With the release of Dynamics GP 2010, Microsoft introduced us to using word templates to replace many of the documents generated by the back office accounting system. This allows users that are familiar with Microsoft Word to make changes to these documents using Word. Logos can be added, fields can be removed or added, and the report can be exported to several different formats.
There was, however, one small complaint that often came up. Sometimes a user would want to create a Word template, only to find out that the report they were interested in changing was not available as a Word template. With the initial release of Word templates in GP 2010, there was a group of reports/documents for which we could create Word templates, but if you wanted to create a template for a report or document that was not included in this group, it was not possible. With the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2, this complaint has been solved with the Microsoft Word Template Generator tool.
This tool allows us to use the Report Writer (the built in report writing tool with ) to generate a new Word template. This means that every report that we can generate with Report Writer can have a Word template created for it. Then we can set up Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 to use the Word template to generate the report instead of the original Report Writer version. The primary reason this new tool is so awesome is because it opens up Word templates to all of the reporting in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2. You need to alter the General Ledger Trial Balance report; no problem. You need to adjust the Historical Aging Trial Balance for customers; no problem. We now can use Report Writer to generate a “data” file that we can process with the MS Word Template Generator. The Word Template Generator Tool will then create a new template based off of the data file from Report Writer. We can then set up this template to print instead of the original report. Plus we still get to use all of the nice features that first showed up in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 with Word templates. We can assign specific templates to print for specific customers, we can define different reports to print for different companies if we have multiple companies, and we can export all of these reports to PDF files (or other formats) for easy transport via email.
With Dynamics GP 2010 R2, Microsoft continues to show that they are listening to the end users and the reporting needs they request. Word templates have now been expanded to work with any report you can generate with Report Writer. If you have any questions, or would like any assistance with setting up Word Templates in the new Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2, feel free to at Intelligent Technologies, Inc.
-By Grady Burris - Sr. Consultant -
