Plumbline Solutions - Software Consulting Services

July 2009 Newsletter

In this Edition:

Happy 4th of July! I hope you are all having a great summer, business is doing well, and you are taking some time to enjoy the beautiful weather.

It's hard to believe the Worldwide Partner Conference is only a couple of weeks away! I'll be attending the event, and am looking forward to catching up with many of you. As always, feel free to contact me to set up a meeting if there are any specific opportunities you would like to discuss. Don’t forget we now offer GP Support too – so if you see me in New Orleans, stop me and ask more about our Support Services. Partners can leverage our services to free up staff currently dedicated to handling incoming support calls.

Best Regards,

Todd Michael
Director
Plumbline Solutions, Inc.
(419) 581-2973

Plumbline provides software engineering services for Microsoft Dynamics^® Channel Partners and Microsoft Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). We offer software development, application support, technology and business process consulting, with a focus on delivering excellence and building lasting relationships. Our Microsoft Competencies include: Data Management Solutions, Information Worker Solutions, Microsoft Business Solutions, Small Business Specialist Community, Custom Development Solutions, Business Intelligence and SOA and Business Process.

How to Meet the Needs of Repetitive Manufacturers in the Automotive Parts Supplier Industry

AIM Computer Solutions is a Microsoft ISV and Gold-Certified Partner, specializing in serving customers in the production part automotive suppliers business over the past twenty years. AIM focuses on repetitive manufacturers that make up the automotive supplier niche market.

These manufacturers fabricate steel, plastic, rubber and other primary materials into parts, components, and small assemblies. Repetitive manufacturers usually service the transportation, appliance, consumer electronics and other demanding, high volume industries.

AIM’s manufacturing offering, AIM Vision^®, is directly tied to the automotive industry’s requirements for suppliers. Many unique automotive requirements are included as a standard part of the AIM Vision solution: reconciliation of multiple EDI requirements to a standard requirement format; demand scheduling verses workorders for production scheduling; standard packs rounding; mixed, barcoded serial and master labels; backflushing; spot buys; cum reporting; outside processing /material control; multiple lot control combinations including special handling of split lots at outside processors and merged lots on return; returnable containers; retro billing; “redo” capabilities for ASN shipments; a combined bill of material and bill of process, plus compliance with the MMOG/LE / TS16949 materials management operations guidelines audit.

In The Grant Group Case Study, implementing the AIM Vision^® solution allowed this customer to cut back the team responsible for coordinating their scheduling by 50%, by a manual scheduling process with an automated one. They now have the reporting flexibility they need and can track activity for all three of their companies within one database. Additionally, The Grant Group saw a 30% growth after updating their system to Microsoft Dynamics SL and AIM Vision^®, without adding additional manpower. Read the entire case study that outlines the successful implementation and streamlined operations The Grant Group received as a result of leveraging the AIM Vision^® solution in conjunction with Dynamics SL.

For more information about how AIM Computer Solutions' products and services can help you meet the needs of companies in the automotive supplier business, call (586) 439-0300 or visit their Web site at: www.aimcom.com.

The process for downloading hotfixes has changed. Both PartnerSource and CustomerSource have articles that provide details on these changes.

7.0 FP1 menu hotfix -> Several improvements, highly recommended!

For anyone who has been frustrated by:

- Slow login times while it generates the menu

- Too many XML files being created / taking up too much space

- Too much memory being used the first time you login to SL

- Changes to your menu only being propagated to the first machine you login to and not subsequent machines

This hotfix for 7.0 FP1 should effectively fix or improve all of the above issues.

Mark your calendars for these upcoming events:

Unanet Customer Webinar Schedule

Unanet Technologies invites current customers to its upcoming series of free web seminars which provide overviews of selected Unanet capabilities and introduce significant enhancements included in new releases.

These seminars will help you extend your use of Unanet for improved return on investment, and further increase operational efficiencies.

