Merit Matters Blog

The commonly used method for uploading files in SharePoint’s Client Object Model API is the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SaveBinaryDirect method.

For example, calling:

public static void SaveBinaryDirect(

 ClientContext context,

 string serverRelativeUrl,

 Stream stream,

 bool overwriteIfExists
)

should be quite enough to get through. However, when it comes to Silverlight, the developer is limited to the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Silverlight namespace, and the SaveBinaryDirect method is not available there. The alternative is to use the more straightforward approach by instantiating the FileCreationInformation object and to use it for adding new files to the SharePoint folder, like so:

FileCreationInformation fci = new FileCreationInformation();

...

File file = list.RootFolder.Files.Add(fci);

However, one would yet again face an issue if the size of the file that needs to be uploaded is larger than 2MB. It is necessary to fully read the file prior to calling the Add method. The following method ensures just that:

private byte[] ReadFully(Stream input)

{

     byte[] buffer;
    
MemoryStream ms;

     int read;



     buffer = new byte[input.Length];

     using (ms = new MemoryStream())

     {
        
           while ((read = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)

          {

               ms.Write(buffer, 0, read);

          }

          return ms.ToArray();

     }

}

Now, regardless of their size, the method for uploading files looks like this:

public File UploadFile(string fileName, Stream fileStream, bool overwrite)

{
    
    FileCreationInformation fci;
   
StringBuilder sb;

    File file;



    fci = new FileCreationInformation();

    fci.Content = this.ReadFully(fileStream); //Calling the previous method

    fci.Overwrite = overwrite;

    fci.Url = fileName;



    file = list.RootFolder.Files.Add(fci);

    return file;

}

Happy coding!

Based on reports from industry analysts and the many conversations that our team has with clients, we believe four megatrends will radically change how businesses view enterprise IT over the coming decade.

• Mobility and social are the driving forces for change in business today, particularly as employees (and customers) increasingly expect to use mobile and social technology to interact in new ways. These two elements are becoming a competitive differentiator for business - for recruiting and retaining employees and for attracting and retaining customers.
• The cloud and big data are quickly becoming enablers for business success. The tremendous scalability and agility enabled by the cloud and the new insights made possible with big data can help businesses today get ahead of the competition and tap into new sources of revenue.

These trends represent not only what is most important to our customers today, but also what we feel are likely to be the dominant forces of change in the coming decade.

• The proliferation of new device types, along with the connectivity of the cloud, is making us more mobile and changing the way we work and play. Mobility answers the growing expectation from your employees to be able to work from anywhere, with the device that they choose. Mobile technology also delivers a great mobile experience to customers, bringing your business to them wherever they are through their mobile phone or tablet.
• As technology becomes more immersive, we also expect it to help us develop more personal and social connections with our colleagues and customers. Social networks build strong work communities, enhancing collaboration, information sharing, and productivity.
• The connectivity that the cloud offers is changing what we expect from technology. With an always-on connection, apps can provide innovative new services with instant scalability and attractive economics.
• While business intelligence (BI) has been important for a great number of years, the explosion in connected devices and apps is generating an exponential growth in data and the need to get better insights from “big data.” The challenge for today’s businesses is to make that data useful—to put it into the hands of their people to drive informed, forward-thinking decisions.

We’re not alone in identifying these megatrends. According to IDC, “In 2012, the ICT industry's shift to its third major platform of growth—built on mobile, cloud, social, and big data technologies—will accelerate.” In contrast to what IDC refers to as the first (mainframe) and second (PC/server) platforms, they estimate that by 2020, “…enterprises’ highest-value leverage of IT will be driven by these third-platform technologies as well as an explosion of new solutions built on the new platform and rapidly expanding consumption of all of the above in emerging markets.”

