Reports E1 vs Reports World (FASTR)

crdiva

Member
We will be upgrading from World to E1 soon. We are being told that most of our current Financial reporting (via FASTR) will now need to be developed and maintained by our development group using BI Publisher. My question is - can this be true? Is there no lovely user-reporting app in E1 that replaces FASTR? Say it isn't so! Thanks!
 
CR,

The Quick Answer - there isn't anything, currently on the market, that mimics FASTR Reporting in EnterpriseOne.

The Work-a-round answer - Oracle does have a tool that will recreate your FASTR version into JDE Financial Reports. They do not let it out of their hands, its use is tightly controlled, and you will still have to evaluate/touch ever single report it creates! You may want to contact Oracle about its availability

A few years ago, I did an enormous amount of rework for a client that went Co-Existent with World and XE, they wanted to run their reports in XE - and went down the Oracle Conversion path. OK, the reports 'mostly' worked - but every one of them needed finesse. The client was unhappy (but, Oracle/JDE has had a few years to enhance the tool since then)....

[BSP]The Promising Answer - I'm working to complete a FASTR-Like tool in EnterpriseOne, that will give you 'almost' all the capabilities of your World FASTR. Upon completion - I expect clients to be able to use their existing FASTR Headers/Column/Row/Override tables to 'automagically' create run 'matching' financial reports - out of EnterpriseOne....

I'm working on the project between contracts and whenever I find spare time - sorry it isn't completed, already. When completed, I'll announce the tool on JDEResearch.Com. (ps - thank you Jeremy Ruth for the help with Business Functions!)

Contact me offline, for more information
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(db)
 
BI Publisher is analogous to 3rd party products like Create!Form or Formscape. For basic reporting without extra formatting, graphics, E-mailing, or bursting, etc., then E1 has its own developer tools for you to write reports.

They will be different from FASTR, and you could always pay for Oracle to come and try to convert your FASTRs for you. There is also a tool that Daniel Bohner is working on to do the same thing.
 
Thanks for the quick responses. I'm just looking for a nice USER-friendly tool for our Finance folks to use for Financial reporting to replace FASTR & World Writer. I'm assuming that the reports within the individual modules are functional (AR, AP, FA?). What about ERW?
Thanks!
Deanna
 
I can tell you from experience that ERW is not user friendly for financial types except when you use the most basic functions. Most of us who support financial users recommend a 3rd party solution. We use Cetova, but there are many good products out there geared toward financial users. The canned reports that come with E1 are functional, but ugly. Plus, they just don't have enough flexibility to be your only financial reporting tool. The sooner you can help your finance users to be independent, the better off you'll all be.
 
I think you do not need to worry. E1 financial reporting tool is better than FASTR with visual design interface, better printout in PDF. I have not tried the conversion tool to convert FASTR reports to E1 financial reports but re-defining E1 financial report should be easy - right-click the line and check the data selection or calculation. Your internal IT people can provide simple training to your financial report writers within 2 days.

BI publisher is a new reporting tool added on existing E1 reports, used to give better format - you use RTF format file to control output format. So if you see the format in Micosoft Word e.g., you see it in BI publisher output. You are not required to use it for reporting. It is optional.
 
Harry,

One of the underlying issues is that, those moving from World to EnterpriseOne - may have THOUSANDS of custom FASTRs that their users want copied to EnterpriseOne.

One of the reasons organizations are upgrading Old-World to Current-World - is so they do not lose their FASTRs.

The RDA Tool/Financial Report Writer is, by no means, as intuitively SIMPLE as learning the FASTR process. Define your Data Selection, define your columns, define your Rows, Define your overrides - RUN. No Development process (Check-in, Promote, test, promote....)

Those organizations that have used the Oracle/JDE tool to convert FASTRs to RDA - may find that they have to go back into RDA and Touch/Review EVERY Converted report (Data Selection, Column Calcs, Row Calcs, Processing Options...)... validating every aspect of the conversion.

If an organization's desire is to convert 80% of those THOUSANDS of User-Created FASTRs to EnterpriseOne - the dollars invested in the conversion may topple the project.

