Chapter 10. Data Analysis and Reporting

Data analysis and reporting are an important part in the management of a company. Having a system where you can do accounting, invoicing, warehouse management, and all kinds of things a company does is great. Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central are very good data entry systems and offer ways to provide a flow to the information and make it available when it is needed in order to complete the company's processes. Sales processors enter the sales orders, which are then available to the warehouse employees so that they know what has to be shipped. Once the warehouse employees are done with the shipping, the invoicing people have the information required to compile the invoice.

But companies also need to analyze all this information. Do we ship our orders on time? Which item category is the most profitable? Are our departments generating value for the company? We have to be able to answer these kinds of questions. That is...

Using Filters and FlowFilters

A good and powerful way to view and analyze data is to use Filters and FlowFilters inside the application.

We have explained the use of filters in the Navigating through your data section inChapter 3, General Considerations. Refer to that chapter to get some examples on how to use filters to analyze your data.

In that same chapter, we explained what the SIFT is and how to define fields on tables to use that technology. What we did not explain in that chapter is that FlowFilters can be applied over the defined to use SIFT to narrow down the calculated results. That is actually what we will be explaining now.

We will be looking at the Chart of Accounts page to explain how to apply FlowFilters and the results they produce. The procedure is as follows:

1. Enter Chart of Accounts in the search box of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Windows client.
2. Select Chart of Accounts.
3. The Chart of Accounts page will be shown. The following screenshot shows part of the Chart of Accounts page...

Creating views

So we have seen how to apply filters and FlowFilters to the application. But once we leave the page and come back to the same page, the filter is gone. We have to apply the same filter or FlowFilter over and over again if we want to see the same results. Wouldn't it be great if we could save applied filters so that we could apply them as many times as we wished without having to select the fields we want to filter and writing the filter expression again? This is possible with Microsoft Dynamics NAV Views (we have already talked about this in a previous chapter). This feature might also be introduced in relation to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Web client; at present, it is not available. 

To create a view, perform the following steps:

1. Perform the steps from the previous section to apply a FlowFilter to the Chart of Accounts page.
2. Click onChart of Accountsand select Save View As, as demonstrated in the following screenshot:

3. The Save View As...

Statistics

All master data has one or more associated statistical pages, where the most important statistical information pertaining to the record is shown.

The statistics function of Microsoft Dynamics NAV collects a lot of information related to the document retrieved. For example, if we retrieve a customer card, we can see the following in detail: Sales Amount, Cost Amount, Profit, and Outstanding Orders. Sometimes, there are relative columns pertaining to the current and also to previous periods.

Statistics are a useful tool for consulting data quickly without going through reports and can be found under the NAVIGATE tab of the ribbon.

Perform the steps outlined as follows to view Customer Statistics:

1. Type Customers in the search box of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Client.
2. Select Customers. The customer list will be shown, as demonstrated in the following screenshot:

3. Click on the NAVIGATE tab in the ribbon:

4. Select Statistics. The CUSTOMER STATISTICS page for the customer currently selected will...

Charts – representing data in graph form

Graphical information is always useful when analyzing data. Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central offer various ways of viewing data in graph form, and we can also use a number of ready-made graphs, or easily create new ones.

The Show as Chart option (the Windows client only)

Whenever the information displayed on screen can be viewed as a chart, the Home tab of the ribbon will contain a section called View where users can switch the view of the information from List to Chart, and vice versa. This feature is currently only available on the Windows client:

On Windows client, let's see an example of how to build a chart based on the customer list:

1. Type Customers in the search box of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV client.
2. Select Customers. The customer list will be shown.
3. Click on Show as Chart. An empty chart will be shown. We will have to select a measure and the dimensions we want to use to build our chart:

4. Select Sales ($) as the...

Using reports

Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central have a bunch of reports that can be used out-of-the-box. Some other reports may have been added by a partner and can also be used. The first thing you need to know to be able to execute application reports is where to find them.

Finding reports in the Windows client and Web client

From the Windows client: To find application reports from the Windows client, perform the following steps:

1. Click on Departments and then select any functional area, Sales & Marketing, for instance.
2. The main menu for the selected functional area will appear on the screen. Every item you can find inside a menu for an application area has a category associated with it. In the menu, there is a way to view items according to their category. The following screenshot illustrates the existing categories in Microsoft Dynamics NAV:

Select Reports and Analysis.

3. All items under the Reports and Analysis category for the functional area selected will...

Scheduling a report

As has already been mentioned, it is possible to schedule a report (on-demand). This is very useful when you need to print reports that take a long time to calculate (for example, an inventory evaluation, printing the general ledger journal). Once the report has been processed, it will be saved in the required format (for example, PDF format) and a notification sent to the user with a link to the report ready to allow immediate opening.

