What you need to know about Reporting & BI for AX2012 & D365

Transcription

1 What you need to know about Reporting & BI for AX2012 & D365 Gina Pabalan Edgewater Fullscope, Data & Analytics Practice Managing Director, Business Intelligence Mobile:

2 Edgewater Fullscope Overview Edgewater Fullscope delivers innovative Microsoft ERP, CRM and BI solutions and services on premise or in the cloud in North America and Europe. The award-winning company is one of the largest resellers of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics AX and CRM). Strategy BI Roadmap Strategy Executive Facilitation Data Requirements Analytics Stories Agile Methodology HPO Framework Data & Analytics Practice Data ETL Data Warehousing Data Modeling Data Migration ETL Automation tools SSIS/SSAS Analytics Data Visualization Reporting Dashboards Training PowerBI

3 BACK END FRONT END Reporting & BI Technology Stack Delivery PowerBI, Enterprise Portal/SharePoint, Mobile, Desktop, Social Collaboration, Alerts, Cloud vs on-prem Performance Management Analytics Reporting Enterprise Dashboards, Metrics/KPIs, Scorecards Analytical, Interactive Data Visualization, Time Intelligence, Statistical, Predictive, AI (PowerBI, Excel, PowerView) Governed Corporate, Ad-hoc, Operational (SSRS, Excel) Data SQL Relational DB, OLAP/SSAS, Tabular, cloud vs on-prem Discovery & Integration Infrastructure Data Marts, Perspectives, SSIS Network, Servers, Cloud vs On-Prem, Security

4 Microsoft Tools Line Up BACK END FRONT END Transactional Data (Source) Data Consolidation & Transformation (ETL) Analytical Reports Interactive Visualization SQL Database (Relational, Normalized) SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Excel (.xlsx) PowerBI (.pbix) Data Warehouse SQL Database (Modeled, Transformed) Aggregated Data Models (OLAP, Tabular) SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) Paginated Reports SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) Mobile Reports Mobile Report Publisher (.rsmobile) Formerly Datazen

5 When you are considering reporting & analytics. 2 questions How and where is the data sourced?? Transactional Application Data Mart EDW SSAS multi dimensional SSAS tabular How will the information be authored and delivered

6 BI in Terms of Dynamics AX2012 and Microsoft. Role Centers (SharePoint) Data Source (BACK END) Operational reports Reporting & Analytics Tool (FRONT END) 3 AX 2012 (6,400 tables) MR Data Mart Management Reporter 2 MDX SSAS 20+ OLAP CUBES 1 Information within transactional ERP systems is highly normalized to make transactional processing more efficient and deliver necessary scalability to enterprise operations.

7 Expansion of Tables in AX 7

8 Transactional ERP Data vs. Prepared Data Set Customer Information - Transactional Customer Information Prepared Data >> ie, Data Mart or Data Warehouse

9 Dynamics comes with out-of-box Reporting & Analytics. Do I need more?? Reporting & Analytics Requirements? many Version of AX? few OOB AX 2009 or earlier AX 2012 D365 Finance & Operations OOB yes Multiple Systems? No OOB Multiple Systems? yes No, or limited OOB OOB yes Upgrading Soon? OOB No OOB

10 For AX2012, you will need at minimum a Data Mart (Simplified Data Model) Prepare data to serve the organizations unique business reporting needs, not the needs of ERP transactions. Authoring reports against the AX2012 transactional database can be complicated and inefficient, requiring a highly experienced AX resource with knowledge of the underlying database. Once those reports have been authored, AND AS DATABASES GROW, running those reports can consume significant system resources, and have a negative performance impact on your production ERP system. Its very easy even for an experienced AX resource - to write a query against the AX2012 transactional database that is not optimized for system performance. Merge/prepare legacy ERP data with current AX data for seamless reporting to the business (upgrades, acquisitions, new ERP). Access for those who consume the data who do not have regular access to AX2012.

