Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional Reporting

Table of Contents

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional Reporting

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgement

About the Reviewers

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Preface

What this book covers

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Charts and Dimensions

Role Centers

Charts

Chart panes

Limitations of chart panes

Chart parts

Chart security

Chart performance

Reports

List reports

Test reports

Posting reports

Transaction reports

Document reports

Other reports

Printing reports

Determining print report settings

Printer selection

Report selections

Creating reports without development tools

What are dimensions?

Global

Shortcut

Budget

Where are dimensions set up?

Dimensions and dimension values

Dimension values

Dimension combinations

Default dimensions

View posted dimension information

Analysing financial information using dimensions

Dimension-based reports

Summary

2. Creating a Report in the Classic Client

The Report Designer

Using the report wizard

Form type report

Tabular type report

Label type report

Creating a simple List report

Sorting and grouping data in a report

Sections in a classic report

Controls

Triggers

What happens when a report runs?

How is a data item processed?

Properties in a report

Adding color to a classic report

What is a ProcessingOnly report?

Creating an Excel-like layout for a report

Printing a report to Excel

What is so special about the Excel Buffer table (370)?

Report functions

Summary

3. Creating Role Tailored Reports

The optional enhanced layout

Why you cannot call it Reporting Services

Difference between RDL and RDLC?

Printed reports versus online reports

Creating your first enhanced report

What's happening?

Adding formatting, grouping, sorting, and filtering to a report

Report creation workflow

Using multiple data items

Using the Create Layout Suggestion option

Changing the template

Making a report available in the Role Tailored client

Limitations of enhanced report design in Dynamics NAV 2009

Summary

4. Visualization Methods

Report items

Common report item properties

Text box

List data regions

Document Outline

What is the List control used for?

Undo/Redo

Matrix boxes

More advanced matrix techniques

Using colors in a matrix

Green bar matrix

Chart data regions

Adding images to your report

Expanding/collapsing report sections

Interactive sorting

Using the document map

Linking reports

Bookmark links

Hyperlinks

Filtering a report

Filtering a page

Multi-column reports

Headers and footers

Expressions

The Fields collection

The Globals collection

The ReportItems collection

The User collection

Functions

Useful tips and techniques

Use a title, page numbers, and show applied filters

Using rectangles, lines, and images

Adding a report border

Tracking report usage

Checking on empty datasets

Using a report layout setup table

Blanking properties

Pagination

Use rectangles

Give everything a proper name

Test, test, and test

Summary

5. Developing Specific Reports

Document reports

The number of copies option

Displaying data-bound information in the header

Working with addresses in reports

Displaying the current page and copy number

TOP X reports

Creating a TOP X table

Creating a TOP X chart

Using the wizard

Adding KPIs and conditional formatting

Simulating data bars

Simulating spark lines

Implementing conditional formatting

Choosing the right colors

Summary

6. Other Reporting and Business Intelligence Tools

Knowing your data and database

Dynamics NAV database design

How is the Dynamics NAV database created in SQL Server?

Relations and foreign keys

Using an Entity Relationship model

Reporting Services

Using Report Builder

Using BIDS

Comparing RDL and RDLC

Using Microsoft Excel with Dynamics NAV

Excel Data Mining Add In

PowerPivot

Business Intelligence and NAV

Business Analytics

The advantage of having a BI solution

Summary

7. A View of the Future

Dynamics NAV 7 and beyond

Jet Reports Express

RDLC mandatory and 2008 integration

Section designer replaced with an extended data item designer

Dynamics NAV and SharePoint

Dynamics NAV in the cloud

What will SQL Server do?

Project Crescent

BISM

Summary

Index

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional Reporting

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional Reporting

Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2011

Production Reference: 1160911

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-84968-244-2

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Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar (<vinayak.chittar@gmail.com>)

Credits

Author

Steven Renders

Reviewers

Alex Chow

Eric waldo Wauters

Matt Traxinger

Daniel Rimmelzwaan

Acquisition Editor

Dhwani Devater

Development Editor

Alina Lewis

Technical Editor

Ajay Shanker

Project Coordinator

Shubhanjan Chatterjee

Proofreader

Aaron Nash

Indexer

Rekha Nair

Graphics

Valentina D'silva

Production Coordinator

Shantanu Zagade

Cover Work

Shantanu Zagade

About the Author

Steven Renders is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) with a wide range of skills spanning business and technical domains. He later specialized in Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft SQL Server.

