Move Management Reporter To A New Domain

Microsoft Dynamics GPA client recently ran into problems with Management Reporter whereby they had a large number of building blocks accidentally deleted from one building block group. While the easiest solution would be to restore the Management Reporter database to before the blocks were deleted, this was not possible.

The client in question has a lot of users across different businesses each it their own building block groups and were in the middle of year end. LOsing all the management accounts so far produced ad interrupting all business units to fix an issue in one of them was not possible. To make things worse, their test system was being rebuilt after some year end testing so we couldn’t use this to restore the database and export the building blocks.

The solution was therefore a little more long winded and took several steps:

  1. Copy a backup of the Management Reporter database prior to the deletion and restore to my test system.
  2. Run the copy the Management Reporter 2012 database to a new server script from Microsoft
  3. Use the after you make changes to your domain, you no longer have permission to access Management Reporter; this script was needed as the domain on my demo system is totally different to the originating one.
  4. Export required building blocks.
  5. Import exported building blocks back into client system.

The above took a while due to the size of the database which had to be copied to my test system and restored, but was actually quite straightforward.

Implementing Jet Reports: Management Reporter vs. Jet Reports

Jet ReportsThe vast majority of my clients are users of Management Reporter, when implementing Jet Reports, one of the key areas, which needs to be discussed, is how Management Reporter compares to Jet Reports.

Fortunately some work has already been done in this area by MVP Belina Allen, the GP CSI. She has done a series of videos on Management Reporter versus Jet Reports.

Below are links to the playlist of all videos as well as links to the individual videos:

  1. Playlist containing all of the below videos
  2. Excel Add-On: An Introduction – Management Reporter vs. Jet Reports
  3. Building Rows – Management Reporter vs. Jet Reports
  4. Building Columns – Management Reporter vs. Jet Reports
  5. Building Trees – Management Reporter vs. Jet Reports
  6. Report Definition – Management Reporter vs. Jet Reports

If you’re a Management Reporter user who is implementing Jet Reports, I’d encourage you to take the time to watch Belinda’s videos.

Management Reporter Error: “The operation could not be completed due to a problem in the data provider framework”

Microsoft Dynamics GPA bit like Integration Manager, Management Reporter often presents highly generic meaningless error messages to users. The error message below was provided to me by a client a while ago (but I have just stumbled across the screenshots again), which I was then able to reproduce just be ruunning the report:

Management Reporter: The operation could not be completed due to a problem in the data provider framework

Management Reporter

The operation could not be completed due to a problem in the data provider framework.

Continue reading “Management Reporter Error: “The operation could not be completed due to a problem in the data provider framework””

MDGP 2016 R2 Feature of the Day: HTTPS Support for Management Reporter

Microsoft Dynamics GPThe Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog has started a series Feature of the Day posts for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 R2; as the most recent versions have been, these posts are in the form of PowerPoint slides; I am reposting them here so they can be read more easily.

The series index for this series of posts is here.

The nineteenth Feature of the Day is support in Management Reporter 2012 for https access to the web viewer:

This adds the ability to deploy Management Reporter for report access over secure https communication.

This feature is well overdue; it should have been introduced at the same time as the web viewer itself.

Click to show/hide the MDGP 2016 R2 Feature of the Day Series Index

Management Reporter 2012 CU15 Is Now Available

Microsoft Dynamics GPThe Dynamics Financial Reporting for Microsoft Dynamics GP has announced the availability of CU15 for Management Reporter 2012. This cumulative up-date contains a few bug fixes as well as some enhancements.

Here’s a summary of the new Management Reporter CU15 features:

  • Improved responsiveness in the Web Viewer.
  • A search bar has been added to search through the current level of the report as in-browser search functions may not always return all results because of the performance changes to improve responsiveness.
  • Printing in the Web Viewer through XPS download.
  • PowerShell module to enable reset of data mart.
  • Added a Turkish (tr-tr) localization.
  • Additional fixes for product defects.

The Dynamics Financial Reporting for Microsoft Dynamics GP team will be blogging about the new features in detail soon.

There are a few new prerequisites which are required for this cumulative update:

  • SQL Server 2012 or higher.
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.1 is also required (when installed this may require a reboot).

Management Reporter CU15 Release is version 2.12.15000.56; make sure your ERP version is supported by checking the compatibility list.

The EN-US download for Management Reporter CU15 is here and localised versions will be coming soon.

Management Reporter Client Crash During Import of Building Blocks

Microsoft Dynamics GPI’m in the middle of an upgrade of a client to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 R2 and am also upgrading Management Reporter to CU12 (I’m not entirely happy with CU13 and am avoiding it for now). We initially had problems with the upgrade as the server ran out of HDD space due to the size of the database and the changes made during the upgrade.