11 Fullscope s Guiding Principles for delivering Reporting & BI with AX2012 clients Leverage as much of the Microsoft stack as possible. Customers have invested in Microsoft and Dynamics and the return on that investment should be fully exploited. Stay away from anything proprietary avoid a black box approach. Deliver baseline capability that is not over-engineered, something the customer can leverage and easily modify and extend to make their own. Out-of-the-box BI solutions are conceptually appealing, however in reality, BI is quite unique to each customer. Solution must enable the customer to be self-sufficient and not highly dependent on consultants for its long term care and feeding. It is expected that the customers reporting and BI solution will evolve over time, and they need to be able to drive that independently. Understand the right front end reporting tool is one a specific user will use. If that is PowerBI, Excel or other the right BI solution needs to support and enhance all. Must be affordable. Most AX2012 customers are mid-market manufacturing organizations and do not have the budget for massive BI investments.

12 Fullscope s Response. Reporting and BI Accelerator This is about managing the Back End data set, by delivering a SIMPLIFIED DATA MODEL of the AX database accelerating ability to deliver vital information to the business for reporting & analytics! BACK END FRONT END AX 2009 AX 2012 Other Source Transactional Systems Unstructured Data D365 AX Adapter D365 Adapter (ERP & CRM) Reporting & BI Accelerator ETL Automation Enterprise Data Warehouse SQL RDW Baseline AX Data Warehouse Simplified Data Model SSA S SSA S SSA S Operational Reporting & Analytics Nonproprietary leverage ANY front end tool

13 D365 FO

14 D365fO - Data & Analytics Framework Data Entities System of Intelligence Dynamics Dynamics for Finance for Finance & Operations & A printed document, typically requiring transaction processing as a precursor (invoice, BOL) Dynaway Dynaway EDGE EDGE SKG SKG Data Entities Data Mart Management Reporter Entity Store Management Reporter Operational Data Visualization and Interaction Financial Reporting

15 Will we need something more?? Analytics/BI Single Source D365 Data Diversity Something More Multi Source Reporting Low Data Complexity High

16 Data Entities Interacting with D365 Data (from outside the dotted line) System of Intelligence System of Integration Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations Dynaway EDGE SKG Data Mart Data Entities Entity Store OData (Small Data Sets) DIXF Framework (large data sets) Management Reporter Beware! System access to the DB is available in NON Production D365 environments

17 LARGE DATA SETS SMALL DATA SETS D365fO supports a system of integration with following capabilities: OData v4 (Read/Write) D365fO data are securely exposed via the ODatav4 endpoint for interactive read/write operations that involve small batches. While ODatav4 endpoints can be used for reporting with PowerBI and other tools, for large volume reporting BYOD is recommended. Data Import/Export framework (DIXF) You can use DIXF functionality via the Data Management workspace or programmatically using APIs for Large Batch import and export operations. JSON service framework JSON is an efficient protocol to exchange data between interactive applications. While you would use the same endpoint for accessing Entities as you did with ODatav4 (small batch), you have the ability to invoke business events and actions in addition to accessing data. Bring your own Data Store (BYOD): D365fO entities can be incrementally exported into your own Data Store/staging database as frequently scheduled batch transfers. BYOD is built using DIXF framework and supports Large Batch exports. Designed to support integration with data warehouses. OData interface limits the number of records extracted at a time to 10k rows as of platform update7.

18 An important topic many overlook Data Entities.The importance of preparing your data to support Reporting & Analytics Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations Dynaway EDGE SKG Data Entities Data Mart Management Reporter Entity Store Microsoft prepares data for reporting & analytics. so should you! *** Avoid writing complex SSRS reports against the D365 OLTP ***

19 But Data Preparation typically involves much more than flattening out the data. Basic transformations: De-normalizing Cleaning Deduplication Format revision Standardization Restructuring Conversions (ie, currency, timestamp, UoM) Advanced transformations: Derivation Filtering Joining data from multiple sources. Splitting (explode BOM to see all components of Finished Goods) Data validation Summarization Aggregation Harmonization o o o Advanced Data Transformations will be required if multiple systems are involved. D365 Entities can only take data prep so far Some of this work can be pushed to PBi but there are limitations there as well

20 Data Entities BYOD for Reporting Think of BYOD as your operational data store for D365 data System of Intelligence Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations Dynaway EDGE SKG Data Mart Data Entities Entity Store D365 BYOD Allows SQL Queries Management Reporter Note: Microsoft Entities were developed for data import, not reporting Current product development is focused on the Entity Store, not BYOD

