New Report Tool Across Modules 12.2
Detailed Agenda Future of Reporting in Jonas DataMart and SQL Reporting Tools Report Samples DataMart and Jonas Reports to Excel Cash Flow Dashboard - Job Cost Detailed Revenue/Cost Analysis Dashboard - Work Order Detailed Revenue/Costs Analysis Dashboard - General Ledger Detailed Analysis Business Intelligence Job Cost Detailed Analysis
Future of Reporting in Jonas How did we get here? From canned reports to updating Excel gets us to this point what is next. Businesses are striving to find ways to be able to make intelligent decisions and these decisions are not as simple as they used to be. This is why the level of reporting has to be much more sophisticated, simple to get at and most importantly it must not take long periods of time to create or have any negative processing impact on back-end systems. Necessary Steps To make this happen we undertook a major investigative project to find out how we could accomplish all of these goals. The steps necessary were as follows: Secure a dedicated resource Embrace Microsoft Gold Partnership Review all Business Intelligence tools and methodologies Develop technology that would allow seamless transfer of relevant data to Reporting Server with minimal impact on current Jonas processing Build a Data Dictionary that is easy to understand and use
DataMart and SQL What is DataMart? DataMart is a SQL Server Reporting Database that will hold relevant Jonas Data. It gets updated seamlessly by running Jonas component that will update SQL essentially realtime.
Why SQL Server 2008 R2? SQL is industry standard database that is well recognized. As a Microsoft Partner using SQL made sense. High performance and scalability Offers better performance and provides support for very large databases, up to one terabyte Increased availability It can be backed up, either incremental or complete, while the database is in use so you do not have to force users to exit the database to back up data. This means your database can be running up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Improved security It can integrate with the Windows Server operating system security to provide a single log on to the network and the database. This makes it much easier for you to administer complex security schemes. An SQL Server database on a server is also better protected because unauthorized users can't get to the database file directly but must access the server first. Immediate recoverability In case of system failure (such as an operating system crash or power outage), Microsoft SQL Server has an automatic recovery mechanism that recovers a database to the last state of consistency in a matter of minutes, with no database administrator intervention. Critical applications can be up and running again right away. Reliable distributed data and transactions Supports atomic transactions with transaction logging, which guarantees all changes performed within a transaction are either committed or rolled back. Consistency and recoverability of a database transaction are guaranteed even in the case of system failure and in the middle of complex updates by more than one user. SQL Server treats all database changes inside a transaction as a single unit of work. By definition, either an entire transaction is completed safely and all resulting changes are reflected in the database, or the transaction is rolled back and all changes to the database are undone. Server-based processing Data and indexes reside on a single server computer that is often accessed over the network by many client computers. SQL Server reduces network traffic by processing database queries on the server before sending results to the client. Thus client/server application can do processing where it's done best - on the server. Applications can also use stored procedures and triggers to centralize and share application logic, business rules and policies, complex queries, and data validation and referential integrity code on the server, rather than on the client.
Reporting Tools There are essentially an endless amount of tools that can be used to read SQL Server data. Our focus has been what is simple and easy to use as well as what is cost effective. Data Dictionary To get started you need and easy to read data dictionary that helps you locate the type of data you are looking for. Jonas is using an industry standard tool to display/search in a Windows Help format. Excel and PowerPivot Excel is a widely used for pulling in SQL Data into worksheets, Pivot Tables and Charts using Microsoft Query. Power Pivot is an Excel 2010 add-on and it allows more flexibility when connecting to database and has built-in data slicers. Some of the later example demonstrate that capability. Business Intelligence We have spent much time investigating tools and methodologies available out there at a cost that is not prohibitive to our client base. These tools are generally not that inexpensive as they offer seamless graphical interfaces for reporting as well as built in KPI s. There is one tool that stands out from the rest and we have spent some time working with. Templates Whichever tool is chosen, Jonas will be building some template reports based on client feedback. Jonas has been working with some key clients on types of reporting / dash boards they would like to see. Any suggestions are welcome.
Report Samples DataMart and Jonas Reports to Excel Cash Flow Data stored in SQL may not be enough to get the reports you want, sometimes logic is needed. Add VBA code in Excel Use SQL Stored Procedures Better yet just pull data from reports in Jonas into Excel In the Cash Flow Example we took what was done in previous course and added an element of SQL to get the desired results. The Bank Balance is pulling from GL Details table The Asset Purchases / Other Deposits are pulling from the GL Budgets table
Dashboard - Job Cost Detailed Revenue/Cost Analysis
Dashboard Work Order Detailed Revenue/Cost Analysis
Dashboard General Ledger Detailed Analysis
Business Intelligence Job Cost Detailed Analysis