FRx and Vantage Financial Reporting

Yahoo Archive
1
We use the new version of FRx. Our Vantage server is a 64 bit server. FRx
will not run on a 64 bit server. The run time version of SQL will not run
the refresh process that is required for the new version of FRx. We had to
purchase another full SQL 2005 license and install the SQL on a 32 bit
server. We have that installed on our print server. Our financial guy can
run the refresh process anytime that he likes without affecting Vantage at
all. It usually takes between 4 and 8 minutes to run a complete refresh.

Hope this helps

Jeff



From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Brian W. Spolarich
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 10:39 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] FRx and Vantage Financial Reporting



We recently implemented Vantage and our finance group is looking for a
better financial
reporting tool than what comes with Vantage.

A couple of us are familiar with FRx from a Great Plains implementation with
a previous
company. However FRx apparently now has an intermediate database that it
runs against,
and there is a database refresh process that runs on the server to extract
the GL
information.

The typical usage scenario according to Epicor is to have that refresh run
nightly, however
that kind of latency is unacceptable to our Finance folks who will need to
make manual GL
entries and other changes and expect to be able to see those changes
reflected
immediately (or at least fairly quickly) against the reports.

Because this is a third-party product Epicor says that they can't let us
demo it on our own
system, so we won't know the impact of the refresh process on our server,
how long it
takes, etc. until we buy and install it. I think we could live with a 10-15
minute refresh
interval. Our server is pretty beefy for our current load so we have a lot
of unused CPU
and I/O capacity.

We're also looking at another product, Spreadsheet Server by Global Software

(http://www.glbsoft.com/data_analytics.aspx?id=ss). It is more expensive
than FRx
(partially because of the professional services required to do the mapping
against the
Vantage tables, which they don't have as a standard option apparently),
although it does
work directly against Vantage. However I'm concerned about data integrity
issues and
upgrade issues, whereas at least with FRx I know that Epicor will keep the
upgrade
process with Vantage and FRx fairly simple (presumably).

What are folks doing in this area? For FRx folks, can you run the database
updates at a
frequent interval without impacting your users? Are there other solutions we
should look
at?





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2
We recently implemented Vantage and our finance group is looking for a better financial
reporting tool than what comes with Vantage.

A couple of us are familiar with FRx from a Great Plains implementation with a previous
company. However FRx apparently now has an intermediate database that it runs against,
and there is a database refresh process that runs on the server to extract the GL
information.

The typical usage scenario according to Epicor is to have that refresh run nightly, however
that kind of latency is unacceptable to our Finance folks who will need to make manual GL
entries and other changes and expect to be able to see those changes reflected
immediately (or at least fairly quickly) against the reports.

Because this is a third-party product Epicor says that they can't let us demo it on our own
system, so we won't know the impact of the refresh process on our server, how long it
takes, etc. until we buy and install it. I think we could live with a 10-15 minute refresh
interval. Our server is pretty beefy for our current load so we have a lot of unused CPU
and I/O capacity.

We're also looking at another product, Spreadsheet Server by Global Software
(http://www.glbsoft.com/data_analytics.aspx?id=ss). It is more expensive than FRx
(partially because of the professional services required to do the mapping against the
Vantage tables, which they don't have as a standard option apparently), although it does
work directly against Vantage. However I'm concerned about data integrity issues and
upgrade issues, whereas at least with FRx I know that Epicor will keep the upgrade
process with Vantage and FRx fairly simple (presumably).

What are folks doing in this area? For FRx folks, can you run the database updates at a
frequent interval without impacting your users? Are there other solutions we should look
at?
3
> What are folks doing in this area? For FRx folks, can you run the database
> updates at a frequent interval without impacting your users? Are there
> other solutions we should look at?

I would be interested in knowing what kind of "financial" reporting that
needs to be refreshed this often. Are you depreciating assets that quickly?

;-)

Seriously, it sounds like the financial group doesn't want to look into
sub-ledgers and wants all of the detail in the G/L. What are some of the
reports that need this kind of real time reporting?

Mark W.
4
We are still on 6.10 and are using FRx. From Vantage there is an option to refresh the data in the SQL Server DB (they did tell you you need to have SQL Server too didn't they?). Depending on how long a period we select for the refresh can take from 5 to 50 minutes. Typically for YTD or last year + this year we see 15-20 minutes. The SQL db is on a different server from Vantage connected at 1Gbps. Because we are dealing with several companies it typically gets refreshed fairly frequently and often a couple times a day as adjustments are made in Vantage. Most used by my boss, the Dir. of Finance, so if it was not working fast enough for him I am sure I would hear about it. I just looked and the last export for 01/2007 to 08/2008 took 42 minutes. Not something you want to do a lot but if well planned not unbearable either. Fire & forget then come back later and run reports. The reporting side is really good which makes up for a lot of the waiting time.

All in all it has been one of the better add-on or 3rd party modules we have purchased.

-Todd C.

________________________________
From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Brian W. Spolarich
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 9:39 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] FRx and Vantage Financial Reporting


We recently implemented Vantage and our finance group is looking for a better financial
reporting tool than what comes with Vantage.

A couple of us are familiar with FRx from a Great Plains implementation with a previous
company. However FRx apparently now has an intermediate database that it runs against,
and there is a database refresh process that runs on the server to extract the GL
information.

The typical usage scenario according to Epicor is to have that refresh run nightly, however
that kind of latency is unacceptable to our Finance folks who will need to make manual GL
entries and other changes and expect to be able to see those changes reflected
immediately (or at least fairly quickly) against the reports.

Because this is a third-party product Epicor says that they can't let us demo it on our own
system, so we won't know the impact of the refresh process on our server, how long it
takes, etc. until we buy and install it. I think we could live with a 10-15 minute refresh
interval. Our server is pretty beefy for our current load so we have a lot of unused CPU
and I/O capacity.

We're also looking at another product, Spreadsheet Server by Global Software
(http://www.glbsoft.com/data_analytics.aspx?id=ss). It is more expensive than FRx
(partially because of the professional services required to do the mapping against the
Vantage tables, which they don't have as a standard option apparently), although it does
work directly against Vantage. However I'm concerned about data integrity issues and
upgrade issues, whereas at least with FRx I know that Epicor will keep the upgrade
process with Vantage and FRx fairly simple (presumably).

What are folks doing in this area? For FRx folks, can you run the database updates at a
frequent interval without impacting your users? Are there other solutions we should look
at?





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]