Back from Convergence 2012

So, next year, back to New Orleans for Convergence 2013.  Admittedly, I did like New Orleans a lot, although I have to say that San Diego has been my favorite. Overall it was a good Convergence, although I feel like it went by so quick.  Working in the hands on labs was fun as always, meeting with attendees, partners, and old friends.  This year we were closer to the product groups, so it was nice to spend some time chatting with all of those folks that dig us out of holes year after year after year.

I am very excited about Management Reporter 2012 for a number of reasons, including...

• Improved performance across the board, including a datamart for AX and NAV
• Drillback to Dynamics GP from a report (ala FRx)
• Quick charts and comments allow users to collaborate on published reports
• Multiple destinations for a report definition, including SharePoint and a network share
• Identify missing accounts across all building blocks

Can't wait to get this in to place for our clients, so that the enthusiasm for MR can continue to build!

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.

Update on Management Reporter Dimension Sets and AX

A quick update on an earlier post, http://dynamicsgpland.blogspot.com/2012/02/management-reporter-dimension-sets-and.html, on an issue with Dimension Sets not working when using Management Reporter with AX2012.  Turns out, it is now an official quality report and should be resolved in MR2012 coming in March.  Let's keep our fingers crossed!

The combination of not being able to use Dimension Sets and the 512 character limitation for the string created by the dimensions (e.g., [Main Account}= 200050) in a row, column, or tree...it makes for some interesting report design (lots of individual NP rows followed by a total) when you are working with a large/complex chart of accounts.

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.

Management Reporter Size Limitation

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working with a client on a series of odd Management Reporter issues.  The first issue they reported happened when they were working with trees.  The user would add a branch to a tree in MR, and then enter a series of dimension codes for that branch.  Randomly, it seemed, the dimensions code would not save on some branches of the tree.  Odd.  The tree branch/unit would be there, but the dimension field would be blank.

So, we spent some time one afternoon trying to figure out some sort of common thread with the disappearing dimensions.  It seemed like different combinations of dimensions would cause the issue.  After talking with Microsoft, it was determined that the issue is a 512 character limitation on the dimension field in the tree.  So, when you add multiple dimensions to a tree branch/unit, it may add up to 512 pretty quickly since MR includes the dimension name for each dimension you include.

I know that this may be working as designed, but this seems like something that many users would encounter over time-- particularly those with large/long account strings.

As a workaround, I suggested that the client used dimension sets on the branches of the tree instead.  And this worked great, except that there also appears to be a size limitation on the dimension set as well.  So if the user tries to add too many dimension combinations (apparently also variable based on the dimension name and other characters included in the string) it also causes a series of errors.  In this client's case, they would get one of the following errors:

• Object is currently in use elsewhere
• Column ‘ParentAccountSetID, LinkIndex’ is constrained to be unique.  Value ‘8e1f4448-f5c1-461a-b898-f7c7cc572bf2,23’ is already present

In both cases, it would force Management Reporter to close and the building block would then be checked out to the user.  The second error message above is possibly a quality report (per Microsoft) and is being analyzed, it does appear to be caused by some sort of limitation on the size of dimension set.

I know that both of these issues may seem to minor for a lot of clients.  But as I have recently been working on MR reports for a Dynamics AX client with a large account string and long chart of accounts, I do worry that we might start to hit up against these sort of issues more frequently.  The workarounds that seem to be available for now include:

• Keeping dimension sets small
• Using dimension sets instead of including large lists of dimensions on a tree
• Using ranges and/or wildcards wherever possible to decrease the number of characters used
• Use shorter names for your segments, so that they take up less space when repeated in a dimension list

Will keep you posted as I hear back on the status of both of these items.  And, yes, I still love Management Reporter :)

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.

Zero Columns Not Aligning In Management Reporter

We had an odd little issue pop up in Management Reporter.  One of those little oddities that doesn't seem like much, but is annoying nonetheless.  Here is an example of the issue, in a calculated column that is rounded to 1 decimal place:

1.0
4.4
2.0
3.4
 0.0
2.2

Notice the problem?  Look closer.  Do you see it?  The 0.0 value does not align to the rest of the numbers.  Why?  Well, the issue is that the 0.0 is actually being rounded from -0.02 (for example).  So when it rounds to 0.0 it is not aligned correctly in the column.  If it was -.06 it would be fine, as that would round to -1.0. 

A small issue, sure, but one that can be quite annoying in presentation-quality financials.

Fortunately, it is fairly simple fix.  Set the Print Control for the column to NP, and then add a new calculated column with this formula:

IF B>-.05 AND B<0 THEN 0 ELSE B

Replace B with the original column that was set to NP.  This eliminates the issue with the negative value rounding to the out of alignment 0.0.  This is logged as a quality report with Microsoft.

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.

