Web Site Promotion | About | Contact | Web Design News |
Chicago Animation : Chicago Web Design - Go Back

Reporting Tools for Microsoft Great Plains - Overview For Developers

 

Search Engine Specialist

search engine expert Free Internet Marketing consultings from ChicagoAnimation.
To use this free service please fill out the form below and we will call you to offer you free tips.

* First Name: * Last Name:
* Email Address: * Phone Number:
Street Address: City:
ZipCode: Your State (2 Letters):
URL (if available): Your Cell Phone #:
Company Name:
How long has your website been live?
What services or packages can we help you with?

How may we help you?
My current budget is. . .



Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more and more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind it. Now it is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. Small companies use Small Business Manager (which is based on the same technology - Great Plains Dexterity dictionary and runtime), Great Plains Standard on MSDE is for small to midsize clients, and then Great Plains serves the rest of the market up to big corporations. There are several reporting tools available and you definitely need to know which one to use for different types of reports.

If you are developer who is asked: how do we create report for Microsoft Great Plains - read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.

1. Great Plains Report Writer (ReportWriter) - this is built-in reporting tool. All the original report in Great Plains are written in ReportWriter. ReportWriter itself is Dexterity module. You should use this tool if you would like to modify existing Great Plains reports, such as Blank Invoice Form - here you can place your company logo, change the positioning, fonts, colors, etc. ReportWriter will allow you also do new reports - simple option if you want to export all the records from one Great Plains table - use it. New report, however doesn't have interface where you would enter parameters - so it is not useful for real custom reports. Another limitation of ReportWriter - you can not do cross-modules report - when you need sales and purchasing info on the same report for example.

2. FRx. This is excellent tool when deal with financial reporting - it works on the General Ledger level (Balance sheet, P&L, Cash Flow Statement, etc.). It also allows you to do multiple companies consolidation - when you do consolidated Balance Sheet (with inter-companies transactions elimination).

3. Smart List - Export to Excel - this is nice feature in Great Plains - you could create a list with simple criteria and then export it to Excel.

4. Crystal Reports. It gives you unlimited functionality. Obviously flexibility requires you to know Great Plains table structure: Launch Great Plains and go to Tools->Resource Description->Tables. Find the table in the proper series. If you are looking for the customers - it should be RM00101 - customer master file. If you need historical Sales Order Processing documents - they are in SOP30200 - Sales History Header file, etc. Create ODBC connection to GP Company database. Use the same technique as when you create standard ODBC connection for GP workstation - but change default database to targeted company database. Create SQL Query to probe the data - we always recommend tuning your query and see that you are getting adequate results - in any case - Crystal Report is just a nice tool to show the results of your query.

5. Direct Web Publishing off Great Plains databases - yes - it is easy now with Visual Studio.Net and you can hire good programmers. This is good - Microsoft Business Solutions products: Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Axapta will be integrated into so called Microsoft Business Portal - which will have web interface - you can get the idea if you look at Microsoft CRM web client - so derecti web publishing is good taste.

6. SQL Queries. If you have SQL background - this is great field for you. You know - with properly formatted SQL query you can realize simple EDI export/import for the integration with legacy systems.

Happy designing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call!

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami and having locations in multiple states and internationally www.albaspectrum.com, he is Dexterity, SQL, VB/C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

akarasev@albaspectrum.com

1-866-528-0577 help@albaspectrum.com

 

MORE RESOURCES:

ZDNet

Apple Recommends Antivirus Software For Mac OS X
InformationWeek, NY - Dec 2, 2008
What's more, Apple's products, such as its iTunes software, its QuickTime media player, and its Safari Web browser, have become increasingly popular among ...
Apple on the Need for Anti-Virus Software: Now You Do, Now You Don't Wired News
Apple Pulls 'Old' Antivirus Software Warning CIO Today
Apple suggests Mac users Install antivirus software CNET News
Apple Insider - Computerworld
all 229 news articles


COPsync Software Called Upon to Secure the Texas State Border
MarketWatch - 5 hours ago
a software technology provider to law enforcement and emergency service professionals, is pleased to announce that the State of Texas, Division of Emergency ...


Likewise Software Joins HP Developer & Solution Partner Program
MarketWatch - 8 hours ago
BELLEVUE, Wash., Dec 03, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Likewise Software, the leader in delivering open source audit and authentication for mixed networks ...


Lagan Expands Board of Directors with Software Industry Veteran ...
MarketWatch - 12 hours ago
McKay brings over 25 years of experience building and leading world class software and services companies. As President and CEO of Watchfire from 2001 ...


McAllister Software Systems(R) Announces Release of AVImark ...
MarketWatch - 12 hours ago
PIEDMONT, Mo., Dec 03, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- McAllister Software Systems, Inc. announced that version 2009 of AVImark, which will be available at ...
McAllister Software Systems(R) Announces Release of AVImark ... International Business Times
McAllister Software Systems(R) Announces AVImark(R) Integration ... MarketWatch
all 16 news articles


RTT News

Software maker Adobe to lay off 600 workers
San Francisco Chronicle,  USA - 2 hours ago
Narayen said the chief cause of Adobe's problems is weaker than expected demand for the company's latest software, Creative Suite 4, which began shipping in ...
Adobe to cut 600 jobs, report lower fourth-quarter revenue SiliconValley.com
Adobe Revenue Forecast Trails Analysts’ Estimates (Update1) Bloomberg
Adobe cuts jobs, lowers revenue outlook Reuters
San Jose Mercury News - Wall Street Journal
all 57 news articles


Emerging Markets Hold Potential for World Retail Software Markets ...
MarketWatch - 13 hours ago
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan ( http://www.kiosks.frost.com), World Retail Software Market, finds that the retail software market earned revenues of ...


Adaptive Planning Wins Prestigious Software Satisfaction Award for ...
MarketWatch - 13 hours ago
This honor, awarded by Sift Media and presented by Finance Week, was established to reward high standards from software application providers serving UK ...


SAFE Corporation Releases SourceDetective, Internet Search for ...
MarketWatch - 13 hours ago
SAFE-corp.biz), the leading provider of software tools for detecting and measuring software intellectual property, has just released SourceDetective(TM), ...


Ryma and Pervasive Software Join Forces to Bridge the Gap Between ...
MarketWatch - 11 hours ago
Ryma is the software solutions market leader serving the Product Management community. As the thought leaders for Integrated Product Management, ...

Software - Google News

ChicagoAnimation's Acquisitions: Market Polls - 1pennyStock.com
Sponsors: Paving | VTL's | Religious Statues