Tech Tuesday: Table Changes in Extender 2013
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
As many Extender users are looking to update to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and along with that updating Extender to 2013, there are table changes to be aware of. In the update from Extender on GP 10 or 2010 to Extender on 2013, almost all of the tables change to a new set of tables.
What does this mean for you as you update?
If you wrote anything directly to the tables, such as SQL Views, SSRS reports, etc, you are going to need to make changes to those customizations so they pull from the new tables. They will be pulling from tables that are no longer used by Extender. While we leave the tables in place so that your customizations don’t fail, we do empty the tables after we have transferred the data into the new structure. This means there is no actual data to pull from the “old” tables.
How do I know what table to pull from in 2013?
We have posted a document that outlines all of the new tables and their structure. Then on page 110, you will find a mapping of the old tables to the new tables. You can find the document on our website by using the link on this KB.
What can I do to get around this in the future?
We don’t have a mass table update planned at this time like we did for the 2013 release, but to be safe, the best way to get around this is to use Extender Views. If you log into Extender as a user that has sysadmin or db_owner rights in SQL (or the ‘sa’ user), you will see an option called Views. This allows you to create a SQL View of your Extender Windows and Forms. You can also link in Microsoft Dynamics GP tables. These views will link in all of the tables needed to pull data from an Extender Resource. It will display the nice names of your data for lists, yes/no fields, etc. instead of the numerical values. It also uses your field name as the name in the view. You can change the options on the display if you need to pull in more of the SQL naming conventions and data storage.
So to make a long story short, if you manually pulled anything from the Extender tables in SQL and you are updating to GP 2013, you are going to need to make some changes to those customizations.
Of course if you have any questions as you make these changes, our support team is happy to assist and can be reached at 888-319-3663 option 2 or by e-mailing support@eonesolutions.com.
[Edit 04/20/2018 PTR – fix broken link to document]
What does this mean for you as you update?
If you wrote anything directly to the tables, such as SQL Views, SSRS reports, etc, you are going to need to make changes to those customizations so they pull from the new tables. They will be pulling from tables that are no longer used by Extender. While we leave the tables in place so that your customizations don’t fail, we do empty the tables after we have transferred the data into the new structure. This means there is no actual data to pull from the “old” tables.
How do I know what table to pull from in 2013?
We have posted a document that outlines all of the new tables and their structure. Then on page 110, you will find a mapping of the old tables to the new tables. You can find the document on our website by using the link on this KB.
What can I do to get around this in the future?
We don’t have a mass table update planned at this time like we did for the 2013 release, but to be safe, the best way to get around this is to use Extender Views. If you log into Extender as a user that has sysadmin or db_owner rights in SQL (or the ‘sa’ user), you will see an option called Views. This allows you to create a SQL View of your Extender Windows and Forms. You can also link in Microsoft Dynamics GP tables. These views will link in all of the tables needed to pull data from an Extender Resource. It will display the nice names of your data for lists, yes/no fields, etc. instead of the numerical values. It also uses your field name as the name in the view. You can change the options on the display if you need to pull in more of the SQL naming conventions and data storage.
So to make a long story short, if you manually pulled anything from the Extender tables in SQL and you are updating to GP 2013, you are going to need to make some changes to those customizations.
Of course if you have any questions as you make these changes, our support team is happy to assist and can be reached at 888-319-3663 option 2 or by e-mailing support@eonesolutions.com.
[Edit 04/20/2018 PTR – fix broken link to document]