All webinars begin at 1:30 PM Eastern Time and will last less than one hour.

Thursday, July 9
Beyond Timesheets and Expense Reports

Tuesday, July 14
*New* Working with Ad Hoc Reports & Export Templates

Tuesday, July 28
Using Unanet with Microsoft Project

Information on each of these web seminars and registration instructions are available here.

The Microsoft® 2009 Worldwide Partner Conference

WPC is right around the corner. Hope to see you in New Orleans July 13–16, 2009! Here's a link that shows the SL session being offered (PartnerSource login required).

Dynamics SL User Group Fall Conference

September 16-18, 2009
San Diego, CA
Click Here for Details and to Register for the Fall Meeting!

Name: Lisa Boukantar

Background: Lisa is a Consultant at Plumbline Solutions, bringing a wealth of experience working with the Microsoft Dynamics SL, GP and FRx products. At Plumbline, Lisa specializes in Dynamics GP, FRx and Forecaster support, customizations and implementations. She has previously held roles as a Senior Business Systems Consultant, Systems Analyst, Programmer Analyst and Senior Software Consultant for organizations that work with Microsoft Dynamics products.

Likes best about consulting: Being able to help people and by helping them, making their jobs a little easier too.

Hobbies: Boating, working out, cooking and volunteering.

Support for Microsoft Dynamics Service Packs extended for another year!

Microsoft has announced an extension of the length of time service packs will be supported (from 12 months to 24 months following the next service pack release) for key Microsoft Dynamics products.

Additionally, per the new life cycle support policy revised on June 22nd, support for service packs that have expired within the past year will be reactivated to comply with the new 24 month support policy. This includes Microsoft Dynamics SL 6.5 SP1, which will now be supported until October 13, 2009. Support will also end for SL 6.0, 6.0 SP1 on October 13, 2009.

You can view the full Microsoft announcement to see a complete list of products & service packs that are affected by the Life Cycle Support Policy revisions. Here is a recap of the current Microsoft Dynamics SL product support dates:

Version	Supported Until
SL 6.0, SL 6.0 SP1 & SL 6.5 SP1	Oct. 13, 2009
SL 6.5 SP2	Jan. 11, 2011
SP 6.5 SP3	24 months after next SP releases, or product support ends for version
SL 7.0 RTM (SP0)	Jan. 11, 2010
SL 7.0 SP1	Jan. 11, 2011
SL 7.0 SP2	24 months after next SP releases

CONGRATULATIONS to SBS Group for their partnership with Bloomsburg University through the Microsoft Dynamics Academic Alliance program! SBS Group will assist Bloomsburg University with filling internship positions and creating independent study projects for students. Bloomsburg will help provide SBS with highly compatible candidates and opportunities for its staff to guest lecture. Read the full press release to learn more.

NEW - paid advertisements are now available. If you would like to have your solution highlighted as the "Solution of the Month" in Plumbline's newsletter - send us an email!

A special thanks to Jerry Czernal with AIM Computer Solutions, Inc. for being the first to take advantage of this advertising opportunity!

Mobile Time & Expense for Microsoft Dynamics SL

The Project Series Mobile Time and Expense for Projects (Mobile T&E) allows employees at a remote location to enter their timecards and expense reports with full validation of data.

To see Microsoft Dynamics Add-On Solutions being offered, access Plumbline Solutions' affiliate web page. There you can view a list of over 250 Microsoft Dynamics SL add-on products in one easy-to-search area: Dynamics SL Add-On Solutions.

To profile your products in our Dynamics SL Add-On Solutions Directory and gain greater visibility for your products or services, e-mail us or read the participation details.

If you have consultants in your organization that are not receiving the Plumbline Newsletter, please forward a copy of the newsletter to them and have them click on the "Subscribe me!" link in the email. Sign-up is also available on our website. We want to make sure we have these professionals “in the know” about the latest SL information.

To read previous issues of our newsletter click here.