• Migrating from Microsoft FRx to Management Reporter has always been a hot topic for customers and partners. It’s even more so now with the release of Management Reporter 2012.  As Char mentioned, we recently updated the migration wizard to allow for migration directly from Microsoft FRx to Management Reporter 2012.  That’s great, but I’m sure some of you have questions on what that really means.  Today, I’d like to make sure you get as much information as possible as it relates to migration to ensure you are successful making the move to Management Reporter 2012.

The biggest mistake folks make when migrating is barreling into the migration without doing any prep work in Microsoft FRx and Management Reporter 2012. They download Management Reporter, install it, install the migration wizard and run the migration.  If you do this, you are going to be frustrated and unsuccessful. I guarantee it.

Our support folks have written a great knowledge base article walking you through step by step the things to do to prepare. The highlights are:

•          Install Management Reporter 2012 and setup a test company
•          Create a new row using Edit | Insert rows from dimensions
•          Backup your Microsoft FRx sysdata folder
•          Have all users out of Microsoft FRx
•          Delete any un-needed companies, specification sets, and building blocks (including the demo FW and FWC companies)
•          Delete all of your index files (*.g32 files)
•          Set the remaining companies as default in Microsoft FRx
•          Compact your Microsoft FRx system databases
•          Export any reports and building blocks you may have created in Management Reporter 2012 that you want to keep

The majority of support calls our support teams receive could’ve been avoided if the steps above were followed.

Once you’ve done the all the prep work, it’s time to install the migration wizard. The migration wizard is part of the Management Reporter 2012 installation package. It’s not a separate download as it was in the past. You can find the Management Reporter 2012 install here.  On the launch page for the Management Reporter installation, you’ll see options for installing the migration wizard and viewing the migration guide. The migration guide is a great resource for installation instructions as well as data preparation. Read it before installing!

Now that you’ve prepped both Microsoft FRx and Management Reporter 2012, read the documentation and installed the migration wizard, what can you expect next?

The number of companies and building blocks you have will determine how long the migration actually takes. (Another great reason to get your Microsoft FRx house cleaned out before you move!)

A couple of questions I get asked regularly when presenting migration sessions are:

•          What’s not going to migrate?
•          Why doesn’t everything migrate?

I’ll answer both questions at the same time.  In some cases, the functionality has been rethought and implemented in a new way in Management Reporter 2012.  In other cases, we are relying on you to tell us if it’s a feature we should include in future releases of Management Reporter.

Items that don't migrate:

Security

•          Management Reporter 2012 uses strictly windows authentication where as Microsoft FRx can be mixed. (This also includes users and group security settings in reporting trees.)

Company connection information

•          Management Reporter 2012 doesn’t use an ODBC data source like Microsoft FRx did to connect to your companies. With Management Reporter 2012 your companies are automatically created once you provide the connection information.

Report chains

•          Management Reporter 2012 has the ability to create Report Groups which allows you to generate a group of reports all at once. You can override the report date and location of the report group or leave the report definition settings.

Web publishing settings

•          Management Reporter 2012 allows you to distribute secure report links to your existing Microsoft® SharePoint® shared document library for report distribution.

Effective dates

•          We are currently tracking this as a suggestion. If this is something that you would like to see in future releases of Management Reporter, please vote.

Account Sets

•          Microsoft FRx doesn’t provide any information related to account sets, as a result, there is no way to map account sets to dimension value sets in Management Reporter 2012.

Currency Translation Rates

•          Management Reporter 2012 relies on the information in your Microsoft Dynamics® ERP for translated data. You can see more about currency translation with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 here and Microsoft Dynamics AX here.

Email settings

• Management Reporter 2012 allows you to distribute reports to Microsoft® SharePoint® shared document libraries which let you and your users create alerts to be notified when a report is ready for review.  You can also send a link to a report in email from with the Management Reporter Report Viewer.

Row links

• Check out this post on advanced reporting scenarios to see if either of the options provided solve your reporting needs. If not, we are currently tracking row linking as a suggestion. If this is something that you would like to see in future releases of Management Reporter, please vote.

After migrating, run Management Reporter 2012 and Microsoft FRx side by side. You’ll want to make sure your reports all generate and everything you expected to be in Management Reporter 2012 is there.

Now that you know what to do to prepare and expect, you are ready to migrate!