Benefits of report scheduling include the following:

• The execution of the report takes place on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV server (server-side execution)
• The client immediately frees resources for other operations (increased productivity)

For example, the following screenshot shows the scheduling of the Customer – Top 10 List report:

Account schedules

The account schedules functionality is part of the Analysis and Reporting section of the Financial Management area. Itis meant to create customized financial reports based on general ledger information, budget information, or on the analysis views information. Account schedules can group data from various accounts and perform calculations that are not possible directly on the Chart of Accounts.

When defining account schedules, the information that will be displayed on both rows and columns can be defined.

To see how it works, we will create a simple account schedule that will compare budgeted amounts with real amounts. To do this, we will perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to Departments | Financial Management | Reports and Analysis and choose Account Schedules.
2. Click on New to create a new account schedule, as demonstrated in the following screenshot:

3. For the new account schedule, select EXAMPLE as Name, comparing budget versus actual as Description, and ACT/BUD as Default...

Analysis views

Analysis views are used to analyze information about dimensions from general ledger entries, budgets, and cash flow forecast entries. It is a very powerful tool that can create even very complex analysis scenarios, and the configuration matrix is very detailed, with many applicable filters.

Let's first have a look at what dimensions are, and then we will be able to see how to analyze the information that dimensions provide using analysis views.

Understanding dimensions

A dimension can be seen as information linked to an entry, something like a tag or a characteristic. The purpose of dimensions is to group entries with similar characteristics so that you can report on the data in a way that is meaningful to the company. Each company can define its own dimensions according to how they need to analyze their data.

Posted entries and posted documents can contain analyzable dimension information as well as budgets. The term dimension is used to describe how analysis occurs. A two-dimensional...

Extracting data

Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central offer several ways to analyze and report data inside the application. If that is not enough, you can also extract data from the application and use external tools to report and analyze your data.

In this section, we will see the different ways in which you can extract your data from Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Once it is outside the application, you can use the most convenient tool for you.

Data in Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central can be extracted in multiple ways:

Understanding report development

Report development is completely different from what it used to be. The report development experience changed in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 with the introduction of the Report Definition Language Client-side (RDLC) report, but it changed again with the actual release of the application.

With Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, RDLC-based reports were introduced, but reports were still compatible with the classic definition of reports in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. RDLC reports were actually based on the classic definition of the report.

From Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, the classic definition of reports has disappeared and only RLDC-based reports are available. This is why the report development experience has changed again. It now resembles the development experience for pages, queries, or XML ports.

With the advent of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015, a new way of managing reports was introduced: Word Report Layout. A Word report layout is based on a Word document (.docx...

Summary

In this chapter, we learned that there are several ways of analyzing and reporting data inside Microsoft Dynamics NAV and in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. We can use filters and FlowFilters, create views, take a look at the statistics pages of Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, define charts and use them in multiple pages, use all the available reports, use analysis views to analyze our data based on dimensions, and use account schedules to analyze our accounting information.

If that is not enough, we also learned that there are several ways to extract data from Microsoft Dynamics NAV and from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and do the analysis and reporting outside the application by using external tools. We have seen the options for using both RDLC reports and Word layout reports in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

In the next chapter, we will learn how to debug error messages while users work through the system.

The rest of the chapter is locked

Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days

Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of

Renews at $15.99/month. Cancel anytime

Start free trial

Previous Chapter

Chapter 16 of 22

Next Chapter

You have been reading a chapter from

Implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premise - Fourth Edition

Published in: Dec 2018Publisher: ISBN-13: 9781789133936

© 2018 Packt Publishing Limited All Rights Reserved

Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!

A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.

Sign up now

undefined

Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days

Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of

Start free trial

Renews at $15.99/month. Cancel anytime

Authors (2)

Roberto Stefanetti

Roberto Stefanetti is a functional and technical consultant, who has worked on education and training for companies, partners, and clients. He currently works on Microsoft systems, especially ERP and related environments. He started working on Navision in 2004, both as a developer and as a functional consultant, and he is now more involved in consulting and managing projects than in development. He has been an MVP in business application since 2016 and a Microsoft Education Influencer since 2017. Roberto's blog is one of the most widely read in the world (with more than 1 million page visits). He has also published articles on many digital publications (such as MSDynamicsWorld, NAVUG Magazine, and others) and reviewed a number of books.
Read more about Roberto Stefanetti