It’s amazing just how fast our world is changing today. Just think…

• Within 15 years, a little startup named Amazon has gone from transforming the book industry to changing the face of retail.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users. In less than nine months, Facebook reached 100 million users. And in the space of just a few short years, social networking services have significantly changed people’s expectations of how we interact with each other and with businesses, particularly for the millennial generation.
• Within just two months of its launch, Kinect for the Xbox 360 changed the face of gaming and became the world’s fastest-selling consumer electronics device ever.

Each of these examples reflects the tremendous impact that the megatrends are having on our world - and the pace at which it is all changing. As we enter this new era in the enterprise, the question is - what can your business do to make the most of it?

Of course, technology trends on their own aren’t going to revolutionize your business or help you stay competitive. How you adopt new technology and put it to work in your business will ultimately be the responsibility of IT. We know how important it is to ensure that your technology solutions truly empower your IT professionals to deliver what the business needs. What are those needs?

• Integrate new devices and applications with their existing line-of-business apps, for a seamless experience that keeps people productive and connected to the business.
• Help maximize end user productivity, with solutions that put the tools users need at their fingertips, wherever they happen to be working from, and that connect them with the people, information, and content they rely on to do their jobs well.
• Ensure that corporate data and resources are protected and secure, even as access to those data and resources becomes possible from an increasing number of devices and apps.
• Fully manage all devices on the network, both local and remote - a task that is becoming ever more complicated as users bring more and more devices into the enterprise and work from more and more locations.

At Merit Solutions, our goal is to deliver ground-breaking technology solutions that empower IT to take advantage of the latest trends without compromise. By achieving this goal, we are able to provide your IT professionals with the tools they need to help you innovate and compete while meeting the core needs of the business in all new ways.

Learn more about how Merit Solutions can help you transform your business!

A while back we discussed some global business and IT trends that are slowly but steadily reshaping the ERP landscape. With our emerging economic climate, these trends are posing additional challenges for business and IT professionals who are struggling to improve profitability and retain IT agility.

Global market trends are creating the need for businesses to:

• Achieve operational insight and better decision making across the organization with faster, easier, and more pervasive access to relevant business information.
  
• Need for business agility to stay ahead of the competition and accelerate business growth.
• Reducing the cost of doing business by optimizing processes and driving productivity.
• Align business objectives with IT priorities and investments to ensure that IT systems and tools are enabling and supporting strategic business priorities and that they address changing business needs.

At the same time, shifting IT trends are creating the need to:

• Increase ERP adoption and access to ERP data across a broader subset of the workforce.
• Reduce IT operational costs by investing in systems that are more flexible and scalable, and simpler to configure, maintain, and upgrade.
  
• Put solutions in place that enable broad business strategies, and that enable IT to respond quickly to specific line-of-business (LOB) requests and industry needs.

When you frame this discussion with the research conducted by Forrester in 2010 detailed in our article, Key Challenges Companies Face with ERP Solutions, you can see how the needs produced by market and IT trends are affecting customers’ expectations of their ERP application.

Today’s world is increasingly flattened by technology, global complexity and new global competition - making it critical for a business to be able to rapidly see and react to signals, threats and opportunities. Going one step further, in this world where the pace of business accelerates, imagine being able to anticipate rather than react to those signals. Success today and tomorrow increasingly depends on information insight and efficient business processes.

So what would the next generation of ERP look like? See for yourself!

Today’s social connectedness, mobile devices, and growing opportunities for interaction “any time any place” have changed the way many live and work. People are increasingly dependent on connections across the global network—interlocked in this connected reality.

In order to gain the insight needed to make better decisions, organizations need an end-to-end business solution that integrates all areas of their business and provides managers - as well as individual team members and contributors - with the information they need to make the right decisions at the right time!

Modern business solutions like Microsoft Dynamics AX not only connect people inside and outside the organization, they also give them context and insight which drives better decisions and boosts productivity. An important focus of Microsoft Dynamics AX is to drive connections with people, with customers and with business partners across processes, data and the ecosystem in which organizations operate. This focus on connected organizations includes the vision of anywhere, in-context collaboration services that links people and companies to the right people in the right place, in the right context, at the right time, across multiple avenues of communications.

