Microsoft Great Plains Customization Localization – technical overview
 by: Arthur Ferretti

Microsoft Business Solutions has several products, targeted to all the variety of businesses: from small to middles size and large. Microsoft is in the process to transfer all of them to Microsoft SQL Server platform. In this small article we would like to give you highlights on localizing Microsoft Great Plains, former Great Plains Dynamics / Great Plains eEnterprise. If you are programmer, business owner, software developer – read this and you will have the clue on where to move on

    * Great Plains Dexterity – this is programming language and application creation environment, designed by Great Plains Software in earlier 1990th. Dexterity is written on C programming language with believe that it is easily transferable to all major computer platforms and database environments. Remember the battle of Hardware / OS in earlier 1990th between IBM/Microsoft and Apple Computer? Now we know that the battle is almost over – and new game is taking place (Linux, Java, etc), but we should admit that the market prediction was really shrewd.

    * Dexterity resources. Dexterity has String resources, these are stored in the core dictionary – DYNAMICS.DIC. If you translate these strings – your are pretty much done with localization.

    * Tax Code compliance – this is really tough problem – it is not enough to translate strings - you have to adjust all these government regulated issues, such as taxes, payroll, financial reporting, etc.

    * Customization Anatomy – Great Plains Customization is usually done in Great Plains Dexterity and you should understand the difference between DYNAMICS.DIC and your CUSTOM.DIC. Your customization dictionary should probably use its own string resources where you have descriptions of custom logic in your local language.

    * Great Plains Engines. Consider Tax Engine for example – if you plan to replace it with your custom local tax engine – you should use so-called Dexterity triggers to fire before original DYNAMICS.DIC logic. This should allow you to use your engine instead of the standard one.

Good luck with localization, customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577! [email protected]

About The Author

Arthur is a Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, New Orleans, Toronto, Montreal and having locations in multiple states and internationally

[email protected]