Microsoft Dynamics GP Upgrade 2023 - Upgrading Microsoft Dynamics Web Services

Hello again Dynamics GP Community!

NOVEMBER UPDATE: 

Due to an issue that has been uncovered with the October 2023 installation media for Dynamics GP Web Services an updated build was included with the November release, which can be downloaded here.  Please use this installation media when upgrading Web Services to 18.6.

In this article I wanted to discuss the upgrade process for Dynamics GP Web Services.

If you have upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics GP to 18.6, you must use the Dynamics GP Fall 2023 media to install/upgrade Web Services to match that version.  This DVD media has the required patch for Web Services already built into it.

As mentioned with the GP 18.3 version, without using this DVD and MSP patch, you'll receive errors when running the Web Services Configuration Wizard when attempting to complete the install/upgrade on the databases, such as a blue question mark for the Functional Currency check and/or no company databases to select from, to install/upgrade Web Services onto, among other issues and errors.

If you want to monitor the Web Services upgrade or verify that it completed you can query the following table:

SELECT * FROM DYNAMICS..WSInstallStatus

Within this table there will be 4-5 records for each Dynamics GP database.  When an upgrade has completed the version will show at 18.6.XXXX and the Status column will be 0 for each successfully loaded component.

Now, for the Fall 2023 release there are a few things to consider.

First, if you're upgrading from the Fall 2019 (18.2 release (or later) to the Fall 2023 release you can simply apply the new MSP file that is included on the updated installation media, then run the Web Services Configuration Wizard to update the SQL Server components as usual.

One additional consideration is that, as I'm sure you've heard, the TLS 1.0 protocol is in the process of being retired in many customer environments.  Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Services currently requires TLS 1.0 in order to function but based on our research it turns out that it's really just a compatibility issue with the Authorization Manager security store when it is stored in a SQL Server database.  Previously we had presented this as the recommended option based on the fact that you could easily backup your GP Web Services security store database along with your Dynamics GP databases.

In order to make Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Services compatible with TLS 1.2 the process going forward will be to reinstall Dynamics GP Web Services, but instead of choosing the SQL Server security store option, choose Active Directory.  We've published another blog that explains how to create an authorization store partition in Active Directory and then use that for Dynamics GP Web Services.  Unfortunately, there isn't a migration to a different security store, so before you uninstall Web Services, you'll want to review the Dynamics Security Console and note role assignments and any changes policy behaviors that you've made so you can recreate them after the reinstall.

Aside from that, Dynamics GP Web Services should functionally work the same despite the back-end change, so your applications, including Dynamics GP Workflow approvals, should continue working.

If you are moving Web Services to a new server or run into problems during the install/upgrade you may want to completely reinstall the application, including new SQL objects, in order to have the most stable installation of the application.  You can use the following article to perform this process:

Uninstalling Web Services for Microsoft Dynamics GP

Continue to check back to the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2023 Upgrade Blog Series Schedule page to review upcoming blog posts related to Upgrading Microsoft Dynamics GP and other helpful resource links.