By implementing a fully integrated ERP system like Microsoft Dynamics AX - encompassing everything from sales and marketing to production and accounting - organizations can improve the accuracy of the information upon which decisions are based because each module of the software is tied together and information flows freely among them. Everyone from the top floor to the shop floor can have access to the business intelligence information they need to drive business success across the organization:

• Keep current on changing business conditions - Accurately monitor current business activity, and compare it to historical activity and future plans to give people the contextual information they need to keep performance on track. Microsoft Dynamics AX delivers many integrated monitoring tools to help your people access the most relevant, accurate, and timely information about your business.
• Gain insight into your business - It's not enough to gather accurate and timely data—people need powerful and easy-to-use analysis tools to help them understand context and trends. Microsoft Dynamics AX business intelligence functions provide people with the insight they need to take quick action and pursue opportunities.
• Budget, forecast, and plan effectively - Microsoft Dynamics AX offers flexible planning tools to help you compare budgets, forecasts, and plans to actual performance. It also gives you the ability to update budgets and plans on the basis of new data and analyses to help your business stay competitive.

Microsoft Dynamics AX removes the impediments that generate friction within the organization and provides people with a broader array of insights and actions across internal and external connections. With greater transparency, agility, and insight, your people can make better, more informed decisions - enabling you to transform into a Dynamic Business.

Microsoft Convergence 2013 is rapidly approaching! Merit Solutions is once again honored to be a Bronze Sponsor of Microsoft Convergence - and we hope you stop by Booth #2523 and join us during this great event. It’s been an exciting year for Merit Solutions clients and the Microsoft Dynamics community – so I hope you join us and learn why!

Just like our commitment to customer satisfaction, we do as much as we can to make your conference experience a little less stressful and more exciting. As an example of this, here’s what happened in our booth last year:

• Putting contests
• $100 gift cards handed out
• Two 24” monitors won via Booth contests (one via Twitter: follow @meritweb)
• GRAND PRIZE: Long Putt for $10,000 – one person attempted a 50ft putt for $10,000 (unfortunately, he missed)

Of course, we also found time to talk about our ISV products and development services and the benefits of our Reseller Program; but we wanted to make sure we all had fun at the same time! 

So...what do we have in store this year? We hope you stop by Booth #2523 and find out!

Please comment below or send an email to info@meritsolutions.com if you would like to arrange a one-on-one meeting with a Merit Solutions representative at Convergence 2013!

You and your employees share a common aspiration - to grow your business. To reach this goal, you need a solution that can support changing demands along the way. Microsoft Dynamics AX delivers the flexibility you need to accommodate new business processes and scale as your business grows without significant increases to your original investment—or your payroll.

• Conduct business internationally. Use international trade and multicurrency capabilities to maintain your general ledger in different currencies – enabling you to manage customer and vendor accounts in the appropriate currency.
• Connect your remote and roaming employees. Empower your mobile workers with direct access to enterprise resource planning (ERP) data and local resources over the Internet using a rich RoleTailored interface—and get even more from your investments.
• Choose the right solution for you. With flexible deployment options, you can choose the solution that works best for your business—and increase IT flexibility without increasing costs. Microsoft Dynamics AX supports both on-premises and Cloud ERP deployments.

With a Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP enterprise business platform, your people will have the innovative, flexible tools they need to be proactive and productive—keeping you ahead of the competition. As a result, your business can move forward instead of standing still.

Testing e-mail functionality in your Microsoft Dynamics AX/GP application/customization using external e-mail servers has always been a frustrating process. If your test e-mail somehow avoids anti-spam and other SMTP server services, it will still take several minutes to receive. Sometimes, it can take 5 – 10 minutes for your sent e-mail to arrive at the destination - and you can never be sure if your test e-mail is late or if delivery has failed due to an error in your application.

