What is the Future of Dynamics CPM?

Sadly, there is no still no Microsoft Dynamics Corporate Performance Management (CPM) or Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) solution available from Microsoft.

Along with that, Microsoft's former CPM solutions; namely Forecaster and FRx/Management Reporter, are basically dead although Management Reporter has a continued shelf-life as Financial Reporter for Dynamics 365 Financials & Operations users.

So, if you came to this thread, looking for the new shiny FP&A solution from Microsoft, you may be disappointed.

But on the flip side, there are a number of very good FP&A solutions available on the market today and many of them can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics ERPs, whether the legacy Dynamics family (i.e. GP, NAV, SL or AX), or the new Dynamics 365 Cloud family (FO or Business Central 'BC').

If you're in the market for a new FP&A solution to help you with planning (i.e. budgeting, forecasting), reporting (i.e. management, financial, currency translations, consolidations) or analysis that I've found is easy to use, easy to implement, easy to maintain and works the way you do, I'd be happy to talk to you about it.

Feel free to contact me:

- on LinkedIn here
- or via the FP&A It Forward website here

Sincerely,
Les Wright

Dilbert on Why Self-Service Reporting, BI & Analytics Takes Faith

The term 'self-service' has been applied to reporting, business intelligence and analytics over the past few years.  While there are many business use cases for agile, 'self-service' approaches; it is a BI myth to believe that the need for a single consolidated source of truth is going away.  

So, why do I say that self-service BI takes 'faith'?  

Whether you trust sales person 1 who prepared a report in Excel or their favourite BI tool based on the centralized data warehouse that has ingested the raw sales data, applied consistent rules to modify the data and provide it in an easy to use and understand model or sales person 2 armed with an exported sales report, Excel to modify the data and a data discovery tool to report accurately on last month's sales, you need to trust the initial data quality, interim transformation process and final aggregation and visualization. 

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-08-10 

Neither process is wrong, but there are obvious benefits to each approach and organizations should take a bi-modal approach to leverage the strengths of each.

My experience working with clients supports this.  There are several types of people who work at organizations, but at a bare minimum, there are data analysts (those trained and experienced working with data) and data consumers (those who either lack this training and experience or simply don't have the time).  We are not moving forward if we expect those in the second category to supernaturally 'help themselves'.  

Dilbert Sensors IoT Big Data Employee Hat

We've been hearing a lot about Big Data for years and big data sources getting increasing attention these days are smart machines and sensors. 


Sensors, like the one in Dilbert's stylish hat, can be embedded in wearable technology, enhancing what traditionally has been low tech clothing with numerous data points to be harnessed to create new and better products and solutions, ultimately better serving customers and improving profits.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-02-08

Now, back to work!
 

Dilbert Spreadsheet Error Ethics

I feel compelled to post this latest Dilbert strip on spreadsheet errors, as a follow up to yesterday's post.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-01-07

I suppose this same type of question could apply to machine learning and other advanced analytics that could also be easily misapplied.

Do you have spreadsheets with critical errors that you're overlooking because they give you the answers you want?

Or, perhaps you have error free spreadsheets that are manually updated periodically (every day, week, month, etc.) that are an inefficient use of time?

Either way, there are both Excel-based and non-Excel based solutions to help!

Dilbert Spreadsheet Errors

There have got to be more posts on the problems with Excel and spreadsheet errors than pictures of cats on FaceBook at this point.
But, now that Dilbert has chimed in, we all know the issues are real!

Source: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-01-06

Real Life BI: Science Fair Data Presentation

This year, one of my sons participates in the Science Fair for the first time.  All in all, this was a good experience for both him and us parents.  

Now, I didn't take a lot of science myself, so I am not sure that I was particularly helpful in that regard.  Having an iPhone, I was able to Google search and perform mobile research on the affects of heat on an elastic band as we performed the experiment.

My greatest contribution, in my opinion anyhow, was this graph.  I was proud to use my real world knowledge of graphing and presenting data to recommend that my son use separate axis for both temperature and length, allowing the relationship between the two to be comprehended nearly instantaneously.  With only one axis, this was not clear at all as the length appeared to be constant.

Now that Science Fair is almost over, its time to get back to work helping organizations make use of Enterprise visualization and analytic tools that help people understand their business and make good decisions, fast!

Please let me know if I can help you!

Real Life BI: Time Saving Benefits of Jet Enterprise

One of our clients recently implemented Jet Enterprise in their organization to improve reporting on a third-party Dynamics GP module.

They had previously used both Crystal Reports and SSRS; however, neither enabled the client's finance and engineer users the ability to easily create and maintain their own reports.

So, on to the story...

