It seems many people have been waiting for GP 2015 before considering converting to the web client. When your solution is deployed with a cloud provider, the web client can help alleviate so many of the problems that people have working with GP in the cloud.
Dynamics’ web clients were built for the cloud. Products such as Dynamics CRM have easily adapted to cloud implementations. Dynamics GP will only continue to become more cloud-friendly as time goes on, leading users to see more and more features that are “totally web”. The more web friendly, the easier it will be for customers to adapt.
Benefits of Using the Web Client for Dynamics GP in the cloud.
As a provider of virtual private cloud environments for many Microsoft Dynamics GP users, our customers have embraced the web client and found several key benefits accessing the solution over the web versus the full client:
- Easier connections to printers: In the past, Concerto’s cloud service desk logged re-occurring issues with small printer problems or delayed printing. Customers using the web client are no longer experiencing printer issues and printing is less problematic, especially for those using Dynamics GP in a cloud environment.
- Using a local web browser allows the customer to use local print drivers instead of pass-thru printing with the cloud RDS or Citrix server.
- E-mailing from Dynamics GP is seamless: Emailing from Dynamics GP using the web client will now use your local desktop email.
- There is no need to have another email profile set up in the cloud to ensure you can email from Dynamics GP and no learning curve whatsoever for using this function.
- Improved saving and transferring of files: Saving files locally or transferring files has been another challenge for users of cloud servers. They have reported slowness saving files locally or that local drives are not available while attached to the cloud.
- The web client runs on your local computer, which enables you to use your local drives without any additional configuration. This eliminates long wait times or slowness saving files locally from Dynamics GP over the internet from the cloud.
There are Challenges in moving to the Web Client
ISVs availability is the biggest challenge with the Dynamics GP web client. Several ISVs are hesitant to fully develop their offerings until they see more customers moving in that direction. On the flip side, customers are reluctant to move to the web client if their add-on solutions are not available or won’t be released until a much later date. This makes a catch 22 for using the web client.
The amazing part is that is seems that ISVs are slow to jump on the web interface band wagon. GPUG has a matrix that tells us the time schedule for some of the ISVs, but major offerings like MICR are not web ready as of the writing of this blog. With the release of Dynamics GP 2015 and more robust web functionality, ISVs are committed to integrating to the web client, it will just take time.
What our customers say
We have several clients including Dynamic Communities, with limited numbers of users logging in with the GP 2013 Web client. All the reviews say that it cannot do all the things the fat client can perform. The feedback is that users feel there is limited functionality with this web client.
Another customer fully embraced the web client and deployed it for all 25 of their users. They are quite happy with the end results and have proven that the Dynamics GP web client is fully functional. There are no regrets and this customer is a great reference and advocate for using the Dynamics GP web client in a private cloud environment with Concerto Cloud Services.
This customer only uses the Dynamics GP fat client in their organization when absolutely necessary. They utilize five ISV products with their Dynamics GP 2015 implementation. Some are not web-ready as of the writing of this blog including MICR and Management Reporter. The customer must use the Dynamics GP fat client or full client when they print checks or run reports using Management Reporter.
As we all know, everyone is turning to the cloud and cloud has a huge impact on how Microsoft is planning their future roadmaps for the Dynamics products. The more web client functionality, the less difficulties using the application in the cloud. Each version will get us close and closer to complete web client use.
Microsoft seems very committed to getting us there!
by Concerto Cloud Services