My Blog Domain Migration & Page Redirection

Dear All,

I have been working for couple of days to move my current blog, vaidy-dyngp.com, to a new domain, vaidymohan.com.

The new domain is still under design and customization, but I am currently working on testing blog redirection, which will take you readers from old blog post to a near/accurate page on the new blog.

During this time, you all may face issue(s). I must admit that I sincerely understand your frustration and I am working on minimizing that.

But I promise, the new blog design would certainly please you all once it is opened for public access.

VAIDY

Packt's Microsoft Dynamics Mayhem

Packt Publications has once again given us an opportunity to get desired Microsoft Dynamics books at staggering discounts.

The list of books are quite handful. You do get favorite Microsoft Dynamics GP books (Cookbook by Mark Polino, Reporting by Liley & Duncan & Implementation by Victoria Yudin); all are awesome books for any GPian.

Visit Packt's page to learn more about this and get benefited: Microsoft Dynamics Mayhem.

VAIDY

RIP Apture - I Will Miss You

How many of my blog readers remember about my blog being enabled with Apture Highlights?

It's very sad that this beautiful feature is now no more. I got to know this long back, but the feature that I added on my blog still worked; until this morning.

You check out Apture's Site. All you got to see is a message from Apture Team as below:

I am not sure what to express, but only one thing which I feel right now is this: Google, you have successfully killed one more beautiful product.

RIP Apture. I loved your features. I loved the way you simplified my vocabulary learning. I loved the way you just simply popped out of the web page without taking me to any other site. I loved the way you were just a simple yet catchy product called Apture. I was so in awe that I put your logo on my blog and proudly claimed that my blog got "Aptured".

Not any more.

I will surely miss you.

VAIDY

To all Budding GP developers - Screen Resolution Does Matter

This is very silly point, but quite a huge dampener when it comes to Customer satisfaction.

I had given a simple customization as a trial to a budding developer as part of an exercise. I received the chunk to test it out.

What I could see was a huge window containing almost 50-75 fields (including labels, several text boxes, etc.) with lot screen real estate being wasted between fields. Secondly, this window went out of my test machine's screen space. The only possibility for that, in my opinion, is the resolution of the developer's machine was way too higher than my test machine's screen resolution.

Always, keep in mind, that when you develop a customization on a computer with higher resolution than that of the customers', it's going to be an issue. Customer would have to scroll horizontally each time to enter or view data on each field. And trust me, that's very irritable than a bad and buggy customization itself.

Always, try to limit the window size that would fit inside a 1024 X 768 screen resolution (that's the lowest that I feel is still existing in this universe), so it would fit in almost all resolutions.

This possibly be a non-issue soon with technology being so advanced nowadays and customers are willing to shed out some bucks on higher resolution & wide screen monitors.

But you never know.

VAIDY

Welcome 2012...!

My heartfelt wishes to entire GP Community... Happy, Prosperous, Successful & Peaceful 2012...!!!

Most part of 2011 was quite dull, especially the later period, due to various professional and personal commitments. I would like to change it this year and be active as much as possible.

Wishes again for a wonderful 2012.

VAIDY

Taking A Much Needed Break

As you all know by now, I have not been active on my blogging due to a very stringent schedule for past 5 months. And I had been burning my energy for past 2 years without a halt.

Now, I am extremely happy and relieved to have got a much needed break from work and will be going on a vacation for a month from now. I am excited enough to get in touch with my native country and my people. There is long schedule for the next one month; no escape from that. But that's going to be ALL PERSONAL. Meeting people, visiting places, attending functions. I badly need it.

Does not mean that I will not be keeping touch with Dynamics GP. :-) I will certainly be reading all posts from fellow bloggers and will be updating myself with happenings.

Once I am back from my vacation, I assure I would be a hungry soul and be posting on my blog as frequently as it had never been.

VAIDY

Dynamics GP Insights - From BKD Technologies

A new blog out there launched by BKD Technologies which is going to be a dedicated GP blog.

Check out: BKD GP Team Blog - Dynamics GP Insights.

VAIDY

Microsoft KB Articles - Is it really confidential?

I am well aware this post may kick up some controversies. But I honestly do not mind facing that.

Recently one of my contacts asked me about a GP process and asked my help in getting any KB articles related to that process. I said I would share the KB article number with him but since Microsoft says that it is all *confidential*, I cannot distribute the article directly or publish it directly on my website. I also mentioned that he could instead refer to that KB article number and look it up from Microsoft PartnerSource / CustomerSource. After all, I was under the impression that he's also a Consultant and is working with a Partner, so ideally he has got access to PartnerSource.