Wouldn't it be great to have a mock application that pretends to be a SMTP server and shows you what you sent immediately? That is exactly what SMTP4DEV does.

SMTP4DEV is free and you can download it from CodePlex at http://smtp4dev.codeplex.com. All you have to do is unpack and run, and make sure your mock SMTP server is listening.

Once you have SMTP4DEV running and listening, you can use the sample C# code to send an e-mail to your mock SMTP server. Notice the From and To e-mail addresses; they can be anything.

Execute the sample C# code and your test e-mail will immediately show in SMTP4DEV.

Now stop listening on port 25 and execute the same sample C# code again. Since SMTP server is no longer available, SmtpClient will throw an exception.

Did you know that it is possible to create statements with financial dimensions expressed in different columns?

I recently discovered this interesting feature of Microsoft Dynamics AX while I was trying to help a customer with financial reporting focused on different financial dimensions. In our situation, the client is a medical institution with multiple clinicians on staff. The client needed statements calculated per each clinician so they can compare financial results during certain periods of time. For this client, Clinicians are custom made financial dimensions.

As in every other statement, the date intervals and raw definition have to be defined prior to creating the statement. Once defined, we have to generate financial statements and define their basic structures (General ledger>Setup>Financial statement>Financial statement). In the upper pane of the screenshot below, you can see that we give the statement a name and description - and then we can connect it to primary and secondary dimension sets (in this example, we only used primary dimension sets).

In the lower part of the screen, we can create columns that are going to show up on the statement we print out. In this client case, we set the account number in the first column and the account definition in the secondary column. Now, in our next three columns (or more), we can add our clinicians (or dimensions). For each of those columns we choose “current” as “Column type” and setup desired time intervals in “setup” tab.

After the statement structure is created and the columns that will present dimension data are defined, we can go ahead and add dimensions to them (General ledger>Reports>Transactions>Financial statement). The first tab is “Financial statement” tab, and under “Identification” we chose the financial statement we created before, and add to it the dimension set and row definition.

Under the “columns” tab we choose one of the columns we setup before (in General ledger>Setup>Financial statement>Financial statement). Click on the "Select" button in the upper right corner.

A new window will open. The upper pane is a graphical representation of tables and their connections. In lower pane we can add the desired dimensions to the chosen column (in our case that was one of clinicians). First we have to pick the “Field” (custom made dimension - Clinician) and then the “Criteria” (desired clinician to be represented in that column).

This is a great feature to compare and review different dimensions and it can be a great resource when creating complex financial reports.

Merit Solutions is highly devoted to investing in our employees, providing educational opportunities that enable all team members to improve their skills / talent and follow the latest industry trends. All team members are encouraged to attend trainings and conferences, take exams and earn valuable certification in their respective fields.

As an example of this commitment, this year, a couple of our engineers working with industry-leading technologies attended DevReach 2012, the premier developer conference in Central and Eastern Europe. For the 7th time in a row, Telerik, Microsoft, and other valued partners organized this renowned conference which concentrates on developers and testers.

Many prominent speakers presented more than 60 sessions on the following topics:

• Cloud
• Web Development
• Mobile Development
• Architecture
• Agile & Testing

Our engineers had the opportunity to share ideas and knowledge and to discuss current projects with top industry experts and came back energized and with plenty of new skills and ideas.

To find out more about DevReach, visit www.devreach.com.

I had the pleasure of being a guest writer with the Microsoft Dynamics Partner Community Blog for an article on Microsoft Convergence 2013 in New Orleans. The article is being featured as a part of their series, Top 5 Business Reasons to Go to Microsoft Convergence 2013. In my article, I had the opportunity to talk about the reason why Merit Solutions attends Convergence every year, and why we're especially proud to once again be a Bronze Sponsor in 2013: to bond with our customers.

