GPUG Educational sessions

1. EDUCATIONAL SESSION
Presented by: David Cervelli – Michael Bartling

2. Checklinks, What does it do, what to
watch for, what can go wrong?
• Check links is a powerful utility
developed by Great Plains to examine
tables and check corresponding
information in related tables.
• If issues are, found then this utility can
add, delete and update data to match
the corresponding data in a table.

3. History
• Originally, Dynamics Great Plains utilized Ctree and
Btrieve file systems.
• These are ISAM based file systems (Index Sequential
Access Method) which lack features in modem
databases to ensure data integrity.
• These file systems had some shortcoming’s and data
needed to be repaired.
• Great Plains created a tool to review and correct issues.

4. Examples of issues
• Transactions with customers that does not
exist in the Customer master.
• Transactions with Items that don’t exist in the
Item master
• Transactions with currencies that don’t exist
• Currency ID is missing
• Rate Type ID is missing
• Exchange Table ID is missing
• Many many more

5. What's going on?
The following list of stored procedures execute Check Links
operations and are called from the Dexterity Sanscript code
based on the selected table group.
glCLAccountMSTR pmCLApplyToOPENOPEN
pmCLApplyToWORKOPEN pmCLDistributionWORKOPEN
pmCLHistoryLogicalTableGroup pmCLKeyMSTR
pmCLManualPaymentWORK pmCLMCRevaluation
pmCLMCTransactions pmCLMoveFullyApplied
pmCLPaymentWORK pmCLSchHdr
pmCLSchLine pmCLTaxInvoices
pmCLTaxWORK pmCLTransactionLogicalTableGrp
pmCLTransactionOPEN pmCLTransactionWORK
rmCLAppliedOPEN rmCLCashWORK
rmCLCommissionWORK rmCLDistributionWORK
rmCLHistoryLogicalTableGroup rmCLKeysMSTR
rmCLMCRevaluation rmCLMCTransaction
rmCLRMOPEN rmCLSalesWORK
rmCLSchHdr rmCLSchLine
rmCLTaxWORK rmCLTransactionLogicalTableGrp

6. Sounds Great! What can go wrong?
• Check Links are designed to analyze, update and
remove any suspect records based on how tables are
related in the application's dictionary.
• Your altered data!
• Always perform a full back up before running check
links.
• If you haven’t run it for a while, refresh the test system
and run there first so you won’t be surprised.

7. What else!
• Read the report!
• Run a reconcile!
• Check links only verifies data integrity not
accuracy.
• It might insert records that cause accuracy
issues.
• Reconciliation Process reviews and corrects
accuracy so always run reconcile after check
links.
• Check links does not validate or care about
3rd party tools or customizations.

8. Summary
• Check links is a valuable tool.
• Be careful.
• Backup first and check.