Getting the most out of your Microsoft Dynamics GP Community

Recently, Mark Polino (of 50 tips and Cookbook fame) on his blog has highlighted his latest post up on MSDynamicsWorld.com called Seven Ways to NOT Get Answers to Your Microsoft Dynamics GP Questions via Newsgroups.  You will need to sign up for a free account (if you don't have one already) to read the entire article.

Mark's article is well worth a read and got me thinking about how great the Microsoft Dynamics GP community is.  So I thought I would try to give you some steps to get the most out of the community.

There is a vast amount of information relating to Microsoft Dynamics GP available to developers, partners and customers.  While the members of the community are always willing to help, they really prefer to help those who help themselves. So before you ask, take a few moments to look for the answer yourself.

Below is a list of the best places to look for your answer:

Official Microsoft Sites:

• PartnerSource (requires PartnerSource account)
  https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/  or use the Advanced Search page 
  https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersourceapp/search.aspx?st=a  
   
• CustomerSource (requires PartnerSource or CustomerSource account)
  https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/  or use the Advanced Search page
  https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersourceapp/search.aspx?st=a  
   
• Microsoft Knowledge Base (requires PartnerSource or CustomerSource account)
  https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/search.aspx  
  or use the more powerful PartnerSource or CustomerSource searches above.
   
• Microsoft Dynamics GP Solution Center on PartnerSource (requires PartnerSource account)
  https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/support/gp_default  
• Microsoft Dynamics Community site
  https://community.dynamics.com/
   
• Microsoft Dynamics GP Developer Center on MSDN
  https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/dynamics/gp/default.aspx

Note: If you are a Microsoft Business Solutions Partner or Customer and don't have a PartnerSource or CustomerSource account check within your organisation as there should be someone who can give you access.  If you are Customer and no-one in your organisation has access, talk to your Partner. Finally, if you are a Microsoft Partner (but not a Business Solutions partner), but work with Microsoft Dynamics products, you can request PartnerSource Access; talk to your Microsoft contact.

Sites for finding ISV products:

• Mark Rockwell's ISV Central site has many ISV add-on products in an easy to search format.
  https://www.isv-central.com/search/products.aspx
   
• The Microsoft Dynamics ISV Solutions page on PartnerSource is also a great reference (requires PartnerSource account)
  https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/isvsolutions  
   
• The Microsoft Solution Finder site is a good place to start.
  https://solutionfinder.microsoft.com/

Microsoft Dynamics GP Blogs:

• Microsoft Dynamics GP Blogs page on this site lists most of the blogs in the community. These are also listed in the navigation pane of this site.
  https://blogs.msdn.com/developingfordynamicsgp/pages/microsoft-dynamics-gp-blogs.aspx
   
• The new GPWindow portal site created by Jivtesh takes posts from all the sites and provides easy searching as well as categorises them.
  https://www.gpwindow.com/
   
• The Microsoft Dynamics Community site also syndicates many of the most popular Microsoft Dynamics GP blogs
  https://community.dynamics.com/content/gpblogs.aspx?GroupID=24

There are so many great blogs, I am not going to call them out individually, using the pages above you will be able to find them easily.

Microsoft Dynamics GP Forums and Newsgroups:

There are a number of options from Microsoft, but as the older newsgroups are being phased out is it coming down to the top two listed here:

• The private Partner Forum (requires partner account, see this link for information on getting access)
  https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/partnerdynamicsgp/threads
   
• The public Microsoft Dynamics Community forum
  https://community.dynamics.com/forums/32.aspx
   
• The public Microsoft Dynamics GP newsgroup (being phased out, I suggest using the community forum)
  https://www.microsoft.com/Businesssolutions/Community/Newsgroups/dgbrowser/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.greatplains
   
• The public Microsoft Dynamics GP Developer newsgroup (also being phased out, use the community forum)
  https://www.microsoft.com/Businesssolutions/Community/Newsgroups/dgbrowser/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.dynamics.gp.developer
   
• Links for two newsgroups above via web or newsreader
  https://community.dynamics.com/content/gpnewsgroups.aspx?groupid=24
   

There are also independent forums, but I am seeing less traffic on these recently as most of the top contributors and MVPs are spending the time they can donate to working on the Microsoft forums.  Below are the two independent groups that I have been involved with for a number of years:

• The Dynamics GP Google group which was originally on Yahoo has been around since November 2000
  https://groups.google.com/group/DynamicsGP
  [Edit] This group was closed as at November 2010.
   
• The Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) Forum on Tek Tips started in May 2001
  https://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=632

Note: I am sure there are other independent forums out there.  If you think they should be listed, please add a comment to this post.

If you have looked at all the resources above and still can't find the answers you need, then maybe you do need to post a question up on the Partner Forum or Public Community Forum (links above).

Thank you to everyone who monitors the forums and newsgroups and donates their time and knowledge for free.  I can't even hope to imagine the monetary value of what we have available in the community.

David

04-Aug-2010: Added Microsoft Solution Finder site (Thanks Jivtesh).

04-Nov-2010: Made note that Google group is now closed.