A finance user was struggling with filtering a report and producing the same results as an existing custom SRS report.  Part of the problem practically, is that a number of tables, unions (i.e. between open and historical data) and joins (i.e. to link the tables together) needed to be understood and configured properly before adding the filter.

I have no idea exactly how many hours this finance user had poured into creating this report; however, I do know that from the time she reached out to me via email to ask for help, to the time I received an email back saying that the report was working was nearly instantaneous.

What did I tell her?  I can tell you that I did not give her a crash course in table buliding, report building or anything of the sort, I simply said the following:

"Have you considered using Jet Enterprise for this? You already have the data summarized there. It would just need the filter."

That was all that was needed.  Simple, quick and accurate since the third-party data was already configured in an MS cube in an easy to use tool in full accordance to Kimball's best practices in dimensional modeling. 

If you or your organization are interested in leaving the office early, contact me.

Dilbert on Big Data

Big Data is definately here to stay, but as Dilbert points out below the ethics of Big Data analysis also need to be considered.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2014-01-27/

Dynamics GP Reporting Options & Alternatives

One of the previous tag-lines for Microsoft Dynamics was 'it works the way you do' and when it comes to reporting, that pretty well sums up the Microsoft Dynamics GP offering in a nutshell.

There are a lot of options for reporting! 

Sometimes the options themselves can be confusing; however, remember that each reporting tool has its pros/cons and 'sweet spots' as my recent client exercise below shows:

 



In some cases, third-party reporting and/or planning tools such as those identified and circled make sense and drive the most value for an organization's needs.

If you 100% of your planning and reporting needs for Microsoft Dynamics ERP are not being met, tell me about it below and lets see how I can help.

Dilbert on Preparing the Annual Budget

I love Dilbert and I especially love Dilbert on anything related to budgeting, reporting, analytics or business intelligence.

Source: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2013-10-21/

In many organizations, a certain aura of 'mystery' surrounds how the annual budget is prepared in Excel. In some cases, those preparing it cannot even articulate it very well.  This 'mystery' is another risk for those organizations that do not invest in a CPM platform and 'de-mystefying' the planning process.

Budgeting in Excel

Let's face it - most companies use Microsoft Excel to either fully prepare their budgets and forecasts, or at least to aid in some portion of this process.

There are numerous reasons for this, including the following:

• Excel is already installed
• Business users already know how to use Excel
• Business users like (or should I say love) Excel
• The organizations' ERP system allows one to import a budget from Excel

But when an organization's level of sophistication grows, using Excel can become an inefficient and complex tool to prepare budgets and forecasts for business users.  But, how can organizations identify this tipping point?  The following questions may assist you:

• Business users are reluctant to re-forecast due to complexity and amount of effort required
• Business users are expected to learn and leverage Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in Excel to keep up with organizational complexity or business users begin to lose control of their financial and operational models as internal IT or external consultants develop and maintain complex VBA code
• Business users like (or should I say love) for Excel begins to diminish as they spend more and more time populating data and fixing errors in the spreadsheets
• Other planning and performance management areas, including financial and operational reporting systems bundled with the organization's ERP system no longer meet the growing complexity of organizational requirements

What are your thoughts on this topic?

Microsoft Forecaster 7 SP5 Early Warning Notice

Good news for Forecaster 7 users who have been patiently waiting for the re-release of Forecaster 7 SP4 to rectify a number of nasty issues - Service Pack 5 is on its way!

At present, I do not have the expected release date, but it is good news nonetheless!

For those who don't want to wait, you can always look at alternate budgeting & reporting solutions, such as, Prophix CPM which allows you to link operational and financial budgets to drive real value from the planning and performance management process.

For those who are not in a rush, why not wait until budgeting can be performed in Management Reporter?

Count Down to Jet Express for Microsoft Dynamics GP!

Jet Express is the latest in the full selection of friendly, easy to use reporting and analytics tools available from Jet Reports. It is a free Excel based reporting tool that will be made available for Dynamics GP at Convergence 2013 in mid-March 2013.


Let the count-down begin!

BI Snowflakes & Stars - All Are Unique

I couldn't resist another winter themed post on Business Intelligence. 

While those of us who are less technically inclined may enjoy the picture below, those who design and develop data marts and data warehouses are very familiar with both the snowflake and star schema.

Image Source: http://www.thewallz.com/wallpaper/glowing-christmas-star-and-snowflakes_w403.html

One popular truth regarding snowflakes is that no two snowflakes are identical.  When it comes to Business Intelligence, no two organization's needs are identical either. 

Enjoy the winter beauty of stars and snowflakes this season - and let us take care of data structure underpinning your Business Intelligence solution.  You'll be happy you did!

