What You Can Do to Help Your Project Succeed While the definition of success on a project is different for each organization, there are some actions that any company can take to help the project succeed. In addition to benefiting from the expertise of a skilled project manager, here are five actions that your company’s leadership can take internally to ensure the success of your implementation:Engage Leadership – Buy-in and engagement start from the top. Business resources will take direct cues from and often react in alignment with their leaders. The company’s leaders can show engagement via early communication of support. Throughout the process they should focus on the goals of the project and continue to reiterate them, ask … [Read more...] about Project Management Aids ERP
Know Your Needs Before Buying ERP
As a provider and consultants for Microsoft’s top middle-market Dynamics ERP and accounting software products, we have seen a trend toward more online research. People are thoroughly researching their accounting software and ERP decisions before ever engaging a partner to help them.This is good for consumers. Potential buyers can get more information and have the ability to make better decisions. What can improve more is businesses and nonprofits diving deeper into their own requirements.Potential clients often come to us without understanding what the whole organization needs. Sometimes it’s the I.T. group leading the charge. Other times accounting has taken the lead on the project or, depending on the need, the manufacturing or supply … [Read more...] about Know Your Needs Before Buying ERP
Knowing Risks Benefits ERP Projects
Boyer & Associates’ new project manager, Beth Steinkopf, is helping us better manage our clients’ ERP implementations. Last week we discussed how her past experience is already helping our clients. This week Jack Boyer asks Steinkopf how early project management can get your ERP implementation off to a great start. Jack: What are the most important elements you focus on early in a project to help clients ensure success with implementing ERP software? I like to understand why the client has chosen to implement the new software. What are their goals? Understanding this helps define where we are going and allows us to refocus the troops if anyone starts to deviate from the initial plan. It also helps to create a baseline. ERP … [Read more...] about Knowing Risks Benefits ERP Projects
Project Management Affects ERP Projects
Boyer & Associates recently hired a new project manager, Beth Steinkopf, to help provide better management of our clients’ ERP implementation projects. Jack Boyer sat down with Steinkopf to discuss how her background as a PM helps clients who are in the process of updating their ERP or accounting software. Jack: You have experience managing elements of larger ERP projects. How are smaller ERP projects similar and different to the larger ones in your experience? Let’s start with different: Smaller ERP implementations move FAST! They have fewer stakeholders, they generally have only one or two key decision makers, the owners are directly involved, and the processes around the project are typically less formalized.Items that are very … [Read more...] about Project Management Affects ERP Projects
Who Did It? Tracking Changes in Dynamics GP
Sometimes you just need to know who entered a transaction into your Microsoft Dynamics GP system. As you may have already noticed, GP has no standard window to show who entered a particular transaction.However, most of the transaction tables in the GP database do have a field for the “User ID.” This field shows the last person to touch the record, and you can easily modify your GP reports within Report Writer to include this field on your reports.Additionally, third-party vendors such as Fastpath and Rockton Software offer modules specifically for helping companies keep better track of changes to data. … [Read more...] about Who Did It? Tracking Changes in Dynamics GP
GP SmartList Quick Tip: Changing Display Columns
Have you ever wanted to change the name of a column in a Dynamics GP SmartList? Perhaps instead of “Customer Name” you would like the export to show “Client Name,” for example.It is very easy to change the names of columns as well as the order of columns as they appear on your SmartList. Simply open your SmartList and click on “Columns.” Highlight the name you wish to change and start typing in the “Display Name” column. It’s that simple.You can also use the re-order arrows to change the way your columns are displayed on the SmartList. For example, you could rearrange the columns so that “Debits” appears before “Credits.” … [Read more...] about GP SmartList Quick Tip: Changing Display Columns
Search Smarter, Not Harder With GP SmartLists
Microsoft Dynamics GP SmartLists have always enabled users to organize and display data from the accounting system in a way that makes sense to them. Users can search records according to specific criteria to show exactly what data they need to see.SmartList Builder in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 takes the popular, easy-to-use SmartList tool and increases its power and range. Now you can query more data in more ways. This SmartList Builder gives you access to all the information that you capture, enabling you to create your own custom SmartLists.With SmartList Builder, the possibilities are endless. Here are just a few examples:You can combine multiple tables to go beyond basic SmartList data. You can create calculated fields. … [Read more...] about Search Smarter, Not Harder With GP SmartLists
Quick Start Tips: Windows PowerShell ISE
I wish I had access to some quick start tips when I first started learning how to use Windows PowerShell ISE to administer Microsoft Dynamics NAV. With that in mind, this blog offers some quick tips to get you started.From here on out, I'm going to refer to Windows PowerShell ISE simply as PowerShell. This isn't exactly accurate since there is a separate console tool that's called PowerShell. To keep it simple, just know that when I say PowerShell, I am referring to Windows PowerShell ISE. Suggested Screen Layout for Windows PowerShell ISE These two screen shots show how I like to set up my PowerShell screen: Script Pane on the top Console on the bottom Command Add-on shown on the rightThis layout allows me to write … [Read more...] about Quick Start Tips: Windows PowerShell ISE
Sort Data Faster, Smarter With Our Custom Solutions
Do you ever have to output financial information with GP SmartLists and then go through the same manual efforts in Excel? Perhaps you need to export to Excel to filter out certain groups (such as top customers) or sort data (largest dollar amount to smallest dollar amount, for example).This is a typical headache for accountants trying to get a monthly analysis of business performance. It’s often a monthly ordeal and can take precious time out of your busy schedule.If this sounds familiar, you should know that we can help you create SQL objects that do the heavy lifting for you. Once the objects are loaded, you can view the data with your tool of preference, such as an Excel Refreshable Report, a SQL Server Reporting Services report or … [Read more...] about Sort Data Faster, Smarter With Our Custom Solutions
Create New Records in NAV RapidStart Part 2
Hello and welcome back to our series of blogs on RapidStart in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.Today we are going to review steps 6-8 as they apply to new records. We will import our Excel file into NAV, validate it, resolve any errors and then apply the file.Let’s start with importing the file we created in the previous blog:Choose your file.You will see that in the configuration package under No. of Package Records the total is now “3” for the three tire records we created in our last blog post.Next, click on “Validate Package.”In our example we ended up with nine validation errors (see below) on our first validation attempt.Move your mouse on top of the number. Once it underlines, click on it and the following message box … [Read more...] about Create New Records in NAV RapidStart Part 2
