| Microsoft Great Plains or Dynamics GP software | | | | wishes or schedule it to run periodically. |
| is an Enterprise Resource Planning software, that | | | | Visual Basic for Application or VBA is a tool that |
| has many basic and advanced modules to help | | | | works great with Great Plains forms usually. |
| small to mid size businesses to automate their | | | | Because if a data field like Item Number and its |
| accounting processes. It also has many tools like | | | | Item Maintenance window are added to Visual |
| Dexterity, eConnect, Visual Basic for Application, | | | | Basic, then VBA can be used to refer to the data |
| Integration Manager, Great Plains Visual Studio | | | | field and window and then changes the flow of |
| Sdk, Form and Report Modifiers, Crystal Report | | | | the data for the form. For example, instead of |
| and other tools to help businesses to customize | | | | moving from field 1 to field 2, VBA can change |
| Great Plains to suit their way of doing business. | | | | the flow from field 1 to field 4, or skips field 4 to |
| Certain tools will require the business to purchase | | | | field 7. |
| the corresponding licenses or registrations to use. | | | | Integration Manager is another tool that is used |
| Dexterity is a tool that is used to create Great | | | | for migrating data like Microsoft Excel, Access, |
| Plains and also allows developers to customize | | | | text files, Xml files, and data that are compliant |
| forms, reports, and program flows. The | | | | with Odbc standard into Great Plains. The user |
| modifications that Dexterity creates are just | | | | can designate the source, query, and destination |
| look-and-feel the way Great Plains does. For | | | | for deciding how the data are brought in, |
| example, if the user adds a text box, combo box | | | | formatted, and converted into Great Plains. |
| or list box to the Inventory Item Maintenance | | | | Great Plains Visual Studio Sdk is a relatively new |
| window or report, it will just look exactly like the | | | | tool to customize forms, reports, program flow, |
| existing text box or other controls. Because of | | | | and codes for Great Plains. It usually requires a |
| Dexterity always use indexes for retrieving data | | | | developer or developers to create a code project |
| from a Sq Server table, the performance is very | | | | in Visual Studio with programming language like |
| fast under usual environment. That's why | | | | Visual Basic or C#. The developer then refers to |
| Dexterity is one of the best tools for customizing | | | | Great Plains exposed data fields, table, form |
| Great Plains.eConnect is another tool that is good | | | | structures to write a program like Dexterity can |
| for repeating data migration into Great Plains from | | | | do, but in a different language and way. |
| other data source like Microsoft Excel, Access, | | | | Form and Report Modifiers are for changing the |
| text files, Xml files, and other data that are | | | | windows and reports for Great Plains like adding a |
| compliant with Odbc standard. eConnect is like a | | | | data field to a window or report, and other |
| server object that usually requires a front end | | | | modifications. The developer can also write |
| program like Visual Basic or C# to work with to | | | | Crystal Report to access Great Plains database |
| convert outside data source like Xml files into | | | | for creating custom reports. |
| Great Plains. Once setup, the user can run it as | | | | |