Released on: September 4, 2008, 2:44 pm

Press Release Author: Alba Spectrum LLC

Industry: Computers

Press Release Summary: Microsoft Dynamics GP has various EDI (Electronic Document
Interchange) add-ons and third party modules, where you can map your EDI code to
either expose GP documents, such as Vendor Purchase Orders to EDI complaint vendors
or import Sales Orders or Invoices from EDI channel to your SOP module, as two
popular examples.

Press Release Body: Microsoft Dynamics GP has various EDI (Electronic Document
Interchange) add-ons and third party modules, where you can map your EDI code to
either expose GP documents, such as Vendor Purchase Orders to EDI complaint vendors
or import Sales Orders or Invoices from EDI channel to your SOP module, as two
popular examples. In certain cases purchasing add-on may not be feasible due to the
simplicity of your requirements or paradoxically – their complexity, where you would
like to control EDI mapping in-house or with trusted Great Plains Dynamics
consultant. This publication is targeted to EDI technical people, and as such may
look too programmer oriented, however we tried to make it readable for technology
savvy executive. Let’s review briefly both scenarios: export and import:

1. Exporting EDI compliant text code. Typically EDI code has fixed length format
with Header, Lines, and various Trailers. Simple approach to produce this fixed
length formatted text file is to save SQL select statement, where you unionize the
portions and precisely format each field. If you are exporting Purchase Orders,
then likely you are dealing with Purchase Order Processing module tables: POP10100,
POP10110. Then what you need to do is to mark your exported Purchase Orders in
custom table as exported. Feel free to create this export status table in GP
company database.

2. Importing EDI file to GP. Here you need to consider pushing documents to Great
Plains via eConnect programming, assuming that automatic batch posting is not
required. If Autoposting is required, we recommend you to deploy Alba Spectrum
Posting Server or Autopost. You open incoming EDI text file with OLEDB text driver.
Then the options are multiple – our favorite is to read text file into temporary
table. In this case you will have typical field names: F1, F2, F3 – to make your
grouping, sorting and having clauses elegant. Another popular alternative is to
establish SQL linked server to your text file, however this construction might be
too powerful and not really required on that level

3. ODBC text file driver limitations. ODBC supports the subset of standard SQL
language only and you will see multiple limitations: case, text functions and other
standard SQL constructions are not supported by ODBC SQL

4. EDI and Great Plains Dexterity. If you need seamless integration with GP user
interface, GP Dexterity might be the tool of choice. Dex allows you to call either
Dex SQL compliant cursors, or call directly SQL statements or stored procedures to
do the job, already described in the paragraphs above


Web Site: http://www.albaspectrum.com

Contact Details: Alba Spectrum, LLC, http://www.albaspectum.com,
help@albaspectrum.com, 1-866-528-0577, serving Great Plains Dynamics GP community
since 1994. Please visit our information portal Pegas Planet:
http://www.pegasplanet.com. GP, SAP B1 local service in Chicago, Naperville, San
Diego, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas. We specialize in ERP remote support and we cover
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