We have recently implemented Management Reporter with Dynamics Ax 2012 for a Corporate HQ in Abu Dhabi and the users are delighted with the ease of multi-period analysis and comparison of budget and actual by: company, department cost centre etc with drill down to source.
They are going to ‘wowed’ with the new release that revolves around 4 core themes:
- Interactive Report Viewing,
- Deeper Dynamics ERP Integration,
- Report Collaboration,
- Design Flexibility.
This release removes its dependency on Internet Information Services (IIS), and allows it to run in native mode. If you are familiar with SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services, then you realise how this will improve delivery and efficiency.
The Comments feature will please Finance and the ability to distribute reports to multiple locations at once will certainly make both Finance and IT happy. Management Reporter 2012 allows users to enter comments at the financial, account, and transaction level of a report. This common feature request will save many customers’ hours while collaborating with others during the close process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lysv7jyvWyk&list=PLBE027591B1C070D6&index=198
The more information you can provide on a financial report the better. This allows your users to have all of the information they need to make informed decisions. In Management Reporter, you can include the dimension codes and descriptions for a line of a report, as a result, your users know exactly from where a number derives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvdiAc439zo&list=PLBE027591B1C070D6&index=1&feature=plpp_video
Rolling forecast headers provide users with headers that dynamically span columns based on the period and report date. This feature is great for rolling forecasts, where some columns contain Actual data, and some columns contain budget/forecast data. Each month, as the report date is changed, the headers will update also which reduces the maintenance and user error involved with creating and generating rolling forecast reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ8A2MzZqrc&list=PLBE027591B1C070D6&index=1&feature=plpp_video
Report groups are an easy and convenient way to generate multiple reports in a single click. For example you may have multiple reports that are run during your month end process. Rather than selecting each of the report definitions individually and then selecting the generate report button, you can simply create a report group that contains the month end reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RxS_YqYUs4
Quick links are dynamically created to let report consumers jump to key areas of a report in the Report Viewer, allowing them to quick scan the information important to them. When users open a report link from a SharePoint e-mail alert, they can choose how they want to view their personalized view of the report e.g. users can to open these reports in Microsoft Excel to perform ad-hoc analysis, like “what if” or to add graphs or to apply new formatting.
New features of Management Reporter 2012 include the functionality to make the install and setup experience much easier by enabling company integrations.
Rather than setting up companies manually, to import your companies from your Microsoft Dynamics ERP, you can reuse what is already entered for both Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 and Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
Import new companies with 1-click. You will see a list of all companies in the Dynamics AX database. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 data mart will automatically create all companies in your Dynamics ERP and any changes to company name will be reflected in Management Reporter without user intervention. As new companies are created these are automatically added to Management Reporter.
