User Document Generator (UDG)
Developing new SRSS reports in Microsoft Finance and Operations often takes a lot of time, and developers are often the only ones who can build and maintain these reports in SRSS. Developing different layouts can significantly slow down an implementation project and is also a costly undertaking.
There are currently several providers that offer solutions to create report layouts:
- Add-on reporting tools such as Lasernet and Docentric: good tooling for quickly developing reports, but there are license costs involved
- Business documents in Microsoft Finance and Operations: developing new documents using business documents is still very cumbersome and an experienced business consultant is needed to create and/or modify document definitions
- PowerBI: Power BI is a powerful tool for extracting information from data, but is less suitable for use in creating documents.
Dynamic People has developed new functionality to generate documents with data extracted from Microsoft Finance and Operations (F&O). The new module is called User Document Generator (UDG). The process consists of retrieving and reading data from F&O and using Microsoft Excel as a report designer. We have chosen Excel as a tool because almost everyone has it and knows how it works.
Defining reports for UDG consists of 2 parts:
- Microsoft Excel as report designer – Excel is used to develop the document templates, you can easily make adjustments. By means of formulas, the data from the queries is placed in the right place in the report.
- UDG Query – to extract data from the system we use a query designer for data from the tables/data entities/views. Creating the query is an intuitive process, which is based on Microsoft’s advanced query functionality, only more user-friendly and with more flexibility. You link the query to an Excel template where the layout of the report is made.
The great thing about UDG is the possibility to create a button in the menu from every form in F&O that makes the functionality available. No developer is needed for this! For example, if you want to generate UDG documents from the transfer order form, you can easily add this in the setup.
When a UDG report has been generated, there are several options for distributing the documents. You can download the documents as Microsoft Excel or PDF files (possibly as a zip file), add them to a record in F&O or email them.
What we often see is that the same data is used for different reports. We have developed a feature for this that ensures that you can easily copy created reports and release them to other environments.
With UDG, we give users the opportunity to create their own reports in an accessible way, without developers being required. For a new F&O implementation project, customers often want to continue using existing templates. By using Microsoft Excel and UDG end users can get to work creating the templates themselves. After a short training, employees are able to carry out the entire process themselves.
Are you interested or do you want to know more? Please contact us at sales@dynamicpeople.com and we will schedule an appointment!