eOne has spent the last 10 years writing tools that turn development activities into consulting and end user activities.
In April we will release yet another great tool that reduces development time significantly, a new product called Node Builder. There are two questions we have been asked hundreds of times over the last few years
1. “How do we integrate into modules and objects in GP that are not supported by eConnect?”.
2. “We love SmartConnect but need to be able to map to our own destination tables that have nothing to do with GP or CRM. Can I do that with SmartConnect?”
Up until now the answer has been “… can certainly be done with custom development. You need to write a custom node (which is really a fancy stored procedure) and then you can sit this behind SmartConnect. Contact your dev team or engage eOne to help”. By the end of April the answer will be “just use node Builder”.
Node Builder provides you with a very simple interface that lets you do a couple of keys things:
1. Choose the tables/fields you need to populate (may be within GP or outside of GP)
2. Identify the business rules that must be followed
3. Define your own error messages
When you are done Node Builder will produce a Stored Procedure or eConnect node (your choice) and link this up with SmartConnect for you. You can then build a map to your new destination just like it had always been a standard destination within SmartConnect. All of this without a single line of code.
What this means is that there is nothing inside GP that SmartConnnect is unable to integrate with. It also means that SmartConnect can integrate to any external SQL table with all the business rules and validation you require.
It is perhaps best summed up by a message I received this week from one of our top resellers TGO up in Cananda.
Node Builder is fantastic. It will change the way Microsoft Dynamics GP partners and customers use Dynamics GP. The combination of Node Builder, SmartConnect and Dynamics GP give customers and partners the long awaited feature of integrating transactions into any field or window in GP. Node Builder and SmartConnect together drive up the business value of Microsoft Dynamics GP, by allowing you to integrate into any field while driving down the cost building new integration point into Dynamics GP.
Blair Hicken
CIO TGO Consulting
I will update the blog shortly with specific release dates, introduction pricing and more details about Node Builder. If you would liek to join the beta program for node Builder please contact me directly.
