Development Matters Blog

Writing code documentation has always been a time consuming process. Additionally, reflecting code changes in the already finished documentation proved to be even more time consuming.

Since the beginning of time, code documentation existed only inside the code itself in the form of the in-line comments. However, modern programming languages introduced syntax for the in-line code comments (XML documentation syntax) and brought the capability of generating the external humanly-readable code documentation from these comments.

Visual Studio has a fully integrated support for the XML documentation. In order to use it inside your .NET project you need to enable it on the Build tab of the Properties page of the project.

Once you build the project with the XML documentation option enabled, a list of warnings will be populated with the additional warnings informing you about the missing XML comments.

You can remove these warnings by simply adding the XML comments to each of the publicly visible types from the list. To add XML comment to the publicly visible type, simply type /// on top of it. Visual Studio will automatically generate the required XML comment syntax and all that is left for you to do is to describe it.

XML documentation supports a wide range of the XML tags used for formatting. I will describe these tags in detail in the second part of this post.

Resource Information is one of the Standard mode features of the Support Debugging Tool.

By selecting Resource Information from the Options button drop list on the main window of the Support Debugging Tool, you can open the Resource Information window.

You can use the Resource Information window to show technical, display, and physical names and resource IDs for any form, window, field, table, table group or report resource in any dictionary currently installed in the Microsoft Dynamics GP application.

If you know any information about a resource, you can enter it into the appropriate field and the rest of the fields will be populated with the details for that resource.

For example, entering a window’s display name will identify the window’s technical name and resource ID; or entering a table’s physical name as it appears in SQL Server will identify the table’s dictionary,
technical and display names as well as the resource ID.

This window can be useful when working with table and column names in SQL Server, because it will quickly convert the physical names used in SQL back to the technical names used in Modifier, Report Writer and Dexterity.

We have recently added two new white papers to our Microsoft Dynamics GP Development page.

Microsoft Dynamics GP Architecture White Paper
This document describes the architecture for Microsoft Dynamics™ GP. It explains how the architecture’s features make Microsoft Dynamics GP an outstanding solution for organizations implementing a business management system today. The document also describes how the architecture allows Microsoft Dynamics GP to grow with these organizations in the future.

Microsoft Dynamics GP: Choosing a Development Tool White Paper
Several development tools are available to be used when creating integrations with Microsoft Dynamics
GP. This paper provides guidance when choosing which development tool to use to create an integration for Dynamics GP. A detailed description of each tool is provided in this document. You can use this information and the comparison charts at the end of the document to help you make a decision about the best tool to use for a specific integration.

Merit Solutions Advanced Lot Management (ALM) is the application that allows efficient control of lot tracked materials (raw or finished goods) within Microsoft Dynamics GP (versions 9 and 10).

The system requirements correspond to requirements of Microsoft Dynamics GP. ALM version 9 requires Dynamics GP’s Manufacturing module to run, while ALM version 10 does not require the Manufacturing module.

Lot Attribute Maintenance

The Lot Attribute Maintenance window is arguably the most used window of the ALM application. Its main purpose is to provide information on the lot properties of an item, including the Lot Status, Expiration Date, and Vendor Lot, as well as other lot attributes defined in the Lot Category for the item (Cards > Inventory > Item (Maintenance) > Item Maintenance Options > Lot Category) and provide a place for editing those attributes.

In the Lot Attribute Maintenance window, both types of lot tracked Items (Cards > Inventory > Item (Maintenance) > Item Maintenance Options > Track), Non-QA Controlled and QA-Controlled (Cards > Inventory > Item (Maintenance) > Additional > ALM Item QA Control Setup), are listed.

For Non-QA Controlled items, the default Lot Status always will be set to Approved and default Expiration Date always will be set to 0/0/0000. These settings for Non-QA Controlled (but lot tracked) items can be changed on Lot Attribute Maintenance window.

For QA Controlled items, the default Lot Status will be inherited from the Advanced Lot Management Configuration window > Default Lot Status for New Lots () option.

On the same window, the default value for Lot Status Attribute can be changed. The Expiration Date is by default set to the value of: System Date minus one day (for example: for all lots received on 5/7/2009, default expiration date will be 5/6/2009). This means that Item Lots can’t be forwarded along, before their attributes are reviewed by QA personnel, and the Expiration Date is at least changed to the present or any date in future.

Filter By option on the Lot Attribute Maintenance window affects only QA Controlled items. Set the Filter By value to “Rejected”, click Refresh and check lots of both QA Controlled and Non-QA Controlled items.

By the way, any changes made on this window to Lot Attributes, have to be saved by clicking Save button. Simple leaving or closing the Lot Attribute Maintenance window is not enough.

We have posted a new MeritCare Training Session, this one covering Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Practices: Usage of Content Types

Site content types in the Microsoft Office SharePoint platform are defined as a reusable group of settings for a category of content. In this training session, we will present their usage to manage the metadata, templates, and behaviors of items and documents consistently. We will show you how to organize the content of your collaboration portal in a meaningful way and associate the same capabilities to your content across your document management solution.

Date: 7/08/2009
Time: 10:00 – 11:00 CST

Register now for the free Microsoft Office SharePoint Practices training session.