Michael Intravartolo
Nov 22, 2017
Updated: Aug 5, 2021
Season 1, Episode 3: Two Guys, Coffee & Business
Today we are talking Jet Reports. Jet Reports is known for delivering unparalleled data access through fast, flexible reporting and business analytics. Jet Reports has four main pillars: Financial Reporting, Business Analytics, Mobile accessibility, and Collaboration and Sharing.
With Financial Reporting you'll quickly and easily be able to generate timely, accurate financial reports in the format that works for you, right inside of Excel. Learn More
Business Analytics allows you to turn data into valuable insight with visually stunning dashboards and reports designed to help you quickly identify trends, spot anomalies and fix problems.
Mobile means working better and smarter, from anywhere. Liberate yourself from the office by getting the accurate business information you need, when and where you need it.
By Collaborating & Sharing you build cohesion and improve team output. Your data shouldn't live in a silo. Draw from accurate, governed data that everyone in the business can rely on for one version of the truth.
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00:00
on today's episode we're talking chat
00:03
reports to guys coffee and business
00:15
podcast hello everyone my name is
00:19
Michael and Trevor Tolo back with you
00:21
again and I'm here with Tom Dortch
00:23
the man Tom Dortch that's right so what
00:25
are we what are we drinking today Mike
00:27
today we have a nice cafe Calibri
00:30
cappuccino you know a little strong it's
00:36
got a little bit too much milk but we
00:38
won't fall cafe Cleary for that one
00:40
today we have Steven Keller house
00:43
Keller cost 10 homes just Keller halls
00:45
that'll work
00:47
that's K are you drinking buddy I'm
00:51
drinking my problems so you get a little
00:58
rum shot in your coffee oh yeah Irene
01:01
Tommy drink anything special today uh I
01:04
just got the good old water today oh
01:07
nice
01:08
keep that that throat nice and ready to
01:11
go of course the white pack at all in it
01:13
or anything I thought about it but not
01:16
this time
01:17
awesome all right so like I said we have
01:21
Stephen in the house today and he's uh
01:24
he's starting to learn about jet reports
01:27
so he's he's one of our I guess resident
01:30
experts for maybe Jeff professional
01:33
maybe not Jenn Enterprise yet no special
01:36
yeah Jeff professional but experts a
01:40
strong word but we can go with that nice
01:43
and we're gonna talk about Jeff reports
01:44
today because Tommy's noticed a lot of
01:48
what yes so uh what a big thing that
01:51
I've noticed when people are trying to
01:54
look to upgrade to a new ERP system is
01:59
reporting they just they can't seem to
02:01
get enough reports or it's just take it
02:05
too much time and they're going to into
02:07
Excel and
02:08
trying to create their purports all on
02:10
their own and it's just costly
02:13
money-wise and timewise yeah I bet when
02:16
you have a lot of data - like you said
02:17
it's right and you're copying and
02:20
pasting you have to look for the data
02:21
pronate exactly human error you just you
02:24
don't even know anymore
02:25
yeah so Steve what do you think you
02:27
think chat reports can help solve a lot
02:28
of those problems or whatever yeah
02:30
definitely I started with debt reports a
02:33
few months back took one of those
02:36
training courses they had and it it's
02:39
considered as essentially you know you
02:41
have your basic Excel formulas think of
02:44
jet reports as Excel formulas on
02:47
steroids it's a very powerful and
02:50
efficient tool if used properly for
02:53
recording through like Microsoft
02:55
Dynamics NAV pulling that information
02:56
and then generating a pretty quick
02:59
response if again utilized properly so
03:03
nice not you get like a game to print
03:04
out a sheet or whatnot of all the
03:06
different formulas or kind of just based
03:09
off your Excel experience or what well
03:12
with that they actually have with the
03:14
jet ribbon that it's an excel add-in and
03:17
then once you input it in it has a
03:21
wizard that gives you the basic formulas
03:24
and then how to create them and craft
03:26
them and then over time you'll learn the
03:28
basic syntax of those formulas and you
03:31
can just type it in just like you would
03:32
like maybe an if statement in a formula
03:35
and it actually jet reports it's really
03:38
great in the sense that it allows for
03:40
excel formula formulas to work
03:43
seamlessly essentially with the jet
03:46
formulas so they can actually talk and
03:48
work with each other the one thing I
03:50
will say a keynote as my one jet Reports
03:53
trainer told me is it won't work with
03:56
macros very well so if you have any it
03:59
can get kind of fuzzy when working with
04:01
macros because jet reports itself some
04:04
of those formulas kind of are macros I
04:06
guess I guess in a sense so if you have
04:09
your own trying to clash with them when
04:11
you try to run a report you can get some
04:13
problems developed yeah which makes
04:17
sense because I know that
04:19
Microsoft Dynamics NAV doesn't run well
04:21
with necks by itself via that there is
04:24
to be a special connector for it for you
04:26
to access it work with work with an Ani
04:28
a Mac or Mac or do what I call write
04:33
anything go ahead to that my friend yeah
04:37
just so it seems like the average person
04:40
who has excelled abilities and has been
