more popular than we expected.

This screen shot shows the journal transactions screen open in one firm and the voucher entry screen open in another.  The screen does not show that multiple screens could be open in each company or even multiple batches of the same screen in the same company.  The Multi-Company capabilities in Dynamics SL 2011 improved the usability of an already very impressive module.

Jack Boyer, CPA(inactive), MCP | President

http://boyerassoc.com/blog

Website I Facebook I Twitter I LinkedIn |Blog

In Dynamics SL, you need to introduce Paging to correct this issue with the performance of your query.

Paging is a function that allows for the Quick Query screen not to return huge amounts of data all at once. It is like a Bing or Google search, you only get one page at a time. The paging buttons return additional records as you click through the pages. With this turned on, you can have a Quick Query that would otherwise return 100,000 rows, only return 1,000 at a time, thereby increasing the responsiveness of the tool. Many of the Quick Queries that come out of the box, are not filtered, such that a user can select their own filtering and save as “filtered views”.

An example would be the “Batches” view in GL. This view returns all batches in the batch table by default. A filtered view could be saved to only show “Unposted” batches or only one period to post or only data that was entered into a particular module. Paging is basically an efficiency and performance option.

Please note circled row count limitation at the bottom of this screen capture.

Below is the response that one of our technical people gave to one of our consultants that was facing this challenge.

“We don’t necessarily just want to limit the rows returned (5,000 is apparently the new default), but we also need to enable paging (in my opinion), which is a separate option to set in the Solomon.INI file. There is both a Solomon.INI file on the server install and each client workstation install. Many times, if you want the same setting for everyone, it can be configured in the server version of the Solomon.INI file, so that it does not have to be set on each workstation. I will test out the paging and row count options by setting in the shared file (my developer workstation actually has its own full install, so I can test without interfering with anyone else). I will let you know. This item was/is on my list on the production upgrade, but we can get it configured for the Subject Matter Expert testing too.”

The setting to turn on “Paging” in the Solomon INI file is:

[QuickQuery]

Paging=Yes

MaxSQLRows=1000

Once it is turned on, there are new buttons that appear in the header of the “Quick Query Viewer” to allow for scrolling between pages. Each page will contain the max row count specified (in my example 1,000 rows per page).

Service Pack 1 of Dynamics SL 2011 allows you to set the maximum number of rows returned to something greater than 5000.  The setting is on the workstation, and is as follows:

Change the SQL statement in the Quick Query screen to return a default maximum of

5000 rows. A solomon.ini entry has been added to change the number of rows

returned. The new entry is:

[QuickQuery]

MaxSQLRows=5000 (where MaxSQLRows should be a value from 10 to 999999)

I hope this is helpful to those of you that have had issues waiting for the results of your Quick Queries.

The article is interesting to me both as a person running a Professional Services Organization, based on Microsoft ERP products-Dynamics AX, Dynamics GP, and Dynamics SL, and also as a student of how we help our clients become more competitive.

Some of the strong ideas in outline form are the following:

1. How to manage costs better, see hidden costs and deal with clients that are not ok with having additional costs passed on to them

2. How to profitably deal with the increasingly  dispersed virtual engagement teams

3. Employing contractors-pain point-or relief point?

4. How to better align skills and people with client engagements

Larger firms export more Business Intelligence functionality.  We can see this quickly when we talk to a firm looking at an enterprise level product such as Dynamics AX versus a client looking at a more mid-sized product such as Dynamics GP.  The larger clients not only want more and better metrics-they want to track them in a way that is simple to consume.  The article discusses these metrics as key items to track:

1. Utilization ratios (who didn’t guess that one?)  Take a look at this table from the article if you are rolling your eyes and saying “please don’t talk to me again about utilization!”

2. Cost per professional-these numbers are higher than you are expecting.

3. Average project size-they differ greatly by the type of Professional Services Organization

4. On-time and on-budget rates

5. Extension rates and client renewal rates

If you are most interested in how Business Applications such as Microsoft Offerings Dynamics AX, GP and SL can improve your business.  This is an article you definitely should read. To learn more about all  of Microsoft Dynamics ERP products you can click on the link.

Boyer & Associates Hosts Microsoft Dynamics ERP Shootout Event for Service and Project-based Organizations

March 1, 2012, Minneapolis, MN — Boyer & Associates, (Boyer) a leading provider of Microsoft business management solutions for mid-sized businesses, today announced that it will be hosting a Microsoft Dynamics ERP Shootout event for service and project-based organizations on March 28, 2012 from 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. CT at the new Microsoft Technology Center in Edina, MN.

The free half-day event will provide an opportunity for attendees to learn and evaluate three leading Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions including  Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics SL. The presentations will review and compare functionality of each application as it relates to Financials, Project Accounting, Inventory Management and more. “For many organizations, finding the right accounting and ERP solution to grow with their business is critical to operational efficiency, but narrowing the field to one that fits their needs and budget can be overwhelming and time-consuming. This event provides attendees the opportunity to compare and contrast the latest Microsoft Dynamics ERP products at one time and learn how other service and project-based organizations are having success with the solutions,” said Jack Boyer, President of Boyer & Associates.

The event is targeted toward executives, directors, and managers in finance, accounting, operations and IT, who want a better understanding of how the right ERP system can make a positive impact on their business and/or who are in the process of evaluating ERP solutions.

For more information on the Microsoft Dynamics ERP Shootout event or to register, click here.

About Boyer & Associates

Boyer & Associates, a Minneapolis-based firm, resells and consults on accounting/ERP products including, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics AX, and Microsoft Dynamics GP. The firm provides implementation services, custom tailoring, integration, report writing and support services for each product. Boyer won three national awards recently; Bob Scott’s VAR Stars, Microsoft’s President’s Club and Accounting Today’s Pacesetters Award. Boyer delivers on their client’s vision by offering the best technology choices, configurable and tailored software, and team collaboration. For more information, visit http://portal.boyerassoc.com/event-calendar.