You can read the article below, or on the Microsoft Dynamics Partner Community Blog.

Today’s partner channel is drastically different than what it was 10 years ago: working remote, video conferencing, virtual machines, and other web collaboration tools have allowed for long distances between partners and their customers.

However, when it comes to building a strong, lasting relationship with your customers, there’s really no better substitute than connecting live and in person. And what better place to connect than at Microsoft Convergence 2013 in New Orleans? As the premier event for the worldwide Microsoft Dynamics community, Convergence offers ample opportunities for partners to strengthen their relationships with customers and drive a high ROI for the event.

Here are the top five ways you can bond with your customers at Microsoft Convergence 2013 in New Orleans:

1. Make Personal Connections. Microsoft Convergence gives you an opportunity to connect with your customers in a more personal way, outside of the traditional business environment. It also helps customers put a face to a name, creating a deeper connection between customers and the vendors that they use. Remember: People build relationships with people, not companies. 
2. Increase the Value of Their Investments. Microsoft Convergence is a great way for partners to help customers get more value out of their existing Microsoft Dynamics programs and investments. Whether it’s walking through the showroom floor learning about potential add-on solutions or sitting in on an educational session, partners have the opportunity to help customers drive added value for their organization.
3. Facilitate Networking. As the trusted advisor to your customers, you know a lot about their business challenges and successes. This puts you in a great position to facilitate networking at the unique environment that Microsoft Convergence provides. By introducing customers to other Microsoft Dynamics customers, you can help them learn what works and allow them to share their experiences with peers.
4. Thank Your Customers. What better way to show your appreciation for your customers’ partnership and trust than taking them out for a night of fine dining, networking, and thanks! Remember, your customers are allowing you to be a part of their success; you can never say “thank you” too much. Plus, if your customers believe that you truly value the opportunity to help them drive success (and not just your success), they will trust you more when you offer additional products or services.
5. Take Advantage of a Customer Testimonial Opportunity. After spending three days ensuring that your customers receive real business value from attending Microsoft Convergence, ask them to spend some time talking about how much they value your relationship. By asking for a customer testimonial, case study, or video reference for you to use post-Convergence, you can create more value for your clients (free publicity) while gaining reference materials to use in the future!

Imagine the difference between a customer that has mixed feelings about their partner, and a customer who wouldn’t dream of buying from anyone else. The partners who drive the most success from Microsoft Convergence look at the event as an investment instead of an expense. They are investing in their brand, their network, and most importantly, their customer relationships.

You may read this and think: productivity improvements? Again?

Yes, improved productivity seems to be on every ERP vendor’s checklist of benefits whenever a new product or feature is released. And that’s because inefficient and rigid systems continue to be a major pain for companies and organizations everywhere.

Inflexible systems overwhelm, overload, and frustrate people – the employees, managers, customers, vendors, and partners who are working hard to make things happen and grow their business. According to a report from Forrester, there is a deep-seated dissatisfaction with business applications because they are inflexible, don’t address processes that cross business functions, and don’t match the business’ requirements. (The Future of Enterprise Applications, Forrester 2007).

Indeed, a study from AMR Research (The Enterprise Planning Spending Report 2005-2006, AMR Research 2005) found that only 15% of employees are licensed to use their company’s ERP system and that 46% of licensed ERP seats go unused. And when people don’t use the system, business productivity declines, growth slows, and even business critical processes can be compromised. Because, it doesn’t matter if standard operating procedures are in place if no one in the organization can access, see or enforce them.

Therefore, it’s not surprising when Forrester concludes that “poorly designed user interfaces can profoundly affect the bottom line. The expenses associated with a bad UI, over the course of the application’s lifetime, may end up being many times the cost of the application itself.” (The Future of Enterprise Applications, Forrester 2007)  The report continues on to explain the costly implications of a bad UI, including increased new user training times, a decrease in productivity and poor user adoption.

