10 tips to get Microsoft Dynamics ERP BI ready - without all the pitfalls

A recent study identified that many business intelligence and analytics projects waiver because companies fail to appreciate the levels of complexity. With 100's of implementations to their name, our team of BI consultants have compiled a list of simple design and configuration suggestions that will help companies get their Dynamics ERP BI (business intelligence) ready without all the pitfalls.

1.  Does my budget model fit?

There are now some great new features for uploading budgets directly from Excel to Dynamics. Even so, budget models still vary greatly in their scope and detail and don't always fit naturally into standard Dynamics budget tables. The answer to this can often mean ERP customisation, and this may well be the best way to go. However, do first consider the capability of the BI solution. Ideally it allows you to integrate all shapes of budget data against the actuals to be reported. If so, you might save yourself a lot of time and space (especially when you find the next budget takes yet another format) if you hold budget information at the reporting layer only.

2. Set fields as mandatory but avoid those default values

Don't waste your effort ensuring the correct data entry fields are set as mandatory only to leave a default value to auto populate the field. Educate users with the correct entry definitions and target misclassification sooner rather than later.

3. Leave your dirty data behind

It can be heart-breaking to have to migrate bad historical data into a fresh new Dynamics database. This can be avoided by setting the BI perspective to present both old and new in one seamless chronological timeline. Similarly, the BI layer ought to let you re-classify products or other codes without needing to affect ...