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Management Reporter and Microsoft Forecaster for Budgetting and Forecasting

Posted by andy in Dynamics AX | Dynamics GP | Management Reporter - (0 Comments)

We often get asked the question from our customers and prospective customers, “What will the future hold for Management Reporter and how does Microsoft Forecaster fit into that future?”.  There are big plans for this reporting tool from Microsoft.  As many of you know Management Reporter just released their latest version of Management Reporter, Management Reporter 2012.  There were many needed enhancements to Management Reporter included in this new release, including those highlighted on the following page, http://community.dynamics.com/b/dynamicscpm/archive/2012/04/04/what-s-new-in-management-reporter-2012.aspx.  However, there was no functionality added that involves forecasting or collaborative budgetting for Management Reporter for Dynamics GP or Dynamics AX (and the other Microsoft ERP products).

What about financial forecasting and collaborative budgetting?  What are the plans for Management Reporter and these important areas?  I spoke to a reliable resource close to the Management Reporter and Microsoft Forecaster teams and I was told that there are no immediate plans to add this functionality into Management Reporter.  The team will continue to support this functionality in the existing Microsoft Forecaster 7.0 tool, and for the foreseeable future they will rely on this product and the other 3rd party applications out on the market to meet this need.

Look for more exciting enhancement to Management Reporter, but don’t look for a collaborative budgetting or forecasting tool any time in the near future.

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Migration to Management Reporter from FRx

Posted by shadley in Dynamics AX | Dynamics GP | Management Reporter - (2 Comments)

Does the Release of Management Reporter 2.0 Affect You?

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics 2010, Microsoft has also released their new reporting tool, Management Reporter, to replace FRx 6.7. While Microsoft is requiring all new Dynamics GP 2010 customers to utilize Management Reporter, existing users running prior versions of Dynamics GP can continue to use FRx 6.7, even with an upgrade to Dynamics GP 2010.  Microsoft will continue to support FRx 6.7 through the end of the Dynamics GP 10.0 lifecycle.

Management Reporter has several new features which gives it an edge over FRx. It allows for windows authentication, version management of the reports and supports reporting on dimensions based data such as departments, locations, and cost centers.  Additionally multicurrency reporting in Management Reporter is now driven from existing rate tables within Dynamics GP 2010, eliminating the need to maintain separate rate tables to facilitate this kind of reporting.

Additional features that users have been asking for in FRx, such as column breaks, undo and redo function and the ability to import images into the header and footer of the reports are now available in Management Reporter.

There are a few limitations of Management Reporter that should be considered in making the decision to upgrade, however there are available workarounds to mitigate these shortcomings.

With all of its new features Management Reporter still utilizes many of the same concepts as FRx enabling users to apply their FRx knowledge as they transition to Management Reporter. It has a similar look and feel for the setup of rows, columns and reporting trees with a slight variation of terminology.  The dropdown boxes in the row and column definitions will provide selection FRx users are familiar with and have a few new selections of added functionality. A migration wizard is available to convert existing row, column, tree and report definitions, report catalogs, account sets and company information to new Report Definitions in Management Reporter, making the transition fairly seamless.

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