Technology Solutions & IT News Blog | FMT Consultants

Create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to get notifications, synchronize files, collect data, and more… What if we told you that you could have the power to connect all your SharePoint lists and libraries to a host of other apps from Dynamics CRM and Yammer to Dropbox, Mail Chimp, and Twitter? Imagine creating an item in SharePoint whenever a new lead is added in Dynamics or automatically copying files from your Dropbox to a SharePoint document library. Now, what if we told you that you could do this in a matter of minutes and with zero lines of code? SharePoint helps organizations share and collaborate with colleagues, partners, and customers. You can connect to SharePoint Online or to an on-premises SharePoint 2013 or 2016 farm using the On-Premises Data Gateway to manage documents and list items. But wait, there’s more! Want to get notified when a new […]

If you’re reading this, it’s likely you’re interested in using SQL 2016 for your databases but are adopting the “wait and see” approach before making the leap to a new software version. Whether you’re interested in trying SQL Server’s new free editions and reworked reports, or you’re trying to enhance your current working environment with high availability, improved backups, and cloud functionality, you’ll be very excited to hear about the changes in SQL 2016. With the release of SQL 2016, a few major changes were made to entice customers to make the switch. Free Access to the Developer Edition You can now download and use the Developer edition for free. This is a great way to test out the functionality of SQL 2016 without the upfront cost. This edition of SQL server is fully functional, and comes equipped with every feature that you would find in the standard edition all the […]

Trending @Microsoft: Routing, by Convention, is how ASP.NET WebAPI matches a URI String to an action. WebAPI 2 supports a new type of routing, which leverages attributes. As the name implies, attribute routing uses attributes to define routes rather than Parametrized Strings, as in WebAPI. Attribute routing provides more control over the URIs and scale of a web API. This implies… Support for Hierarchical URI schemes Eliminating magic route templates Intuitive route constraints HTTP Method attributes Route prefixes …And WebAPI 2 now provides the attributes to easily support application modeling. WebAPI and WebAPI 2 are complementing technologies and can be mixed and matched within the same API; let's look at the similarities, strengths, and weakness of the WebAPI versions… WebAPI by convention… Routing tables Routing templates Routing actions HTTP Methods OData query MapHttpRoute WebAPI 2 by attribute… Routing tables Routing attributes Routing actions HTTP attributes OData query MapHttpAttributeRoute Migrating from […]

Dynamics GP has the largest 3rd Party Vendor network, several ‘Cloud’ offering options, bullet-proof architecture, and is one of the lowest total cost of ownership ERP software products on the marketplace today. There are many reasons to use Microsoft Dynamics GP as your ERP solution. We've already gone over several reasons why you should implement GP, but in this post, I am going to highlight what I believe are the top 3 reasons why you should implement Microsoft Dynamics GP. 1. Immense 3rd Party Product (Add-On features) Catalog From a core feature/functionality perspective, there isn’t much of a difference between today’s ERP software applications.  No matter what solution you’re looking at, everyone needs a chart of accounts, the ability to record payables/sales invoices, and pay vendors/receive cash from customers. However, the real power of an ERP system comes into play when an organization has specific needs that require further attention […]

You may not know, but there is a simple, straight-forward option in the Microsoft Dynamics GP Inventory Module for performing Bill of Materials assemblies. The Bill of Materials feature works well if your company does light manufacturing or assembly, but doesn’t need the complexities that come with the full-blown Manufacturing solution. This module offers a great way to track and account for building components as they are turned into a finished product. Utilizing this assembly transaction will also increase your finished goods stock while simultaneously reducing your component stock and performing the proper accounting entries. In this blog, we’ll walk you through how to use this simple module. In order to begin using this module: You’ll first need to setup all your items (both finished goods and components) under Item Maintenance. Next, go to Inventory > Cards > Bill of Materials and select your finished goods item. In the grid, select all […]

Thank You for Your Support! The Thanksgiving holiday is finally here and in the spirit of the season we’d like to send a big thank you from all of us at FMT. We appreciate each and every opportunity we get to interact with our clients like you! Through your continued support of FMT, we've been able to do great things in our community. This is something that we will be able to continue into the New Year as we look to participate in the Operation Help a Hero Program and volunteer at Father Joe's Village. So once again, thanks for your support! We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and a happy and healthy holiday season.

