Microsoft Great Plains Primer – tips for IT / Database Administrator
 by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is main ERP application targeted to US mid-size businesses market. We do understand that a lot of new clients are signing with Microsoft Business Solutions or MBS Partners to purchase and implement Microsoft Great Plains (with potential integration with Microsoft CRM and Microsoft RMS – Retail Management System). In this small article we are trying to help IT specialist to support and resolve basic Great Plains problems, like deleting hanging user, unlock the batch, etc.

1. How to delete the user: If user, shuts down computer, before signing off Great Plains - she/he will get the message that she/he is already signed. Then you need to delete the user from the activity table. Run the query below against DYNAMICS database - it will unlock the user:

delete ACTIVITY where USERID='MARIE'

2. How to unlock the batch: From our experience - this is second FAQ we are hearing from Great Plains administrator. Run this script against company database to unlock hanging batch:

update SY00500 set BCHSTTUS=0 where BACHNUMB = 'BATCH0023'

Sometimes you also have to run this script against DYNAMICS database (if first script doesn't do the job)

delete SY00800 where BACHNUMB = 'BATCH0023'

3. Some Reporting Queries – Before we go there, we would like you to be able to find the table with the data you are looking for. Launch Great Plains and go to Tools->Resource Description->Tables. Find the table in the proper series. If you are looking for the customers – it should be RM00101 – customer master file.

Now lets query Customer Master table:

select CUSTNMBR, CUSTNAME from RM00101 where STATE='CA'

This query will return Customer Number, Customer Name for all the customers in California

Next query will give you top 10 Inventory Items with the best Sales Results

select a.ITEMNMBR, a.ITEMDESC, b.SALESNUMBER from IV00101 a join (select top 10 ITEMNMBR, count(ITEMNMBR) as SALESNUMBER from SOP30300 where SOPTYPE=3 group by ITEMNMBR order by count(ITEMNMBR) desc) b on a.ITEMNMBR=b.ITEMNMBR

You can have such a nice tools as Explorer to imitate Sales or Financial reporting for you and then dump it to Excel with the click of the button as good alternative to FRx, but we would recommend you to stick to FRx for regular financial reporting – this is the tool of the choice for controller.

You can always have us help you, give us a call: 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577, [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is consultant and CTO in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Business Solutions partner, serving clients in Illinois, New York, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Minnesota, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, Asia, Russia. He is Microsoft Great Plains certified master, Great Plains Dexterity, Microsoft CRM SDK C#.Net, Crystal Repots developer. You can reach Andrew: [email protected].