The Easy Way to Get Started with Business Analytics Using Microsoft Dynamics GP

In the analytics portion of the Dynamics GP world, PerformancePoint Server is getting all the attention. But the PPS connectors to Dynamics GP won't be released for another month and PPS has a lot of moving parts that incorporate analytics, dashboards, planning, forecasting and reporting.

If you're looking for advanced analysis for Microsoft Dynamics GP, you'll eventually end up at PerformancePoint, but you may not start there.

Microsoft Dynamics GP10 and Excel 2007 offer a terrific starting point for business analytics, without having to learn much in the way of new stuff. The core needs are SQL Analysis Services, which is included as part of SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Excel. For companies on Microsoft's Business Ready licensing, the Analysis Cubes for Dynamics GP are included at the Advanced Management licensing level.

Your best option is the combination of SQL Server 2005, Excel 2007 and Microsoft Dynamics GP10. Older versions of all of these pieces of software can work, but it's definitely more work to set up and use.

First, what's an "analysis cube"? For a simple explanation, imagine a Rubik's Cube with each square representing data, but rather than just having squares on the outside, they are all the way through as well. So if you wanted to see information about where three middle squares intersect, something like sales by territory by month, you can do it pretty easily--in the same way that you could pivot the cube to get different kinds of data to intersect. Maybe Repairs by quarter by branch compared to a budget as an example.

Physical representations of data can be tough analogies, but if you've ever used a pivot table in Excel, you start to understand. The key is to understand that GP's Analysis ...