See other products by Roberto Stefanetti

Alex Chow

Alex Chow has been working with Microsoft Dynamics NAV, formerly Navision, since 1999. His customers range from $2 million a year small enterprises to $500 million a year multinational corporations. With a background in implementing all functions and modules inside and outside of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Alex has encountered and resolved the most practical through to the most complex requirements and business rules. He founded AP Commerce, Inc. in 2005, a full-service Dynamics NAV service center. Alex has also written the books Getting Started with Dynamics NAV 2013 Application Development and Implementing Dynamics NAV, Third Edition, both by Packt. He lives in southern California with his wife and two lovely daughters.
Read more about Alex Chow

See other products by Alex Chow

Other recommended products

Related to this chapter

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 Financial Management

Discover how easy it is to manage finance by using Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016. This book will help you get practical knowledge of cash flow management, currencies, intercompany postings, budgets, and accounting implications in areas such as jobs, services, warehousing, and manufacturing.

BookJan 2017222 pages

Dynamics 365 Business Central Development Quick Start Guide

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the new SaaS ERP proposition by Microsoft. The latest version comes has many exciting features guaranteed to make your life easier. This book is an ideal guide to Dynamics 365 and will help you get started with implementing and designing solutions for real-world scenarios.

BookAug 2018224 pages

Building ERP Solutions with Microsoft Dynamics NAV

BookMar 2017392 pages

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Quick Start Guide

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software suite for organizations. The system offers specialized functionality for manufacturing, distribution, government, retail, and other industries. This book gets you started with its integrated development environment for solving problems through customizing business processes.

BookDec 2018210 pages

Mastering Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016

With the latest release, Microsoft has rolled out several new features for developers, administrators, consultants, and users alike, to tailor their implementation to best meet each individual’s requirements. This book will help you get a firm understanding of the ins and outs of the latest version of Dynamics NAV.

BookMar 2017450 pages

Automated Testing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Dynamics 365 Business Central is the new Cloud-based SaaS ERP proposition from Microsoft. It’s not as simple as it used to be way back when it was called Navigator, Navision Financials, or Microsoft Business Solutions-Navision. Our development practices are becoming more formal, and with this the call for test automation is pressing on us. This book will teach you to leverage testing tools available with Dynamics 365 Business Central to perform automated testing.

BookApr 2019222 pages

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition - Financial Management

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for finance and operations is a rapidly growing application and is widely used in enterprise organizations. Because of its ability to maximize business productivity, it is a fast-growing business application package in the ERP market.

BookMar 2018562 pages

Mastering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Mastering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a comprehensive solution which will help you in managing end-to-end business requirements with its features to connect to your financials, sales, service, and operations to streamline business processes. This book will help you in advancing with developing the solutions for your customers with improved interactions and better decisions.

BookDec 2019770 pages

Extending Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 Cookbook

BookJan 2017458 pages

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cookbook

With this comprehensive guide, you will become familiar with the latest Dynamics 365 Business Central which is a complete business application management application. It helps you streamline business processes in your company, connect the company across the individual departments, and enhance customer interactions.

BookAug 2019380 pages

Programming Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a full business solution suite, and a complete ERP solution, which contains a robust set of development tools to support customization and enhancement. These tools help in greater control over financials and can simplify supply chain, manufacturing, and operations. This book will take you from an introduction to Dynamics NAV and its integrated development tools to being a productive developer in the Dynamics NAV Development Environment.

BookApr 2017706 pages

Programming Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Programming Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central will help you effectively use the development tools that are built into Dynamics Business Central. You will understand the strengths of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central’s development tools and how they can be applied to address functional business requirements.

BookApr 2019536 pages

Personalised recommendations for you

Based on your interests and search pattern

Engineering Manager's Handbook

Engineering Manager's Handbook is a comprehensive guide for managers to excel in their role, foster customer-centric digital products, learn leadership, team building, and balancing technical work with management. You’ll also explore how to develop trust, authority, and collaboration to drive success and make a lasting impact.

BookSep 2023278 pages

C++ Game Animation Programming

Video game characters have a fascinating history, evolving from simple 2D sprites to high-polygon 3D models. Take a look behind the curtain and learn how to build a 3D renderer, load character models, play animations and blend between them, and create large crowds of animated people with this comprehensive C++ game animation programming guide.

BookDec 2023480 pages

Gamification for Product Excellence

This book helps you to take your product management strategy to the next level by standing out in crowded markets. Along with boosting user adoption rates by creating engaging products that incorporate playful elements, learn gamification theory and how to integrate it into your design, product development, and product management processes.

