Dynamics GP provides a Task List for managing items to be accomplished within the system. While not quite as powerful as, say, Outlook's tasks, the Task List in Dynamics GP can provide direct links to the appropriate window, web page, or external file needed to accomplish the task. Even Outlook can't provide a direct link to the right window in Dynamics GP. In addition, tasks can be assigned to other users in the system to better delegate the workload. Let's look at how to use the Task List in Dynamics GP in this recipe.
Open tasks are displayed on the Home page in Dynamics GP under the To Do heading.
To get started, select New Task from the Home Page to see the full task list. Yes, that's not particularly intuitive but that is how it works.
As an example, we'll look at adding a month end bank reconciliation task by completing the following steps:
To create a new task, select New Task from the Home page in the To Do section to open the full task list.
Select New Task on the Task List window. In the Task section enter
Reconcile Bank Statement. Set the due date to the fifth of the next month and set the status to pending.
In the Task Assigned To box, select a user to assign this task to. In the Link To box, pick Microsoft Dynamics GP window.
To attach the Reconcile Bank Statements window, click on the blue arrow next to Name.
In the new Add Command box that opens, pick Transactions on the left side then click on the plus (+) sign next to Financial on the right.
In the right-side pane select Reconcile Bank Statement and click on OK.
Click on Save to save the task. If the task was assigned to another user, it will now appear in that user's task list.
The new task now appears in the Tasks area on the Home page. Checking the box next to a task marks it as complete and sets the user who completed the task as well as the date completed.
Even better, tasks can be repeated, which means that they work great for regular processes such as month end or quarter end tasks.
To set a task as recurring:
Select the Recurrence button during task creation or double-click on an existing task and pick Recurrence.
From the previous example, select the Reconcile Bank Statement task and double-click the line.
Click on the Recurrence button. Set the recurrence pattern to Monthly, select Day, and enter values
5and1in the appropriate fields, as shown in the next screenshot.This means the task will recur on the fifth of each month. That's about five days after a typical bank statement cut off.
Leave the range of recurrence set to No End Date and click on OK.
Now this task will repeat each month on the fifth day of the month, perfect for a calendar month end bank cut off. Obviously, if a company's bank statement cuts off at some other time during the month, these settings can be easily changed.
The Using Reminders to remember important events recipe in Chapter 4, Automating Dynamics GP