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GP2018 and Blackline Journals

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Posted on by Daphne G4S

I am interested to know if anyone on this forum uses Blackline to integrate journals to GP2018? What is your experience and how are you doing it? Via SFTP with a regular load of 30min or did you build a webservices?

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Microsoft Dynamics GP

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Shannon Aune on at

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Hi Daphne,

I am not familiar with Blackline, but I will leave your thread out here in case others in the community have utilized it and they can maybe assist you with your question.

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Daphne G4S 30 on at

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Is there anyone on this forum that has experience with loading account balance automatically to Blackline on a regular basis?

What type of connection do you use to link the two systems?

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Shannon Aune on at

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Hi Daphne,

I am not familiar with Blackline, but I will leave your thread out here in case others in the community have utilized it and they can maybe assist you with your question.

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Beat Bucher GP Gee... 28,058 Moderator on at

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Hi Daphne,

I joined the 2 threads as you basically asked twice the same question..

Sorry not being to help you with the "BlackLine" product, as I never heard about it.

If this is some sort of accounting system like QuickBooks, then yes GP can integrate data from any legacy system, but it requires usually to go thru an integration tool like IM (Integration Manager from Microsoft) or a 3rd-party SW like SmartConnect (from eOne Solutions).

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Lisa at AonC.com 933 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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In the distant past - way before GP 2018/18.x - I had a few clients with Blackline. I believe they were using text files for imports between the systems without any automation. (This is likely before web services.)

I do see they have some active information about GP on their web-site so hopefully their tech support can fill in the gaps.

[I do have clients with other add-ins that use either web services or FTP; both are can be good automation tools based on client needs/system environment/security policies.]

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Daphne G4S 30 on at

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Hi Beat

The question on Blackline journals and Blackline accounts are not quite the same. It may feel the same but technically there is quite a difference. For Blackline account balance the information is sent one direction. The ERP will send a flat file to a Blackline SFTP server. Vs. Journals where is a 2 way of conversation. You can do this via SFTPs talking to each other and journals are scheduled to post every 30 min or using web services where the ERP will talk in real-time to Blackline and it interact in real-time. e.g. the benefit with this is you don't need to build in all the validations you have in your underlying ERP into BLackline because the ERP will tell the users in real-time something is not quite right. E.g. a typo in a cost centre.

I have implemented successful with another leading ERP system, but they allowed pre-configured connections, where are I found with other ERPs including Great Plains we as a user/customer need to establish those connections. So my question really is what is other companies experience what middleware are they using especially for webservers.

Hope this helps with your understanding of Blackline as well and what i am after.

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Daphne G4S 30 on at

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HI Lisa

I have already spoken to Blackline, I have an established relationship with them and have successfully implemented this with another leading ERP. However, they have pre-written the connections between the systems and all we had to do is install the connector. Whereas with GP and other ERPs we as the customer needs to do it. As you refer to your own customer base. What I am interested in is what middleware or software did they use to establish a webs servers connection? I was told by Blackline we will need to create the connections and the real-time talking of the system ourselves. This includes the mapping of fields etc. If I can learn from someone else that would be better than going out wildly.

For account balances, we will do an SFTP routine. The one I am really after in the Web serves. I am going o ask the same question about the Blackline community. To be honest the info on Blackline's website is limited.

Daphne

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Lisa at AonC.com 933 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Thank you, Daphne, for the additional information. As far as GP integrations, the tools are vast across the channel so each GP partner will probably have them only version of this answer.

Assuming your question isn't about a web service itself (as GP has one) but more along the lines of how you get the BlackLine data into the GP database, the internal tool I like is eConnect as it is based on SQL stored procedures and integrates into GP at the business-logic logic. However, it does not have a user interface. When a client needs a user interface, my favorite recommendation when the data is coming in an Excel-friendly manner (like CSV), is TitaniumGP.com. It gives the user the comfort of Excel and handles all the behind-the-scenes eConnect magic.

The last time I worked specifically with a Blackline integration, I think GP's Integration Manager was the tool used (as the customer already had it licensed). With the change in licensing for Integration Manager, it is rarely (perhaps, never) my go-to recommendation when it is not already licensed.

The Dynamics GP 2013 Architecture White Paper that I think Beat mentioned, has a few pages on Data Integration that describes the Microsoft toolset.

Other tools we see at client site come from Jitterbit and eOne. I'll let others chime in with their favorite tools ...

[P.S. - BlackLine must be in outreach/growth mode: I ran across their BlackLine AR product just yesterday!]

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Daphne G4S 30 on at

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Thank you Lisa, this is very useful and give me a great starting point. We do have an integration manager, so very useful advice on that.

I will have a look at the paper Beat shared as well.

[Blackline - we were one of their first customers in the UK, so almost grown with them. We actually used the AR product (Rimillia) before Blackline recently bought it. We managed to get an 80% automatic cash application rate. I am a fan of Blackline Accounts, Journals, Tasks and Matching modules and it is a really useful tool and our auditors loves it, so bonus all around. ]

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Beat Bucher GP Gee... 28,058 Moderator on at

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Daphne,

I think Lisa had some good points on the integration with GP.. Mostly look at eConnect as the 'interface' library with GP to create transactions and update data.. The weak part of eConnect is that there is no friendly user front-end, as it acts really only as an 'interface' to GP.

There are various ways to get data into GP with proper data validation, IM being one of the front-end, though a little outdated in terms of functionality and look&feel (really looks like you're in Win95).

Other integration tools that work on top of eConnect are Scribe (steep learning curve) and SmartConnect by eOne (easier to learn, and does have an Excel plug-in).

There are more out there, lesser known but not necessarily bad. It really depends on your need.

None of the tools working with eConnect can post transactions automatically in GP, that has to be done manually, but there are GP add-ons to perform such tasks (PostMaster, SmartPost or Batch Posting Tookit from WDC). Again, you'd have to perform some research to find the best fit for you

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