So we are getting the complete dog and pony show on LN and all its great features. We are not getting much information on the 'core' product features however, such as the report generator included within Baan ( even after we have asked for it!).

Competition includes Crystal Reports, Microsoft Server Reports, etc but it appears LN has done little to improve how to generate decent looking OA's, Production Orders, Quotations, etc.

This seems very disappointing. So far, no mention of any links to other outside vendors with affordable ( included ) solutions. At one time Cognos had some kind of interface but the cost made it untouchable.

So, what is peoples experience with report generation in LN ? Is it clunky old 1995 still? Is adding document header and footer logos requiring fineprint still to enhance them or are things better now ? Any linking to other packages like Crystal or other options that are not insanely expensive
?

I would hope LN had improved in this area, seems kind of important to ignore ....

Well, everyone has hoped. But Infor development seems to be busy developing all kind of Web 2.0/SOA/Cloud mumbo jumbo to be integrated with ERP LN.

So, as up to now, from Infor there is nothing else but the plain old Baan IV report generator, which could be called a stable technology. From ERP LN Feature Pack 7 there seems to be a tighter integration with the microsoft reporting services, and recently Infor started to deliver a couple of solutions for FP7 that indeed contained external reports (like invoices, order acknowledhements etc.) implemented with this technology. Still, from what I've seen so far, I do not recommend to use it, since it's still only an interface and not an integrated graphical report generator. You need a seperate technology stack (Sharepoint, Reporting Services, Microsoft SQL Server), you still cannot use Baan 4GL with these reports, you will have to learn a new programming language and an ugly Visual Basic API to use it, so: No real integration.

I share your disappointment and can only urge you to communicate your concerns to the Infor sales guys. Eventually those guys wanting to sell software might be the best channel to make the Infor tools product managers finally deliver an integrated solution after 10 years of fiddling around with badly integrated third party reporting packages.

Still, you might want to have them present to you thais Microsoft reporting integration. Probably it's something you can live with. You might also want to check out the Hidox FormDesigner for output management, from what I'm hearing the value for money seems to be quite ok there.

Hope that helps you a little
Uli

Thanks for that information, much appreciated.

I feared as much that there was no real movement forward although I still cannot believe it has been neglected so much ...