Comments for FRxBuzz.com

Comment on FRx vs. Management Reporter: Got Functionality? by Bradley

Bradley — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:34:48 +0000

Any instructions to publish reports from Management Reporter to SharePoint when SSRS is integrated? You mention a webpart but you cant output to anything other than a local or network drive unless you specify a SSRS server which wont work if you have SSRS in integrated mode. Also the rdl files have absolute paths in them so saving them to a local folder and uploading them to SharePoint wont work.

Comment on How To Divide HeadCount by the Period Number by Jeff [MSFT]

Jeff [MSFT] — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:05:22 +0000

Docx and xlsx files just zip files with XML parts. Somewhere along the way, the doc’s being recognized as a zip file and its extension is getting changed back to .zip. Anyway, just save it to your computer, change the extension to .docx, and it’ll open in Word.

Comment on How To Divide HeadCount by the Period Number by Jan Harrigan CPA

Jan Harrigan CPA — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:12:14 +0000

You know, someone else let me know that a few weeks ago when I was working out of town, and then I forgot to add it to my to do list. So needless to say, it didn’t get done. Will fix soon and thanks for the reminder!

Comment on How To Divide HeadCount by the Period Number by Rick Tenorio [MSFT]

Rick Tenorio [MSFT] — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:45:28 +0000

Jan,
The link provided in the original article doesn’t appear to be the correct file location: http://www.frxbuzz.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/2008-1103-divide-head-count-by-period-report.docx
The link doesn’t load a word document. It opens a Zip file with XML files in it.

Comment on Linking to Excel to Use Period Numbers in Calculations by Lance

Lance — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 08:56:12 +0000

Don’t forget about /CPO’s little brother /RPO.

Does the same thing but doesn’t use the columns in Excel. It uses the rows.

Comment on Welcome by Lance

Lance — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 08:48:37 +0000

FRx is based on Access files… I’ll just leave it at that. With as many users as you have accessing FRx, report corruption is almost unavoidable. I would recommend that you make backups of your .F32 files at least once a week if regular changes are made, and every time a user creates a new report. I would keep these .F32 files in at least 2 locations, one offsite. Keep them for years rolling, they don’t take up much space and you never know when you will need to get back to a point previous to corruption.

Sometimes, if you are already experiencing wackiness, you can correct some kinds of damage by exporting your reports as .TDB files (Company | Specification Sets | Export) and re-import them into a new .F32 file. You can do this by clicking New and naming the specification set, the new .F32 you can make on the fly. Simple change the name of the .F32 file that defaulted into the Specification set location path.

Example:

//server name/FRx/SysData/FRxRpts.F32

Change to

//server name/FRx/SysData/NewFRxRpts.F32

Save the new specification set and your ready to populate it with your old reports.

To export the reports (catalogs) as well as all of the component building blocks (rows, columns and trees) follow the steps below:

Note: Do this when everybody is out of FRx and make sure you don’t have anything open by going to File | Close all. It’s also best to turn off FRx Security for this as well.

1. Highlight the specification set in the field on the left and click export.

2. Select all catalogs, rows, columns and tress and click export.

3. Accept the default location to save the .TDB to (the IO_Data folder of the company currently set as ‘Default’) or browse to a new location.

To import your reports into your new specification set (and new .F32 file)

1. Highlight the new specification set in the field on the left and click import.

2. Select the .TDB you exported above and click import.

3. Go to Company | Information and select your new .TDB in the specification set window and click save.

If this process didn’t fix your report damage you need to try to restore your .F32 from an earlier backup. Sometimes the seed of corruption are sewn before you realize it. An .F32 you think is good may actually be well on its way to being unusable. We see this sometimes when users say “We restore from a backup and that works for a few weeks but then we have the same issues.” This is why you need to have a history of your .F32 files.

If you do not have an .F32 backup that will work or if you do but it does not have a lot of reporting work recently done in it, you need to send the .F32 file into support. We can SOMETIMES fix them but it’s no sure thing.

If support cannot fix the reports and you do not have a backup… well it’s not looking good.

You may be able to fix issues with a specific report by simply assigning the same building blocks (rows column and tree) to a new catalog. This will fix the issue if the catalog was damaged. If it still doesn’t work then the row may be damaged. Open the row and go to File | Save As and give it a new name. Attach the new row to the new catalog. If it still doesn’t work maybe it’s the catalog, or the tree, do the same thing for them.

If your report is still not working you only have one option left (aside from starting over); copy the contents of the building block(s) to Excel and bring them into a new building block. You can make a new building block by going to File | New | Row (for new row of course). Then paste in the contents from Excel. Sometimes making it change from FRx data to Excel data and back to FRx data ‘purifies’ the formatting.

If all this does not work, call the wife and kids and let them know you’re going to be late for supper and get to recreating your reports. Oh, if it comes to this, do the work in a new specification set and .F32 file. Your old one is garbage.

Comment on FRx SP10: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly by Lance

Lance — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:38:40 +0000

There won’t be any hotfix for the CS issue; I say that with about 90% certainty. We hope to have SP 11 out in spring of 2009 but fall may be a safer bet.

I’m plenty familiar with CS overriding the formatting of the percentage column, I wrote the bug on it.

Funny to see my response here, it was I that sent the case notes Frank mentioned on 11/13. That bug I didn’t write but found those notes, in part, in another case. Looks like a nightmare.

As for the problem of multiple cells being deleted… I’ve never seen this. Anybody who has this issue should make a case for it with MBS Support. We don’t charge for bugs, so don’t worry about a fee.

Comment on FRx SP10 and CS Currency Rounding on the First Row by Doug

Doug — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:11:41 +0000

Sorry, This is more correct.

Go to company>>international format. Change the amount with currency symbol format. I believe the CS is using this format. I changed the format to not have a decimal and it got me what I wanted.

Comment on FRx SP10 and CS Currency Rounding on the First Row by Doug

Doug — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:09:38 +0000

Go to company>>internation format. I believe the CS is using this format. I changed the format to not have a decimal and it got me what I wanted.

Comment on FRx SP10: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly by Chris Mast

Chris Mast — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:21:02 +0000

Still struggling with the issue of the CS (currency sign) format in the row overriding the column’s percentage special format mask.

Got the first row to work by using the setting on the catalogue instead of a CS in the row. I’d really like to get a $ on the Net Income TOT row as well, but using a CS in the row changes all the percent columns as well. *yuck*

Any word on hot fix or updated SP from Microsoft would be great.

thanks.