04:44
trying to run all their own reports in
04:45
Excel can continue to do use Excel and
04:49
use their Excel skills but it's a lot
04:51
easier now and more user-friendly it's
04:54
kind of definitely so then when you're
04:56
using chat reports with with nav can you
05:00
give us a little bit of a rundown of
05:02
let's say how it would work so if you're
05:04
in nav what do you do do you click a
05:06
button and Excel automatically opens up
05:09
just the basics you know high level a
05:12
really basic one is honestly you just
05:14
open Excel and a word spread Excel
05:17
spreadsheet and then if you already have
05:19
the add-in put in in Excel do you just
05:22
go to the jet ribbon you know you have
05:24
the home view the insert ribbon to go to
05:26
that and essentially from there once
05:30
that ribbon is already in there it
05:32
automatically has all that information
05:34
ready to go they also have a table
05:37
builder view where you can view all the
05:40
tables in nav so you can get a
05:42
high-level view of all these tables like
05:44
vendor the vendor table and all the
05:46
fields that are associated with it like
05:48
name address city all of those things
05:51
and then you can literally go to using
05:54
the NL function which is one of the key
05:56
functions and then literally say all
05:59
right show me all rows from this table
06:02
from the vendor table show me all names
06:05
show all of our vendors and then you can
06:08
filter those filter those values based
06:12
on a show me only vendors with a certain
06:16
amount of prepayment already put in or
06:19
show me once that just recently became a
06:22
vendor
06:24
there's multiple filters that you can
06:25
apply the kids those are almost SS for
06:27
for reporting live yeah right my
06:29
question is is this data is it all
06:31
real-time data so in that regards it
06:35
there's two ways to have that real-time
06:37
data a lot of people in their nav
06:39
environments will always have constant
06:41
updates to inventory management and
06:44
stuff like that so there's two ways to
06:47
run these reports once you have your
06:49
report built is using the report
06:51
function which uses cached information
06:53
from jet from nav every time you for
06:58
example every time you open a jet report
07:01
Excel workbook it will automatically
07:03
refresh the data essentially unless you
07:06
specify otherwise but it will always
07:07
refresh the data when you first open it
07:09
up then every time you run report it
07:12
will use that cached information at that
07:14
time you opened it up say however you
07:17
were working on it for 30 minutes and a
07:19
bunch of inventory came in there's
07:21
another button that says call
07:23
prefreshman and that will give you real
07:25
time data at that moment you run it and
07:27
then the difference is you would run the
07:31
Refresh when you need that real-time
07:33
information at that point it will take
07:36
longer to run the report because it has
07:39
to pull back new information but running
07:41
report will just use cached information
07:43
so depends on your environment not
07:46
what's uh it's a hard to access these
07:50
reports can they be accessed from
07:51
anywhere is there a special option to
07:54
want any type of web and just access to
07:56
reports from serving maybe a customer
07:58
portal or something or one right yeah so
08:00
depending on the licensing structure you
08:02
have you there is a web portal where
08:05
you're able to view those Excel
08:06
worksheets say you don't even have Excel
08:09
on your computer or you're just using
08:11
like one at a hotel or whatever and they
08:13
don't have Excel you have the Wi-Fi you
08:15
have internet you can go on to the jet
08:17
warp web portal in a web browser and
08:20
actually view those reports and then
08:22
actually see those results of those web
08:26
reports that's great that's great yeah
08:28
that's why I understand that's pretty in
08:29
your future
08:30
within the last I want to say here a
08:32
little bit more I'm not sure I wouldn't
08:35
be able to give you specific dates or
08:37
anything like that but I would say it's
08:39
relatively new
08:40
definitely definitely anything you want
08:42
to add to it I'm kind of curious about
08:46
about scheduling reports is that is that
08:50
is that another feature that's available
08:51
order right so my first go in with jet
08:56
reports was actually using something
08:59
called the dynamic batch scheduler dart
09:01
reports has a great thing where they
09:03
actually provide templates for certain
09:06
types of reports to build and one is
09:08
their dynamic batch scheduler so say you
09:11
have four for the example that I'm going
09:13
to use that I used for the company was
09:16
pre payment invoices we want jet reports
09:20
to automatically send emails to all of
09:24
our customers who have pre payment
09:26
balances with us every Friday at a
09:30
certain time and check every time you
09:33
see check every Friday before you run
09:36
this report to see if they still have a
09:39
prepayment balance with us and to do
09:41
this automatically without someone
09:42
having to hit go into itself hit run and
09:45
then do this so with the dynamic batch
09:47
scheduler you do need there is some
09:49
configuration work you have to put into
09:51
it but you can have it run sent us
09:54
specified people for each company and
09:58
then say it's 10:00 a.m. you set it to
10:02
run at 10:00 a.m.
