Are you asking yourself if the way you are working and performing your tasks is the most efficient way? And maybe you are not even aware that you can save time and change your approach for certain tasks? We have great news for you! With the reporting functionality available in Exact Synergy Enterprise you can now not only work more efficient, but save time and get a clear insight and overview needed for your daily work. So, tell me how you are doing your work and I will help you to do it more efficient!

What do we offer?
As of Exact Synergy product update 243 we have integrated Microsoft SQL Server Report Services directly in Exact Synergy administration. Thanks to this functionality you can create reports and dashboards which are an essential foundation for decision making processes within your company. In the latest product update 245 we delivered 30 out-of-the-box business reports which transform enterprise data into a clear overview of the business. These ready to use reports offer a real time access and clear insight of both Exact Synergy as well as Exact Globe data and are related to CRM, Financial, HRM, Logistics and Project areas that provide an instant value for any organization (for more information read the release note or watch the video).

How did it help us?
To help users we need to get as close as possible to them and we simply ask what they need to be able to work even more efficiently. For our internal case, we have created one of the dashboards for credit management. Instead of manually looking for account information and switching between Exact Synergy and Exact Globe, the credit management department now only needs the customer number to be able to proceed with their tasks. Just by changing one of the out-of-the-box reports they now have a dashboard that gives them a complete insight of complaints, legal claims, receivable information request, as well as contact details of the account.

So… can we help you?
Please let us know what you need to work in a more efficient way, by sending your requirements to me via email or reply.

Looking forward to your replies!

Since the product update 243 and 244 we have been working on integration of SQL Server Reporting Services directly in the Synergy administration. In the product update 245 we went a step further and created 30* ready to use business reports which transform enterprise data into clear information that is crucial for timely and accurate decision making. These out-of-the box reports offer a real time access and clear insight of both Synergy as well as Globe data.

* Currently we provide 26 reports; the complete package will be available mid-March.

Click here to view the list of reports related to CRM, Financial, HRM, Logistics and Project areas that provide an instant value for your organization.

Please let me know if you think that the list should be extended with some other reports/dashboards. Replies are highly appreciated and will be taken into consideration for the coming update(s). Detailed suggestions can be sent via email.

Thanks in advance!

One great feature of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is the ability to drill through to secondary reports. The advantage is that you can show in one report the summarized high-level information and in the second report the detailed information. This can be realized by adding a drill through action in a report. When designing such an action you would normally select the option “Jump to report“, provide the secondary report and if applicable the required values for the report parameters.

In the blog post What’s new on the menu for Reporting Services Integration in Synergy? I communicated that drill through reports will be supported in product update 244, which is currently in controlled release. How you can use the drill through functionality in Synergy Enterprise release 243, which is currently available, will be explained in this quite technical blog post.

Problem
When these reports are being uploaded and viewed in Synergy Enterprise, the click action on the first report will directly navigate to the location (URL) of the second report on the Report Server. This may result in an access denied because you don’t have access rights on the Report Server.

Solution
Just by selecting the option ”Jump to URL” for the drill through action in the first report and providing the URL for the second report, which is stored Synergy Enterprise, you can solve the issue. The click action will navigate you to the “Employees” report page in Synergy Enterprise instead of the report on the Report Server.

Example
I have created a “FTE” report (summary) and an “Employees” (details) report for this example. The “FTE” report shows a pie chart with the FTE ratio and a KPI with the average FTE. When the user clicks on a piece of the pie chart it will pass the FTE value to the report “Employees” and this report shows all employees which comply with the FTE value.

When I upload the “Employees” report in Synergy Enterprise and view this report, the URL will be in my case:
http://localhost/Synergy/docs/SSRSRepBrowserParameters.aspx?ID={5171e857-4d81-45aa-8006-ade619f2d7d9}.

Now that I know the URL for the “Employees” report in Synergy Enterprise I can design the “FTE” report to use the drill through action “Jump to URL” and provide the value for the FTE parameter.

I need concatenate the URL with a fixed string (the URL of the “Employees” report) and the value for FTE parameter value via an expression. The expression in my example will be:
=”http://localhost/Synergy/docs/SSRSRepBrowserParameters.aspx?ID={5171e857-4d81-45aa-8006-ade619f2d7d9}&FTE=” & Fields!fte.Value

Now when I upload the “FTE” report and click on a piece of the pie chart, I will drill through the “Employees” report and stay in my Synergy Enterprise environment.

