Dynamics GP Stuck Process and Process Monitor

From time to time, I will receive a call from a customer who has posted a transaction, and is deeply concerned that nothing appears to be happening. More often than not, the problem turns out to be a report sent to screen, which was minimized and is blocking further processing.

It is not uncommon for a user who is about to post a transaction in Dynamics GP to print an edit list of the transaction to screen. If the user does not close the window containing the report, all future reports and processes will be held, until it is closed.

Imagine if you will, a user in Finance prints an edit list for a General Ledger transaction in preparation for posting.

Now the same user receives a phone call, and has to open another Dynamics GP window or External Application to answer a question or two, or three, etc. etc. etc. Several minutes pass, and the user returns to Dynamics GP to post the transaction.

Upon posting, nothing appears to happen. The Posting Journal report does not open. The user, being a savvy Dynamics GP user immediately opens the Process Monitor to view the status of the Batch.

The report open on the screen does not show in the Process Monitor window because technically, it has completed processing (technically). This is the first sign an open report printed to screen is the culprit -- the General Posting Journal is the next process in the cue. At this point the user should be looking at the open windows in Dynamics GP in order to find the window causing the hang up.

Once the window is identified, it must be closed. Immediately after the window closed, the processes being held up will continue until completion. In this case the General Posting Journal is printed and the batch posting is completed.

Once the processes complete, the Process Monitor window will be empty, and normal processing in Dynamics GP can be continued.

This type of problem is an infrequent occurrence and has an easy diagnosis and solution; therefore it has not been a priority addressed in recent releases. I for one would like to see the problem rectified, but understand the cascading problem it represents.

A report being run to screen prevents other reports from printing. A posting report being printed is a requirement of the posting process being completed. You see where this is going, right...

My humble suggest would be to enable Dynamics GP to render multiple reports to screen, instead of just one.