So why then is Microsoft Dynamics AX different? We claim improved business productivity, too, but does our solution deliver on this promise? And, if so how? What makes Microsoft Dynamics AX so special?

The answer is usability. The easier a software application is to use, the faster employees are able to adopt it and thereby enable the organization to reap the benefits the system provides. A study conducted by the consulting group, Keystone Strategy, found that companies who have successfully deployed IT capabilities throughout the organization – meaning that people are really using the software – have been able to profitably grow their revenues.

At the core of more agile, usable applications is the human experience, or what Forrester calls Design- for-People requirements.

“Design-for-people requirements place the businessperson’s work at the center of business applications’ human interface. The businessperson’s work is the organizing structure for a workplace into which we plug transactions, business processes, content, unified communications, social networking, and tools. Instead of people having to figure out how to apply collaboration tools to their jobs, ad hoc activities are integrated with structured work in these unitary, contextual workplaces.” 

Microsoft Dynamics AX has been designed to meet “people-ready” requirements; specifically, to improve business productivity by improving usability and increasing the reach of the solution so a larger percentage of employees have access to the system.

Learning a new software application or having to learn many different ones can slow down productivity. If a new user is familiar with the application, learning and using new applications becomes much easier and faster. The user interface in Microsoft Dynamics AX has been changed to improve the user experience, the learning experience and leverage the successful design concepts from the popular applications most users spend time in on a daily basis: Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint, Windows, and Internet Explorer. Working in Microsoft Dynamics AX is like working in other Microsoft programs that most people are familiar with. 

Yes, Microsoft Dynamics AX delivers on the promise of productivity – by offering unsurpassed usability, easier collaboration and communication, and comprehensive business insight capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics AX was designed with people in mind – making it easier for them to work, collaborate and make informed decisions more efficiently.

Today’s social connectedness, mobile devices, and growing opportunities for interaction “any time any place” have changed the way many live and work. People are increasingly dependent on connections across the global network—interlocked in this connected reality.

Modern business solutions not only connect people inside and outside the organization, they also give them context and insight which drives better decisions and boosts productivity. An important part of Microsoft’s mission is to drive connections with people, with customers and with business partners across processes, data and the ecosystem in which organizations operate. This commitment to connected organizations includes the vision of anywhere, in-context collaboration services that links people and companies to the right people in the right place, in the right context, at the right time, across multiple avenues of communications. Microsoft business solutions include everything from email to voice to video to presence to social – all designed with a singular goal of giving people and organizations more effective ways of:

• Leveraging the exploding number of channels to connect with customers at the time and place of their choosing;
• Creating an inclusive, listening organization by extending collaboration scenarios that exist internally to include customers;
• Evolving from an organization that engages with individual customers to one that leverages the crowd to benefit the brand

Microsoft’s commitment to connected organizations is about removing the impediments that generate friction within the organization and providing people with a broader array of insights and actions across internal and external connections. With greater transparency, agility, and insight, people can make better, more informed decisions, and transform their organization into a Dynamic Business.

It is the impassioned individual equipped with the right tools that enables companies to stay ahead of the competition in this world of constant change. Microsoft transforms organizations into Dynamic Businesses that enable people to do their best work no matter where they are in the organization. We are already seeing the impact as customers make the transformation, and Microsoft is committed to delivering modern business solutions, built using the broad portfolio of Microsoft technology, with intentional simplicity as a core design element. The solutions are innovative, proactive business applications that help users work in new, more effective ways. Moreover, they deliver tools for a connected organization to drive data to insight to action any time anywhere, with the flexibility to deploy and consume business workloads and suites in a way that delivers on today’s needs while also providing the ultimate flexibility necessary to be ready for the future.

