How to Create One Report from Two Independent Systems

    
 
 I recently met with the President of BAASS to determine the best way to get data from our Sage ERP 300 (formerly Accpac) and Sage CRM.  Sage 300 and CRM are two independent, but synchronized systems.  All customers, vendors and their respective contact details are updated live between each.  It’s an out-of-the-box solution provided by Sage.  The limitation that we were up against was that the customization nature of CRM was leaving Sage 300 behind.  


In CRM we keep many additional details about our customers in addition to the standard details that you might find in any typical ERP.  CRM is designed to be able to handle these extra details by allowing us to add extra fields to a company’s details.  In this case, SIC codes.  In Sage 300, there is no place for a SIC code without creating an optional field.  Optional fields are a powerful addition to Sage 300 that allows for the creation of custom containers of information, like a SIC code.  Although Sage 300 and CRM are synchronized, you can’t expect two independent systems to be able to automatically keep up with structural changes made by the end user.

When the conversation started, we were talking about how are we going to get this piece of information reliably from CRM to Sage 300.  So I proposed a little piece of custom software that would check for changes in each and make the same change to the other, a common approach to address this type of functionality gap.  It’s not a difficult thing to create, but like anything else, it was going to take a bit of time. However, I then asked the magic question which should have been asked at the beginning...

“Why do you want to do this?”

To which he responded; “I want to be able to get a sales report that groups by SIC code”

SIC codes are in CRM and sales numbers are in Sage 300.  It seems logical that if you want to report on two pieces of data, to put one where the other is.  In this case, put the CRM data in Sage 300.

But wait! There is an easier solution! Just because data exists in two different places, does not mean we can’t combine them into one report. Using any number of techniques, we can create a single report that would give all the required results in far less time than creating a tool that moves data around.  Solutions like Sage 300 Intelligence are designed exactly for this purpose.

If you have Sage 300 5.6 or 6.0, you already own Sage 300 Intelligence and that is a great starting point.  If you have multiple sets of data that you would like to combine, let's see what we can do for you.

Contact us for more info and subscribe for more Sage 300 Tips & Tricks.

BAASS Consultant

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BAASS Consultant