Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant
On the 28th January, Rollup 4 for Management Reporter 2012 was released via the Dynamics Corporate Performance Management blog.
It can be downloaded from CustomerSource (CustomerSource or PartnerSource login required).
For Microsoft Dynamics GP users there is improved performance with the data mart integrations and new Quick Links in the Web Viewer which allows users to easily jump to key areas of a report.
In the last post, I showed how to install Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Analyzer and in this one I’ll show how to configure it.
When you first log into Business Analyzer, you’ll be presented with the configuration window;
In this post, I’ll take a step-by-step look at installing Business Analyzer for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013. This is a tool that comes as standard with GP but I’ve never bothered to look at before; this has changed recently because I’ve been dealing with a few clients who are heavy users of SSRS and Business Analyzer gives way to run the GP reports without needing to log into Microsoft Dynamics GP itself.
To Install Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Analyzer start the normal Microsoft Dynamics GP setup utility and select Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Analyzer;
These days I find that time passes far too quickly. Turns out it was on the 14th November that RU3 of Management Reporter was released and I said I’d do some posts on the web client part of it. Well, time flies but I’ve finally found the time to do the post I promised.
When I downloaded Management Reporter 2012 Rollup 3 I did what quite a few people seem to have done and looked for the web client installer within the setup utility. Well, it turns out there isn’t one as it is all handled by the server install. To view a report in the MR 2012 web client all you need to do is output the file to a network location or SharePoint. I’ve gone the easiest route and output the file to a network share.
In the Report Designer, open a Report Definition and switch to the Output and Distribution tab and change the radio button to Generate to multiple report library locations. In this case my report is being output to Library/P&L and if I click on it I can then choose to set a Related Report Link Location which I have set to the shared Dynamics Central location on my server;
On the 12th November, RU3 for Management Reporter 2012 was released.
Full information available here and it can be downloaded here.
Management Reporter 2012 RU3 brings a web client (reports can be deployed to a network share or to SharePoint depending on preference), the Financial Reporting Data Mart for Dynamics GP (good for dealing with large datasets), the ability to report against Dynamics GP General Ledger and Analytical Accounting information using a single company as well as more than 35 bugs.
I’ll be doing some more posts on MR 2012 RU3 over the coming couple of weeks so stay tuned.
In July last year, Frank Hammelly posted a SmartList customisation for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 on his blog gp2themax.
I’ve recently been taking a look at Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and decided to see if I could use Modifier to reproduce this customisation for GP 2013 (I have no reason to believe the customisation posted by Frank won’t work with 2013, but I wanted to dabble with Modifer and this seemed a good starting point); the customisation can be downloaded at the bottom of this post.
The screenshots below show SmartList in both it’s default size and maximised with the left pane remaining a static size and the right pane occupying the rest of the window;
Microsoft are posting the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Feature of the Day series on the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP Blog.
The forty fourth feature they’ve announced is Multitenant SQL Server Reporting Services Reports.
The current version of Microsoft Dynamics GP only supports a dedicated instance of SQL Server Reporting Services for each Microsoft Dynamics GP data instance. With the introduction of the Multi-tenant System Database Architecture, the SQL Server Reporting Services needed to be updated to allow for similar functionality.
With this Multi-tenant SQL Server Reporting Services Reports feature, multiple data instances can be deployed to a single SQL Server Reporting Services instance by allowing the implementer to to deploy the reports to a “tenant” folder.
Microsoft have started the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Feature of the Day series on the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP Blog.
The sixteenth feature they’ve announced is SSRS Reports On Forms.
This feature allows users to print SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports directly from a window in Microsoft Dynamics GP. This has been made available on a range of windows across General Ledger, Receivables Management, Sales Order Processing, Payables Management, Inventory Management, Human Resources and Payroll.
Microsoft have started the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Feature of the Day series on the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP Blog.
The fifteenth feature they’ve announced is Reconcile IV To GL.
Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 saw the introduction of the Reconcile to GL report which allowed the automation of the reconciliation of differences in Receivables Management and Payables Management to the General Ledger. In Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 the Inventory Control module will be added to the Reconcile to GL to help users identify the differences between the Historical Inventory Trial Balance and the GL inventory accounts;
I was on site with a client last week to do training on various parts of the system, one of which was Management Reporter.
Before the training started, I was alerted to the fact that Management Reporter had stopped working. We ran through a few issues such as the Microsoft Dynamics GP adapter disappearing from the Configuration Console (we re-added it), the Application Service was not running and couldn’t be started (it had been setup by the client using the Network Service and for some reason stopped working; we changed it to Local System and was able to restart the service but I’ve advised them to change both Management Reporter services to a Domain User account).
Once everything was set up and apparently working we encountered the final problem. When we tried to produce a report, it was added to the Management Reporter queue where it remained and did not move to a status of Processing.
I found a website discussing changing the SQL Server broker on the ManagementReporter database to true (and it was set to false) so I did this but no luck.
A little more prodding and poking at both Management Reporter and SQL Server, and I turned up the problem which was actually a fairly obvious one.
The ManagementReporter database was owned by Domain\Administrator. Running the below script to change the database owner to sa resolved the problem and allowed the reports to be processed;
sp_changedbowner 'sa'
Fortunately the investigation and resolution didn’t take a long time so we were able to do the full length training session.