Oracle/JDE should have provided an easier path to migration....

(db)
 
Re: Reports E1 vs Reports World (FASTR) IBM V7R1

Is the "coexist" possible with E1/World A7.3 and One World in the IBM operating system V6R1 and in the new V7R1? Currently we “coexist” with A7.3 and One World, but want to take advantage of the new IBM release V7R1.
 
Re: Reports E1 vs Reports World (FASTR) IBM V7R1

A little off topic, but the answer is Yes. Xe (the last official co-existant release) does list V6R1 and V7R1 on the MTRs (Minimum Technical Requirements).

For V6R1, you must be at SP24. For V7R1, you must be at a minimum of SP24.1.2.
 
Re: Reports E1 vs Reports World (FASTR) IBM V7R1

Thanks - Sorry for the off topic, but it was the closes i could get with the present onliners - Thanks!
 
It is possible to recreate FASTRs in E1 Reporting. It is something that an accountant should be able to learn (IMHO). There is a director that the accountants can use to walk them through the process. The concepts are the same, although the navigation is very different.

The financial reports in E1 can use the override columns and row that the accountants should already be using in FASTR. If they are not, they should familiarize themselves with the feature and use it in E1 to reduce the work to recreate their FASTR reports.

Run the Print FASTR specifications report (R83000A). This will provide most of the information that is required to recreate FASTR reports in E1.

The main difficulty that the accountants will have is with date titles. They require event rules in E1, rather than a simple processing option value in FASTR. The process is well defined in documentation, and after they do it a few times, it should be an annoyance, rather than a problem.

The following features do not exist in E1: <ul type="square"> [*]Conditioned Variance Printing via Processing Options (can be accomplished via event rules, but it requires advanced knowledge) [*]Business Unit Level of Detail (Account Level of Detail is Alive and Well) [*]Dependent and Concatenated Category Codes [*]Workfile Save [*]Organizational Report Structures [*]Dynamic Row Creation (Row Account Duplication is Alive and Well) [*]Column Propagation [/list] The only ones of these features I used in FASTR were Conditioned Variance Printing and Workfile Save.

Other differences: <ul type="square"> [*]Column Amount Codes are Smartfields with a direct correspondence in many cases[*]Row Type Codes are replaced with five more generic row types [*]There is much more flexibility in row spacing than was provided by Row Indicator Codes [*]Fiscal Years are easier to specify [*]Parenthesis can be used in calculations!!! [*]Exporting to a spreadsheet is easier [*]User defined date titles are easier [/list] You may have to do some setup in Object Management Configuration for Object Management Workbench. The last time I checked, there was no provided role for report writers. They had to use the developer role which gave them access to all kinds of tools that report writers shouldn't use like Form Design Aid, Business View Design Aid, Table Design Aid and many more.
 
JdeInNJ,

Technically, that's creating a Financial Report from a FASTR Spec...

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I'm trying to put the wraps on replicating the actual FASTR Process (table driven specs, that actually use the F83* tables from FASTRs). I'm pretty darn close to having the thing ready..., just need to find a hundred or so extra hours in my life....

Would you mind if I captured some of your comments, plagiarize, for the documentation on my QWKR Tools? You capture some of the really great distinctions on why the Financial Report Writer is so limited (you shouldn't have to open the spec to change things)....

(db)
 
Go for it. Nothing I wrote is original material.

Yes, I wanted to remind readers how to use FASTR specs to ease the migration to FRW without using the conversion tool.
 
David,

Does the JDEFASTR tool use the native F83* tables to build 'what they had' in World? If so - KOOL!

If not - have you build a conversion that takes their legacy FASTRs and Imports them into your tool. After-all, that is what migrators are looking for

(db)
 
No, we don't use F83* tables as the tool is more flexible. And yes, it should be no big deal to transfer the report specs from AS400.
 
i would like to know how much of worldsoft knowledge is required for converting those reports from World soft to Xe as i havened ever worked on worldsoft before
 
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