21 And if an Enterprise Data Warehouse is needed. Allows SQL Queries System of Intelligence System of Integration Dynamics 365 for Finance & Data Operations Entities Data Entities D365 BYOD Legacy ERP Other System of Record Data Mart MR Entity Store Enterprise Data Warehouse (Governed Global Data Source)

22 So, how do I know what I really need?..and avoid making short term decisions at the expense of long term? How do I avoid chasing butterflies?.after all, we are implementing a new ERP system! How do I manage expectations and cost?.and avoid surprises Start with. Building LIST of reporting and analytics requirements to support your D365 implementation For each requirement, identify the Business Owner and collect the following information

23 Reporting Requirements for Phase I ERP Implementation

24 Reporting Requirements for Phase I ERP Implementation (Visualization)

25 Reporting Requirements for Phase I ERP Implementation

26 Reporting Requirements for Phase I ERP Implementation Does this report require the use of data sets over 10,000 records? Does this report require complex calculations and/or significant use of cross functional data.

27 Reporting Requirements for Phase I ERP Implementation Is all the required data contained within D365? Does the report require a mash up of data sourced from multiple sources? Identify the additional sources

28 Reporting Requirements for Phase I ERP Implementation

29 Reporting Requirements for Phase I ERP Implementation How frequently will the report be run: o Multiple times throughout day o Daily o Monthly o Yearly

30 Reporting Requirements for Phase I ERP Implementation How current must the data be: o Up to the minute o 15 minute lag acceptable o 4 hour lag acceptable o EoD currency acceptable

31 Now we can start answering these questions How will the information be Delivered?? Where is the Data sourced?

32 Deciding where best to meet a reporting need. Allows SQL Queries System of Intelligence System of Integration 1 Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations Data Entities Data Entities 2 5 D365 BYOD Legacy ERP Other System of Record Data Mart Entity Store 3 4 Management Reporter 6 Enterprise Data Warehouse (Governed Global Data Source) If a Customer requires a Data Warehouse, consider..

33 Allows SQL Queries Fullscope s Reporting & BI Accelerator System of Intelligence System of Integration Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations Data Entities Data Entities DataStage D365 BYOD D365 Adapter (ERP & CRM) ETL Automation Legacy ERP Other System of Record Data Mart Management Reporter Entity Store Enterprise Data Warehouse (Governed Global Data Source) BI Monitor Data Dictionary

34 Features of the ETL Automation Tool Auto-generates consistent best practice SSIS and SQL code (non-proprietary) Pulls data from most any data source Data Lineage / Impact Analysis Diagrams Automated documentation Full-featured security Flexible load scheduler Analysis Services support - cube and tabular Reusable code library Dynamics AX and D365 Adapter Creates enum tables for easy description lookups View D365 table relationships View D365 field descriptions Team development environment Version Control Slowly changing dimensions Simplified DW Promotion (Dev/QA/Prod) Fields and Lookups are linked with metadata rather than fieldname/tablename Renaming objects has zero impact Embedded DW and OLAP best practices Tool is also being used for data migration during your D365 implementation

35 Leverage Fullscope s Accelerator as Migration Tool to support the D365 Rollout D365 Entity D365 Staging LoB System LEGACY ERP (s) Extract ie, Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services ( SSIS ) Transform Data Hub Import D365 Entity Template D365 Fullscope s Accelerator Microsoft s Data Management Framework White Paper available on the topic

36 ROI for Fullscope s Accelerator ETL Automation tool will reduce data preparation time by 50-75% Baseline D365 enterprise data warehouse & BYOD saves over 1,200-1,600 hours from Day 1 Beyond Reporting: ETL Automation tool will simplify and reduce time spent preparing legacy data for migration to D365 (50-75% more efficient).

37 Thank you! Questions? - Speak to your Fullscope Account team - Contact us at gina.pabalan@fullscope.com

38 Reporting and BI Workshop Deliver D365 Data & Analytics Training What comes with D365 - overview Understanding benefits of Embedded and where to use PowerBI licensing considerations various use cases Different reporting scenarios Understand when they will need something more Walk through deliver discovery process for reporting (tool shared with Consulting) Assist in the development of reporting approach to include: Embedded PBI PowerBI Management reporter SSRS needs BYOD BYOD with EDW