A lot of traditional paper based reporting is no longer required with CRM, because you now have the ability to analyse live information using views, charts and personalised dashboards . Microsoft CRM has standard reporting built into the system but also allows you to configure your own custom reports. Sometimes it is necessary to build more complex reports and we recommend using a Microsoft report generating tool called SSRS to do this. These reports can be created offline in a software development tool called Visual Studio and these are then uploaded into the CRM.  This approach also helps with providing reports to non CRM users.

In addition Microsoft have invested heavily in Power BI over recent years. This application allows reporting across multiple systems and puts analysis and reporting in the hands of the business with much less IT involvement. Microsoft are now working heavily on Power BI’s natural language querying which will allow you to analyse data using plain English. It is designed as a tool for ‘non-techies’ to access business data, allowing them to quickly compose their reports and dashboards and distribute them. PowerBI is provider agnostic and will link with almost all data sources. To a large extent it builds on existing Excel and SharePoint technology and know how. What is great is that it allows the user to shape data and reports using familiar tools. It does require some technical skills but if you know how to connect to data sources and know how to use a Pivot Chart or table you should be fine.

See our blog on how to link Microsoft CRM 2016 and Power BI