1. Sharing a Report
The report you created in the previous exercise will reside in
the Reports view of the Workplace area but will only display
for you; most other users will not be able to see
the report unless they have system administrator or other security
rights. By default, Microsoft Dynamics CRM prevents other users from
being able to use your report at this point, but it does allow you to
share the report with other users as you see fit. This
is helpful because:
-
Several different users might use the Report Wizard to
create many reports. If all reports are immediately available to
everyone, the number of reports in the list will grow quickly and
might lead to confusion.
-
You might need a report for a very specific reason that does
not apply to any other users, and therefore there is no reason to
share it.
Although reports are not shared immediately, you can share them
with other users in just a few steps.
In this exercise, you will share the report you created in the
previous section with a specific user and then make it available to
all users in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM environment.
Note
SET UP Use the Internet
Explorer web browser to navigate to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM
website, if necessary, before beginning this exercise.
-
In the Workplace area, click
Reports.
-
Select Active Opportunities by
Owner without opening the report.
-
In the Collaborate group on the ribbon, click the
Share button.
The Who Would You Like To Share The Selected Report
With? dialog box appears.
-
In the Common Tasks pane,
click Add User/Team.
The Look Up Records dialog box appears.
-
Search for system users and select any user. Then add the
user to the Selected Records area,
and click OK.
The selected user displays in the sharing dialog box, with
Read rights assigned by default. You can modify the sharing rights
to suit your specific needs.
-
Click OK to save your
sharing settings for the report.
The specified user will now see the report in the Reports view of the Workplace area.
Occasionally you might want to make the report available for
every user rather than for specific users. Although you could
select all users in the sharing dialog box, users that join your
organization at a later time will not automatically have access to
the report. In the next steps, you will make a report available to
the entire organization so that even users who are added later are
still able to access your report.
-
In the Reports
view, select the Active
Opportunities by Owner report without opening it, and on
the ribbon, click Edit.
The Report form is displayed.
-
On the form toolbar, click Actions, and then select Make Report Available to
Organization.
Note
Troubleshooting If the Make
Report Available To Organization option does not appear in the
Actions menu, you do not have rights to publish reports. Contact
your system administrator about adding the Publish Reports
privilege to your security role.
Your report is now available to the entire organization. You
can also make the report a personal report again by following
steps 7 and 8 above and selecting Revert To Personal
Report.
Note
CLEAN UP Close the Report
form.
When you run a report by using SQL Server Reporting Services in
Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the report runs in real time and reflects the
current data in the application. This works well for most of your
reporting needs, but it can also pose challenges. For
instance:
-
Users who run the report at different times can communicate
conflicting information, which leads to confusion and data
integrity concerns.
-
Real-time reports provide no historical perspective for
comparison or trending purposes.
For example, you might want to run a monthly pipeline report to
understand how the pipeline looks at the beginning of each month and
to compare to previous months.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides a Report Scheduling Wizard to address this need. The
wizard allows you to generate report snapshots either on demand or at
a regularly scheduled time.
Important
The Report Scheduling Wizard is not available in Microsoft
Dynamics CRM Online.
In this exercise, you will schedule a report to run once a month
at midnight.
Note
SET UP Use the Internet
Explorer web browser to navigate to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM
website, if necessary, before beginning this exercise.
-
In the Workplace area, click
Reports.
-
Select Active Opportunities by
Owner without opening the report.
-
In the Actions group of the ribbon, click Schedule Report.
Note
Troubleshooting If the
Schedule Report button is not available on the
ribbon, you do not have rights to schedule reports. Contact your
system administrator about adding the Add Reporting Services
Reports privilege to your security role.
The Report Scheduling Wizard appears. Here you can specify
when a snapshot should occur.
-
Select On a Schedule, and
then click Next to proceed to the
Select Frequency page.
-
On the Select Frequency page,
select Monthly and leave the
default settings for the monthly schedule.
The default settings schedule the report for the first day
of the month at midnight.
-
Click Next to proceed to the
next step of the Report Scheduling
Wizard.
-
On the Select Start and End
Dates page, leave the current date as the default start
date, and leave No end date
selected.
-
Click Next to proceed to the
next step.
The Define Report Parameters page is displayed, indicating
that there are no parameters for the selected report.
-
Click Next to proceed to the
next step of the Report Scheduling
Wizard.
The Review Snapshot Definition page is displayed.
-
Verify that the settings are correct, and then click Create to schedule your report.
A Completing The Report Scheduling Wizard confirmation page displays when
the scheduling process is complete.
-
On the confirmation page, click Finish to exit the Report Scheduling Wizard.
You have successfully scheduled the report. On the first day
of the next month, the report snapshot will be taken and will be
available for all users who have access to the report. When the
report is run, an additional report will appear in the list with a
name similar to the original report that includes a timestamp of
the report’s run date.
Important
The report will not display any results until the first
snapshot is generated, according to the schedule you specify in the
Report Scheduling Wizard. Only the eight most recent report
snapshots will be stored. When the ninth report is created, the
oldest report will be deleted.
Note
CLEAN UP Close the Report
form.
