Better business insight with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2

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Many organizations struggle with providing business insight in a timely manner as resource-constrained IT departments can’t keep up with the requests from business users. Far too often users are spending too much unproductive time creating manual reports that are static and outdated.

Facing ever-accelerating change and the pressure from more prevalent global competition, it is more important than ever that organizations have instant access to up-to-date financial and operational performance to spot trends and identify challenges so they can act early.

In previous versions of Microsoft Dynamics AX we enabled business intelligence as part of the ERP experience. The business user can access important information throughout the solution, via Role Center pages, which are dashboards that provide an overview of information that pertains to a user’s job function and by using Microsoft BI technology such as Microsoft Excel.

In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 we further improved the BI capabilities by providing users with pre-built, extensible analytic capabilities and tools. These tools help support better decision making by enabling users to easily create, share and explore rich analytical reports with interactive visualizations on their own.

The BI enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 enable users to:

  • Monitor business performance with enhanced pre-built content including a total of 15 SQL Server Analysis Services cubes and 45 Role Centers. Users can choose from more than 80 pre-defined KPIs with the ability to drill down into details and supporting information. New charting capabilities support visualization of large volumes of transactional and aggregated business data in Role Centers.
  • Analyze data by using rich visualization and interactive data exploration capabilities right from the role center with embedded Power View reports.

  • Perform ad-hoc analysis and discover new insights from within the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 client based on pre-defined data cubes with Power View*, the highly interactive, familiar, browser-based data exploration, visualization, and presentation tool.
  • Explore and share business insights without help from IT by securely accessing and mashing-up data from the business solution using the improved OData providers and data services from Windows Azure Marketplace in Microsoft BI technology such as Microsoft Excel.
  • Extend business overview information with external data, such as industry average comparison for better performance monitoring and improve accountability and collaboration by adding user’s real-time presence information.

Do you want to learn more about the BI enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 and how business users can gain more insights? Here are additional resources for you to explore:

For more technical details please visit:

The data visualization and animation helps users of all levels to better understand their business. I’ve seen many great business scenarios that allows users to spot issues and trends in their data. I think the new BI capabilities are easy to use and fun to work with. I invite you to take a look at these new BI capabilities. Let me know what you think.

Yvonne Haarloev
Senior Product Marketing Manager Microsoft Dynamics ERP

(*) Disclaimer: Power View is an ad-hoc data exploration and visualization experience in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services. To use PowerView reports with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 data stored in Business Intelligence Semantic Model multidimensional mode, you must have a generally available release of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 that supports Power View for multidimensional models installed on your system. As of December 1, 2012, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 that supports Power View for multidimensional models is not generally available. However, the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 that supports Power View for Multidimensional Models Community Technology Preview (CTP) release is available for download if you want to test the Power View reporting capability. You should not test or use this CTP in a live operating environment unless Microsoft permits you to do so under another agreement. Click here (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35822) for more information on the CTP release. All features and dates are preliminary based on current expectations and are subject to change without notice. The information herein is for informational purpose only and represents Microsoft’s current view as of the date of this release. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft.

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