After a week, I was quite shocked to know that he later *downloaded* the same KB article from some other website (I do not want to name this website here, as it is also a known Microsoft Dynamics Partner) as a PDF document. And he criticized me for giving him a lame reason for not sharing the article myself. Worst thing, he even accused me of being selfish in keeping information only with me. OK, that's quite understandable from his side. What I don't understand now is the term CONFIDENTIAL on all these KB articles.

Microsoft is keep these articles with a confidentiality tag and has given access ONLY via CustomerSource or PartnerSource. But in reality there are many people out there who clearly violates this *confidentiality* part and has published these articles open.

It's quite simple. I just don't want to look dumb in front of people when I say "These KB articles are confidential and are NOT supposedly to be distributed openly". Well I am frankly serious. You feel like you are the most dumbest guy in this world by saying that. Come on, you have these articles openly sprayed out there on several websites (some of them are genuine Microsoft Dynamics Partners) and all you gotta do is to search and download it.

That brings on my mind several questions for Microsoft:

1. What's the scope of confidentiality for all these KB articles?
2. On what basis this *confidentiality* is defined and when it is considered violated?
3. What is the real point in keeping these articles as confidential, if I can download these articles from anywhere anytime anyhow?
4. Why don't you just take that *confidential* tag out and keep it open for all, irrespective of whether they have CustomerSource / PartnerSource access?

VAIDY

Apture Highlights - A Cool New way of Searching within a Website

A cool new addition to my website. APTURE HIGHLIGHTS. It works like this:

Just select any word on my blog posts and automatically a small icon that says "LEARN MORE" would appear. Just highlighting on that icon would do wonders as shown below:

Quite an amazing way of searching about something without leaving the actual website. I would recommend this to all our fellow bloggers to try this and get benefitted.

I am so impressed with this and it's going to be fun to all my blog readers.

VAIDY

I Made It To Doug Pitcher's 100 Most Famous, Awesome and Totally Influential Dynamics People for 2011

Doug Pitcher made my day. Literally. Trust me, there was no exchange of chocolates or those secret video things (as mentioned by him somewhere in his post).

Ok. Let me clarify. This one's NOT THE OFFICIAL list that was recently released.

But I did make it to Doug's 100 most famous, awesome and totally influential Dynamics people for 2011. I am in 29th place.

Doug, that's really an inspiration for me to get myself up and run for that real list. Sometime in future, I would see myself listed. But miles to go before I sleep.

Thanks a ton for considering me in your first list itself.

VAIDY

2011 Top 100 Most Influential Dynamics People

Here's the list of those who made it to Top 100.

2011 Top 100 Most Influential Dynamics People

And here are some posts related to this, making waves across.

Mohammed R. Daoud - The Most Influential People in Microsoft Dynamics For 2011
David Musgrave - Microsoft Dynamics Top 100 Most Influential People for 2011 published
Mark Polino - 2011 100 Most Influential in Microsoft Dynamics
Mark Polino - Top 100 - Who's missing?
Mariano Gomez - Microsoft Dynamics Most Influential People: Popularity Vs Influence
Doug Pitcher - Doug Pitcher's 100 most famous, awesome and totally influential Dynamics people for 2011

Join me in congratulating all those who made it and wishing all who didn't make it sometime in future.

VAIDY

What is Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and how it is calculated?

The concept that I learned in past 2 days is this: Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and the way you calculate it.

Joshua Burnett has posted an article on this way back in March 2009. Read it here: The DSO Calculation (Days Sales Outstanding).

It's quite simple and yet very deep in concept. I simply loved to read and learn. I am sure it would be useful to some people out there, trying to understand what DSO is all about.

VAIDY

Disenchanted with Support? - Kuntz Consulting

How many times have to faced such incidents? And how many times have you given such incidents to your customers?

This post, Disenchanted with Supprt? I understand your pain, from Kuntz Consulting blog reminds us of the badness of NOT attending to your customers or at least a courteous response.

Good one.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP is very much here to Stay

Today, I had another opportunity to attend one of Microsoft's high rated event, Microsoft Dynamics GP Customer Event. I have been fortunate to attend such events off late and I sincerely hope I will be in future as well.

What's the highlight of this event? Elcome International LLC, with whom I have been proudly associated with for the past 1.7 years, presented Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Customer Testimony. Mr.Jimmy Grewal, Executive Director, Elcome International LLC, briefed about Elcome's GP experience and future plans.

Is that all? Nope. There is one more information that I would like to share with you all from this event. Specifically, for those who predict a doomsday for GP and it's future, with all due respect, I would like to assure you that GP IS HERE TO STAY AND MICROSOFT IS IN NO MOOD TO DISCONTINUE WITH GP. This was mentioned by none other than Microsoft MBS Product Manager (Gulf), Mr.Ahmed Salama.

