There are a number of new and exciting changes to announce at eOne and you get a two for one in this Tech Tuesday article! First of all, please join us in welcoming Nicole Albertson to the eOne team. Nicole comes to us after 13 ½ years at Microsoft. She is a SmartList Builder and Extender guru as she has been focusing on those products since they were available on the Microsoft price list. Nicole brings with her a wealth of knowledge and we are excited to have her on our team. She will focus on all things Extender and run some of our new training offerings.
Here’s Nicole’s first of many Tech Tuesday articles, which shares the awesome new features in Extender 2013:
 
All features marked with an asterisk are only available in eXtender Enterprise.
1. Solutions
eXtender Resources are now organized into Solutions.
To preserve the integrity of the solution and try to prevent issues when transferring the setups between companies, you will only be able to import and export an entire solution.
You will be able to share resources between solutions using the Add To Solution window.  This link the resources together so that any setup change you make on the resource in one solution, will be reflected in the other solution as well.
You will also be able to copy resources from one solution to another and then customize them in each solution individually.
2. Improved User Interface
The processes involved in setting up a window or form is now a lot simpler.
To add a field to a window or form, select the position that you want to add a field (which is indicated by a red border) and click Add Field or Add Calc.
All of the field options that you need to set up the field are displayed on the dialog window. There is no longer a need to go to separate options windows for each field.
Moving fields is now done directly on the main window with Move Up and Move Down buttons for Windows and Move Up, Down, Left and Right buttons for Forms.
Fields can be made required by selecting the field and selecting the Required button. When a field is required, it is displayed in Bold. Fields can similarly be made hidden with the Hide button. Hidden fields are displayed in grey.
3. Default keys
The Key fields will now default on eXtender Windows for some of the common Microsoft Dynamics GP windows.
Keys default for the following windows:
·         Customer Maintenance
·         Customer Inquiry
·         Customer Address
·         SOP Entry (header and lines)
·         SOP Inquiry (header and lines)
·         Vendor Maintenance
·         Vendor Summary
·         Vendor Address
·         Item Maintenance
·         Item Inquiry
·         Employee Maintenance
·         Employee Summary
·         Employee Inquiry
·         Position Maintenance
·         Department Maintenance
·         Batch Entry
·         Checkbook Maintenance
·         Account Maintenance
·         Unit Account Maintenance
·         Variable Allocation Account Maintenance
·         Account Summary
·         GL Transaction Entry
·         Budget Maintenance
·         Salesperson Maintenance
·         Sales Territory Maintenance
·         Inventory Transaction Entry (header and lines)
·         Inventory Transaction Inquiry (header and lines)
·         Inventory Transfer Entry (header and lines)
·         Sales Transaction Entry
·         Sales Transaction Inquiry
·         Payables Transaction Entry
·         Payables Transaction Inquiry
·         PO Entry (header and lines)
More defaults and other dictionaries (Field Service, Project Accounting, Manufacturing, Fixed Assets) will be added in later versions.
4. Adding lists and note types
This feature allows users to add list items and note types by entering a comma or carriage return delimited list.
When you click on the Add button to add a list item or note type, you will get the following screen:
You can enter the values directly or cut and paste lists from other applications such as Excel. The values are parsed into a list of items.
5. Detail grids are now options on Windows and Forms
There is no longer a separate concept for Detail Forms and Detail Windows. There is now just an option to add a detail grid to a form or window.
During the upgrade process, all existing detail windows and forms will be recreated as windows and forms and will then use the scrolling grid option.
6. New actions*
To reduce the amount of code that is required, new actions have been created to replace common coding scenarios:
·         Open eXtender Form – opens any eXtender form
·         Close eXtender Form – closes the current form or window
·         Open Dynamics GP Form – opens any Dynamics GP form
·         Open SmartList – opens any SmartList
·         Set Field Values – sets multiple field values on a form
·         Display dialog – displays a prompt and up to 3 buttons, clicking on any of the buttons can trigger another action.
·         Run macro – runs a Dynamics GP macro
More action types will be added in later versions, including Run SmartConnect map.
 
7. More trigger points for actions*
Actions can now be triggered from:
·         Field change
·         Field entry
·         Field exit
·         Open form
·         Open window
·         Print
·         Save record
·         Delete record
·         Window menus
·         Right-click menu
·         New buttons on form toolbars (web-client only)
All of these options are available on eXtender and Dynamics GP forms and field values can be read from eXtender or Dynamics GP windows to pass as parameters to the actions.
8. Improved scripting*
The enter script windows (Enter Dynamics GP script and Enter SQL script) have been simplified to work the same way that the Enter Calculated Field window works. A list of fields can be double-clicked to add to the script. In the background, parameters are automatically created and at runtime, those parameters are read and replaced in the script.
 
Have questions or comments on the new features? Want to share your excitement? Feel like welcoming Nicole to the team? Email extender@eonesolutions.com