Product update 244
You will be able to configure the option “Jump to report” in the next product update functionally via Synergy Enterprise.

Also in product update 244 you have the possibility of linking the ”Synergy URL” value, e.g. http://localhost/Synergy, to a report parameter. With this functionality you can create reports which navigate to web pages in Synergy Enterprise. E.g. navigate from the “Employees” report to the personal card. This way reports can be easily exchanged between different Synergy Enterprise environments without changing the Synergy URL manually. The benefit is that you can create your reports so that they can be used by any customer who is using Synergy Enterprise.

Via this blog we’ll keep you updated about the possibilities and improvements for Reporting Services Integration in the upcoming product updates of Synergy Enterprise. Off course we highly appreciate your comments and thoughts.

Photo credit: Search Engine Land

In this blog post I will explain what’s planned for the next product update. Have you read the highlights of Reporting Services Integration which are mentioned in the blog post Empower your key decision-making? Have you seen this video or read the user guide? It will provide you have a clear picture what the possibilities are with Reporting Services Integration in Synergy Enterprise release 243, which is currently available.

So what’s new on the menu?

Appetizer
Do you want to start with something small to whet your appetite?

With the below small improvements and new possibilities you have more freedom and control on reports.

• Link and use more Synergy Enterprise entities in reports, e.g. items, opportunities and more default values
• Use same report definition but with different security/defaults by supporting linked reports, instead of creating new reports
• Improve management functions (security on report groups, link modules to report groups, hide reports in the report tree view)

Main course
Would you like beef, chicken or fish?

Having reports delivered via email by supporting subscription on reports allows you to view reports in MS Outlook or other email applications.
Viewing reports in multiple web browsers gives you even more freedom and control on how the reports should be served.

Dessert
Interested in pie or some ice cream? 

With the possibility to show and compare information from different sources in one report, you can make these key decisions faster.
Together with the support of drill down and drill through you can get a detailed insight, which helps you in your decision making.  

Coffee
Anything else?

By supporting more data sources types (OLE DB and ODBC) you can show information from almost any product in your reports.

Are you still hungry or thirsty?
Please let me know what you would like to have via a reply or mail so we can serve you even better.

Photo credit: macten

In order to make optimal decisions for your company, you require reporting tailored to your own business priorities and needs. In my previous blog Insight in your daily business I explained how Reporting Services can help you making these key decisions. Reporting Services, part of SQL Server 2005 and higher, is a worldwide known web reporting tool. It enables you to create flexible and graphical web reports. Exact Reporting Services Integration connects these required values into your familiar environment Exact Synergy Enterprise.  Exact Reporting Services Integration centralizes the benefits from both products.

Benefits
The integration of Reporting Services into Synergy Enterprise, enables you to adapt all important functionalities of Reporting Services.
Benefits or important functionalities of Reporting Services are:

• Create flexible and graphical reports
• Use different data sources for the reports
• Export reports in different formats like PDF, Excel and Word.

This integration offers the below possibilities from within Synergy Enterprise:

1. Store reports in Synergy Enterprise.
2. Create various data sources and link them to reports.
3. Deploy reports from Synergy Enterprise to a Report Server.
4. Assign specific roles (rights) to reports.
5. Export reports in different formats, e.g. PDF, Excel and Word.
6. Save reports as a document (snapshot).
7. View reports as a web part on e.g. your homepage (dashboard).
8. Several entities can be used as filter in reports to show specific related data.

One
With Reporting Services Integration you have one central system with the functionalities of Synergy Enterprise enriched with Reporting Services.

Data sources
SQL Server and SQL Server Analysis Services data sources can be created and linked to reports. This allows you to show reports on other products, beside Exact Synergy Enterprise, which uses a SQL Server database, e.g. Exact Globe.

Security
Roles can be assigned to reports. This gives you the flexibility and possibility to control rights to reports, in the same way as you are used to do for other data or functionality. So create a report once and limit the data shown on the report, based on a user’s role within the company.