He has more than 15 years of business and technical experience and provides training and consultancy focused on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft SQL Server, Business Intelligence Solutions, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, and Database Performance Tuning.

Furthermore, he is also an expert on Microsoft Dynamics 2009, on which he has already delivered many training sessions. Steven was an author of some of the official Microsoft training materials on Dynamics NAV Reporting, Dynamics NAV SQL Server performance tuning, and development. Steven was also a reviewer of the book: Programming in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009.

Steven was also a presenter at various Microsoft MSDN and TechNet evenings, conferences, communities, events, and the MCT Summit in Prague.

Steven has been awarded the Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) status since 2007, and is a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Certified IT Professional Developer for Microsoft Dynamics NAV (MCITP), and Microsoft Certified IT Professional Installation and configuration for Microsoft Dynamics NAV (MCITP).

Recently, Steven started his own company, Think About IT, which is specialized in training and consultancy, helping companies learn, implement, understand, and solve complex business requirements related to IT, in Belgium and abroad.

Specialties:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Microsoft SQL Server

Business Intelligence & Management Reporting

E-mail: <steven.renders@thinkaboutit.be>

LinkedIn: http://be.linkedin.com/in/stevenrenders

Acknowledgement

First of all I would like to express how lucky I am to have found such a fantastic soul mate in Marie Christine. The last few months, when I spent a lot of evenings, weekends, and free time on the book and in starting up a new company, Think About IT, she was the one person that always supported, motivated, and inspired me to continue. She stood by me, and without her it would have been impossible to achieve this result.

Also a special thanks to my parents, parents in law, brother, sister, nephews, godchildren, and friends, who always stood behind me and allowed me to spend so much time apart from them.

The team from Packt Publishing also deserves a lot of gratitude. It was really a pleasure working with them. They helped me a lot and guided the book into the good direction. I'm very thankful and appreciative for their help and guidance.

A big thank you also for the team of reviewers, who volunteered their time, knowledge, and experience reviewing every chapter, guarding the quality, accuracy, and flow of the book. They had a very big contribution in getting this book to become a great piece of work that is agreeable to read and understand.

In Belgium, we have a very good community with lots of events helping to share the knowledge, making sure everyone keeps up-to-date with the latest news and developments in the Dynamics NAV and SQL Server world. Going to the events, sometimes as a participant, sometimes as a speaker, helped me a great deal in broadening my view and subject matter expertise.

A special thanks also for my previous employer, Plataan. Five years ago, they motivated me to become a Microsoft Certified Trainer and allowed me to deepen my knowledge and experience in the Dynamics community.

Special thanks also to Microsoft and their employees in making fantastic products like Dynamics NAV and SQL Server come closer together. Both of them are great applications on their own, but combining them was one of the best achievements of the last few years. The way that Dynamics NAV is getting more and more integrated with other Microsoft technologies has shaped the future and opened up an almost unlimited window of possibilities and opportunities.

To all the above individuals and to several colleagues, whose names I cannot continue listing and who have assisted me one way or another, especially, in challenging me with alternative views, I feel very much indebted.

I would like to thank you all!

About the Reviewers

Alex Chow has been working with Microsoft Dynamics NAV since 1999. He has done hundreds of implementations across multiple industries. The size of businesses Alex has works with range from $2 million a year mom and pop-shops to $500 million a year multi-national corporations.

Throughout his Dynamics NAV career, he is frequently designated as the primary person responsible for the successful and failure of a Dynamics NAV implementation. The fact that Alex is still in the Dynamics NAV business means that he's been pretty lucky so far.

Alex has done implementation in all functions and modules in Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision) with practical and impractical requirements and business rules. From this experience, he has learned that sometimes you have to be a little crazy to gain a competitive edge.

Alex keeps a blog at www.dynamicsnavconsultant.com to share his experiences in Dynamics NAV (Navision). He is also the founder of AP Commerce, Inc. (www.apcommerce.com), a full service Dynamics NAV (Navision) service center.

Alex lives in Southern California with his beautiful wife and two lovely daughters. He is the luckiest man in the world.

