One of the things I’ve appreciated most about the Dynamics GP team in Fargo over the past year is their dedication to fixing the “small stuff”. These are the minor inconveniences of using an ERP system that often get overlooked (like the ability to change the printer or an added hyperlink to a related record) that have been in the development backlog for years. I think Microsoft Dynamics GP is a solid product and customers are no longer looking for “big stuff” functionality. They want what they have to work better, faster, and smarter, and Fargo is delivering.
One of the major pushes of Microsoft is to increase the release cadence of software. Dynamics GP has a major release now twice a year, and that has added some new complexity. With more frequent releases, the development team shifted to releasing new code to partners and customers at the same time, because there was little time to provide a pre-release to partners.
As an ISV, we sometimes get overlooked in the ecosystem as we’re percentage-wise a small voice when compared to overall partner and customer counts. But not having code pre-released to us, we don’t have time to test our critical add-on components against new builds. This makes us look bad to our customers and can cause headaches when they upgrade.
Fortunately, someone in Fargo is listening. More importantly, reacting. They’ve heard the ISV community loud and clear, and because they understand and care about the end customer experience, they quickly adapted to our needs. This most recent release was given to us as ISVs before the general release, giving us time to test and fix any new issues that crept in (and they often do). Thanks to the GP Team’s responsiveness, we were able to fully test and fix new issues and be ready-for-market the same day Microsoft Dynamics GP released to the general customer audience. That’s HUGE for us and huge for customers.
Thanks, Fargo, for listening, and helping us collectively do the right thing.
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Written By Mark Rockwell, President of Rockton Software, a Microsoft Dynamics GP ISV.