Well OK—Convergence was back in April and now it’s June! Sorry—no excuses! So without further delay, here are some of the main discussion points around FRx and Management Reporter.
BTW, some discussion was official, some not so official. {smile}
Migration from FRx to Management Reporter
- Download and print the migration documentation. There’s a lot of (nitpicky) preparation to do BEFORE migrating, and this document spells it all out. Don’t skip this part.
- The migration document is KB 2425087.
- Tip: Migration clears the MR database, so if you’ve been playing around and have existing reports you want to keep, you should export them first.
- One last note, there were plenty of migration fixes in FP1 and SP1. Don’t go there without them. [click to continue…]
Here’s what’s happening with Management Reporter for GP.
In December 2010, Feature Pack 1 for Management Reporter was released for Microsoft Dynamics GP. Here’s what Feature Pack 1 does for you:
- Currency Translation – New functionality added to expand existing currency translation capabilities. This update works with new features offered in the install of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Service Pack 1.
- Formatting – Issues with currency symbol, conditional printing and cell shading have been resolved.
Forecaster Integration—well, it’s not exactly here yet. But yesterday a Forecaster Data Transfer Tool was released. This tool transfers budget data in Forecaster to the budget tables in Dynamics GP (as well as SL and AX). Once the data has been transferred, Management Reporter can pull it.
Anybody using currency translation in GP 2010 with MR yet? Please comment!
If you use one of the four Microsoft Dynamics ERPs, you could be thinking about migrating from FRx to Management Reporter, the next-generation FRx replacement.
And you might be wondering what pieces of FRx will get lost in the shuffle. This is a laundry list that I got a couple of years ago from a Microsoft contact. Along with a few of my own comments!
Note: If you don’t use Microsoft Dynamics (either GP, AX, SL, or NAV), you can skip this post. [click to continue…]
This is a quick high level overview of Management Reporter, the next-generation FRx replacement.
Caveat: This product is not available for ERPs other than Dynamics GP, SL, AX and NAV.
- 64 bit—native
- Back end completely rewritten—brand new .NET and C# code base replaces FRx’s VB6
- SQL Server instead of Access—way more stable
- Improved multi-user capabilities
- Report Library—centralized storage used to view reports and group reports into folders
- Report Viewer—replaces FRx’s Drill Down Viewer
- Undo/Redo—everybody is thrilled with this one
- Formatting and Images—can add logos, and formatting is done from familiar toolbars
- Column Page Breaks—everybody is thrilled with this one too
- XBRL—tag in the rows and generate the XBRL instance document
I am really excited about this product. Safe to say it’s been a long time coming.
This is a very quick list of circumstances in which you probably should not migrate (immediately) to Management Reporter:
- If you rely heavily on email distribution
- If you need to report on Forecaster data
- If you export to Excel and really need the ‘Format as Excel Outline’ functionality
- If you use FRx’s Currency Translation module
- If you extensively use Effective Dates (often used for Quarter To Date reporting)
- If you use lots of Row Linking
- If you rely on WebPort
But know that things are changing very quickly and functionality is being added every day. So while the above list is true today, it may not hold true in just a few months.
Another thing to know—there may be workarounds for the above list, especially for email distribution, Excel outline, quarter to date reporting, and row linking. (Even for WebPort; wouldn’t that be fun to ditch?) Anyway, there may be some creative solutions.
There may be other factors to consider too, and each situation should be considered on a case by case basis, but barring any big barriers I’d sure be tempted to go for it.
(On 4/28/10 I updated screenshots and changed a bit of terminology in this post—Jan)
Today’s post is a high level comparison (a Shootout as we like to say in Texas) between the long-in-the-tooth but lovable (sometimes) FRx and its replacement Management Reporter.
I think you’ll see a lot of similarities and I hope this makes the thought of a migration a little easier.
One other item—this is a high level comparison of the user interface. Behind the scenes, things have changed drastically!
Oh yeah, as you probably are already well aware, Management Reporter is/will be available only for Dynamics GP, SL, AX and NAV. If you are running Sage or Epicor or one of the zillions of other ERPs that FRx integrates with, you can skip this post. [click to continue…]