Eric waldo Wauters is one of the founding partners of iFacto Business Solutions(www.ifacto.be). With his 10 years of technical expertise, he is an everyday inspiration to its development team. As development manager, he continually acts upon iFacto's technical readiness and guarantees that he and iFacto are always on top of the latest Microsoft Dynamics NAV developments.

Apart from that, Eric is also very active in Microsoft Dynamics NAV community-life, where he tries to solve technical issues and strives to share his knowledge with other Dynamics NAV enthusiasts. Surely, many among you will have read some of Eric's posts on Mibuso.com, Dynamicsusers.net, or his own blog www.waldo.be, which he invariably signs with waldo. In 2008, he co-founded the Belgian Dynamics Community, a platform for all Belgian Dynamics NAV users, consultants, and partners, enabling knowledge sharing and networking. His proven track record entitled him to be awarded as MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional) every year since 2007.

Matt Traxinger graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2005 with a B.S. in Computer Science, specializing in Human Computer Interaction and Cognitive Science. After college he took a job as an add-on developer using a language he was unfamiliar with for a product he had never heard of: Navision. It turned out to be a great decision.

In the years following, Matt learned all areas of the product and earned MCITP certifications in both technical and functional areas of NAV. He continues to stay current with new releases of the product and is certified in multiple areas for versions 4.0, 5.0, and 2009. Currently, Matt works as a developer for ArcherPoint, one of the most experienced NAV partners in the United States, and helps companies model NAV to their business processes.

Matt is also the author of another book in Packt's Dynamics NAV series: Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Programming Cookbook. It is a collection of short, easy to read recipes or tutorials about writing code for NAV.

In his spare time you can find him on the online communities Mibuso.com and DynamicsUser.net under the name MattTrax, helping others learn more about the Dynamics NAV software, or writing free solutions for the I Love NAV community (www.ILoveNAV.com).

Daniel Rimmelzwaan was born and raised in the Netherlands, and moved to the USA at the end of 1999 to be with his new American wife. In Holland, he worked as a Microsoft Access and VBA developer. When looking for a job as a VB developer in the USA, he was introduced to Navision by a VB Recruiter, and was intrigued by the simplicity of its development tools. He decided to accept a job offer as a Navision Developer, with the firm intention to continue looking for a 'real' developer job. More than 10 years later, Daniel is still working with NAV. He currently works for Archerpoint, one of the largest and most experienced Microsoft Dynamics NAV partners in the USA, and he is enjoying his career more than ever.

Daniel has had the opportunity to work in a wide variety of roles such as Developer, Analyst, Designer, Team Lead, Project Manager, Consultant, and more. Although he has a very versatile experience with all things related to NAV, his main focus is custom development, with a bias towards helping his customers solve NAV performance issues on SQL Server.

Ever since he started working with NAV, Daniel has been an active member of the online communities for NAV, such as mibuso.com, dynamicsuser.net, and the online forums managed by Microsoft. For his contributions to these online communities, Daniel received his first of seven consecutive Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Awards in July 2005, which was just the second year that the MVP Award was given out for NAV. The MVP Award is given out by Microsoft to independent members of technology communities around the world, and recognizes people that share their knowledge with other members of the community.

Daniel has also served as a reviewer for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Application Design by Mark Brummel.

Daniel lives with his wife and two kids in Michigan in the USA.

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Preface

Microsoft Dynamics NAV gives you direct access to real-time, business-critical information, and a wide range of analytical tools to help you manage budgets,create and consolidate reports, and look for trends and relationships.

What's more, Microsoft Dynamics NAV is built on industry-standard Microsoft technology and integrates with other Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) products and technologies. So, you can start with the basic modules and Microsoft Office Excel and then add functionality and tools as you need them.

This is how Microsoft describes the Business Intelligence capabilities of the Dynamics NAV product. As we will see in this book, this description is not far from the truth. The only problem is that most people don't have a clear idea of how much is available in the box and what's available out of the box.

Implementers are usually very good in setting up the application so that users can input their data into the system according to the processes and flows in their organization / company. A lot of time and effort is spent on adapting the application to the flows and processes of the organization. But, after the data is then finally inside the database, how do we then get it out again? That's a question I get a lot from customers. In this book, I will give you an answer to this question.

