Better together: Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Office make a powerful pair
Updated: January 31, 2006
Are you getting the biggest bang possible for your business software buck?
To answer that question you've got to take into account not just how you're using individual programs, but whether those programs are working together as efficiently as possible. You want the whole of your software to be greater than the sum of its parts.
The name of the game is synergy, and it has become much easier to achieve with Microsoft Dynamics GP, a robust system to help you manage finances, sales and purchasing, manufacturing processes, inventory, and even human resources and payroll. It provides plenty of grist in the form of operations data, but you'll likely find that most employees prefer another program to view and present the information so front-line workers can act upon it in ways both strategic and mundane.
Enter Microsoft Office. Not only does Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 continue to deliver business applications that work deeply with and similar to Microsoft Office system business productivity software (as did its predecessor, Microsoft Great Plains 8.0), it also features many new points of integration that help to simplify business tasks and deliver dependable information where it’s most helpful.
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Generate data-filled documents automatically
Using the new templates and wizards in the Letter Writing Assistant, you can create even more dynamic communications in Microsoft Office Word. You can:
| • | Easily populate Word form letters and other documents with up-to-date customer, vendor, and employee information. |
| • | Manage collections more effectively. |
| • | Access expanded employee and human resources data to create dynamic communications, such as applicant letters, employee benefit updates, employee review notifications, termination notices, and merit increase notifications. |
| • | Make full use of the powerful query capabilities of SmartLists by exporting specific customer lists and records to Word to quickly create letters and reports–even select one of these SmartLists using the Letter Writing Assistant to determine which range of customers will receive your letter. |
And all manner of communications can be sent by simply by pulling down the Letter Writing Assistant menu from the Microsoft Dynamics GP toolbar and clicking the type of letter required. The appropriate document opens automatically in Word, complete with the name and address of the recipient and other pertinent data—say, details concerning a pending shipment.
View a screenshot to see how: You can determine which customers receive your letter by selecting from your SmartLists in the Letter Writing Assistant.
Screenshot
Click to open larger image
Click to open larger image.
Get smart with SmartList Builder
SmartList Builder's power and range are increased in Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0. Now you can link to Microsoft Dynamics GP data from Office applications, using smart tags to speed access to customer, vendor, inventory, general ledger account, and employee information. Using SmartList Builder, you can quickly link data from Microsoft Dynamic GP and create your own SmartLists together with the information you want to review and analyze. Plus you can create, display, and save data views from across your business using SmartList inquiries, and then easily export inquiries to Word or Microsoft Office Excel for use in mass mailings or further analysis.
View a screenshot to see how: You can customize the view for a SmartList.
Click to open larger image.
View Outlook Calendar in RoleTailored home pages
Give employees a personalized user experience with new RoleTailored home pages that provide relevant information and access that is tailored to their daily responsibilities. Twenty predefined role templates, ranging from Accounting Manager to Order Processor, IT Operations Manager to Dispatcher, provide each role in the organization with information and data access that is specific to their job. And not only can you access information specific to your job on your home page, but you can also access your Microsoft Office Outlook Calendar.
View a screenshot to see how: A RoleTailored home (or start-up) page helps individuals get to their tasks faster and easier.
Click to open larger image
Create Excel PivotTables from financial data
The integrated Excel PivotTable Creator continues to win praise from customers as an easy way to get to the most important information in your business system. Combined with the FRx Forecaster 7.0, the de facto reporting engine for Microsoft Dynamics GP, reporting capabilities are even more comprehensive and flexible. And now FRx Forecaster 7.0 has a new user interface with the look and feel of Microsoft Office.
Using FRx, you can build customizable financial reports, including personalized packages that consolidate Microsoft Office documents, Microsoft FRx reports, Crystal Reports, and other formats into a single file to deliver to decision-makers. You can also export FRx reports to Excel and then create PivotTables and PivotCharts with just a few clicks.
Watch a demo or view a screenshot to see how: Microsoft Dynamics GP helps make it easy to pull data from Microsoft FRx into Excel PivotCharts and PivotTables, where it can be sliced and diced and synthesized to measure performance according to different variables.
Demo
Excel PivotCharts and PivotTables
Approx. 2 Min
Screenshot
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Deliver comprehensive "Report Books" to desktops or boardrooms
Previously, financial reports created in Microsoft FRx were often delivered stand-alone to officers, and the accompanying Excel pie charts and Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentations would be created later and shared in a meeting or passed around in e-mail. But since these pieces are all ultimately designed to complement each other, the latest release of Microsoft FRx makes it easy to create, group, and share this information, all in a single Report Book file.
FRx Report Manager, which is available with Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0, helps enable the easier creation of a "report book" that incorporates Excel, PowerPoint, and Word files. The book can either be distributed as an attachment to an e-mail message or, more efficiently, shared using the Web.
See the three steps for creating a report book.
Never get lost again, thanks to MapPoint
Here's a feature that has the potential to save your sales and delivery staff and contractors from hours of driving around, tracking down clients.
View a screenshot to see how: You can click on an address in Microsoft Dynamics GP and, voilą, MapPoint tells you how to get there.
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If this feature doesn't seem to have the heft of the letter writing or Microsoft FRx integrations, don't tell that to sales or service personnel who spend their days tracking down clients.
Share your work more easily than ever
Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Office are compatible with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, meaning information from each can be shared and collaborated upon using the Web. Relevant and real-time business information can be added to SharePoint sites using predefined templates that are integrated with Microsoft Dynamics GP.
Meanwhile, the compatibility between Microsoft Office and Business Portal for Microsoft Dynamics GP can greatly assist in streamlining a company's internal housekeeping chores. For example, an employee's request for time off sent in an e-mail message through Microsoft Outlook automatically sets up an action item for his boss. Then, if the request is approved, both the worker's Outlook calendar and his payroll records are updated in Microsoft Dynamics GP.
See the bigger picture: How Microsoft Dynamics works with other Microsoft technologies
Microsoft Dynamics GP is ready to work with widely used productivity applications such as Microsoft Office and top technologies such as Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, and Microsoft Project Server.
Philipp Harper is a veteran freelance writer who writes about the impact of government and the economy on small business. |
