Discrete but powerful
dashboard in MS Dynamics Nav.
3rd Tier ERP software, often offer a main screen with
essential KPIs, that have been conspicuously and frustratingly absent from
larger products, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This apparent paradox is
explained by the versatility and flexibility of the later that make the
universality and relevance of simple ’one size fit all’ KPIs less probable. To be
on par, these products would have to offer configurable KPIs.
Although this has not been prominently marketed by
Microsoft, this capability exists since the release 2013 of NAV, building on its
trademark dimension feature and the new, dashboard like, role centers.
At the junction of these two techniques is a role center
part called “Finance Performance”, which allow putting KPIs on the users’ main
screen such as these:
Due to their graphic representation, these charts would
rapidly occupy the whole estate available
on the role centre, leaving no space to other type of parts, such as the
well touted ‘Activities’ Part (that
allows monitoring the number of documents by status), the notification area…
An elegant solution has been
adopted, with a capability to cycle through from one chart to the next within a
single part, via the ‘Previous Chart’ and ‘Next Chart’ buttons.
How to do it
To produce charts such as the above, the following steps are
needed
- Create an account schedule: In this schedule, the lines would contain either different accounts or the same account(s) filtered by the different values of one particular dimension, set in the related ‘Dimension totaling’ parameter.
- Create a column layout setup:In this layout, each column would be filtered by the different values of one particular dimension, set in the related ‘Dimension totalling’ parameter. Alternatively, it would represent a different period, described in the Comparison Period Formula (typically FY[1] to FY[12]).
- Go to Customize > Customize This Page and add the part called ‘Finance Performance’ into the Role Centre Layout.
- Back to the role centre, find the new, empty part and click on its “Select Chart” button,. Add a Name in the “Account Schedule Chart List” that has opened, and click on the “Edit Button.
- Complete the Account Schedules Chart Setup, as per the following guidelines.
a.
Select the Account Schedule name and Column
Layout Name representing the two criteria to be cross analysed
b.
Select which of them will be used for the X-axis
of the graph
c.
Define the type of representation desirable on
the Y axis
d.
In case all the values defined in the account
schedule and column layout do not appear, click on the edit button to select
the remainders
Dear readers if you have any queries / suggestions regarding
configuration of dashboard charts please feel free to coordinate with us at info@ibizcs.com or visit us at www.ibizcs.com.
Author : Dr. Frederic Dillenseger