What are you getting for Christmas?

If you have kids, you'll agree that one of the top things on their minds this season is what they want for Christmas.

But what about the retailers and organizations who are hoping to make the best of this Christmas season?  How can they best predict what products to stock up on? 

I know from first-hand experience, that my favourite winter tire brand seems to always be 'sold-out' by mid-December - what if they could better predict demand and optimize their production and supply chain to fulfill more requests?

From a BI perspective, the answer lies in the predictive power of data mining.  One real world predictive analytics and data mining solution called Sentinel Mining is based on the Ph. D. thesis by TARGIT CTO Dr. Morten Middelfart. Check it out!

When will Management Reporter do budgeting and forecasting?

This post is nothing but my own thoughts, as Microsoft unfortunately does not have an update on when Management Reporter will incorporate budgeting and forecasting functionality.

That being said, I wonder if the following two recent developments in MR 2012 RU3 might hint that budgeting is just around the corner:

• Extension of the data mart for Dynamics GP
• MR Web Report Viewer

What could these developments hint at you ask? 

Well, the data mart would be a good backbone for housing the budget and forecast version data in a uniform way across all Dynamics ERPs.  Since MR will eventually be the full Dynamcis ERP CPM solution, the budgets will not necessarily need to be brought back into the respective Dynamics ERP, unless other aspects of the ERP require it (i.e. encumbrance management).

To a lesser degree, a web-based interface simplifies access to Management Reporter and could be leveraged for future remote budget entry similar, but much better than, Forecaster's webclient.

Click here for more or my ramblings about budgeting in Management Reporter.

Budgeting in Management Reporter

It has been over two years now since Management Reporter 2 was released and available for Microsoft Dynamics GP - its hard to believe!  Click here to see my first blog post on the subject.

Microsoft's original road map showed budgeting and forecasting built into Management Reporter in two stages:

• Simple budgeting in 2012
• Complex budgeting in 2014

Obviously a roadmap is highly subject to change and at this point in the game, Microsoft is still in the planning stages.  While this may cause uncertainty for users who are holding out for this functionality to be added to MR, lets hope that our wait is worth it in as far as the future functionality delivered in MR.

According to my Linked In poll here, the majority of MR users want to see budgeting as the next feature, followed up by integration with sub-ledgers rather than just the GL.

Since all the Dynamics ERP solutions have basic budgeting features, perhaps Microsoft's strategy has changed to hold-off and just deliver features that surpass Microsoft Forecaster rather than introduce basic budgeting and forecasting.

Either way, if you or your organization is looking for a unified CPM solution that handles all budgeting, forecasting, reporting and analysis in one place today, look no further than Prophix CPM.  Click here for more information on its advanced capabilities.  Your budget contributors, financial analysts and their spouses or significant others will thank you!

Management Reporter 2012 has been released!

Management Reporter 2012 has been released!  This release includes more than 30 new features, including all promised features!  You can find videos of these features at the Microsoft CPM blog here.

Some of the new features include:

• Integration with Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• Schedule reports to generate on a periodic basis
• Publish reports to multiple Microsoft SharePoint or network locations
• E-mail a link to the report from the Report Viewer
• Quickly create a chart based upon selected report rows and columns
• Drill from account and budget balances on a report to related information in your Microsoft Dynamics ERP
• Toggle the accounts display to optionally include/not include the dimension descriptions by user

One important thing to mention is that the FRx migration tool currently does not work with MR 2012.  We expect this will be addressed shortly, but in the meantime, you will need to migrate on the previous version of MR.

Keeping your Planning Focus

Do you or your organization suffer from a lack of focus during your planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting exercises?

The other day, while I was watching my five year old son's indoor soccer game I noticed that I was following the action in the wrong game?  Why?  The reason is simple enough, my son was playing a field over and the spectator stands are only available on one side of the field, which meant that I had to keep my focus on the second field instead of the game being played right in front of me!

I believe that our planning and reporting can suffer the same 'lack of focus'.  It can occur for a few reasons, including:

• Spending more time collecting and organizing data than analysing the data
• Budgeting/forecasting at an inappropriate level of detail, effectively drawing our focus from key business drivers that should receive more relative focus and giving equal weight to administrative expenses
• Routinely generating, reviewing and analyzing a standard set of reports, as opposed to interacting with the data and performing 'ad-hoc analysis' on key areas and variances

Looking for a Microsoft Enterprise Reporting Replacement?

If your organization is affected by the discontinuation of Microsoft Dynamics GP Enterprise Reporting, you should review and consider the following replacement solutions:

• Management Reporter
• Prophix CPM