Who am I and why am I here?

I've been a Dynamics GP resource since the late 90s. Before that, I was an accountant with a fortune 500 company running Great Plains Accounting Software. Now, I manage an IT Department for a global organization that has standardized on Dynamics GP.

I'm here in part out of inspriration by Doug's keynote at Convergence 2006 in Dallas to further contribute unselfishly to the Dynamics GP community. I'm not out to sell anything but rather simply share my knowledge of Dynamics GP and absorb knowledge from others doing the same. I'll give you the good, the bad, and the ugly from my perspective.

My knowledge spans almost all of the modules Dynamics GP has to offer including the core financial suite, distribution, manufacturing, service management, HR/Payroll, the customization and integration tool such as DIM and VBA, and many of the 3rd party products widely used in the channel. I've implemented each a handful of times and passed many of the exams although I wouldn't consider myself an expert on each. I consider myself an expert SQL Server programmer although I've never pursued a certification, am able to leverage VBA to extend GP, and feel that I can make a Crystal Report tell me anything I want. I know little of Dexterity and just enough about .Net to be dangerous. In short, in some instances I can be considered a developer.

What I hope to offer those who read my posts is some insight into Dynamics GP and the surrounding community that you can get mostly through experience. As I work through the upgrade for my company I'll post some tips and tricks that might not be otherwise documented and describe some of the changes that have occured that may be surprising to some such as the data from the ASILOC50 table (Item Customer Maintenance) has been moved to SOP60300. I'll also post some code SQL and VB code snipits that might help you to extend your Dynamics GP system on your own. I'll let you know what I know about the Dynamics GP Community like you must check out http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/gp/community.mspx, I like to use http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.greatplains to contribute to and consume knowledge from others, and DynamicAccounting.net is a good place to get valuable information from Polino.