After reading this book it should be clear how to manipulate Dynamics NAV for it to produce the reports and analytical data that you want, when you want it, and in the format you want it!

What this book covers

Chapter 1, What's Available in the Box?, gives an overview of the types of reports available in the application, where to find them, and how to use them. You can create your custom reports without the need for a developer or report designer. This can be done by making use of dimensions, analysis views, and account schedules and so on. It's important to know what's already available for free in the application, before you start spending time, money, and resources on developing custom reports.

Chapter 2, Creating a Classic Report, explains the classic layout, how to create it, and all the capabilities of the good old classic report designer. The creation aspect of the classic report will be kept to a minimum, with more focus on new reporting possibilities of the Role Tailored Client. You will need this information to design reports for the Role Tailored Client, as development of reports starts with a classic report and knowledge about the classic designer is still required.

Chapter 3, Creating a Role Tailored Client Report, dives into the Role Tailored Report designer, or the RDLC report layout as it is called. It starts with an introduction to Visual Studio, its different flavors (versions), the toolbars, the environment, and useful shortcuts. It will explain the different ways to create a report from scratch using the Create Layout suggestion feature. You will see different kinds of problems you may encounter when developing reports for the Role Tailored Client and how to troubleshoot them.

Chapter 4, Visualization Methods, explains that creating reports is not just extracting and formatting data from the database and dropping it onto a layout. The way you visualize the information is equally important. The report will stand or fall depending on the way the information is rendered and presented to the user. That's why a big portion on the chapter will be about data visualization techniques and how to apply them in RDLC.

Chapter 5, Developing Specific Reports, explains how the RDLC report layout for documents, such as a sales invoice, is full of workarounds. We will explore it in detail with the most important workarounds, how and why they are required, and explore some alternative solutions. Creating dashboards and top x reports are also covered in this chapter.

Chapter 6, Other Reporting Tools and Business Intelligence, explains the database behind the Dynamics NAV application. How can you create an ER model? How are the tables related to each other? This chapter will address all these questions. The chapter then dives into SQL Server Reporting Services and explains how you can create an SSRS report. Other BI tools from the Microsoft stack, like for example PowerPivot, Excel Data Mining and Business Analytics, are also covered in this chapter. The purpose is to get a good overview on the other tools that are out there and the added value they have to offer on top of a Dynamics NAV database.

Chapter 7, A View to the Future, shows the future panorama of reporting in Dynamics NAV. Besides the Dynamics NAV application, the other BI applications are also evolving and becoming more integrated. This chapter will try to give you an overview on what will or might happen and the kind of impact or added value it might offer for Dynamics NAV.

Who this book is for

Basically, this book is for everyone who is using Microsoft Dynamics NAV or has an interest on the reporting capabilities of NAV 2009. The book does not have heavy prerequisites, although it is mainly focused on Dynamics NAV 2009, RDLC, and Business Intelligence.

This does not mean that this book has no technical depth and you don't require any technical skills. On the contrary, many parts of the book will cover in great detail the technical aspects and development techniques and reporting tools for Dynamics NAV.

If you want to get an impression on what's possible inside and outside the box of Dynamics NAV 2009 then this book will give you a great overview. If you are interested to know how to attach other Reporting or Business Intelligence products to Dynamics NAV then this book will also give you an overview of these possibilities.

You might be an application developer, a power user, or a technical decision maker. Regardless of your role, I hope that you can use this book to discover the reporting features in Dynamics NAV 2009 that are most beneficial to you.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: Relative can be used to compare values on a scale between 0 and 1.

A block of code is set as follows:

Public Function BlankZero(ByVal Value As Decimal)

if Value = 0 then

        Return

end if

    Return Value

End Function

Public Function BlankPos(ByVal Value As Decimal)

if Value > 0 then

        Return

end if

    Return Value

End Function

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

DynamicsNAV:////runreport?report=xxxxx

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: A chart is added by using the Customize This Page feature in the RTC.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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Errata

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Questions

You can contact us at <questions@packtpub.com> if you are having a problem with any aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.

Chapter 1. Charts and Dimensions

In most implementations, the focus is set on customizing the Dynamics NAV application to meet the needs of the current processes in the organization and sometimes the future