Microsoft Great Plains ReportWriter Reports Upgrade – notes on advanced techniques

Customization usually places company logo in one or another graphical format, puts some texts: description, general company terms, things like that.  If this is the only modifications made, then reapplying them to new RW report version is not technically difficult.  However in some advanced cases you have very complex reports, when you show or hide fields based on data logic – in such a case you may consider report upgrade, even if it is not on the list of the reports that could be upgraded.  Let’s look under the hood:

• Calculated Fields.  These structures causes upgrade problem and the consequence for the report to be placed to non-upgradeable report list.  Annoying thing is the fact that Validate Report functionality doesn’t go that deep and doesn’t really validate calculated fields.  You have to put report into test environment and physically run it to get the error message on calculated field.  Why calculated fields change with the new version?  Because GP tries to make standard report work better, add extra functionality, etc.  How do you find the work around?  You open standard unmodified report in the new version and on the second screen you open modified report in the old version, then you compare calculated fields one by one and find the culprit – then you apply the judgment of the developer and make report work with new version in modified format
• Tables Structure change.  Latest versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP, such as 10.0 and 9.0 doesn’t show revolutionary tables redesign.  One of the reasons might be this – Microsoft Business Solutions subdivision is working on Microsoft Dynamics or former Project Green, dealing with GP, AX, SL, NAV interface unification
• Other Reporting Options.  Microsoft Dynamics GP Report Writer is Dexterity application or module, and it is somewhat restricted in its customization capabilities (at the same time it is integrated into Microsoft Dexterity interface of GP, so it is very easy to use and relatively straight forward to upgrade).  If you take into consideration the fact that GP is based in Microsoft SQL server 2005 or 200 – you should be open to other industry standard reporting, such as Crystal Reports and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SRS).  When we are talking about CR and SRS – the good report design manners would be placing SQL report query into SQL stored procedure or SQL view – if this is chosen as design approach – reporting tools selection is simple – you take what you like – Crystal or SRS – as they will be just reporting tools – not query builders