The Support Debugging Tool is my new best friend

I have known about the Support Debugging Tool for a while but have never had an occasion to install and use it at a client location.

I took advantage of a recent client upgrade from GP9 to GP2010 to install it on all of the workstations while we rolled out GP2010.  It has already paid dividends!

The Issue

One user was getting an error on posting “Not privileged to run this report” - when she posted Receivings Transaction Entry batches.  That’s a standard error, and typically I haven’t found it tough to resolve.  Since it was received on posting, I did what I normally do: I went into a test company and posted a batch with a POWERUSER user to see what posting reports were turned on.  The result however was I received the same 3 posting journals that this user did, except I did not get an error message.  Hmmm….

SDT to the rescue

I turned to the Support Debugging Tool’s Security Profiler feature and it was a very easy and quick way to find the problem.  The steps were as follows:

• Enable the Security Profiler on the user’s workstation
• The user posted a test batch to get to the point of the permission error
• She exported the information to the shared drive for debugging information
• I logged on as ‘sa’ and imported the information
• The SDT showed me it was the report “POP Backordered Items Received” that she did not have access to.
• Opened security via the shortcut, made the necessary change, problem solved!

Feedback

There are a TON of things in this tool I don’t know how to use effectively yet and will be looking at other features I can take advantage of.

One very cool thing is the colour customization of the GP windows which this client is using for test companies.  They wanted to ensure the users don’t accidentally forget they are in a test company and post something they want to be “live” data.

The second very cool thing is the option to rename the window titles when GP is minimized.  In this case, the power users tend to have multiple instances of GP launched at once and with GP2010 having the user interface display all windows individually, their taskbar gets busy in a hurry.  They loved this feature to quickly see which minimized windows are which user / company logged in.

If you haven’t tried this, check out David Musgrave’s site for the Support Debugging Tool Portal for more information and lots of articles and information.

If you are already using this, Build 14 was just released - check it out and update to the latest build!

Update October 2017: since writing this post, David Musgrave has re-written this tool as GP Power Tools and it is distributed by Mekorma.

(originally posted on www.kuntzconsulting.ca, and migrated to this site in October 2017)