[Ronald McVicar]

?What are the NAV 3rd party reporting tools? I am thinking most specifically for the RDLC format.  Is there a tool in which you can work in the Microsoft Report Builder (or SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT)  using Visual Studio)? Or an addin’s to NAV that pulls Report Builder and C/SIDE together in one tool?

I think ForNAV might be one of these or is it?  How about you other NAV customers what are you using?

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Ronald McVicar
National Steak Processors, Inc.
Owasso OK
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[Nick Yancer]

We used FORNAV at my last company with NAV 2015. Fairly simple to use.

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Nick Yancer
NAV Developer
Advanced Media Technologies
Deerfield Beach
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[Franz Kalchmair]

visual studio can be a quite better replacement for the sql report builder. what i know, there is no tool, which can handle report design and c/side together. you will always have c/side separately. 
a good 3rd party tool is fornav. they have a report converter for classic reports. the reports design editor is quite convenient. they do not use rdlc, but their own design format. 
you could also check out the solutions of simplanova and idyn.

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Franz Kalchmair
Microsoft MVP
Senior Consultant
Vienna, Austria, Europe
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[Henrik Helgesen]

Reporting is one of those subjects, where if You ask 5 people, You will end up with 7 different Opinions. I have not tried any of the systems, but I know during an upgrade, that the tool over promised, and couldn’t deliver, and we changed the approach where we split up the NAV Dataset Generation and a separate RDLC person.

First off, I think, what one needs to realize, that NAV is a TRANSACTIONAL system – NOT a reporting tool. Secondly, We also need to admit, that Microsoft did a horrible job, converting the classic reports to RDLC, which You realize after looking at Standard reports looking for ‘Best Practices’.

Secondly, Personally I am not a fan of having to use third-party solutions, but I can respect people using them, as they do get the job done, as long as You realize that not all partners use the same products, which may cause an issue down the road.

Thirdly, I am PERSONALLY of the opinion, that, with a few exception, the only reports you print from NAV is Documents (Sales Invoice, Credit Memo, etc.) and if You spend some time to a NAV person create the Dataset, and a RDLC Developer to do the layout, You have a perfectly working report without the need for an external tool. 

If You are a little more adventurous You could build a buffer table, and then run the report off of that – That way your Order Conformation, Your Invoice and Credit memo can use the same format.

For other reporting, there are a plethora of BI Tools, that are much better suited for reporting.

But – In general, I have also create a lot of Excel exports, as well as ODATA feeds as a lot of people just need the data, to work with for other purposes.

But again – It really depends on what reports You are trying to do and for what purpose.

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Henrik Helgesen
Los Angeles CA
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[Anthony Darden]

To your specific question, I do not have an answer, however, I can share our experience we had with in-NAV reporting.  We came to find that the more we decoupled reporting from our NAV environment, the better it performed.  We want NAV to just print documents (invoices, credit memos, etc.) and have moved all meaningful reporting to a separate SQL data repository that uses Microsoft? SharePoint and PowerBI.  I know that Microsoft is getting better with in-NAV reporting and the creativity it gives the user to design these, but our 2013 environment lacked that without introducing yet another add-on product.  With that data independence, we are bound by nothing and have full creative freedom to use any platform to create and distribute reports WITHOUT taxing our live NAV environment.

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Anthony Darden [Designation]
Director of IT
Protective Industries, Inc.
Buffalo NY
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[Ronald McVicar]

?Thank you.

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Ronald McVicar
National Steak Processors, Inc.
Owasso OK
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[James Hummer]

How about an Excel Report Writer designed for Dynamics Nav call BI360.     It has a live and data warehouse version and also a web portal for those remote distribution issues.   Easy to use and can built CPM reporting and budgeting.   There is also a Free Report Composer Ad Hoc Query tool offer.

https://www.solverglobal.com/campaign/composeroffer

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Jim Hummer
Consultant
Solver
Los Angeles CA
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[Geovanny Fuentes]

Hello,

First is this for a customer/Enduser or Solution Center.

Either case I would suggest getting familiar with VS as Microsoft suggest its the best reporting tool.

Learn to use it. then trouble the spots where to go to resolve it and how to make a report.

Take baby steps, soon you will be doing all reports in VS very easily.

Navision has built in tons of reports to figure out what they are doing and how to create it or add to it.
Plus you can easily google what you are trying to do and find a solution and sample someone can provide.
How many reports are you try to do.

If this is an upgrade the VAR should have worked out a bargain upgrade package for them. Some clients see the cost and will request AS PER NEEDED bases and just pay for those.
Good luck.

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Geovanny Fuentes
San Diego CA
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