Dynamics GP 2013 SP2 - SmartList Designer

Dynamics GP 2013 service pack (2) comes with a new feature; SmartList Designer. Immediately, several questions come in mind, Can I edit an existing "out of the box" Dynamics GP SmartList, and the answer is still no. 

Although, smartList Designer gives the work around solution for modifying current smartlists by being able to create new smartlist based on existing ones. In this essence, the answer to your customers could be “yes” somehow.

One the usual SmartList window, a new button is added through which you go to the SmartList Designer Window as shown below;

SmartList "New" Button

The SmartList Designer Window provides “Database View” considering the tables’ physical names. Objects to choose from includes:

• Tables
• Views
• SmartList Objects

SmartList Designer

As shown above, you can create a new report by considering the relationships between the data sources you choose, as well as any filtration criteria if any. Once completed, the “Execute Query” is clicked to show the T-SQL Query created upon your to retrieve the data requested.

It’s worth saying that the “script” generated below with the T-SQL query pane is not editable, as you may think initially about including further codes within the script. It’s not even saved in the Database as a static script after completion. Only the rules that you configure in the relationship, filter and selected fields’ panes are stored.

You can still consider “calculated fields” in the SmartList Designer through the Athematic, text, Date and time, Math and aggregate functions, in order to add further capabilities to your smartlist report.

Many questions still roll up in my mind, aren’t there quite duplicated features among the SmartList Builder and SmartList Designer, Why not combine and extend the capabilities of the two in one greatest SmartList Tool !   Further versions might hold the answer.

But now, it is worth saying that the SmartList Designer has achieved a considerable progress, as well as the better performance in retrieving data.

Best Regards, 

Mahmoud M. AlSaadi