Microsoft Great Plains Reporting ? Overview for Developer

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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 direct web publishing is good taste.

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

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies ? USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Oregon, Arizona, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

---

Two Reasons to Use Timesheet Software

This short paper will expand on two key reasons to... Read More

Interactive Mapping Brings Information to Life

What is Interactive Mapping?Interactive mapping is a visual display medium... Read More

Performance Tuning of a Daffodil DB / One$DB -JDBC Application

This article illustrates the best practices to improve the performance... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Installation ? Overview for IT Director/Controller

Microsoft Great Plains is main mid-market application from Microsoft Business... Read More

Microsoft CRM for Large Corporation ? Security

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM proved to be reliable solution in... Read More

Review of TikiWiki Content Management System

TikiWiki is open source software - it is written in... Read More

Begun, The Browser Wars Have

As Mozilla Firefox nears 10% market share, with well over... Read More

ERP for Large Corporation ? New Selling Strategy

Our opinion is based on our Microsoft Business Solutions Great... Read More

The Dirt on Screensavers

Remember back in the days where screensavers were the coolest... Read More

It?s Back!! WordPerfect?s Amazing Comeback

Have you noticed WordPerfect is gearing up for a comeback... Read More

QuarkXpress Tips: How to Move Content Between Print and Web Layouts

Since its release in 1987, QuarkXpress had made an immediate... Read More

Implementing Microsoft CRM: setup and configuration ? notes for IT specialist

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM is web-based CRM application, deploying all... Read More

Four Desktop Tools To Drastically Increase Your Productivity

Sticky Noteshttp://www.deprice.com/stickynote.htmWith StickyNote 9.0, you can create beautiful 3D notes... Read More

The End of Spyware?

The US House of Representatives has recently passed the "Spy... Read More

Getting Patched with Windows Service Pack

Are you one of those people that keeps track of... Read More

25 Things Mapping Software Can Do For You

1. With mapping software you can create a report that... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Payroll Module Customization Scenarios

It is now common thing when large corporation selects mid-market... Read More

Quick Summary of Basic and Common Linux Commands

There are many commands that are used in linux on... Read More

Story Development Software: Good or Evil?

In the early days of the personal computer, we're talking... Read More

A Case Study on Selecting Contract Management Software

Professional services firm cuts costs and improves productivity with integrated... Read More

Cisco Certification: Introduction To ISDN, Part IV

In part III of this ISDN primer, we learned that... Read More

7 Things to Consider Before Buying Small Business Accounting Software

The world of small business accounting software can be a... Read More

ERP Remote Support: Microsoft Great Plains Analysis ? Pluses & Minuses

Former Great Plains Software Dynamics/eEnterprise and currently Microsoft Business Solutions... Read More

Microsoft CRM Data Conversion FAQ

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM data conversion deserves FAQ type of... Read More

Reporting Tools for Microsoft Great Plains ? Overview For Developers

Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more and more popular,... Read More

Great Plains Dexterity Development: FAQ

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is Dexterity-written application and currently... Read More

How a Bug Challenges to a Software Professional

It is really interesting that a bug can create problem... Read More

How to Choose the BEST Charting Software

I suggest that you do not spend a lot of... Read More

Five Tips For A Great Software Demo

Whether you need to close a sale, gather end-user feedback,... Read More

Microsoft Navision Database Selection: C/SIDE or MS SQL Server - Overview For IT Specialist

There are certain pluses and minuses in both cases and... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains: Dexterity vs. eConnect ? FAQ

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics/eEnterprise... Read More

Selecting Corporate ERP: Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains ? Estimation Parameters

As we could imagine, if you are reading this article... Read More

Choose your Java Wisely

Java has come along a long way. Many would agree... Read More