Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics ERP has stopped working

Applies to:

Management Reporter 2012 SP2 Version 2.0.1700.31

SYMPTOMS:

• A user saves their username and password for a company in MR Report Designer
• A user later changes their GP password
• As soon as MR Report Designer is launched they are presented with this error:

• The only option they have is to close the program.

CAUSE:

We had recently upgraded our servers from MR FP1 (2.0.1664.19) to MR SP2 (2.0.1700.31). This update is a 3 part update. The 3 steps are the client, the server and the data providers.  In our case only the client and server had been updated, the data providers was not.

To check if your data provider has been updated, follow these steps:

• Browse to the following location (this may vary depending on where you installed MR to)
  • C:\program files\Microsoft Dynamics ERP\Management Reporter\2.0\providers\dynamics GP 11.0\
  • Right Click Microsoft.Dynamics.Performance.DataProvider.GeneralLedger.GP.dll
  • Click properties
  • Click the details tab
  • If the version is earlier than 2.0.1700.31, follow the resolution section to fix.

RESOLUTION:

• Download and Run the MR SP2 (2.0.1700.31) or later update
• Click to select the “Dynamics GP 2010” from the Microsoft Dynamics ERP Data Providers drop down menu
• Click Go

• You may be prompted that you will have to reboot the server, go ahead and proceed with the update.
• When the update is complete, you can avoid a server reboot by doing the following:
  • Restart the MR Service
  • Restart the IIS MR Application pool
  • Restart the IIS MR Website
  • Now try connecting to MR again
  • You will now be presented with a login error, however it will now allow you to go in and update your password by hitting the credentials button in your companies list.

Please note:

You will need to do this for EACH company in your list.

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This email functionality allows for hosted customers who either maintain their own Microsoft Exchange services separate from the RoseASP domain or have a third-party provider who maintains their Exchange services, to utilize the GP 2010 email functionality.

Click here to read more: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4jD4JIGyQzZQnY5VUxjNXpRT09wYW1nY0VqR0JqUQ

We arrived in Houston at Noon on Saturday and left on Wednesday at 6:00. A lot of time and a lot of energy depletion.

I suspect that by now most people have stopped reading this post and I’ll continue on if only to record my highly interesting personal thoughts:

• I really like talking with partners and users about Dynamics and about hosting. It’s really the only reason I go.
• We received recognition from Microsoft on Monday for adding the most new customers on ERP in the cloud for the first 6 months of fiscal 2013. We received a nifty trophy to commemorate the recognition.
• My first trip to Houston. Pretty nonplussed about the city; though I really didn’t see much of it.
• Subscription pricing continues to be avoided by many ISV partners. Too bad. The longer they wait, the harder they’ll fall.
• Customers really like Convergence, especially the first-timers.
• Microsoft developers put an huge amount of effort into designing and delivering a fast and effective user experience. Our business’s investment in Dynamics is a good one.
• We all work very hard.
• I continue to believe that innovation is essential for survival in the market.
• I’m exhausted

The plane’s descending into San Diego, so that’s it.

MyGPcloud makes accounting simple in three ways:

There is a well thought out chart of accounts that is ready to go, and an accompanying set of standard financial reports that you can begin to use right away. You don’t have to spend time deliberating on which accounts to have and designing your financial statements.

You will receive user documentation on how to easily configure the system to best suit your business. The user documentation includes focused written and illustrated user manuals and quick videos that cover specific aspects of the system. This documentation enhances the built in ready to use design of Dynamics GP, so you are up in running quickly.

You don’t have to purchase any additional computer equipment or software, and you don’t have to worry about making data backups and updating your system software. myGPcloud provides all of that for you.

If you’re looking for a quick way to get up and running on a good accounting system that will grow with your business, you should check out myGPcloud now.

We will be immediately adjacent to eOne Solutions in booth 2153, a couple hops from our San Diego neighbors Horizons International in booth 2146, and a couple hops from Cogsdale in booth 2253.

If you’re in the neighborhood, check us out.

But you’re also a decent business person and you realize the market is changing. The customers in your market like subscription pricing. It’s attractive to them for a number of reasons. I refer to this as a paradigm shift. To you, it’s a change in your business model. You’re being pressured to change from licensing your software for perpetuity and being paid for that all up front, to licensing on a monthly basis; month after month, after month. It’s a big change.

There are a number of issues with the change. One of the biggest is pricing. How do you properly price your software to make it attractive in the market and also make it worthwhile to continue developing and supporting your product.