BookSep 2023350 pages

Supercharging Productivity with Trello

Supercharging Productivity with Trello is the ultimate guide for anyone looking to boost their productivity with digital tools. Whether you're new to Trello or a seasoned professional, this book covers everything from core features to advanced automation, and Power-Ups.

BookAug 2023342 pages

Automate It with Zapier and Generative AI

This comprehensive guide takes you through the concepts of business process automation, showing you how Zapier can facilitate it without having to write code and helping you to boost productivity. You’ll learn how to save time, reduce costs, and make your business recession-proof by using Zapier to automate tasks in your cloud-based business apps.

BookAug 2023706 pages

Scoring to Picture in Logic Pro

In this book, you’ll explore a variety of techniques to synchronize music to picture using Logic Pro. Though this is not a technical manual, it will teach you how to make the best use of Logic Pro and how to wield this technology to maximize your potential when scoring to picture.

BookSep 2023412 pages

Mastering Information Security Compliance Management

This concise book equips you with the knowledge and practices needed to establish and maintain an effective information security management system. The chapters provide insights into ISO/IEC 27001/27002:2022, risk management, ISMS development, incident management, audit processes, and strategies for continuous improvement.

BookAug 2023236 pages1

Implementing Atlassian Confluence

Implementing Atlassian Confluence provides both a high-level overview and an insightful path for remote collaboration with Atlassian Confluence. With this multi-layered yet practical guide, you’ll be able to set up Confluence-based collaboration with minimum external consultancy services to ensure smooth and close coordination between teams.

BookSep 2023406 pages

R Bioinformatics Cookbook

This book takes a unique problem–solution approach to handling complex tasks in the bioinformatics domain using different datasets present in the book. With the help of real-world examples, you’ll learn to put each independent recipe to use to tackle problems in the field of bioinformatics.

BookOct 2023396 pages

Build Your Own Metaverse with Unity

Build Your own Metaverse with Unity is a practical guide for developers to create their own metaverse - a virtual world with infinite possibilities. It empowers you to identify gaps in existing metaverses and improve upon them, enabling you to shape your virtual world.

BookSep 2023586 pages5

GO TO TOP

Machine LearningKubernetesReactPythonCybersecurityUnity Game DevelopmentPower BIAzureWeb Development

• Machine Learning
• Kubernetes
• React
• Python
• Cybersecurity
• Unity Game Development
• Power BI
• Azure
• Web Development

Legal

Terms and ConditionsPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyShipping PolicyReturn Policy

Support

HelpContact Us

Business

Partnerships

Sponsored eBooks

Custom eBooks

CareersBecome an author

Packt+ Membership

SubscriptionDataProSecPro

Packt Subscription Packt NewsLetter

Legal

Terms and Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Policy

Shipping Policy

Return Policy

Support

Help

Contact Us

Business

Packt Subscription

Packt NewsLetter

---

Company Address: Packt Publishing Ltd, Grosvenor House, 11 St Paul's Square, Birmingham, B3 1RB© 2024 Packt Publishing Limited All Rights Reserved

Feature	Dynamics NAV	Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premise	Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS
Copying and pasting	Yes	Yes	Yes
Extracting data through Microsoft SQL Server	Yes	Yes	No
Any external data/reporting tools that can connect to Microsoft SQL Server	Yes	Yes	No
Web services (OData) published	Yes	Yes	Yes
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Microsoft PowerShell Scripts	Yes	Yes	No
Microsoft Power...

Understanding report development

Report development is completely different from what it used to be. The report development experience changed in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 with the introduction of the Report Definition Language Client-side (RDLC) report, but it changed again with the actual release of the application.

With Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, RDLC-based reports were introduced, but reports were still compatible with the classic definition of reports in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. RDLC reports were actually based on the classic definition of the report.

From Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, the classic definition of reports has disappeared and only RLDC-based reports are available. This is why the report development experience has changed again. It now resembles the development experience for pages, queries, or XML ports.

With the advent of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015, a new way of managing reports was introduced: Word Report Layout. A Word report layout is based on a Word document (.docx...

Summary

In this chapter, we learned that there are several ways of analyzing and reporting data inside Microsoft Dynamics NAV and in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. We can use filters and FlowFilters, create views, take a look at the statistics pages of Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, define charts and use them in multiple pages, use all the available reports, use analysis views to analyze our data based on dimensions, and use account schedules to analyze our accounting information.

If that is not enough, we also learned that there are several ways to extract data from Microsoft Dynamics NAV and from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and do the analysis and reporting outside the application by using external tools. We have seen the options for using both RDLC reports and Word layout reports in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

In the next chapter, we will learn how to debug error messages while users work through the system.