DYNAMICS TUTORIAL Requirements Read the following introduction taken from the Dynamics Product Fundamentals manual. Then use the on-line tutorial to familiarize yourself with the basics of Dynamics. (Instructions for using the on-line tutorial appear on the next page.) Finally, answer the questions at the end of this document. The Dynamics Series Dynamics is a comprehensive accounting and business management system comprised of modules that focus on meeting specific business needs. For example, General Ledger tracks the transactions that affect your chart of accounts, along with the accounts balances, and it prints a variety of account lists and financial statements. Customer balances, vendor balances and inventory tracking all are handled by modules in other series. Dynamics modules are organized into a number of solution series. We ve used these series to group modules that have similar purposes. System Manager and Report Writer both are members of the Foundation series, since they act as support modules for the entire Dynamics system. Modules are collections of applications that work together to meet a number of closely related accounting and business management goals. For example, you can use the General Ledger module to maintain a chart of accounts, record transactions that affect the balances of those accounts and print financial statements. All these activities are closely linked, and together they meet a focused set of business goals. Integrated Accounting Dynamics modules integrate with one another automatically when they re installed. In an integrated system, the boundaries between modules are erased information entered in one module is shared with all the other modules. Benefits of integration include faster data entry, fewer opportunities for errors and more powerful, in-depth reporting. Lookup lists for accounts, customers and other master records are available throughout Dynamics, regardless of where you first entered the records; if the record you want hasn t been created yet, you can add it anywhere in the Dynamics system, then continue entering transactions using the new record. Perhaps the most important benefit of integration is that transactions can be posted from one module to another, automatically updating records throughout the Dynamics system. Within each series, all modules will post to the core module (Receivables Management, for example), and all the core modules will post to General Ledger. General Ledger acts as the central collection point for all your accounting information, and it provides comprehensive reporting of all your business s financial activity.
Using the On-line Tutorial Great Plains Dynamics comes with a built in interactive tutorial that explains and demonstrates many of the basic functions. Go through the tutorial and pay special attention to Visual Cues and The Dynamics Window. Before you use Dynamics, you need to connect to Great Plains servers via the Internet. The web address or URL to connect to in your Internet Explorer browser is: http://www.gps.com/dean Your screen should look like the picture below: Newer versions of Netscape (greater than 3.01 or Netscape Communicator ) will not work with the present version of Great Plains over the Internet. Remember that Great Plains is a Microsoft Business Partner, so they optimize for Microsoft s tools. Therefore, if you have access to Microsoft Explorer, use it. First click on the University of Mississippi icon, then double click the Dean3 icon to enter the Great Plains Software. You may login as UMS01, UMS02, etc... These ids already have a base of 81 transactions in them that serve as a starting point for our the automation of the Waren Distributing. To run the Tutorial, select Help from the main menu and then select Dynamics Tutorial from the help menu. Once in the Help Facility click the little blue tutorial hypertext under the caption Dynamics Fundamentals. Do not enter any data into your company from the tutorial.
Use the tutorial to help answer the following questions. 1. What are way(s) you can open a window from a Dynamics palette? a. Highlight the selection on the palette and hit Enter b. Click on the selection or the little arrow to the right of the selection c. Type the number of the selection and hit Enter d. All of the above 2) What does it mean when the cursor turns into a looking glass? a. Indicates that the cursor is over a field that has more information available b. Indicates that this is a field where you can enter text c. Indicates that another user is currently editing the field d. Indicates that a password is necessary to access the field that the cursor is over 3) What is a combo box? a. A field with three types of entries b. A meal you get from Burger King c. A field with three types of data d. A combination of a text entry field and a drop down list 4) What does it mean when the cursor turns into an I-beam? a. Indicates that a password is necessary to access the field that the cursor is over b. Indicates that the cursor is over a field that has more information available c. Indicates that text will appear if you begin typing d. Indicates that another user is currently editing the field that the cursor is over 5) What do you call the list that appears when you click on a button from the tool bar? a. Pop-up list b. Drop-down list c. Account list d. None of these 6) How do you know if there is a note attached to a window? a. The word note appears b. The note button will have vertical lines c. The note button will have horizontal lines 7) If you do not know the exact name of the file you wish to retrieve, what button should you click? a. Retrieve button b. Search button c. File button d. Account button 8) Is the palette pinned when the push pin is horizontal or on an angle? a. Angled b. Horizontal
More Questions Use the illustrations on the next page to answer the following questions. The letters correspond with pointers. A. What are these symbols called? What will happen to the palette on the left if you select an item from it? What will happen to the palette on the right if you select an item from it? B. What are these buttons called? Briefly describe the function of each of the circled buttons. C. What is this element called? What will appear if you click the button with the arrow on the right? D. If you click on this looking glass button what will you see a list of? Explain how this button can save you time. E. What does a this button allow you to do? F. What are these elements called? Can you mark both of them? (Circle one) Yes No Can you unmark both of them? Yes No G. These Hide and Show buttons can be extremely useful. If the Show button were pushed, specifically what fields would be visible? H. Can you enter data into this field? Yes No I. Can you enter data into this field? Yes No J. Can you enter data into this field? Yes No K. What is this scroll bar used for?
A. B. C. E. D. F. G. K. H. I. J.