Reporting and business intelligence with Microsoft Dynamics AX

This paper provides a broad overview of the current features and future directions of the Microsoft Dynamics AX Reporting and BI framework, to address the following ERP Business Performance Management functional scenarios:

The paper also describes how the Microsoft Dynamics AX Reporting and BI framework caters to the requirements of the following user roles in implementing, deploying, administering, and using Business Performance Management features:

The reporting and business intelligence capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX provide an open, best-of-breed platform for three types of people: business users, IT administrators, and solutions providers. Business users perform queries, create reports, track business performance, analyze data, and share conclusions with others. IT administrators provide reporting and business intelligence features to users in a way that is easy to manage, efficient, and flexible. Solution providers deliver these solutions to their customers by using a powerful, interoperable software platform that can serve the needs of many types of customers. An outline of the reporting and business intelligence capabilities Microsoft Dynamics AX offers these three groups of people follows.

Reporting
The reporting and business intelligence capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX provide an open, best-of-breed platform for three types of people: business users, IT administrators, and solutions providers. Business users perform queries, create reports, track business performance, analyze data, and share conclusions with others. IT administrators provide reporting and business intelligence features to users in a way that is easy to manage, efficient, and flexible. Solution providers deliver these solutions to their customers by using a powerful, interoperable software platform that can serve the needs of many types of customers. An outline of the reporting and business intelligence capabilities Microsoft Dynamics AX offers these three groups of people follows.

Multidimensional analysis
For exploring and analyzing historical data, the Business Analysis module provides business users with pivot tables directly within the Microsoft Dynamics AX client user interface. This enables users to easily report and calculate financial, sales, production, or any other business data and view it by using various criteria. The seamless interoperability with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services empowers IT administrators to easily manage these capabilities by using the familiar Microsoft Dynamics AX interface. Solution providers can add and extend the data that is available through the integrated authoring environment.

Scorecards
The Balanced Scorecard module in Microsoft Dynamics AX provides a maintainable framework for creating and tracking performance goals throughout an organization. In Microsoft Dynamics AX performance cockpits, you can create and track key performance indicators in any area, such as employee satisfaction, on-time delivery, and sales growth.

Another tool offered is the Office Business Scorecards Accelerator. This is an add-on to SQL Server Analysis Services and to Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server. By using this add-on, business users can access business information from many data sources, including Microsoft Dynamics AX, to gain immediate visibility into business trends.

Financial Reports
Microsoft FRx provides a comprehensive financial report authoring and viewing environment for financial users. This solution is easy for IT professionals to install and manage. Microsoft FRx is available as an add-on to Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0.

Enhanced capabilities for future Microsoft Dynamics AX versions
Microsoft continues to improve the power and ease of use of reporting and business intelligence for every Axapta customer by increasing the interoperability among Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Office. For example, the Report Builder component of SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services provides a drag-and-drop query experience. By using this feature, users can create reports on demand that contain any data that they have access to in the program. SQL Server Reporting Services is becoming a great platform on which IT professionals and solution providers can develop Microsoft Dynamics AX reports. Also look for enhanced support for reporting and business intelligence scenarios with Microsoft Excel in future versions of both Microsoft Office and Microsoft Dynamics AX.

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