Office & Dynamics GP “Better together”- Inherent BI
For at least as far back as version 8 (released in 2004), our beloved Dynamics GP has been marketed by Microsoft using the notion of “better together” – talking of its relationship with the Microsoft Office Suite. This story gets stronger each time we see a new iteration of either GP, or Office. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to walk through some basic examples of this ‘better together’ pair, starting with Dynamics GP 2010, and moving into what’s now possible thanks to the recent release of Office 365.
Today I’ll start with the eureka moment for accountants the world over – out-of-the-box reporting and KPI’s being incorporated into Dynamics GP 2010, via Office tools such as the well-loved Excel.
There are over 220 out-of-the-box reports now available in Dynamics GP. Sounds like a lot, right? One of the really cool things though, is that all of these reports have been organised by more than 27 personalised role-views. For example, Harry in Accounts Payable has automatic access to reports such as AP days outstanding, while Sue in Sales can quickly view things such as Accounts Due, Ecomm Sales Transaction Histories etc. Consulting time needed to get your reporting setup just how you want is vastly reduced (if not eradicated), and quickly after implementation you can get into doing business. The best thing about this is the logic. We knew this information was always there in your ERP, but how to get to, present, and share it has been made hugely easier and more affordable.
One other very cool thing about this inherent BI in Dynamics GP is the live data aspect. Even after a report has been pulled from the database and uploaded to a SharePoint portal for sharing, it can be refreshed from there, by anyone with access to the portal, anytime! This of course means large potential savings in license fees, for users who just need GP for analytical purposes. In my eyes this translates to one super thing for SMB’s – they need never again spend tense hours figuring out if the return on massive investment for a stand-alone BI application is enough – all they should ever need is right there in there ERP, and new licenses are probably not necessary to exploit this fact. Win!!
The analysts agree; check out this video of Errol Shoenfish (Dynamics GP Product Manager) and Ray Wang (of the Altimeter Group) talking about the evolution of BI and Dynamics GP.
Dynamics GP really is growing ‘better together’ with Office. Stay tuned for more such posts over the next couple of weeks.
This example of the ‘better together’ was well proven by Microsoft’s leadership position in the Gartner 2011 Magic Quadrant for BI solutions (link) – so good because it’s so simple, seamless and relevant.