Writing in Retirement

This software has been designed as an alternative system for sales staff to generate and update quotes and sales orders, instead of using the standard Sales Order Processing screens in Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains).   Like Great Plains, this new software runs on the local PC and accesses data stored in the Great Plains SQL database.  

This system has the following “advantages” over the traditional Sales Order Processing for quotes and sales invoices:

·         The emphasis is on gross margin

·         Customers and items can be found using string searches

·         Customer information (such as ship-to addresses) and item information (such as description) cannot be edited

·         Data is presented in data grids that allow sorting by columns and re-arranging of columns by drag and drop

·         A credit score is displayed on the main screen

·         Line items can be edited and arranged with cut and paste logic

·         Prior orders can be inserted into a new quote

·         Prior pricing can be displayed

·         Freight can be estimated

·         Comments can be added and saved

·         Pipeline reporting by using user-defined lists

·         Follow up dates by using user-defined date fields

·         Quotes and orders generated as Excel documents

·         Accounting transactions are hidden.

Rarely used features in Great Plains Sales Order Processing have been left out or simplified.  Examples include:

·         Multiple ship dates

·         Multiple ship to locations

·         Returns and back orders

·         Batch numbers do not change

 ·        Unit of measure is always “each”

·         Single currency

·         Sales person is hard-coded. 

Great Plains logic is used to estimate sales tax and set the accounting entries.

It is expected order fulfillment staff and accounting staff will still access the traditional SOP screens to ship product and generate invoices.  

Item maintenance and customer maintenance functions still must be done through the traditional Dynamics GP screens.

System Design Guidelines

All changes to the Great Plains database are done using standard Great Plains e-Connect stored procedures.  All inquiry-only functions have been written using customized T-SQL scripts to allow more complex searches.  This way, user functionality is increased and while the integrity of the Great Plains data is protected.

There are no changes to the Great Plains SQL tables—that is, there are not new tables added, and no new columns added to existing SQL tables.  

All screens were developed in C# in Visual Studio 2012, using Windows Presentation Foundation and .Net Framework.  Dexterity was not used.  The primary advantage over Dexterity is displaying data in smart data grids.  These smart data grids allow users to sort by columns headings, and users can drag and drop columns.  The ability to edit inside a data grid has been turned off.

This system does not assign the sales order number until the order has been saved. The line sequence logic is different-- line numbers are re-calculated whenever the data is written the SQL tables.

For security, every string search has logic to eliminate injection attacks---the search logic only allows searches on alpha and numeric strings---spaces and any special characters are removed.  

Security is set in SQL, instead of the normal Great Plains security logic.  

The Item Master record in Great Plains carries both standard cost and current cost.  To calculate margins, the larger of standard cost and current cost is used.  

e-Connect requires a functional currency be setup, even if there is only one currency.

The system was built using SQL 2008, and Excel 2007 (.xlsx file formats).