This approach to pricing is based primarily on the fact that you’re changing from a perpetual license, to a monthly license, and based on my observations of what’s happening in the Dynamics community.

I have observed some minimum pricing and maximum pricing practices. Let’s take a look at an example:

Assumptions:

The ISV product used to be sold with a perpetual license for $5,000, plus an annual enhancement fee of 20%. And this pricing represented a fair price for your product.

The minimum pricing I see in this scenario is based on a three year payback:

The maximum pricing I see in this scenario is based on a payback of 18 months:

In this case, if you’re asking less than $222/month, I think you’re underpricing your product. If you’re asking more than $361/month, I think you’re overpricing your product.

Pricing in any situation is a difficult business exercise, requiring many considerations about your costs, your competition, your product, and your company’s market position.

If you are not already offering subscription pricing, you probably will be in the near future.

If you are already offering subscription pricing, don’t be afraid to change your pricing. It’s a new business model for you, and you can change your mind.

A “point in time” restore is a restoration of your data to a specific historical date in time – seems simple but most providers backup in mass and cannot distinguish your data specifically from everyone else’s, so if you happen to have a major catastrophe in your accounting department and need to restore from a few days ago, this might not be possible unless your provider allows for “point in time” restore.

While these scenarios seem unlikely to you, the three large providers I mentioned above cannot provide you with the backups you would need in either of these cases.  And neither do many other hosting providers!!  So what should a customer know and compare with hosting providers to make sure they are getting what they need in terms of backups?

• Have your provider specifically give you the terms of your backup retention periods.  Most only provide for 90 days.  Here is what we recommend:
  • Daily, weekly, monthly and annual – Point in time backups and restore capability
  • Seven years of data retention – this is recommended for both private and public companies
• Be sure to ask for the additional costs of those backups – so this doesn’t come as a shock later
• Be sure you understand how much storage backup you will receive as part of your fixed monthly costs – another hidden cost that providers don’t share on their quotes
• Make sure you understand exactly what is being backed up; data, custom code, Excel and Word documents you happen to store, scanned documents that are attached to your data, etc.
• Ask for their written policy for “test” restores.  And if you are required to be audited, ask that a test restore be performed and documented at least twice a year.

Never make the assumption that because you are in the cloud, that everything is backed up forever.  And always compare backup policies carefully amongst providers!

In Part II we will uncover the hidden costs of backups. So, stayed tuned.

RoseASP has been a Microsoft Dynamics hosting provider of ERP and CRM solutions since 2000.  We give every customer daily, weekly, monthly, and seven years of annual backups as part of their monthly hosting fees at no additional charge. To learn more, visit us at www.roseasp.com.

Back up data and system software/configurations: You’re going to want both the data and the software that makes the data useful to you; should you experience a catastrophic system event.

Daily backups: Yes, do it every day; unless you can afford to lose several days of work.

Monitor and review backup activities: Set up alerts to indicate when your backup process has failed to any degree. And regularly review backup logs. Things can easily happen in your system that will cause the backup process to fail. Changed passwords, system configuration changes, unknown events, etc. can cause your perfect backup process to fail. So keep on top of it.

Periodic off-site storage of backup data sets: Storing your system and data backups in close proximity to your productions systems makes no sense. Doing this makes both your systems and related backup media vulnerable to single non-system events such as theft, fire, flood, earthquake, alien invasion, etc.

Periodic test restores: Most people don’t do this, and that’s a big mistake. They focus on the backup process, not the restore process. Having a perfectly designed and executed backup plan is worthless if the system and data cannot be restored.

We’ve been hosting Dynamics ERP systems in the cloud since 2000. It wasn’t even fashionable back then. But our customers wanted it, so we did it.

So you can imagine that in 12 years we’ve picked up a lot of knowledge and experience. We recently contributed to a white paper that focuses on the things to consider, from a CFO’s standpoint, when moving your ERP system to the cloud.

The white paper is titled, “35 Questions Every CFO Needs to Ask About ERP Software in the Cloud.” It includes informative graphs and cost comparisons, and covers topics such as these:

• Cloud Definitions
• Potential Benefits of Cloud ERP
• Common Concerns of Cloud ERP
• Compliance Considerations for Cloud ERP
• Licensing Questions for Cloud ERP

You can download it by requesting it here. A link to the white paper will be immediately sent to you.

It’s clearly written and easy to understand. If you’re considering moving your ERP system to the cloud, you will want to take a look at the white paper.