FRx and Management Reporter News from Convergence

Well OK—Convergence was back in April and now it’s June! Sorry—no excuses! So without further delay, here are some of the main discussion points around FRx and Management Reporter.

BTW, some discussion was official, some not so official. {smile}

Migration from FRx to Management Reporter

• Download and print the migration documentation. There’s a lot of (nitpicky) preparation to do BEFORE migrating, and this document spells it all out. Don’t skip this part.
• The migration document is KB 2425087.
• Tip: Migration clears the MR database, so if you’ve been playing around and have existing reports you want to keep, you should export them first.
• One last note, there were plenty of migration fixes in FP1 and SP1. Don’t go there without them.

Management Reporter Roadmap

• Feature Pack 1 was in December 2010 and brought the capability to pull already-translated currency from GP2010 (SP1 required).
• AX integration came April 1, 2011.
• SL integration was released with SL 2011.
• Feature Pack 2 is scheduled for the 2nd half of calendar 2011 and will provide better navigation, richer report viewing, drillback to the ERP, comments, Instant Messenger, output flexibility (new types like XPS which is the Microsoft version of PDF, and new locations like SharePoint with alerts), and report scheduling.
• Version 3 will feature further enhancements, strategic & operational budgeting/forecasting, and continued support for Forecaster.

Management Reporter Performance

• Speed is an issue. They’re working on it.

Emailing Reports

• At the moment, there is no electronic distribution of reports in MR.
• SharePoint distribution, with alerts, is planned for FP2 in the last half of 2011. They’re also looking at sending links.
• You will have to install SharePoint for electronic distribution (when it gets here).

Viewing Reports Offline

• The offline solution is export to Excel.
• For the Report Viewer, you must be connected to your network. If offline, you must export to Excel.

FRx Availability in General

• “FRx life follows support of the ERP system.”
• This is only for Dynamics ERPs! Not for Epicor, Sage, etc.

FRx Availability for GP

• “FRx is available for 5 years from GP2010 with service packs and then another 5 for security hotfixes.”
• “For GP10, FRx is available for 5 years from its release 3-ish years ago.”
• You might also check out the Microsoft product lifecycle page.
• GP2010 is the last version you can use FRx with. GP2012 is MR only.

GP’s Analytical Accounting

• In FRx, you must have a separate company for AA.
• In MR, AA pulls in with the account structure—no separate company needed.

Management Reporter Availability for AX

• MR for AX2009 was available 4/1/11.
• MR for AX2009—there was a critical hotfix coming in late April.
• MR for AX2012 (fka AX6) will be available 4 to 6 weeks after RTM.

FRx Availability for AX

• FRx will not integrate with AX2012 (fka AX6) which comes out this fall.

Management Reporter Availability for SL

• The data provider for SL was out April 1, 2011.

Microsoft Connect Site

•  This is a product suggestion site that the MR team reviews, and you can vote for already existing suggestions. Or add your own. You’ll need to sign in with your Windows Live ID, search for Management Reporter, and go from there.

So these are just the high points from Convergence. Caveat—If these dates are important, RECONFIRM with someone at Microsoft. Cheers—Jan