Building Dashboards with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 - Second Edition

✍ Scribed by Belinda Allen, Mark Polino

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 354
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Learn to build professional and powerful dashboards with Microsoft Dynamics GP and Excel

About This Book

• This book provides a core foundation for you to understand the ever-changing Microsoft Power BI
• Through this book, you'll understand how data flows and is secured between Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Excel
• You'll see how to create amazing dashboards using various tools such as Excel 2016, Power BI, Jet Express, and more

Who This Book Is For

This book is geared up for analysts and accountants keen on building and maintaining professional dashboards with Microsoft Excel 2016 for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 data, and building financials with visuals using the New Jet Reports Express Tool for Dynamics GP. An introduction is provided for those who want to maintain dashboards in Microsoft Power BI.

What You Will Learn

• Use GP Data in Excel 2016 in a meaningful way
• Build basic financial statements using Jet Reporting Express, including visualizations
• Understand the foundation of Power BI and its components
• Get and maintain data from Dynamics GP in Power BI
• Find out how to use the Power BI Query Editor (the Get and Transform feature in Excel 2016)
• Format basic visualizations to get better insights
• Understand Jet Reports Express, which is used to create basic financial statements
• Use the new Dynamics GP features, such as OData and adding Power BI tiles on the home page

In Detail

Microsoft Dynamics GP is a complete ERP solution that is extremely beneficial for small to midsize organizations in helping them grow exponentially.

The book shows you in detail how to build great-looking dashboards with Microsoft Dynamics GP that enhance a company's decision-making processes.

This guide will take you from the basics of setting up and deploying to creating secure, refreshable Excel reports. Using a whole host of tools available within Microsoft Dynamics GP and Excel, this tutorial will show you how to visualize your data using simple conditional formatting techniques and easy-to-read charts, and allow you to make your data interactive with slicers.

We will also cover core topics such as Business Analyzer, Microsoft SQL Reporting services reports, BI360, and more. You will find out to use Power BI, share and refresh data and dashboards in Power BI, and use Power BI Query Editor.

By the end of this book, you will have all the information required to build interactive dashboards using Dynamics GP.

Style and approach

The book takes a step-by-step approach and contains real-world examples that provide the building blocks to create engaging dashboards. This practical guide is all about doing. Get your data, open up Excel, and go!

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Copyright
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Getting Data from Dynamics GP 2016 to Excel 2016
SmartList exports
SmartList Export Solutions
Getting ready
Creating macros
Creating an export solution
Get and Transform – formerly known as Power Query
Office Data Connection files
Creating an .odc file
The location of the .odc file
Reusing an .odc fie
SQL Server Reporting Services
Jet Reports Express for Excel
Basic financial data
Table Builder
SQL Server Management Studio
Analysis Cubes
Third-party solutions
Licensing
Summary
Chapter 2: The Ultimate GP to
Excel Tool – Refreshable Excel Reports
Security
Network share security
Database-level security
Excel 2016 security
Running Excel reports
From Dynamics GP 2016
From Excel 2016
Manual versus auto refresh
Excel refreshable reports via SmartList Designer
Create a new SmartList object
Publish to Excel
Summary
Chapter 3: Pivot Tables – The Basic Building Blocks
Creating pivot tables from GP 2016 Excel report data
Getting data to Excel
Building a pivot table with a calculated field
Creating pivot tables from GP 2016 data connections
Building a revenue pivot table
Copying pivot tables
Building a net income pivot table
Creating a cash pivot table
Creating connected pivot tables from inside Excel
Building the sales pivot table
Adding a receivables pivot table
Summary
Chapter 4: Making Your Data Visually Appealing and Meaningful with Formatting, Conditional Formatting, and Charts
Recap
Preparation
Get pivot data
Revenue
Net income
Formatting
Icon sets
Sparklines
Preparing for Sparklines
Adding Sparklines
Sparkline idiosyncrasies
Deleting Sparklines
Changing Sparkline data
Data bars
Bar chart with trend line
Pie chart
Speedometer chart
The green/yellow/red limit
Building a doughnut
Cutting the doughnut in half
Building a needle
Finishing it off with Sprinkles
Slicers and timelines
Slicers
Creating slicers
Connecting slicers
Timeline
Some more formatting
Summary
Chapter 5: Drilling Back to the Source Data and Other Cool Stuff
Recap
Slicers and timelines options
Slicer orientation
Slicers and timelines color and alignment
Slicer additional options
Learning about hyperlinks
Using drill downs in GP 2016
Drill down background
Using drill downs
Drill down link structure
Other cool Excel stuff
Adding a logo
Good design
Refreshing the data
Sharing
The quick option – e-mail
Network sharing
Hosting via OneDrive
Downloading via OneDrive
Downloading via SharePoint
Hosting via SharePoint Office 365 services
Microsoft Power BI
Summary
Chapter 6: Introducing Jet Reports Express
Recap
What is Jet and why should I use it?
Prebuilt reports
Jet Views and Friendly Names
What is Table Builder?
Create a general ledger trial balance
Other Jet offerings
Summary
Chapter 7: Building Financial Reports in Jet Express for GP
Recap
Building a balance sheet
Building a profit and loss statement
Summary
Chapter 8: Introducing Microsoft
Power BI
Recap
Power BI Desktop versus Service versus Mobile
Power BI Desktop
Power BI Service
Power BI Mobile
Other ways to view Power BI
Power BI Professional (paid) versus Power BI (free)
Typical workflow of Power BI
Update speed
Summary
Chapter 9: Getting Data in Power BI
Recap
Getting data from files
Using Excel reports in Power BI
Connecting to data in Dynamics GP
Direct SQL Connect
SQL statement
OData
Content packs
Online Services
Organizational
Getting data from folders
Summary
Chapter 10: Creating Power BI Visuals
Recap
Using Filters
Formatting as a tool
Understanding standard visuals
Getting quick information with cards
Making a Gauge have more meaning
Getting down with drill down charts
Carving out better data with a Slicer
Adding final touches
Development options - if you have a techie on staff
R - what is it and do I need it?
Summary
Chapter 11: Using the Power BI Service
Recap
Publishing to the service
Creating a dashboard
Getting to know the Q&A feature
Importing an Excel report
Summary
Chapter 12: Sharing and Refreshing Data and Dashboards in Power BI
Recap
Power BI Template
Content Packs
Online Services
Refreshing data
Types of refresh
Online Services
Organizational Content Packs
One-Drive and SharePoint Online
OData
Gateway
Summary
Chapter 13: Using the Power Query Editor
Recap
What is a query?
Exiting Query Editor
Naming queries
Using Applied Steps
Removing unnecessary column(s)
Formatting column Data Types
What is the M language?
Using Replace Values
Transforming data
Trim a little off the top, the right, the left, etc.
Formatting with Case
Working with dates and times
Merging columns
Splitting columns
Merging queries
Appending queries
Summarizing with Group By
Formulating with DAX
Summary
Chapter 14: Bonus Chapter
Recap
Excel 2016
Sharing Excel reports via IM
Sharing Excel reports via live presentation
Jet Express for GP
Eliminating values that should be zero
Refreshing with an option window
Microsoft Power BI
Map of customer balances
Getting data from a folder
Summary
Index