Axapta, SharePoint Get Report Packs

Axapta 3.0 and SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) 2003 join the growing list of Microsoft products for which the company has produced report packs, sets of sample reports based on SQL Server Reporting Services. Each report pack contains several report definitions and a sample database that developers can use as a starting point for building a managed reporting infrastructure with Reporting Services. By creating free report packs for a range of its products, Microsoft hopes to pique customers’ interest in Reporting Services, which could provide an impetus for incremental SQL Server sales.

Kick-Start Reporting Infrastructure

Reporting Services is a component of SQL Server that provides development and management tools for creating and distributing reports from a variety of data sources, such as a data warehouse, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, or a datacenter monitoring tool. Reporting Services report packs contain a sample database for a specific application—for example, the Axapta report pack contains a database containing inventory and order information for a fictitious company. Accompanying the sample database are several report definitions, sets of instructions that Reporting Services uses to generate reports from the sample database.