Introduction

This course is intended for Designer users. But before we get started, as Designers, it is useful to take a tour of the FastClose range of applications.

FastClose is a multi-dimensional reporting and inquiry tool that combines your live ERP data with FastClose report definitions to provide up-to-the-moment-accurate results.

Architecture

Architecturally – there is a FastClose Server, shown as the blue box in the diagram below. This is where the users’ report definitions are held as well as information about how to connect to your ERP instance – all in it’s own repository database. This may be hosted "on-prem" or in the cloud.

It also provides the understanding of the design of your specific ERP through a schema definition that describes the various tables and relationships.

And then there are a variety of different "Client" interfaces as shown on the right hand side, as described below:

FastClose Applications

Designer
Excel Add-In
Reader (on the Web)
Scheduler (for Email & Power BI)

Designer

Build reports to your Business Requirements

FastClose Designer is for Power Users to build formatted reports with Filters, Hierarchies, Calculations, and Drills to related data. Pull your ERP data and lay it out as you wish. Use pre-defined formatting Styles or apply specific formatting as needed.

Templates return a set of data from your ERP tables. Solutions are standard reports created from the Templates. Your custom reports complete the reporting suite.

Reader (on the Web)

Run reports and Drill-Through to Related Data

Reader provides another way to run FastClose reports. Reports run in Reader with all the filters and formatting created by the Designer of the FastClose report, returning real-time data from the ERP data. In addition it provides the drills to related data that help your team in researching issues.

Typically the Reader is deployed to those analyst users who just want to consume reports built by other team members that will enable them to make decisions and meet the responsibilities of their role. As such they don't want to be distracted by all the tooling that is provided to Designers to create the reports.

And being web based, subject to security considerations, it can be accessed by user devices such as tablets and smart phones, anywhere in the world.

Excel Add-in

FastClose recognises that the need for Excel will never eliminated. So there are two ways of viewing reports in Excel:

Using the Export to Excel button in Designer and Reader, the user can export the data with full formatting to worksheets in Excel.
Via the FastClose Add-In for Excel. Here you run FastClose reports "live and direct" in Excel. These auditable FastClose reports can be opened and executed in Excel, with all the formatting of the FastClose report with live filtering for data selection, returning your real-time ERP data directly in Excel, perhaps feeding your own data models.

Open reports in multiple sheets and link filters so filter values set in one report automatically set the linked filter value in another report in the workbook. Use Excel formulas to feed other sheets for charts and graphs, giving the user the best of both worlds.

Scheduler (for Email & Power BI)

Feed visualizations from FastClose

A simple FastClose report can feed tools like Power BI to bring visualizations to life. Delivered Templates join many tables, allowing your Power-Users to select the fields your Business needs to create powerful business intelligence visualizations.

In this example, a sales margin report run by the FastClose Scheduler provides the data that feeds Power BI visualizations.

Automate your reports to run on whatever schedule you need.

FastClose makes it possible to email a pack of management reports in a number of formats, Excel being the most popular.

Alternatively instead of sending email, FastClose can publish reports to network drives or upload via ftp, either of which Power BI can then pick up. With 75% of Power BI effort being spend to get the data into a format it can use, FastClose has already done the heavy lifting accelerating dashboard delivery and enabling less technical people to analyse that data in Power BI.