BY Victoria Yudin, Founder, Flexible Solutions Inc.

Often when developing reports for Microsoft Dynamics GP users, we face what I like to call the need-to-know challenge.  No information is volunteered, you have to ask very leading questions to really understand the report’s purpose, and at every step someone else needs to be consulted.

This dynamic frequently results from the fact that the person requesting the report is two or three degrees removed from the actual users of the report and often does not know the detailed requirements.  It can also sometimes happen when users think that by giving the report designer too much information they will be wasting time, and since they’re paying by the hour, time is money.

The reality is that the need-to-know approach to report specification will typically lead to a much longer lead time for your reports and most likely require more iterations before it actually accomplishes the desired results.  If you are using internal resources for report writing, this situation can cause to a lot of frustration and wasted time.  If you are using external resources, this can translate into far more expensive reports.

Next time you are the one requesting a report, be able to answer the following five questions:

1.       What is the business need behind the report?  This is an important place to start, especially when you’re talking to a consultant that has already developed numerous reports for others – they may have already created a report for a similar need and might have re-usable code or an approach you may not have thought of for creating the report.

2.       What does the report need to look like and who will be using it?  The answer may be critical in determining the tool or method used for creating the report.  For example, a report that needs to be presented to the board or to persons outside the company for review might need to look a lot more presentable than an internal report, so maybe it would be created in Crystal or SSRS.  Something that will be used internally only and possibly need to be manipulated or edited may be better accomplished in SmartList or Excel.

3.       What columns of data should be on the report?  Some of this may need to get pretty detailed.  Putting together a sample output in Excel, or even on paper, can be very helpful to the report designer.   If you’re using dates, be very clear about which dates; for example, each subledger transaction in Dynamics GP has at least two dates: document date and GL posting date.  If you’re looking for data like address, comments, or Salesperson ID on sales transactions, specify whether these should be from the line item level or the overall invoice level.  If any of the columns should be totaled, or if you want them grouped or sorted in a particular way, show that on your sample.

4.       Where/how do you enter the data that is needed for the report?  What often seems like a very straightforward request can have myriad meanings.  A common request we get is for “a sales report”.  This could mean almost anything when you’re talking about Dynamics GP.  To start, there are four typical modules where this data may be entered or found:  General Ledger, Receivables Management, Sales Order Processing (SOP), or Invoicing.  In addition, ‘sales’ could have different meanings: it could be the sum of all the extended costs on all sales lines, it could be the totals of invoices and returns, it could be invoice totals less tax, or it could be everything that’s in the GL accounts in the Sales category, regardless of where it originated.  The business need for the report should help determine the answer to this.

5.       What parameters and/or other logic are needed?  If you need to use a number of parameters when running the report that may rule out certain tools, like SmartList.  Also, consider additional logic – should your report only return posted data or all data with a status column?  Should voids be excluded, or shown, but with a void status?  Are any calculations or other data manipulation required?

If you are not sure about the answers to some of these questions, an experienced report designer will be able to help you put your report specification together.  What is important to understand is that without this information it will be difficult for anyone, internal or external, to create the report you are looking for.

www.kraftenterprise.com

REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Microsoft Corp. today announced Microsoft Dynamics CRM has garnered recognition as a Leader from two leading independent research firms, Gartner Inc. and Forrester Research Inc. Forrester acknowledged Microsoft Dynamics CRM for offering a flexible customer service solution, earning a Leader position in The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites Customer Service Solutions, Q3, 2010 (July 2010) report, while Gartner placed it as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation (July 2010) report.

These acknowledgements follow recent placements for Microsoft Dynamics CRM among the Leaders in The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites for Midsized Organizations, Q2 2010 (June 2010), The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites for Large Organizations, Q2 2010 (June 2010) and the 2010 Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Service Contact Centers.

“We provide a strong vision and a road map of ongoing innovation to help customers get the maximum return from their CRM investments,” said Brad Wilson, general manager, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “With the upcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, customers will reach new levels of productivity and collaboration with a low total cost of ownership, and partners will unlock new opportunities with a single development environment for cloud-based and on-premises deployments.”

Results From Gartner

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation evaluates vendors on their ability to execute and completeness of vision. Evaluation criteria weighed for each included product/service, overall viability, sales execution/pricing, customer experience and operations, and offering (product) strategy, business model, innovation and geographic strategy, respectively.

According to Gartner, “Vendors placed in the Leaders quadrant of Gartner’s Sales Force Automation Magic Quadrant demonstrate a market-defining vision of how technology can help the top sales executives achieve business objectives. Leaders have the ability to execute against that vision through products, services and demonstrated solid business results in the form of revenue and earnings. Leaders have significant successful customer deployments in North America, EMEA and Asia/Pacific in a wide variety of vertical industries with multiple proof points above 500 users.”

Results From Forrester Research

To assess the market of CRM suites customer service solutions software and see how vendors compare with one another, Forrester evaluated the customer service strengths and weaknesses of the top CRM suites vendor products against 196 criteria organized into three high-level categories: current offering, strategy and market presence. According to Forrester, vendors in the Leader category have both a strong product and strategy.

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM shines by offering customer service flexibility for large and midsized organizations,” wrote William Band, vice president and principal analyst, and James Kobielus, senior analyst, Forrester Research, in the report. “It supports flexible options in deployment (on-premises, on-demand and partner-hosted deployments); how to pay (license, subscribe, finance); and how to use (Outlook client, browser, SharePoint site, other interfaces). Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides strong support for: phone agents; call center infrastructure; agent collaboration tools; knowledge base; customer data management; analytics; email response management; architecture and platform; business process and workflow tools; integration; security; and Web 2.0 tools.”

About the Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2010 by Gartner Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of easy-to-use, integrated and adaptable ERP and CRM applications that enable business decision-makers to quickly respond to market shifts, take advantage of new trends, increase their competitive edge and drive business success. Microsoft Dynamics solutions are delivered through a world-class network of reselling partners providing specialized services and additional innovation to help customers excel in their industries.

www.kraftenterprise.com