Great Plains Integration Manager Advanced Techniques: Odbc, Scheduling

Here we assume that you are looking for end user integration or initial data conversion and you do not carry eConnect programmers in your IT staff, all you probably have is Database Administrator, who is comfortable programming SQL queries And you know the kind of integration that you need: Sales Order Processing ecommerce invoices and credit card payments, for example. Current version of GP is 10.0 and with this version you have eConnect connectors for good portion of objects and transactions, we recommend you to deploy eConnect based integrations for version 10.0, for earlier versions our method should also work:

1. Advanced ODBC query. This source query is the most flexible: you can work with all ODBC compliant data sources, such as text files, SQL linked servers, MS Access, Excel, Oracle, MySQL. Advanced ODBC allows you to use union clause in select statement (maximum what text ODBC driver can do for you). The most dramatic result could be achieved if you expose SQL Server custom tables or views via Advanced ODBC query in IM. If so you are potentially moving all selection logic from very simple ODBC to unlimited SQL Server View. In SQL View you can deploy heterogeneous or cross-platform queries (where you are joining Microsoft SQL Server table with Oracle table, for example)

2. VBA Scripts. You can alter data source in Before integration (where you can calculate date, time or parameter available for the whole integration), before document commit and other events. VBA scripting manual could be found in IM documentation area

3. Data Translation. This methodic is helpful when you need to translate the name of one object from integration source file to new name as it should be integrated with Great Plains. We usually import name translation table from Excel

4. Running integration from command line. This method is based on GP macros, and it is very useful if you plan to schedule Integration, say, overnight or every several hours. If you find Macro technique too complex, try to deploy macros on Windows OS level, there are several free tools on the market to facilitate this method. Or, if you think you need more help, call Microsoft Business Solutions or your Dynamics GP VAR to order special module for scheduling GP Integration Manager integrations