New Users of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Appreciate Ease of Upgrade and New Report-Generation Capabilities

What do users most like about Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010?

It depends on whom you speak with, but key advantages that stand out are ease of upgrading, improved searching capabilities, and integration with other Microsoft Office programs like Excel. That's the word from two participants in the Microsoft Dynamics TAP (technology adoption program) for early adopters.

Microsoft announced the official introduction of Dynamics GP 2010 last week, and the new application is expected to be a major topic of discussion at Convergence 2010, starting officially tomorrow (Sunday). 

"Our upgrading went pretty smoothly," says Jason Johnson, ERP administrator for Orange 21 North America, a goggle and sunglasses manufacturer. His company upgraded some 60 machines from GP 9 to GP 2010 (sometimes referred to as GP 11) in January.

"We started at 2 p.m. on Friday," he says. "We left the building at 4 or 5 p.m. on Saturday" with everything completed. There were "only a couple minor bugs" and one third-party issue that Microsoft technicians helped the company resolve.

"I was pretty pleased," he says.

That isn't to say the upgrade has been a piece of cake. Since it was completed, there have been a number of issues to confront, including determining who gets to take advantage of the improved ease of emailing documents, and the more extensive security. "We're only now getting to the point where we can fully use it," he says.

And he says some features of GP 2010 concern him enough that the company will likely not take advantage of them. "I will not deploy real Excel reports," he says. "I'm increasingly uncomfortable with a number of applications hitting my database...I'm not concerned about security, but ...