Seven weeks ago I started working for Acumatica. During the past seven weeks, I have been considering whether or not to continue posting on this blog. I have a lot of ideas for posts (some written down, some in my head), but I wanted to see how the first seven weeks would go as an Acumatica employee before deciding whether or not to continue blogging here. Here is what my Evernote blog post ideas document looks like at the moment: Power BI Top 5 Customers by Revenue Creating a data … [Read more...]
Of Acumatica and Power BI – A Tale Loosely Inspired by the title of a classic novel by John Steinbeck (Guest Post)
Guest post by Brad Kostreva Quick intro from Tim: I was thrilled when Brad asked me last month about doing some guest posts here on the blog. We first connected about a year ago through the blog and have kept in touch ever since. I mentioned him recently on the bottom of the What is Power BI post. Unlike me, an Acumatica reporting hobbyist, Brad is actually using Acumatica, Excel, and Power BI in the real world. I'm looking forward to hearing his real world experiences in this and future … [Read more...]
An Announcement
Tomorrow, September 17th, I will become an employee of Acumatica, filling the ERP Solutions Consultant position in the Columbus, OH office. I announced this on LinkedIn last week Acumatica has been a fun side project / hobby for me since April 30th, 2013. But I'm happy that I will now be working with it full-time. Of course, I'm also happy that I will now be getting paid too :) Am I Excited? … [Read more...]
What is Power BI?
Many of you have seen the news about Acumatica connecting to Power BI from a few months ago (click here, here, and here). Currently, Acumatica is the only ERP product listed on PowerBI.com: But Power BI is a fairly new thing and many people aren't exactly sure what it is. So, in this post I'll attempt to answer the question, "what is Power BI?" … [Read more...]
Try Excel Online For Free
The Current Excel Online Problem Three weeks ago we looked at using Excel Online to deliver your awesome Excel reports to people without them having to know that you made it in Excel. However, there currently is a problem with Excel Online. The problem is that there are actually different versions of Excel Online. There is a Free version, there is a Business version, and there is an Enterprise version. For more details, checkout this post by Mike Alexander (click here). I personally do … [Read more...]
Excel Online Web App and Acumatica
Wow, I can't believe that it's been two months since my last substantial blog post! But it is Summertime and family activities take priority over the blog. We did some camping, made a trip to California to see family, and have generally been having a blast enjoying the nice Summer weather. Now it's time for a long overdue blog post. Two months ago we built a very simple example of a dashboard in Excel (click here). Since we built it from an Acumatica OData connection, we were able to … [Read more...]
Microsoft Excel Dashboards in Acumatica ERP
Last week we built a very simple dashboard in Excel by connecting Acumatica data to Excel using OData. This week I have been super busy so I wasn't able to put together a video post. However, I did find a couple of helpful links that demonstrate the power of Microsoft Excel Dashboards in Acumatica ERP: … [Read more...]
Building a simple Dashboard in Excel using Acumatica ERP OData
Easy to Use and Massive Community There is a reason that Microsoft Excel is the world's most popular BI reporting tool. It's easy to use and you can find tons how-to information online. If you aren't sure how to do something in Excel, just type your question into Google and the chances are that you will find an answer. Excel formulas are very powerful and there are myriads of ways that you can combine them together to create powerful calculations. … [Read more...]
Connecting to Acumatica data from Microsoft Excel
Update February 5th, 2017: Alas, the TryAcumatica.com links don't work anymore since that site has been taken down. So, I removed the links. Last Week Last week we took a look at how to build a simple Generic Inquiry screen in Acumatica. Then, at the very end, we checked a box to enable it for OData. Checking that box allows us to connect to the data in our Generic Inquiry screen using other applications, including the world’s most popular business intelligence application: Microsoft Excel. … [Read more...]
Creating an OData Connection by building a Generic Inquiry screen in Acumatica ERP
Two weeks ago I posted about why it’s such a big deal that Acumatica has connected to Microsoft Excel and Power BI via OData. But how do we tap into this new magic “power”? Everything begins with building a Generic Inquiry screen in Acumatica. In order to use an OData connection in Acumatica, you first have to build a Generic Inquiry screen. In this post, I’d like to walk through building a simple Generic Inquiry screen and enabling it for OData. … [Read more...]