Sometimes as part of an ERP upgrade or implementation of a new ERP feature, the implementation team may chose to practice such a change in a test ERP environment prior to undertaking the work in the production ERP environment.

In this scenario it can be very useful to use FastClose to examine the test envoironment and compare the results with those seen in live.

Setup and Permissions

To do this:

• Set up a data source, catalog and connection in the usual way - using appropriate names such as "Test". Where a specific catalog does not exist for your new version of the ERP (and usually it wont) use the nearest lower version number.

• Setup permissions on the connection so that is only visible to members of the implementation testing team.

This last point is important, particularly where your site has the FastClose "Multi Database" licenced feature.

Sites with Enterprise Licences or with the specific MDB licence are able to run reports that gather results from multiple ERP instances at once, combine the results and display them as a a single report result. This is particularly useful for multi-nationals running more than one ERP instance with mapped charts of accounts.

However, where a site has test connections configured it is very easy to run a report against both production and test simultaneously, leading to doubling of numbers and inaccuracy.

Restricting access to the test connection protects users who are not members of your implementation team.

Log into the web administration tool as described here 10.00 Signing into Web Administration

Click “Repository Explorer” in the menu on the left.

The repository explorer will open at the root of the repository structure. Sub folders can be seen for various areas, click on the one marked "Connections".

Click on the "Permissions" button for your test conection and then set the permission for the "Everyone" group to "Inherit" which will have the effect of denying access to all.

Then select your test users or test implementation group, and assign them "Read" access.

Comparing Live and Test Environment results side by side

It is now possible to run reports side by side to compare results between live and test environments.

To place the reports side by side, open the GL Balances template twice, hold down the left mouse button on the second tab, and drag it to move the report panel, docking it on the right hand side.

Comparing Live and Test Environment results with a calc

Sites with Enterprise Licences or with the specific MDB licence can go a step further and run a reconciliation report with data from both connections in a single report.

For example:

• Open a GL Balances Template

• Pivot the "Connections" dimension to the across axis.

• Add a Calculation called "Reconcilation" with an expression similar to: [Connection].[Live]-[Connection].[Test]

• Select the members in the connection dimension

• And run the report, the "Reconciliation" numbers should net out to 0.