The third service pack for FRx 6.7 contains over 100 bug fixes across a range of product features, most concentrated in the product's Report Designer. Announced at Convergence 2005, the annual conference for Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) customers and partners, FRx 6.7 SP3 also adds a new wizard to expedite the creation of financial reports. The new wizard helps users create common reports (such as balance sheet and income statement reports) in just a few steps, which could speed report creation for experienced users and shorten the learning curve for new FRx users.

100+ Fixes

The FRx financial reporting application, part of the MBS stable of business management products, helps analysts and planners build financial reports based on general ledger data. The application also provides facilities for distributing reports via e-mail and publishing them on an intranet. FRx is included with Great Plains and Solomon, and it is sold as an optional module for Axapta. It is also sold to customers of other non-Microsoft financial and accounting systems, such as Best Software's MAS 500 and Epicor's eBackOffice. A Mar. 2004 update (FRx 6.7) added a new module called the Report Manager, which analysts use to consolidate financial reports and other documents (such as Word documents or Excel spreadsheets) related to specific events, such as quarterly executive financial reviews.

Arriving 12 months after the release of FRx 6.7, SP3 contains over 100 fixes. The fixes span a range of product features, but the majority (almost 60%) are clustered in the FRx Report Designer, the product's utility for selecting report data, defining relationships between those data, and formatting reports. Remaining fixes are dispersed roughly evenly among the product's other main feature areas, such as the Report Manager and the DrillDown Viewer, a utility for displaying and navigating FRx reports.

Characteristic of later Microsoft service packs, the bugs resolved in FRx SP3 are relatively mild. Most fixes address product usability or user interface glitches; SP3 also fixes a more severe bug that could cause the Report Designer to crash. However, SP3 does not resolve a problem that could cause corruption in the FRx Report Server queue database (the database queues report definitions prior to processing by the Report Server). Instead, Microsoft has documented steps for working around the problem.

New Report Creation Wizard

Accompanying the assortment of bug fixes, SP3 delivers a new wizard to speed the creation of FRx reports. Users launch the wizard from the FRx Report Designer; the wizard steps users through the process of creating financial reports from data in their general ledger. The wizard lets users create five common types of financial reports, including balance sheet reports, and three types of income statements.

The wizard could reduce the amount of time analysts spend creating common reports and, because it walks users through the steps required to build FRx reports, shorten the learning curve for new users. However, the Report Wizard is not intended as a self-service tool for nontechnical users; it will be used mainly by analysts and other technical personnel who today work in the FRx Report Designer.

Availability and Resources

FRx 6.7 SP3 was made available in Mar. 2005 and is a free download for customers of FRx 6.7.

The FRx Software Web site is http://www.frxsoftware.com.

FRx 6.7 customers can download SP3 at https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/support/downloads/servicepacks/frx67sp3.htm.

The workaround for corruption in the FRx Report Server queue database is documented at http://www.frxsoftware.com/FRxSoftware/LeftNav/Knowledgebase/FRx+Reporter/KB16143262003.htm.

FRx 6.7 is described in "FRx 6.7 Adds a Report Manager" on page 18 of the May 2004 Update.