Optimizing MR Report Speed after FRX Migration with Dynamics GP

Frustrated that your Management Reporter reports are running extremely slow after FRx Migration?  Here are some easy tips to help you optimize the report speed:

• Question Mark:
  • The question mark should never be used in MR as it was only intended for use in FRx reports. In MR, the wildcard character is “*” and you only use one of them. So, if you had 4????:9???? in FRx, in MR, you would enter it as 4*:9*.
• Reporting Tree Design:
  • By default, the conversion will replace any “?” in the FRx tree design The great thing about MR being dimension based is that you don’t have to define any of the dimensions you are not concerned with. In MR, you don’t need them any longer. If you have any dimensions with all “?”’s, remove them entirely!
• Account Ranges:
  • Actual numbers are always faster than ranges. For example: 40000:99999 would be much faster than 4*:9*.  You always want to start and end ranges with actual account numbers.
• Column Definition Design:
  • Check the column layout for data that is not needed. Sometimes there are redundant columns or more data pulled than needed.  For example, a YTD column is much faster than a ranged PERIODIC column.  Sometimes, however, you can’t avoid them depending on your drilldown preference.
• Catalog Settings:
  • Set the Detail Level in the report definition to the lowest level needed. Each step (Financial ->Financial & Account -> Financial & Account & Transaction) takes significantly more processing time.
• Server Resources:
  • Ensure that the server where MR components are installed has enough resources. Microsoft recommends 16GB of RAM for the MR process service alone, not including the OS or anything else that may be on the server. For MR with the data mart, the combined total is 48 GB of RAM. You can run with less but data load and report generation times will suffer. Depending on server load, you can also sometimes gain performance by installing MR on a server other than the SQL server.
• CU releases and Hot Fixes:
  • Ensure that MR is on the latest CU release with Hotfixes applied. There have been significant improvements in report generation time with later releases compared to the early ones.

For other useful tips for getting the most out of your Microsoft Dynamics ERP solution, contact our ERP experts at RSM or call (855) 437-7201. And check out our Dynamics Community Newsletter.

by Sherry Lambe

Sherry Lambe