IT teams are responsible for the computers, networks, and software applications that manage a company’s operations, track financial transactions, and enable people to communicate and collaborate throughout the company. Without a smooth flow of information through a company’s IT systems, operations would not be efficient or even possible in some cases. IT managers need to monitor the day-to-day health of complex systems while simultaneously tracking innovations in technology that might create competitive advantages.

Microsoft Dynamics AX makes the job of connecting systems and exchanging information easier for IT professionals, and in many cases, it happens automatically. Microsoft Dynamics AX enables your end-users to access information by themselves, so IT professionals can concentrate on higher-value tasks.

• Reduced costs. Microsoft Dynamics AX is built on a standard Microsoft platform, which helps your company reduce costs. You may already use many of the supporting technologies, such as Windows, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office, or Microsoft SharePoint. If so, you won’t need costly, time-consuming retraining to benefit from Microsoft Dynamics solutions.
  
• Familiar user experience. Microsoft Dynamics AX operates like other familiar Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Office. The RoleTailored user interface provides access to the data and insights needed for individual roles or departments, making Microsoft Dynamics easier to learn and use and helping to reduce IT support requirements.
  
• Responsive to change. With a flexible and standard architecture that takes advantage of Microsoft .NET components, Microsoft Dynamics AX enables you to quickly and easily respond to changing business conditions. This helps ensure that your business software is adaptable to your changing business needs.
  
• Simpler end-user reporting. Microsoft Dynamics AX helps make important business information more widely accessible in your organization, giving the right people access to the right information at the right time. By using Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft SharePoint, you can provide straightforward access to information via a Web browser. And because Microsoft Dynamics AX is built to work with familiar Microsoft Office programs such as Outlook and Excel, your people can use familiar tools to perform additional analysis.
  
• Flexible deployment. Microsoft Dynamics AX is available either on-premise or in a Cloud ERP model, providing you with flexible and cost-effective deployment options.

Microsoft Dynamics AX helps you gain more value faster with a single, powerful solution that supports industry-specific and operational demands across your global enterprise. It's unprecedented agility adapts and grows with you, allowing you to expand business operations, modify processes, and differentiate your business. Microsoft Dynamics AX is simple to use, deploy, and manage - and delivers real-time access to the data and processes needed to drive your business forward.

There’s plenty of incentive for overcoming today’s business information challenges. Although it can be difficult to put financial values on faster, smarter decisions, the ability to make them is still widely recognized as critical to success in the highly competitive global marketplace. Moreover, it’s not hard to identify organizational dissatisfaction with the relevance, availability, and accuracy of the information people currently do have at their disposal.

Fortunately, new solutions are emerging to help solve these problems. Today, the right BI solution can:

• Provide self-service convenience for the average user, with immediate, out-of-the-box analysis capabilities, while still helping to maintain a secure environment and offer the depth and power necessary for sophisticated analysis.
• Improve business agility with a range of flexible options for generating, viewing, analyzing, and distributing BI.
• Integrate and connect disparate legacy systems and business applications, information sources, departments, and locations to provide comprehensive, one-stop BI for the entire organization that’s optimized for the capabilities of the ERP system.
• Expand in reach and capabilities as the organization grows and its BI demand increases. Ideally, this growth can take place as an integral component of a scalable enterprise-wide solution that also adapts and extends readily as needed.
• Offer a quick return on investment through initial cost efficiency, long-term scalability, and a low total cost of ownership.

The following steps provide a guideline for incorporating BI into your organization. By following these steps, you can identify key business considerations prior to deploying a new BI solution.

Step 1: Replace complex user interfaces with intuitive, convenient self-service

Ease of access is a primary consideration. An inquiry, analysis, or reporting solution that is too complicated may be powerful but sit mostly unused. On the other hand, a solution that’s too simple may not be robust enough to serve the business decision-makers who need it most. But when the BI solution is easy to use right out of the box and users can access information via familiar interfaces, applications, and tools, everyone in the organization can achieve greater insight without relying on costly IT resources to generate reports or run time-consuming analyses. The ideal solution works the way your people want to work.
A self-service–focused user interface also minimizes training costs and startup times and enables team members to work with information in a collaborative environment. At the same time, managers can control information access based on functional roles or individual authorization to help protect sensitive information and prevent inappropriate or unintended modifications.

