Microsoft Dynamics GP is one of those reliable, familiar business management tools. Able to grow with your business, the product has been used by companies for decades. Better yet, with the announcement of their new “Modern Policy” starting in October 2019, Microsoft has made coming releases of Dynamics GP even more resilient and evergreen. However, as one of those products loved by users and one that companies use for years or even decades, data starts to build up.
This happens. Month after month, year after year, new data gets added. Each time you add more data, it becomes just a bit harder to process. After a few years of adding new data, closing out each month, running year-end processes, posting transactions, and using the system to run your business, you begin to notice that the processing time creeps up just a little bit. Then a bit more. Then a lot more.
You start running month-end overnight. Year-end closes get run over the weekend. Hopefully everything goes off without a hitch. However, many companies have turned to archiving as their way to keep Dynamics GP running smoothly.
Archiving is Key to Working More Efficiently in Dynamics GP
Archiving is Key to Working More Efficiently in Dynamics GPArchiving is the process in which a user moves historical information from the ‘live’ company to an ‘archive’ company. Archiving your data will reduce the size of your live company database and improve system performance while posting, running reports, performing file maintenance, and day-to-day use of Dynamics GP.
Designed to increase performance, many companies have turned to Company Data Archive, a product developed by our friends at Professional Advantage. Considered the most efficient way to archive for nearly two decades, CDA keeps your data in an archived location so that you can free up your database to run at optimal performance.
With CDA, companies can archive years of historical data across a variety of modules, moving everything you need to keep (but don’t need on hand at all times) into the archive company.
Reasons to Archive
There are many reasons we recommend and put into action Company Data Archive for our GP clients:
- Upgrade with Ease: With a smaller live database, you can move to the newest edition of GP much more smoothly. With only the information you need immediately on the live database, you can then upgrade your historical data on your own schedule. With many companies already excited about the newest GP edition, archiving will make life much easier.
- Optimize Hardware Use: As the database grows, and starts taking up a lot of disk space, it will take SQL longer and longer to run backup and restore processes. By keeping your live company data smaller, you won’t take up as much disk space. Better yet? You can move archive data to a less optimal hardware.
- Declutter Your Reports: By using Company Data Archive, users can streamline and declutter their inquiries and reports in GP. If you’re tired of getting irrelevant data even if you set date ranges for a report, CDA can help.
- Increase Performance: If SQL is scanning millions upon millions of rows from the temporary tables it generates, that process is going to take some time. However, by archiving, you can greatly reduce the size of the scan and number of rows, making reports, look-ups, and inquiries.
But Archiving Core Modules Only Gets You So Far
CDA is an amazing tool used by companies across the nation and around the world. But what if you use Analytical Accounting? What if you want to free up data generated by Project Accounting, Field Service Management, Fixed Asset Management, or a variety of third-party applications? What if you want to archive data onto a completely different server or archive specific groups of vendors or customers?
Dynamics GP customers who use Analytical Accounting tend to accumulate large amounts of data due to the ability to extend and customize financial data with an unlimited number of user-defined transaction dimensions. It’s a great function for companies who need it, but it’s by no means a ‘light’ function.
Often, companies will use CDA to archive their core modules, only to realize just how much space and processing power Analytical Accounting takes up. That’s where Company Data Archive Plus comes in.
If you use Analytical Accounting (AA) with Dynamics GP, and you are archiving your Dynamics GP data using Professional Advantage’s Company Data Archive (CDA) product, you’ll be thrilled to hear about our add-on solution.
With Crestwood’s CDA Plus AA extension, your AA data will not be left behind. You can access all your important AA data right along with your Dynamics GP data in the archive file. For example, we installed CDA at a client site, taking a database size of 103 GB and reducing it to less than 35 GB, while maintaining the data in an ‘archived company’.
Ready to learn more about this or one of the many other Crestwood solutions for GP? Looking for a partner who can help you upgrade your GP solution and who can support you for the long run? Look no further than Crestwood. Get to know more about us and contact us for more details.
