RE: The Check Links Process - Super-Helpful, Potentially Dangerous, or Somewhere In-Between?
I believe that both check links and reconciliation are maintenance tools which were born due to the design of the system, understanding the design aspects of Dynamics GP since it was first acquired by Microsoft is crucial in understanding these processes. In summary, check links primary purpose is to check data integrity among Dynamics GP tables as designed. Reconciliation on the other hand concern about recalculating summary tables which provide desired performance through inquiry windows.
In this essence, it is important to understand how data integrity is defined in terms of Dynamics GP common transaction. Posting a simple transaction in the system will throw several records in several tables that can be categories mainly as (header and details). As a matter of fact, they are linked with the original definition tables (such as customer master, vendor master, address master ...etc). All in all, these records are interrelated according to a predefined logic. Now the check links process is designed to compare the data based on the data in the primary tables, in order to ensure that there are no missing or orphan records that break data integrity. A practical example for the result of this process, suppose you have an inventory transaction for an item that doesn't exist in the "Item Master" for some reason, check links create a "dummy" item in the definition table (item master) to be linked with this specific transactions. In other cases, check links might omit specific records which logically should not exist.
Although you have not mentioned reconciliation, but it is important to understand this concept in the light of check links. Reconciliation primarily re-calculate summary values stored in summary tables such as (Item quantity master, account summary master, customer summary master ...etc) based on the actual transaction existing in transaction tables. In specific cases, reconciliation could play the same role of "Data Integrity" by creating records in specific tables for integrity purposes (A practical example is creating a RECOND document in IV10201 to match the quantity sold in IV10200)
Explaining the concept could still go on and on with several details and example. Although, I would like to shed a light on legendary article regarding check links, written long time ago by Mr. Mariano Gomez about check links. It is a must read in order to understand this process in the light of Dynamics GP design
How does Check Links work?
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