Thursday, May 28, 2009

My Case Study

I had a Case Study done by Microsoft several months ago, here is a link to it:

http://www.synergybusiness.com/files/PDF/case_studies/construction/Alpha_Case_Study.pdf


John

Moving Data From Dynamics SL to MS Office - Part 1

Not to sound trite, but probably the most common method of moving data from Dynamics to the MS Office Suite is just the old fashioned manually copying the data.

I have 2 screens and it's amazing how often I use this method. I open Excel in 1 screen and Dynamics in another and then I just manually copy the data into Excel.

It's not eloquent, nor is it difficult, or even esoteric; but it works in the real world.

For instance, there's lots of times I need the correct spelling of an employee's name in a document. Open the document, open Dynamics, and just type the correct spelling. It works.

So as we begin to build a toolbox of ways to get data from Dynamics SL into the MS Office Suite, oftentimes manually copying the data is the preferred method.

John

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Dynamics SL User Group Meeting

I'm back. It's been over a year since I've posted something on this blog, but now I've got a good reason to start posting again - I'm looking for work!

Last Week I attended the Dynamics SL User Group Meeting Sponsered by Synergy Business Solutions. If you've never been to one of these meetings, I recommend that you go (if for no other reason: FREE LUNCH).

Synergy had 5 of their luminaries including Donna Hurst, Cindy Smith, Margo Dame, Michael Camp, and Rob Lloyd. It was great to put names with faces. In addition Microsoft had Jigisha Deb and Eldita Ginger. So if you weren't there, you missed an opportunity to meet some prominent personalities in the Dynamics community (not to mention, they're all great people).

The group expressed interest in learning about some of the following topics:

Integration between Dynamics SL and Excel
Upgrading to Version 7.0
Feature Pack 1 vs. SP 1&2
Moving Customizations from 6.5 to 7.0

We touched on all those topics except moving data from Dynamics SL to Excel. So stay tuned to this blog, where I will try to expose some of the ways to get data into the MS Office Suite.

Donna Hurst talked about Application Server and it's uses. (Note to Donna, don't demo live software). All I can say, if you have Application Server (which I don't), you should be using it.

We also looked at the Convergence Live site at: http://vepexp.microsoft.com/convergence09

I'm warning you, it takes a little while for this site to load, even with a smokin' hot internet connection.

John