Working With Dynamics GP Partners, Microsoft Begins Beta Rollout of Management Reporter for FRx Migration

Microsoft has started actively working with Dynamics GP partners to begin recruiting customers for a beta version of the new Management Reporter software as a replacement for existing FRx Financial Reporting installations, reports Abra Lynn Gilman, Senior Consultant at Borek Business Solutions, writing on the ERP Software Blog.

Management Reporter was initially a financial reporting component of PerformancePoint Server, but has been separated out as its own product designed to work eventually with all Dynamics ERP systems.  The beta version of the Management Reporter software is scheduled for January 2010, according to a Microsoft announcement, and will coincide with the GP "11" (a.k.a. GP 2010) beta release, althought the product is expected to eventually be deployed with all Dynamics ERP products.  

The introduction of the Management Reporter beta is "part of a longer transition plan...and some time in that period they will stop selling FRx to new customers," says Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft. Directions on Microsoft have recently published guidance on what they call the "Dynamics Financial Reporting Shuffle," outlining the multi-year strategy through 2012 to build out Management Reporter's features to cover the existing capabilities of FRx and Forecaster, and also to migrate existing Dynamics ERP customers off of FRx and Forecaster and onto Management Reporter.  

Alert partners and customers may have heard about major plans over the past two years for new business intelligence and analytics via the now-defunct PerformancePoint Server.  "Microsoft is executing the plan that it telegraphed to customers," says Helm.&...