How to Take A Company Offline in Microsoft Dynamics GP

There are many new features included in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 R2.  In this post we will be focusing on the ability to take one or more companies offline.  This is a great feature for administrators to allow them to perform maintenance, updates, error fixes, year-end close, or any other functions that require users to be logged out of Dynamics GP.  This feature also allows administrators to send notifications to users directly within Dynamics GP, which is a great alternative to sending out emails and/or phoning each individual.  Administrators will also be able to see how many users are currently logged in, and who those users are.

Administrators – how to take a company offline:

1. Click on Administration Area Page / Utilities / System / Take Company Offline

2. Select the company(s) and click Insert to move it from Online Companies to Offline Companies

• You can drill down on Current Users to see who is logged in

3. You can choose to use Default messages or type a Custom message for offline Messages

4. Click Ok to take it offline

• If users are currently logged into an offline company, the following message will appear: There are users logged into the companies taken offline.  Do you want to send the users a message?

• If you click No, the window will close
• If you click Yes, the following window will appear and you can select what users will receive a notification:

• You can use the Send Messages as options to determine how the users will receive a notification

5. There is a new field in the Company Setup window that allows you to specify a user that can access the Offline company as highlighted in the following screenshot:

User experience:

When a user logs into Dynamics GP, any companies that are offline will show a name change on the company login screen.  For example:  Fabrikam, Inc. “Offline”.

When attempting to login to an offline company a default or custom message will appear similar to the following:

The company is currently offline for maintenance. Try again later.

 

For a system admin, poweruser or specific user with offline access, they will receive the following message when logging into an offline company:

The company you have selected is currently offline for maintenance.  Do you want to continue and log on to the company?

Check out another new feature in Dynamics GP 2013: Pasting Entries into the GL from Excel