Microsoft Great Plains eCommerce: overview for developer
 by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains was designed back in the earlier 1990th as first graphical ERP/accounting system for mid-size businesses. The architects of Great Plains Dexterity – this is the internal mid-shell, all Great Plains was written on, designed it to be easily transferable between graphical operating systems (MAC, Windows, Solaris – potentially) and database platforms – initially Great Plains was available on Ctree (both Mac and PC) and Btrieve, a bit later high end version Dynamics C/S+ was available on Microsoft SQL Server 6.5. But the idea was to catch or switch winning/losing database platform – nobody could predict if MS SQL Server, Oracle or DB 2 become a dominant DB platform, like Windows among OS. All these trade-ins for being potentially cross-platform application make the life of nowadays eCommerce developer difficult.

    * eCommerce developers were using Microsoft IIS and ASP-based Great Plains eCommerce around 4 years ago. Today, with the move to .Net and ASPX platform, server based scripts are replaced with .Net code behind approach and Great Plains eCommerce should be rewritten.

    * Microsoft Great Plains subdivision released SDK – eConnect which was targeted to eCommerce developers to manipulate Great Plains objects, such as Customer, SOP Order, Invoice, Quote, etc. What is a bit unpleasant – eConnect requires license key and is quite expensive for small internet eCommerce sites.

    * Custom Stored Procedures. Companies, like Alba Spectrum Technologies have implemented multiple diversified eCommerce projects with Great Plains at the back end. So, these custom stored procedures are available on the market, but they are not packaged as eConnect and could be purchased on the individual agreement base with Microsoft Great Plains partner.

    * Some Great Plains tables structure logic is required. You usually need consultant help, however you could try to make maximum work done at home. Tool->Resource Desciption->Tables, re-sort by Table Group technical name, then make test transactions in Great Plains (SOP module) and see where records go. This is how you design and test your queries

Good luck with implementation, customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 866-528-0577 or 630-961-5918! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in California, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Canada, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Russia

[email protected]