I am currently about to figure out what is the best way to create customized reports for our AX 2012 data. We are a support center for more than 60 legal entities and creating lots of customized queries for accountants, the purchasing department and the management as well.
I would like to find a standardized solution for the future: what is the best way to provide all the data that the employees need? The following bullet points are just a few thoughts. I hope you can add your thoughts and suggest some ideas.
1. Currently we create queries in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, transfer these to Microsoft Excel and the users refresh these queries whenever they need updates. Sometimes we offer advanced Excel Files that include Excel Macros to perform special actions. Especially when the queries are very complex things can get very complicated.
2. We've also discussed using Microsoft Power BI for creating dashboards, customized reports etc. But as far as I know it's gettting really complicated if you want to create really tricky and sophisticated queries that include lots of tables and SQL-Joins.
3. I really like PHP in combination with SQL and I've got some experience with that from other projects. During the last months I was wondering if it would be an opportunity to use PHP to provide a central platform with all our queries with all the advantages of a web-based deployment. On the other hand this technique is far away from a standard. Almost nobody in our company will know PHP and how to use it. Furthermore it will be a lot of work to convince the IT / the management to set up a PHP-environment.
Thanks for any ideas / hints in advance!