The Integration Manager parameter file, Microsoft.Dynamics.GP.IntegrationManager.ini, provides a few keys that allow the application to perform certain actions according to the values and the sections in which these parameters are initialize . Here is a list of keys for the initialization file per section within the file:



IMBaseProvider section
This section controls the overall behavior of the Integration Manager application.

AutoUpgradeIntegrations= 0/1
Prompts IM to check whether to upgrade an integration or not.

CommandTimeout=30
Time allotted to execute a particular IM operation. If the operation is not successful in the time alloted, the record integration will fail.

HideMsgBox= False/True
Hides IM registration window during the application launch.

UseOptimizedFiltering= False/True
Allows you to maintain the same sorting as the original source. One note that I would make is that the following…

I’m sure there have been numerous articles written about Integration Manager for Dynamics…

In previous versions of Integration Manager you had the ability to save an integration with another name, but v10 onwards this feature was removed. Here is what Beth Gardner from the Microsoft Dynamics GP Online Partner Technical Community had to say:

"We removed the Save As functionality in one of the IM 10.0 service packs. The reason why, was the Save As feature had a bug with it for many…

When working with Integration Manager to bring in transactions it’s not uncommon to get stuck while building an integration. Because of its power, IM can be finicky. A great idea when you’re asking for support from someone is to simply copy the messages from the progress screen like below:

Opening source query... …

Here is a handy bit of code. Have you ever wanted to run a sql script in Integration manager after the task completes but you don't want to hard code the company database so you can use it against multiple companies?

Well here is the code to do this (in version 10), in the script window within Integration manager start off by setting the ADODB connection.

set MyCon = Cr…

Just recently, I fielded a question where the user wanted to group a number of customer invoice transactions in a file based on the invoice date. The file happened to contain invoices downloaded from the billing system in a date range, for example 02/01/2010 - 02/05/2010. They wanted the resulting transaction…

An interesting thing happened to us a few times -

1. We would share an Integration Manager database,

2. Change the setting on a machine to point Integration Manager to the new IM database.

3. Then the user would login and they would still be looking…

I haven't been a big fan of Integration Manager lately because of various annoying bugs that were introduced during it's apparent re-write / migration to .NET (not sure exactly what all was changed) for version 10.

I have had to work on two different IM 10 integrations in the last few weeks, and seem to have discovered a theme regarding data sources, Relationships, and IM errors and instability.

From what I can tell, the Relationships feature / window in IM 10 has very poor error handling, causing it to throw unhandled errors or cause IM to crash if it runs into any type of problem. From what I have found, these manifest themselves in at least these two situations:

1) If you have an…

About a month ago I was asked to review a client's integrations in preparation for their upgrade from GP 8 to GP 10. They run 4 integrations in Integration Manager on a regular basis to import employees, payroll, and invoices from their operational system.

I looked at the integrations and saw that they were relatively simple. They read from a few SQL tables in a staging database on the GP SQL Server, and only had a few simple scripts to call stored procedures to prepare the data prior to import by IM.

Pretty simple, right? I documented my findings and declared that the upgrade should have no impact on the integrations.

A month later, and many projects later, I completely forgot the details of the review that I performed. And in the meantime, the client discovered that their old SQL server was underpowered and that they would need to install GP 10 on a new SQL server machine. I didn't get that particular memo, so I was oblivious to this new detail.

On the scheduled date, the partner performed the upgrade to GP 10 on the new server, and all was swell. Except until the client tried to run their integrations.

Integration Manager complained that the source table could not be found. Hmmm. That's odd. And remember at this point, I didn't realize that a new SQL server had been installed.

When I checked the table list, a bunch of random objects were listed--none of which looked like a staging table. The integrations were using a DSN within IM, so when I checked the DSN, I found the problem. By default, DSNs created in IM do not have the database name set in the connection string. Although a new DSN had been setup to point to the new SQL server, the staging database was not listed. So I added the "Database=GPImport" parameter to the connection string, and viola, the appropriate tables appeared in the Data Source…

I love Integration Manager. I hate Integration Manager. Repeat.

I've been working on a bunch of integrations, some with IM. I continued to love the flexibility of the IM interface. The ability to transform data without having to make adjustments to the source is just phenomenal. It's so much better than the standard rigid Excel/CSV formats from other products. With VBA and all the little things like substitution tables and easy capitalization I actually have a lot of good things to say about IM.

If someone would fix the gripes, they'd have a phenomenal product. By gripes, I don't mean stability…

This week I have a nice surprise. I've figured out how to automate an integration via Integration Manager INCLUDING closing GP after everything is done.

This Weekly Dynamic could save you the $500 cost of Microsoft's AutoDIM utility.

Unfortunately, it's too much to squeeze into a blog post so I've added the whole thing as a download. You can get AutoIM here or in…

I have been working on a Go-Live and been really hectic for the past 2 weeks.

Data Uploads, as usual, and suddenly this error was taking my entire energy. I thought I would blog this one issue which has got no mentioning in any of the forum(s) or KB as well.

I mapped and started integrating Sales Order transactions thru' Integration Manager (IM). As soon as I started the integration, it threw the following error message:

Arg…