Step 2: Expand options for analysis, transportability, and dissemination

To turn information into actionable business intelligence, people must be able to extract and analyze the specific information they need, in the order they need it, and with the detail that addresses their interests. Tailored functionality is critical, both for customizing the solution to industry and organizational needs and for adapting operationally to the interests of diverse functional roles. Finally, the right solution can make it easier to share, present, and distribute the results of analysis, not only within the organization but also with trade partners. Therefore, solutions that incorporate Web services, portal compatibility, or other measures to ease communication across platforms provide a definite advantage.

Step 3: Integrate disconnected information and systems into the knowledge base

A strong BI system must be able to incorporate information from across the enterprise while also connecting with line-of-business applications, including document repositories, and the desktop productivity tools employees use every day. The ability to access and consolidate information from multiple production management and manufacturing control systems, warehouses, distribution channels, and companies or subsidiaries is also valuable for providing managers with comprehensive, enterprise-wide insight.

Step 4: Scale to fit changing business models and needs

A BI system is only good while it fits. Given the rate of change in today’s business environment, it’s imperative to find and implement a solution flexible enough to adapt to business growth, whether that growth comes through acquisitions, vertical integration, international expansion, or shifts into entirely new lines of business. To continue supporting personal, team, and organizational BI needs, solutions must be extensible to new users and locations as the company grows. Such scalable solutions, when they also accommodate add-on or tailored functionality, offer strong cost efficiency, consistency, service, and fit over time.

Step 5: Deploy cost-efficiently and with long-term adaptability for a low TCO

For a business solution to be implemented at all, it must be cost-efficient to license, deploy, and maintain, while remaining accessible across the organization. Ideal solutions give all people responsible for strategic, tactical, and operational decisions access to the information they need at a low total cost of ownership (TCO). An effective BI solution can quickly provide a strong return on investment while retaining the

flexibility and scalability for future growth to provide long-term performance that maximizes your investment.

Solutions that are Certified for Microsoft Dynamics have demonstrated development quality and compatibility with the Microsoft Dynamics product on which they run by passing rigorous software testing for Microsoft Dynamics performed by VeriTest (a service of Lionbridge). In addition, the Microsoft Dynamics partner must have customers who are successfully using the certified solution and are willing to recommend it and be a Gold Certified Partner in the Microsoft Partner Program.

For customers, Certified for Microsoft Dynamics helps identify Microsoft Dynamics solutions that have been tested for compatibility, meet high quality standards, and are successfully used by existing customers. This certification represents a significant step in elevating the standard for partner-developed software solutions for industry-specific business applications. By highlighting these solutions, Microsoft also creates new opportunities for partners to expand their reseller channel and to better promote their packaged Microsoft Dynamics solution for customers.

“This milestone demonstrates Merit Solutions’ commitment to delivering leading solutions and expertise for our customers,” said Doug Kennedy, vice president, Microsoft Dynamics Partners. “We congratulate Merit Solutions for meeting Microsoft’s highest standards of software quality and earning the CFMD distinction.”

The Risk Management Suite from Merit Solutions enables companies to manage financial, operational, and reporting risk to protect assets and maintain compliance with FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Audit Trails deliver strong tracking, tracing and reporting capabilities for business process changes that may result in risk. And with Electronic Signatures, preventative authorization controls can be activated at any place in the system where data is changed.

“Merit Solutions has always been committed to software excellence, and achieving Certified for Microsoft Dynamics status is a reflection of that commitment,” said Bill Burke, President, Merit Solutions. “This milestone also validates our dedication to providing regulated companies with the highest quality software solutions based on the Microsoft stack.”