(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 product 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. More »
Hey these are my absolute favorite FRx shortcuts. Lots of these are for beginners, but I’m hoping some seasoned pros might pick up a new trick or two. Even with 15 years experience with FRx, I learn something new on almost every engagement. And you’d be surprised how long it took me to discover one of these! More »
This is a very short excerpt from FRx in 8 Hours—Intermediate. It’s in Chapter 8—Extras.
Departments in Row Format
Well, I talk all the time about how the best way to set up a report in FRx is with the natural account in the row, but sometimes you just need to have departments in the row! One way is to specify the full account structure in the row format, but that prevents you from using a reporting tree since the full account structure will override the tree and result in duplicated data. More »
I’ve recently finished and released FRx in 8 Hours—Intermediate. It’s the followup manual to FRx in 8 Hours—Introduction. Both are self-study tutorials, but the new manual covers many more reports. There’s way more information on this page: www.FRxBuzz.com/FRx-Training-Manuals/
SP11 has recently been released. Today’s post is courtesy of Kim Leonard at Microsoft. Thank you Kim! Kim is on the support team for FRx and just updated the SP10 “Good Bad Ugly” post with this new information on SP11. I thought it was so important that it should have its own post. Here’s Kim:
Regarding the Good/Bad/Ugly, I can give you highlights for Service Pack R11670 as follows:
•Windows 2008 and Windows 7 will be supported with FRx 6.7 SP11.
•The FRx WebPort will be supported with Windows 2008 and Windows 7. A separate download is necessary to install FRxWebport SP11 to be supported on Windows 2008 and Windows 7. This will be available on MS Downloads (the same place where all the FRx Service packs are stored) eventually but not currently uploaded yet. Windows Vista will continue to be not supported with FRx WebPort. More »
Rumor has it that Microsoft may be closing the Denver FRx office within the next few months. (Background: FRx began its life in Denver, then was acquired by Great Plains which in turn was acquired by Microsoft. A year or two ago, FRx Software Corporation was merged into Microsoft Corporation, but it has always maintained its Denver office.)
It sounds like the jobs, but not necessarily the people, are moving to Fargo. This is quite significant because Denver is where the developers live, as well as higher tier tech support.
This team is working on FRx SP11, but they’re also working on Management Reporter, getting it ready to ship next year. If they all lose their jobs, what happens to these plans? Is MR delayed? Or maybe it doesn’t ship at all? I have no idea. I’d love to know.
Adding horizontal and/or vertical lines to a report in FRx will often make a good report just that much better. Not to mention more legible for your audience. Can be very impressive and it’s really pretty easy. Here’s how. More »
Well, I’ve been focused on the future of FRx for so long that it’s been a while since I posted a How To. By special request from the Wednesday presentation at Convergence (sorry again for the dreadful visual capabilities of the room we were in!), here’s how to do column placement.
Quite often in FRx you simply need to put the value in one column into a different column. This is easy in excel with by just entering an ‘=’ with the cell reference. It’s not quite as easy in FRx but it’s still fairly straightforward.
It’s easier if you think of the intersection of each row and column as having a cell reference, just as in Excel. So the reference for FRx column B and row code 1410 would be simply B1410. More »
Really hate to be the bearer of bad news but here goes.
What are your FRx options if you don’t use one of the 4 Microsoft GLs? If you use Sage or Epicor or one of the other 40 or so GLs that FRx works with, your options are quite limited.
Your software publisher’s contract for FRx support ends December 2010. That is FRx’s End of Life. I don’t know yet if you can get per-incident phone support after this date, but it’d probably be smart NOT to count on it.
Microsoft is replacing FRx with Management Reporter (MR). Your MR options are even more limited than your FRx options. The only possibility is MR version 1, and that’s only if your GL publisher has already written an integration to it. You should contact the publisher (Sage, Epicor, etc) to find out what your options are. If they haven’t written an integration, then they may already have a non-Microsoft replacement product. I know several publishers are looking.
Future versions of Management Reporter won’t be available at all. Period.
I’ve been in New Orleans this week attending Convergence—almost didn’t go home—had to tear myself away from the food and drink and music and dance and people and history and architecture and fun, but that’s another story in itself. But here’s what I learned about FRx’s future.
First things first: if your GL is not Microsoft Dynamics GP, SL, AX or NAV, non of this post applies. I’ll do a separate post on that. Hint: don’t think you’re going to like it.
Bottom line, FRx is being replaced by Management Reporter (aka MR). MR is the next generation FRx—it looks and feels similar but runs on a better database (SQL Server instead of Access) and is written in a better language. Just a much stronger product all around even though it doesn’t yet have all the functionality of FRx.
Here’s the timeline. More »