After discussing it with the client, we agreed to re-implement Management Reporter and migrate all of the building blocks from the old server to the new one.

It was while doing the import into Management Reporter 2012 CU12 that I ran into a problem; a persistent crashing:

Management Reporter for Microsoft Dynamics ERP has stopped working

I’d already imported the Report Definitions without any problem and was looking to make sure all of the building blocks were imported when it crashed with the above error message. I restarted it and tried again and it again crashed on me.

I did a little playing round and found that it only seemed to crash if the house moved over the top of the Report Definitions in the scrolling window; if I moved the cursor around the outside of the scrolling window and selected the tab of any of the other building blocks, such as the Column Definitions, I could move the mouse over the top of them and make selections. Just not over the top of the Report Definitions.

I headed online to see if I could find anyone else talking about the same issue and came across a post from Stoneridge Software had found something very similar, although they reported it was only the left most column whereas for me it was all of the columns.

Stoneridge also report that the fix for this was in CU13.

Management Reporter Error: An Error Occurred While Configuring ‘Management Reporter Application Service’ Part 4 – Log Space

Microsoft Dynamics GPAs mentioned in the last post, I’ve been having some fun with Management Reporter recently. Unfortunately, Integration Manager the errors it produces are often less than useful. After resolving the issues with the schema owner, SQL Timeout and SQL Login, the attempt to upgrade Management Reporter produced another generic error message:

Management Reporter 2012: An error occurred while configuring 'Management Reporter Application Service'. Check the deployment log for details.

Management Reporter 2012

An error occurred while configuring 'Management Reporter Application Service'. Check the deployment log for details.

Continue reading “Management Reporter Error: An Error Occurred While Configuring ‘Management Reporter Application Service’ Part 4 – Log Space”

Management Reporter Error: An Error Occurred While Configuring ‘Management Reporter Application Service’ Part 3 – SQL Login

Microsoft Dynamics GPOver the last couple of postrs, I have discussed the first two error messages I encountered recently (schema owner and SQL Timeout) doing an upgrade of Management Reporter for a client.

After resolving the issue with the SQL Timeout error, the attempt to upgrade Management Reporter produced an error message at the validation stage:

Validation Messages: Database configuration: Unable to connect to the specified database server with the Management Reporter service account. Make sure the database server is correct and that the service account has a SQL Server Login.

Validation Messages

Database configuration: Unable to connect to the specified database server with the Management Reporter service account. Make sure the database server is correct and that the service account has a SQL Server Login.

After clicking Close I launched Management Studio and loaded the properties for the user account used for the Management Reporter services:

Login Properties

After clicking on User Mapping I was able to see that the Management Reporter database was not selected. I marked the checkbox next to it and clicked OK.

I was able to click the Proceed button and continue the deployment. With the extended timeout from the last post, I left the upgrade running in the back ground.

Unfortunately, the story was far from over.

Management Reporter Error: An Error Occurred While Configuring ‘Management Reporter Application Service’ Part 2 – SQL Timeout

Microsoft Dynamics GPAs mentioned in the last post, I’ve been having some fun with Management Reporter recently. Unfortunately, Integration Manager the errors it produces are often less than useful. After resolving the issue with the schema owner, the attempt to upgrade Management Reporter produced another generic error message:

Management Reporter 2012: An error occurred while configuring 'Management Reporter Application Service'. Check the deployment log for details.

Management Reporter 2012

An error occurred while configuring 'Management Reporter Application Service'. Check the deployment log for details.

Continue reading “Management Reporter Error: An Error Occurred While Configuring ‘Management Reporter Application Service’ Part 2 – SQL Timeout”

Management Reporter Error: An Error Occurred While Configuring ‘Management Reporter Application Service’ Part 1 – Database Principal

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralI’ve had some right good fun with Management Reporter recently, actually not so much fun, but the bane of my life (in the course of pretty much one day). And over the new few posts I’m going to share the trials and tribulations I have undergone.

A recent upgrade of Management Reporter resulted in a fairly generic error message being displayed while trying to configure the legacy connector (the connector type is not important for this error):

Management Reporter 2012: An error occurred while configuring 'Management Reporter Application Service'. Check the deployment log for details.

Management Reporter 2012

An error occurred while configuring 'Management Reporter Application Service'. Check the deployment log for details.

Continue reading “Management Reporter Error: An Error Occurred While Configuring ‘Management Reporter Application Service’ Part 1 – Database Principal”