Recovering Microsoft Great Plains Customization – tips for IT Director Written by Andrew Karasev Remember nice and prosperous Clinton era? When you implemented innovative those old days accounting application – Great Plains Dynamics. And did a lot of customizations to fit your business requirements precisely. You still remember names of consultants and programmers who did job and probably name of company – Great Plains reseller in your business metro. This company more likely doesn’t exist in same form – either closed doors or merged and transformed to something else. When you tried to contact former programmers – they more likely nicely let you know that they do not do this any more – they got completely different job and profession. Great Plains Software was acquired by Microsoft and not part of Microsoft Business Solutions. In old good days Great Plains Software was taking care of popularizing its customization and growing Great Plains Dexterity programming expertise. Nowadays Microsoft Business Solutions has more concerns on merging all its ERP applications: Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, Axapta and making them run together as a set of modules (project Green). •Dex Programmers Pool. Well, you may say – anyway let’s place ad and look at five Dex programmers to choose from and make an upgrade to our really advanced customization for Great Plains Dynamics on Pervasive SQL. We’ll move it to Microsoft Great Plains on MS SQL Server 2005. In about month you may realize that nobody actually replied to your ad and you got only couple of Indian offshore development companies general offers to contract them software development you might need. Where are all local Dex programmers. The answer is – they more likely do not exist anymore •Great Plains Customization Partners. Programmers were laid off and transformed their career to something else. Dexterity programmers still exist but they had to move and get a job with nation-wide Microsoft Great Plains Customization Partner. The same should be said about Great Plains Modifier/VBA, Continuum for VB and Delphi, ReportWriter and Great Plains Integration Manager VBA programmers. These technologies, especially Dexterity source code programming and require substantial dedication. In some cases these people become project managers and lead offshore development force Microsoft Great Plains: if you are orphan client – what to-do and FAQ Written by Andrew Karasev Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software eEnterprise, Dynamics and Dynamics C/S+ is very popular ERP and since 1994 has been successfully implemented for mid-size and mid-size to large companies in USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Middle East. During economic recession time 2001-2004 majority of businesses cut to virtually zero their IT/computer support expenses and stayed with hardware and software. At same time consulting companies: Great Plains Software and later on Microsoft Business Solutions Partners, VARs, Resellers and ISVs had to reduce their workforce, merge with large auditing companies or simply close their doors. The result of these two tendencies was huge number of so-called Microsoft Great Plains and Great Plains Dynamics orphan clients. In 2005 we see signs of economy recovery: companies invested into new computer hardware and OS: Windows 2003 servers, Windows XP Pro workstations, Microsoft Exchange, etc. Now it is time for them to upgrade/recover their Great Plains Dynamics or migrate Great Plains Accounting to Microsoft Great Plains. Let’s consider steps required to upgrade your ERP system: •Annual Enhancement Program. Minimal plan is 16% of software list price. Microsoft Great Plains requires professional support and Microsoft Business Solutions serves its clients through MBS partner network. This means that you need to pick up Microsoft Business Solutions partner you like and have them reenroll you into annual maintenance program. Unfortunately Microsoft requires you to pay penalty to reenroll, but from time to time it has promotion campaigns when penalty is partially waived. When you are back in program – you will get reg key for new version and if needed you can purchase additional user licenses and modules Cont'd on page 2 ==>   ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005 Terms of Use