Dynamics GP tables are what?

Having come from the GP DOS world back in the day, the table structure in Dynamics GP makes sense to me.  Others may not be so lucky in understanding these things.  Furthermore GP doesn't exactly give you a one-stop-shop for this.

There are lots of internet resources you can turn to for GP table descriptions.  The most useful is Victoria Yudin's blog.  It's not comprehensive but it is invaluable as she defines many of the key fields that you would search hard to find the defined value for (i.e. What are all the SOPStatus values?)  Joseph Spaur also hosts a very nice, organized list that includes field type information as well as references to other tables where a particular column is used.

But most people don't realize GP comes with its own internal table descriptions as well as an SDK that has even MORE descriptive table information.  These are the sources I use most.

To get to the GP table list inside Dynamics from the menu system drop the Microsoft Dynamics GP menu then Tools > Resource Descriptions > Tables.  From the Table Descriptions window click the ellipse beside the Table: field to open the Table Names window.


In the Table Names window I change the View By: to "by Table Physical Name" and it presents a nicely sorted list of tables in the "Series" for that "Product".  Note that it is helpful to understand what a Product and Series are before starting out with this.


My trick in using the Table Names window is to stay on it and not make a selection unless required.  Use this window to scrounge all the tables you seek then select them if you must.  You will be returned to the Table Descriptions window where all the columns in that table are defined.  This can be a helpful window at times as some column values are defined there.  But you will have to start over if you want to go back to Table Names to find a different table.


The SDK is a separate install from the GP DVD.  You will find it in the Tools\SDK\Dynamics GP folder.  Once installed and opened you get a Windows Help-like window with lots of technical information.  One nugget to extract you will find under Table Integration > Database Diagrams and is the Table List.  Open that and you will get an Excel spreadsheet with all the GP tables organized by "Product" in the worksheet tabs.  I save this to my desktop and refer to it frequently.