Management Reporter Report Distribution Lessons Learned

I have recently been working with Management Reporter a lot, particularly with regards to report distribution and I have picked up a few tips I thought I would share that may save you some time and energy:

Management Reporter-Report Designer: Security Page

Management Reporter-Report Viewer: Right-Click on Folder

• Wherever possible, use Security Groups for folder security in the Report Viewer.  Groups can be set up by clicking on the Security page in Management Reporter.  Then when you create a folder in the Reports Library, you can grant the group access to the folder (right click on the folder and choose Report Library Permissions).  Then when a user is added to the security group, they will automatically have access to the folders.
• Folders will appear even if a user doesn't have access to them in the Reports Library. But the reports within them will not. Same is true about tree level security, the branches of the tree will show in the Report Viewer. If the user does not have access, the branch will be greyed out and not available for selection.
• Need to change the folder name? Well, bummer, if you already have reports mapped to output to the folder on the Output and Distribution tab of the report definition. Changing the folder name will not change the output path on reports, so you have to go back and remap the output path for affected reports if you want them to publish correctly.

Management Reporter-Report Designer: Report Definition Output and Distribution tab
• If you plan on putting reports in to groups (In Management Reporter-Report Designer, choose File-Report Groups) to generate them (similar to daisy-chaining reports together in FRx), make sure you unmark the "View Report When Generated" option on the Report Definition, to prevent all of the reports from opening when you process the group.

Any other lessons learned out there?  What I would love to see in the next release-- ability to pick more than one output path/method per report.  This comes up a lot when needing to publish reports for multiple user groups, or to print and generate to the report library simultaneously.

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.



In Search Of....Creative Management Reporter Solutions

I only have vague memories of the old "In Search Of" series hosted by Leonard Nimoy, although those long forgotten memories also recall a bit of creepiness and more than a couple nightmares prompted by the episodes.

Today, I am not looking for Bigfoot or trying to debunk the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, but I am in search of creative solutions for two Management Reporter dilemmas I have run in to recently.  I would love to hear from anyone who has found elegant/not so elegant solutions to the following issues:

• Deploying Management Reporter in environments that do not have a domain/Active Directory in place
• Dealing with large volume reporting, and the need to generate reports to the library for viewing as well as printing them for packets

I know that these are not "possible" today, but I wanted to hear from anyone who might have a workaround or even how they approached these limitations with their clients.  You can post on this blog, or email me directly at cphillips@bkd.com.

Thanks!

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.

Learning Management Reporter Lessons the Hard Way

So, I thought I would put together a quick post on an issue that I ran in to today with Management Reporter.  It resulted in one of those 'doh moments.

When working with consolidated multi-company reporting in Management Reporter, it is apparently important that the account segments are named exactly the same in all companies that you plan to use with a selected row format.  Take the following example....

Company A
Account Structure: 4-2
Account Segment Names (Microsoft Dynamics GP>>Tools>>Setup>>Company>>Account Format): Main Account, Department

Company B

Account Structure: 4-2
Account Segment Names (Microsoft Dynamics GP>>Tools>>Setup>>Company>>Account Format): Main, Department

Do you spot the difference?  Company A called their first segment 'Main Account', while Company B called it 'Main'. Not a big deal, right?  Well, from what I can tell, it actually can be.  So, let's say you log in to Management Reporter in to Company A and build a row format based on 'Main Account'.  Well, if you notice, the row format will code the name 'Main Account' in to the row format. 

So, let's say you switch to Company B and open the row format you designed in Company A.  Uh-oh.  You will notice all of your main segments are missing from the row format. Ugh. And when you generate the report, no values will show for Company B even though the account structure is exactly the same.  But what is different?  The segment names.  Fortunately, it's an easy fix.  Just log in to Company B and change the first segment name (Microsoft Dynamics GP>>Tools>>Setup>>Company>>Account Format) to match Company A 'Main Segment'.  The row format will now display the main segments even when logged in to Company B, and even better the report will actually pull numbers for Company B.

Lesson learned- If you plan to use a building block for multiple companies, or for consolidated reporting across multiple companies, make sure your segment names match from company to company to maximize the efficiency of Management Reporter!

Quick Post- Why I love Management Reporter

Sitting in an airport, delayed for 4 hours trying to get to Denver for our annual year end customer event, I thought I would post a quick couple of thoughts on Management Reporter.  I have been working in it more and more lately, and I really like it.  Of course, there are the missing pieces for now, but I know that they will come in time.  But a couple of things that make life so much easier....

1. Being able to easily add dimensions, including account category or analytical accounting, for reporting. Just make the change in the company settings (Companies>>Companies).
2. Create report groups to generate reports together, and specific whether you want to override the report definition settings for date, etc.  (File>>Report Groups)
3. Being able to organize report building blocks, and reports in report library by folders.  And then in the Report Definition, on the Output and Distribution tab, being able to send reports to a specific folder in the Report Library.

Now, if I could only get to Denver!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Another Deep Dive Now Available! Management Reporter!

Earlier I had posted about the What's New Deep Dives we have completed for Microsoft for Dynamics GP 2010. Happily we just posted another one on Management Reporter. Check it out! The magnificent Craig Anderson of MSX Group developed and presented this topic. When it comes to Management Reporter, Craig and MSX Group are THE source. So we were thrilled to have his subject matter expertise on board for this topic!