10:02
it'll send 20 30 50 50 customers there's
10:08
specific invoice reports like all right
10:10
so here is your pre payment balance
10:12
here's the invoices or all the ones you
10:15
added to that balance at this time and
10:19
it's it's a dynamic way of just having a
10:24
complete process automated it was
10:26
something beforehand we didn't use that
10:28
would take take to mainly input new
10:32
people into the task scheduler many many
10:36
hours so this is probably saved I would
10:39
at least say maybe five to seven hours
10:42
week yeah having to channel of course in
10:45
long yeah check nav and look at those
10:47
invoices it almost sounds like from our
10:49
last podcast artificial intelligence it
10:51
might be able to use a little bit
10:53
artificial intelligence in the future
10:54
and right or it just reads what
10:57
customers have what and you don't have
10:58
to enter any data and it'll send out the
11:01
the the building or whatever based on
11:04
their open rates from the past so to
11:06
send it out exactly at the best time
11:08
that that it thinks it most likely to
11:11
get open or whatnot that's pretty cool
11:14
like the interests on the future yeah
11:15
definitely
11:17
alright so if you had to pick right now
11:19
would you pick if you're starting a
11:23
small business power bi or jet reports
11:27
going right into this one are we right
11:30
back good I will say I had was closer
11:33
start I have a power bi guy I love power
11:36
bi I love which are reports to but for
11:39
smaller businesses I kind of think power
11:40
bi is the way to go just mean I will say
11:43
a small disclaimer myself
11:45
I've done a little bit of work with
11:47
power bi but my main focus has been jet
11:49
reports so I'm kinda for jet reports I
11:54
guess to show my bias the experience of
11:57
I had with power bi specifically with
12:00
data refreshes has been a bit of a
12:03
struggle I certainly don't doubt the
12:06
ability of the reporting tool dead or
12:09
refresh just with large amounts of data
12:10
Laurie yeah I try to set up a data
12:14
gateway with refreshes of the reports
12:17
and the data sets and have that
12:19
automated an automated process just like
12:22
the automated process we had set up for
12:23
here I will say I feel like jet reports
12:30
is more intuitive if you have that excel
12:32
background it just feels a more natural
12:35
I looked at some of the I think ten
12:39
reports as more capabilities on part of
12:40
you know so but yeah when it comes to
12:44
actually creating reports and power bi I
12:47
think it takes a little bit more time to
12:49
try and understand the syntax coding
12:52
scent
12:53
of using it but again I haven't seen all
12:57
the capabilities of power bi so but my
13:01
personal recommendation is jet reports
13:03
but again I do have a bias so we all do
13:07
you're the tiebreaker well yeah so my
13:12
personal experience I would say depends
13:15
upon your business
13:16
it does depend upon your business
13:18
everybody's different
13:19
but personally I I'm more familiar with
13:23
Excel yeah I met reports kind of person
13:26
myself complicated young fellas yeah I
13:29
was seeing about grabbing my popcorn
13:31
here I was thinking this could be a
13:32
quick little Feud never-never night they
13:37
both work wonders it all depends on what
13:39
you like and what you need before yeah
13:40
well Steven you kind of brought up
13:43
another point that I wanted to ask so
13:47
you don't really need a whole lot of
13:48
programming skills for jet reports to
13:51
modify the reports yourself
13:53
whereas the power bi I feel like you
13:56
kind of do need a little bit more I
13:59
don't know is its own language right it
14:01
has its own language yeah my my correct
14:04
and I would definitely say so another
14:08
neat tool thank you for bringing that up
14:11
the table builder I discussed earlier
14:15
the table viewer you can actually pull
14:18
an exact table like say you want vendor
14:21
and it lists all the fields you can
14:24
actually almost drag and drop an entire
14:26
table into into a cell and it'll auto
14:29
populate that entire the entirety of
14:33
that table however make sure you put in
14:35
filters or else it's going to show you
14:38
everything or it might crash but it's it
14:42
gives you a very it can hold your hand
14:44
if you want it to but you also have the
14:46
sense of you have free rein to do what
14:49
you want so I think it's easier to learn
14:54
with as a if you have no knowledge and
14:58
then it has like a nice training program
15:02
yeah so yeah yeah I feel like they're
15:05
both pretty easy to install with the app
15:08
safe within a day you get something up
15:09
and running right well my friend I have
15:14
nothing more for you I think you
15:15
answered a lot of the questions and a
15:17
lot of people who don't know about
15:19
reports and maybe want to get into it
15:21
you know I feel like I'm on my way to
15:23
becoming a an expert on myself now
15:26
laughter today mr. jet reports well I'd
15:33
say that about wraps it up again for
15:35
this week what do you think Tom yeah I
15:36
would say so and now I want to thank
15:38
Stephen for joining us today was a
15:41
pleasure
15:41
that's absolutely love to have you back
15:43
if you ever gets time absolutely thanks
15:45
for having me
15:46
sounds good all right everybody keep
15:48
doing what you're doing we're here for
15:50
solution systems Michael and Trevor Tolo
15:52
with Tom Dortch
15:54
and Steven Keller
Question: Do you think your organization would benefit from Jet Reports? If so, why? Leave your answers in the comments section below.