With the past few releases of Dynamics GP, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to extend the reach of the data created and stored in GP to all of the employees of the company. Based on previous studies, a typical company may only have enough user licenses for 15% of their workforce, and it is not unusual for only half of these users to actively work within the GP system. Under these circumstances, perhaps as many as 92% of the company’s workforce may have no regular or direct access to the ERP system, the source of the information they need to make business decisions.
In previous releases of Microsoft Dynamics GP, access to this vital company information was provided to the entire company thru such tools as dashboards and Key Performance Indicators via an internal web-site, Microsoft Sharepoint sites, Excel-based (and refreshable) reports, and many others.
Now, with the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 set for May 1st2010, this effort reaches its’ next milestone. With new features such as additional Microsoft Excel and new Microsoft Word reports that include extensive drill-back features, a replacement for FRx called Management Reporter, and a simplified deployment via Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Foundation, the transaction details and other vital information contained within Dynamics GP 2010 is now easily accessible by the entire workforce. These reports can be refreshed at any time and accessed via remote tools such as a Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office, and Sharepoint sites.
This approach provides many benefits to your employees, but the two most significant are:
1. The ability to see and refresh vital information at the request of the employee. This facilitates the decision-making process using up to the minute information, while reducing the demands on the GP users to be the reporting engine for the entire company.
2. Decision makers can now start by reviewing a summarized report, looking for those specific circumstances that require additional analysis and investigation, and then have complete drilldown capabilities to identify the cause of any anomaly. These capabilities do not require a GP user License or direct access to the Dynamics GP 2010 system, while still providing the information needed without any delays.
Dynamics GP 2010 will even further extend the reach of the GP system, beyond all of the other employees of the company, out to the company’s Customers and Vendors. GP 2010 will now include the capability to send out individualized, Word-based documents. By creating various formats for such documents as Invoices and Purchase Orders in MS Word, and then associating the various Word template documents to individual customers or vendors (or specific classes of Customers and Vendors), Dynamics GP 2010 can then send out groups of personalized documents, in a single action!
Imagine writing report and document templates in a familiar and powerful tool like MS Word and MS Excel! This approach will greatly reduce the learning curve for report writing, and significantly remove the “fear of the unknown” induced by many other reporting tools.
