With Microsoft Dynamics GP 11 rolling out just around the corner, we are dedicating a number of blog posts to giving you a sneak peak at the new features you can expect to see. Today’s topic is focused on a new feature that will be included with GP 11. In GP 11, you will now have the ability to print your reports to Microsoft Word forms and also be able to email those reports, right from within core Dynamics GP functionality.
Yes, you heard right! Microsoft received a lot of feedback to have reports available through another source other than Report Writer, and they have answered with new functionality around Microsoft Word. With GP 11, you will be able to print most of your reports as either your existing Report Writer report, or you can print them with new Microsoft Word templates. Microsoft will be shipping a number of templates out of the box, as well as the ability to create and customize your own templates and use them to print your documents. These templates will be able to be used if you’re on Microsoft Office 2007 or newer.
The way this is going to work is relatively simple and will not require any additional software. When you choose to generate a report to Microsoft Word, it still goes through Report Writer, which is the “processing engineâ€. However, instead of it being printed then in Report Writer, it will be pushed to Word as an XML format, and Word will then be the “design engine†for the report. With the information being pushed to Word, we will now have the ability to easily manipulate the design of the report, as well as adding our own graphics and style!
GP 11 is also introducing the ability to email documents from right within GP. With this feature, we can now email reports directly to our vendors, customers, etc. GP will utilize the power of Outlook to send the emails, either as an attachment or embedded directly into the body of the email. This will reduce the cost of postage and printing for an organization, as well as simplify getting information out.
Some pretty useful features coming in GP 11 surrounding Word forms and emailing documents. Check in for my next blog post, in which I will talk about a few more features coming up in GP 11!