Utilize & extend ready-
made
Analytics in Dyn365F&O
Created By:
Moeez Nawaz
D365 F&O Technical Consultant
Understand different types of reports and inquiries
Finance and Operations apps provide specialized tools for five reporting
experiences:
•Embedded analytics and native controls - Built-in visualizations that are used in
operational reports to aggregate data to workspaces, by using native controls such as
charts and grids.
•SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) - Primarily used for business documents
and high-volume printing scenarios that are common with invoices, packing slips,
picking lists, and more.
•Financial Report Designer - Flexible tool that is used to customize and create
financial statements such as balance sheets, income statements, and cashflow
statements.
•Power Platform - Includes dashboards and workspaces that contain predefined and
personalized views, Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Automate integrations.
•Electronic Reporting - Used to configure electronic documents in accordance with
the legal requirements of various countries or regions.
Aggregate Measurement
An aggregate measurement in D365 F&O is a high-level definition of aggregated data, representing a dataset
used for reporting and analytics. It defines what data you want to summarize (e.g., totals, averages) and is the
basis for creating pre-aggregated datasets.
Key Points:
Purpose: Improve performance in analytical scenarios by precompiling summaries instead of querying raw
transactional data.
Usage: Used to create Power BI datasets for reporting and dash boarding.
Definition: Built using views in the Application Object Tree (AOT), which represent calculations or summary data.
For example: Total sales by product, Average delivery time by customer
Aggregate Entity
An aggregate entity is the data structure exposed in the Entity Store that represents the aggregated data defined
by an aggregate measurement. It is essentially the implementation that stores and provides access to the pre-
aggregated data for Power BI.
Key Points:
Purpose: Serve as a bridge between D365 F&O and Power BI by exposing aggregated data for external use.
Storage: Aggregate entities are published to the Entity Store, which is optimized for analytics.
Direct Access: Power BI can directly query these aggregate entities to fetch pre-aggregated data for faster report
performance.
For example: A "SalesPerformance" aggregate entity might summarize sales data by region, product category, and
time period.
Process for Using Aggregate Measurements and Entities in Power BI
1.Define Aggregate Measurements: Create them in the AOT, specifying the data fields and aggregation logic
(e.g., sums, counts).
2. Map Aggregate Measurements to Entities: Use the AOT to map the measurements to corresponding
aggregate entities.
3. Publish to Entity Store: Configure D365 F&O to publish aggregate entities to the Entity Store.
4.Connect Power BI to Entity Store:
1. Use the OData feed or the built-in Power BI connector to connect Power BI to the Entity Store.
5.Design Power BI Reports:
2. Build visuals and dashboards in Power BI using the aggregated data from the Entity Store.
Benefits
Performance Optimization: Aggregate data reduces the load on transactional tables and improves
query response time.
Simplified Data Model: Abstracts complex relationships in transactional data.
Predefined Analytics: Supports predefined metrics for common business scenarios.
