Reporting is already a fundamental pillar for many companies and senior management. It brings the ability to understand key factors of the business such as the volume of opportunities, revenue and performance. The book Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting is a useful technical guide which delivers a simple and clear overview of the available reporting options within the platform Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a flexible business solution based on SQL server that provides different and several reporting capabilities. Business users can create their own reports without real technical knowledge. At the same time, more complex designs can be implemented by developers or technical administrators using known Microsoft tools like Visual Studio or Report Builder. The author of the book, an experienced Microsoft MVP, have captured all this reporting functionality within the same.
The book follows an intuitive structure, explaining how to create simple reports using the Report Wizard of Dynamics CRM and covering basics technical aspects like SQL and Fetch XML. Gradually, it introduces more complex implementations using SQL Server Reporting Services, integration with web resources and generation of reports using other technologies such as ASP.NET or Silverlight. Finally, the book offers a couple of interesting chapters related to Failure Recovery, Best Practises and Mobile reporting, which are very important aspects for enterprise implementations.
Other basic reporting features like Charts and Dashboard are also mentioned in the book. However, a topic which is not included in the book is the Export to Excel feature. With Dynamics CRM, users have the ability to create custom views and queries that can be exported to Excel. This is a very useful functionality, especially considering that many users are already familiar with Excel and its report capabilities.
Personally I have enjoyed reading Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting. It is a helpful reference I would recommend for new Dynamics CRM users and developers. It contains many images and screenshots that make very easy to understand and follow Damian Sinay’s explanations.
@ramontebar 👨💻 