Whether you’re overseeing stock in the warehouse or working at the financial administration, a part of your job is keeping an overview of all data and answering questions about this data from your colleagues or managers.
Imagine you’re a warehouse manager and the general manager of your company is worried about the amount of goods that customers return. He asks you to make an overview of all goods that customers return, to see which products are the biggest problem.
As you’ve gotten this question before, you know exactly where to start. You export the Item Ledger Entries list from Business Central to Excel. In Excel you delete all irrelevant columns, create the specific overview & forward it to your general manager. After a few days however, he asks for some additional information: the reason these goods were returned.
As this was not part of the first analysis, the only way to add this information is by exporting the data again to Excel & leave the Return Reason Code column. Your manager is quite happy with the overview and asks you to update it every month to keep track of any changes. As if you didn’t have enough on your plate, you now have an extra monthly returning task. Let’s see how using the analysis mode in Business Central can make this a one-time job!
Open the list page from which you want to analyze data. Let’s use the example above and open up the Item Ledger Entries list.
If necessary, add fields by personalizing the page. In this example, we add the Return Reason Code field.
In the action bar at the top of the page, choose the Enter analysis mode button, to turn on analysis mode.
The analysis mode page that opens is divided in different areas, which you can see below.
Use the different areas to manipulate, summarize and analyze data. In this example, we start at the Columns menu & remove all columns by selecting the box next to the Search field on the right.
Now drag the Return Reason Code and Posting Date Month fields to the Row Groups area, in that order.
Next, drag the Quantity and Cost Amount fields to the Values area.
Add any other fields that you want in the analysis and enable them in the Columns area. For example, you might add the Posting Date, Document Type, Item No., and Document No. fields.
To recognize any analysis in the future, you can rename the analysis tab. In this example, we rename the tab to Returned items by return reason. Now whenever you return to the analysis mode on this page, the tabs that you created show up exactly as you left them, until you delete them.
Now that you have made the analysis, it’s easy to share it with any coworker that is interested. Only recipients who have permission to the company & the data can use the link. In this example, you want to share the link to your general manager, which you can do as follows: On the analysis tab, select the down arrow, and then Copy link.
The Link to <tab name> dialog opens. By default, the analysis you share links to the current company you’re working in. If you want to send a link to an analysis that isn’t associated with a specific copmany, set the Company: field to Do not link to a specific company.
Select Copy to copy the link & paste it in an email or Teams message to your general manager.
Recipients can open the link. They’re prompted to specify a name for the new analysis tab that they create. From now on, they can look in their Business Central environment to see any changes in the analysis, without asking you.
Now, whenever you or someone else needs a quick on the spot analysis to answer a question, you can set it up directly in Business Central. Have a look around in the pages you use most to find out the possibilities from the analysis mode.
Because this is a standard Business Central functionality, there is a lot of information available from Microsoft. Here you can easily find out more about the analysis mode in general, the analysis assist Copilot, and examples for different functional areas, like finance, sales, purchasing, inventory and sustainability.