Snapshots
Reports can be saved as a document (snapshot). This offers you to create an archive of results. This can be used for comparison with the current result.

Dashboards
Reports can be viewed via web parts on your homepage as well on other on other pages. With this functionality you can create your own dashboard which gives you directly clear insight into your business processes in order to make optimal key decisions.

Entities
Reports can be started from several entities in Synergy Enterprise, e.g. person’s card, account card and project card. The great thing about this is that you design a report once and when started the content is automatically about the customer at hand, such as the outstanding amount of the customer.

Stay tuned about the next steps in giving you more control over your business.

Photo credit: Naddsy

In the blog article: Insight in your daily business, Exact announced the integration of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting services (SSRS) in Exact Synergy Enterprise. Before we started the design of this project, we defined next requirements: 

• Multi browser support.
• Support of latest SSRS versions and features.
• Reports built with the Microsoft report building tools.
• Easy management of deployed reports.
• Support for Web parts.
• Deployment and access to reports via Synergy roles.  

Multi browser support.
In March 2010 Exact announced the start of the project: Multi-browser support of Exact Synergy Enterprise. This requirement made the answer to the next question relative easy to made: Will we retrieve and render the data on the web server or on a Reporting Services report server? Retrieve and rendering of reports on the web server can be done with the Report Viewer control. This has some advantages however it conflicts with our goal to support multiple browsers.  This means that Exact Synergy Enterprise will render all SSRS reports on a Reporting Services report server. You have a license to use reporting services as long as the reporting server is installed on your database server. If you install a seperate reporting server you require an additional license. More information about SQL 2008 licensing can be found here.  

Support of latest SSRS versions and features.
In every new version of SQL server, new features will be added to Reporting server. Especially in SQL 2008 R2 a lot of nice reporting features are added like 

Maps, Sparklines, Databars and Indicators.  

Reports build with the Microsoft report building tools.
Microsoft made excellent tools to build reports and make use of the new features. For instance:  

• Report Builder 2.0  for SQL 2008
• Report Builder 3.0  for SQL 2008 R2. At this moment availabel in the CTP version. As of June with the launch of SQL 2008 R2 commercial availabe.
• SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio.

Easy management of deployed reports.
After building a SSRS report, you should deploy the report to the reporting server. The deployment of SSRS reports can be done via the Synergy user interface. This includes deletion of deployed reports and the re-deploy of reports to a new or additional reporting server. 

Support of web parts.
Web parts are a nice way to build your own dashboard. As of Exact Synergy Enterprise we support web parts on the home page of a user. 

Deployment and access to reports via Synergy roles.
To deploy reports via Synergy you should have the role Report manager. To access a report you should have the role which are linked to the reports. This can be existing roles but also new created roles.

I hope you will enjoy the integration of Reporting services in Exact Synergy Enterprise.

Photo credits: SOCIALisBETTER

Let’s start by giving you insight information about myself. My name is Sunil Girdhari and I am now working for Exact more than 8 years. I held several positions from development to sales. Since February 2010 I started in a new role as Product Manager, where my main focus is to empower insight in your daily business processes.

Every day we maintain a lot of data for different business processes. To get a good insight in these processes, the data needs to be transformed into information in such a way its ads value. Adding the possibility to create your own reports helps you to get the insight you need.

What is our vision?
To be successful in today’s competitive marketplace, organizations must extend data beyond the walls of their organization and seamlessly interact with customers, partners, and suppliers in real time. Exact Synergy Enterprise makes this possible for you. On top of this Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services enables organizations to transform valuable enterprise data into shared information for insightful, timely decisions at a lower total cost of ownership.

Integrating this tool in Exact Synergy Enterprise we can provide our users to see this valuable graphical enterprise information and give them a complete insight to make key decisions.

Why did we choose to integrate this tool in our product?

• Users of Exact Synergy Enterprise (ESE) need information to make the relevant decisions for their business in a more efficient way.
• Reporting functionality turns data into information.
• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is widely accepted reporting platform within our market segment.
• There is a technological match between ESE and SSRS.
• There is a commercial advantage for Exact based on the Microsoft licensing model.

When can you expect this integration?
Release 243 (expected May 2010) will contain this powerful feature.

Stay tuned for more details about this integration in my next blog posts!