There is an interesting statistic which I would like to share and emphasis on my point: Microsoft Dynamics is having 1500 customers in GCC region excluding Egypt, North Africa and Saudi Arabia. Out of these 1500 customers, 40% is for Microsoft Dynamics GP. That calculates to 600 customers. These 600 customers include some of the high profile customers including Elcome International LLC. If we consider overall customers count across this vast globe, Microsoft has more reasons to support this product than abandoning it. 

Even us, human beings, have limited lifetime. We still enjoy our life and we live it to it's fullest, don't we? Like that, I love this wonderful product called Dynamics GP and I AM IN NO DARN MOOD TO LEAVE THIS PRODUCT.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics Top Influential Person 2011 - Vote Now

This is the best time for you to stand by the person whom you think is the most influential person in Microsoft Dynamics. This year's poll is running on. Visit this site and cast your vote now.

Link: 2011 TOP 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL MICROSOFT DYNAMICS PEOPLE.

VAIDY

Top 10 Challenges on Delivering BI to the Masses at Microsoft

This was my first session today at Tech-Ed 2011 Middle East. The session titled "Delivering BI to the masses at Microsoft using Consolidated Business Intelligence (CBI) - Top 10 Challenges".

The approach taken by Microsoft is fairly unusual.


Leave the BI Design to End-Users (or designated Power End Users) and simultaneously build EDW (Enterprise Data Warehouse). Once the design & EDW is ready, use following tools to achieve this CBI Model:

Microsoft Office, SharePoint 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2, Silverlight Technology.

CBI basically means one Single Enterprise Report Catalog. It's then delivered as a SharePoint based BI Portal. Microsoft IT hosts BI with Reporting Services, PPS, etc, BUT Power End Users design and publish Reports on to this Portal. There are certain restrictions in terms of how many users being allowed to publish these reports for their own Team/Department/Division.

Top 10 Questions which Microsoft asked themselves before CBI (and of course everyone of us to ask ourselves as well):

1. IT Cost too much to implement this BI Catalog. What to do first? EDW or BI Reporting Catalog?
1.1. Allow End Users to publish all their ideas on a Not-So-Clean EDW Data.
1.2. Clean EDW and keep EDW ready.

2. How do you get the First Sponsorship?
2.1. Push and Pull Approach
2.2. Create a Cool Demo

3. How do you architect with big Holistic Enterprise Vision?

4. How do we implement seamless security across layers?

5. Who should create BI and show we actually give control of the report catalog to business and enable self-serviced BI?

6. Can we implement ZERO footprint deployment for masses using SharePoint?

7. What about regional deployment and scalability?

8. What front end tools to BI publishers use and how do you integrate various tools?

9. How do you evangelize and achieve enterprise adoption?

10. How do you achieve high Customer Satisfaction?
10.1. Customer Empathy
10.2. Maintain Customer Relationship
10.3. Improve, Improve & just Improve

Until next post on Tech-Ed from me.

VAIDY

Mark's Advice for Convergence Speakers

I am nowhere near being even an Amateur Speaker. Haven't presented anything in life so far. Not going to do that in near future either.

But still this article, Advice For Convergence Speakers, from Mark made more sense to me. I am going to keep this article stored in my brain. You never know; I may also present something in future to some audience and this post is going to help me tons.

Thank you very much Mark. As usual, awesome piece of advice for us.

VAIDY

Microsoft Dynamics GP Roadmap

Very promising and sounds great to see Microsoft Dynamics GP's roadmap. Check it out for yourself from Mariano's post: The Evolution of the Microsoft Dynamics GP Roadmap

VAIDY

Microsoft Competing with SAP & Oracle's Mid-Market Solutions - Guy Weismantel talks to Software Advise

UPDATE: For relevance, link attached to Software Advise website is now changed to their Manufacturing Industry Page, since ERP discussions on SA site are grouped under this page.

This video from Software Advise sounded interesting. Microsoft Director of ERP Marketing Mr.Guy Weismantel, gives us a brief idea about Microsoft's position and why they are confident in competing with SAP and Oracle's solutions.

Watch it here: Guy Weismantel on Microsoft's Competency with SAP & Oracle's Mid-Market Solutions.

It's not just this video, Software Advice seems to be coming up with a series of such interesting information. People who are interested in knowing current happenings in ERP may want to visit this site quite often to know more.

Good job, Software Advice. Really appreciated in keeping us updated with some good information.

VAIDY

Back to Mainstream Blogging..

Alright, it's been more than a month since I actually touched my blog. Quite a long time from my own standard. But there were some valid reasons behind it.

One such reason is: I am now working on Business Intelligence with SSRS. Been awesome so far and learned so much from that experience. Still going on strongly and learning more and more. Will be sharing that in coming days.

Now that I am back, I have to first fill gap of around 350+ posts that got posted from our Blogosphere. That's quite too much for me to cover. This hits me so hard that next time I won't ever take a sabbatical of this long.

VAIDY