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OverView
Microsoft CRM offers several reporting and analysis tools:
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Entity views and the Advanced Find feature
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Dynamic Excel files
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SQL Server Reporting Services
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Filtered views
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Third-party reporting tools
Each of these tools provides a unique set of benefits and drawbacks, so you
should determine the most appropriate tool for each type of analysis. As you
can see from the list of reporting tools, Microsoft CRM even allows you to
integrate third-party reporting tools into the user interface. Table 7-1
summarizes the reporting tools and their features.
Table 7-1: Reporting
and Analysis Tools in Microsoft CRM
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Entity views and Advanced Find
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Dynamic Excel files
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SQL Server Reporting Services
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Filtered views
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Third-party reporting tools
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Report output
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Microsoft CRM grids
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Excel Pivot-Tables and PivotCharts
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Web-based reports that can be exported to additional formats
such as Excel, PDF, and CSV
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SQL Server database view
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Varies
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Skill level required to create or modify reports
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Beginner
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Beginner
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Advanced
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Advanced
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Varies
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Can schedule reports for e-mail delivery
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No
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No
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Yes
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No
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Varies
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Supports charts and graphs
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No
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Yes (with Excel charts or Pivot-Charts)
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Yes
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No
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Varies
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Report results can be cached for better performance
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No
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No
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Yes
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No
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Varies
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Supports sub-reports and drill-through reports
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No
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No
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Yes
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No
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Varies
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Can include data from multiple entities in results
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No
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No
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Can include data from multiple entities in the report query
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Supports report snapshots
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No
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No
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Yes
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No
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No
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Can prompt users to enter parameters before running reports
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No
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No
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Yes
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No
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Varies
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Allows for user access restrictions
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Does not apply
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Varies
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Respects Microsoft CRM security settings by default
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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No
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Reports can run contextually from an entity list or form
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No
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No
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Yes
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No
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No
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Users can access from Reports list
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No
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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SQL Server Reporting Services reports clearly offer the most benefits and
functionality, but they also typically require an advanced user to author new
reports. In addition, Reporting Services reports might take additional time to
configure and manage compared to the simpler reporting tools. The entity views
and dynamic Excel tools offer less functionality than Reporting Services, but
any beginner user can quickly and easily author new reports. Let's review each
of these reporting tools in more detail.
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