Over the years FMT’s NetSuite team has produced a number of innovative solutions that can be characterized as a combination of configuration, custom scripting, and custom workflow development. Most of the time, these customizations are driven by real and unique customer needs that cannot be satisfied by NetSuite’s out-of-the-box functionality. The Need Recently, we were contacted by a client who was frustrated by their inability to track serial numbers in NetSuite. This client did not know how to manage warranties within their system and asked for our recommendation on how to solve this issue. We immediately scanned NetSuite for available Saved Searches/Reports relative to serial number tracking. Unfortunately, the results of our query were disappointing; there were no out-of-the-box reports related to serial numbers that we could find. We determined that we could build a Saved Search for our customer, but this solution proved to be lacking relative to their unique needs. […]

Microsoft has invested years of development and acquisition into sustaining their lead in the small to middle ERP products market. The result of this investment is Dynamics GP, which has one of the largest sets of reporting tools, out-of-the-box functionality, and scalability of any ERP software product on the marketplace today. There are many reasons to use Microsoft Dynamics GP as your ERP solution. In this blog, I will continue to highlight what I believe are the top reasons why you should implement Microsoft Dynamics GP. If you missed our first 3 reasons check our previous post here. 1. Reporting Along with all the base functionalities of Dynamics GP, there is also a multitude of reporting options available to users. Everyone knows these days that the ability to view your Data in Microsoft Excel is what most people want from their reports. Excel allows you to take that ‘raw’ data […]

At the Ignite conference in September, Microsoft released an evaluation version for IT professionals to get a look at what the RTM or “Release to Manufacturing” version of Windows Server 2016 will look like. The final version was generally released on October 12th. Like many Microsoft releases, Windows Server 2016 brought a lot of new and expanded features to the flagship server OS software. However, it’s important to keep in mind another important reason to begin planning for your deployment of Server 2016: staying current. Out with the old … In with the new As you probably know, extended support for Server 2003 has ended, and with it comes the end of patches and security updates. I’m sure we all have a few 2003 servers left that are running legacy applications or non-production workloads. While these servers should definitely be addressed, let’s also talk about Server 2008 and 2008 R2. […]

Microsoft Dynamics GP is one of the longest running, most supported, large user-based ERP software products in the marketplace today. Originally managed by the hugely successful entrepreneur Doug Burgum, GP has been the cornerstone of mid-market ERP for over 23 years. There are many reasons to use Microsoft Dynamics GP as your ERP solution, however, in this blog series, I will highlight what I believe are the top reasons why you should implement Microsoft Dynamics GP. 1. Part of the Microsoft Family of Business Application Software Microsoft purchased Dynamics GP back in 2003 and over the years has embraced the acquisition of what was then called Great Plains into its basket of business application software. Dynamics GP put Microsoft on the map as one of the leading solution providers of business application software in the marketplace. Unlike other owners of ERP software products who tend to own the software and […]

If you are new to Microsoft SharePoint Online, or are considering implementing SharePoint Online, resist the following common mistakes: Creating a File Share on SharePoint Placing everything in SharePoint Thinking of SharePoint only as a document management tool File Share Pains For many, the reality of document or file management is a nested folder hierarchy on a local File Share. While initially this structure works well enough, as many have discovered it becomes a less than optimum option as folder designs grow. Typical problems inherent in this approach include: Broken access permissions No governance on folder creation nomenclature Extremely slow and unreliable search capabilities Limited document collaboration with nested folders Inconsistent or non-existent document versioning All of the above problems can contribute to poor network performance with multiple versions of documents clogging email servers and bloated network storage containing duplicate documents. Without manually inspecting similar documents, the default reaction is […]

While NetSuite is an excellent ERP application that can handle most situations your users will throw at it right out of the box, there may be times when your business needs a little bit more than the standard features. Luckily, to add to its already awesome arsenal, NetSuite allows users to create their own custom solutions for their business-specific scenarios. We recently worked with a client who wanted to default the Class value for Vendor Bills based on the account selected. Simply creating a custom field on the account to set the default class was not sufficient enough to provide the desired functionality. They noticed that while entering vendor bills, the class value was not automatically filled in on the line level after they selected the account (this is not a standard NetSuite feature). Rather than entering these Class values manually, we created a customization that automatically populated the Class […]